Sometimes the answers we pray for do not appear overnight. Sometimes they come through small victories that prepare us for the life we once hoped for
There are moments in life when you know where you want to be, but you struggle to understand how you are going to get there.
You have ambitions, a vision for your future. You work towards them, remain hopeful, and try to make the right decisions. Yet, despite your efforts, some days progress feels slow, uncertainty becomes overwhelming, and the distance between your present circumstances and the life you want feels farther than ever.
I have found myself in that position recently.
As a sports journalist, I have an ambition to become independent. I want to develop my career, create opportunities for myself, and build something that can grow beyond what it is today.
But ambition comes with pressure. Financial responsibilities, professional uncertainty, and the desire to feel valued in the work you do can make it difficult to remain patient when things are not moving as quickly as you hoped.
For months, I have found myself praying for guidance, direction, and clarity. I have prayed for opportunities to open up for me, reassurance and the ability to recognise the right path when it presents itself.
One verse from the Book of Mormon that really resonates with me is from the book Ether chapter 12:6, which reads, “Ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.”
I haven’t always received immediate answers. I haven’t suddenly found every solution to the things that have been weighing on my mind.
But perhaps I have been looking at the process in the wrong way.
Perhaps faith is not always about receiving the answer you want when you want it. Perhaps it is also about recognising the small victories, the lessons and the growth that prepare you for what comes next.
Strangely enough, one of the clearest ways I have come to understand that is through football coaching.
The process behind the progress
When I coach young footballers, I know that improvement takes time.
A player can attend every training session, listen to instructions, practise their technique and give their best effort without immediately becoming the footballer they dream of being.
A few sessions will not transform a young player into a professional. One good performance does not guarantee a career in the game. Development requires repetition, discipline, patience and a willingness to learn from mistakes.
Sometimes, progress is obvious. A player becomes more confident on the ball, makes a better decision or executes something they have struggled with for weeks.
Other times, improvement is difficult to see. The player may still make mistakes, lose possession, or struggle to apply what they have practised.
But that does not necessarily mean the work has been wasted.
Small improvements accumulate. The foundations are built before the results become visible. What once felt difficult gradually becomes familiar, and what once seemed out of reach begins to feel possible.
I have started to see prayer in a similar way.
Growing up as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I was taught about the importance of prayer, seeking guidance from God and turning to faith during difficult times. Those teachings have become incredibly important to me during this period of my life.
Prayer has been something I have returned to repeatedly over the past few months. Not because I expect to wake up the next morning with every problem solved, but because I believe there is value in seeking guidance while continuing to work towards the life I want.
Just as a training session may produce one small improvement rather than an immediate transformation, prayer does not always bring an instant resolution.
Sometimes, the progress is quieter.
It might be the courage to have a conversation you have been avoiding. It might be a new perspective on a situation that previously felt impossible. It might be the patience to keep going when you are tempted to give up, or the clarity to recognise that a different direction may be necessary.
These moments can be easy to overlook because they do not always resemble the breakthrough we imagined.
Yet, over time, they can change the way we approach our circumstances.
Before we realise it, the small steps we took while hoping for something better may have brought us closer to the very life we once prayed for.
When your own path becomes uncertain
Coaching has also taught me something else: leading others does not mean having every answer yourself.
As a coach, you are expected to provide direction, encourage improvement and help players believe in their potential. You want them to trust your instructions and understand that the work they are doing has a purpose.
But outside the training ground, coaches have their own ambitions, doubts and challenges to navigate.
I am currently trying to balance my responsibilities as a coach with my desire to establish myself professionally in sports journalism. I want to continue developing as a coach, but I also want to build a sustainable career, earn enough to support my independence and invest in Beyond the Pitch.
Those ambitions matter to me. They represent years of work, a degree I have recently completed and a future I am determined to pursue.
At the same time, I have had to confront the uncomfortable feeling of not always feeling as valued or trusted as I would like in a role that matters to me.
When you care about something, that feeling can be difficult to process. You begin questioning where you stand, how much longer you should persevere and whether the effort you are putting in is helping you move towards the future you want.
There is a temptation to demand clarity immediately. You want to know whether the situation will improve, whether an opportunity will materialise and whether the decisions you make today will eventually be worth it.
I have certainly felt that temptation.
But I am learning that uncertainty does not necessarily mean I am moving in the wrong direction. Nor does having faith mean I should ignore practical realities, suppress difficult feelings or remain in a situation simply because I care about it.
Faith and ambition are not opposites.
I can be grateful for the experiences coaching has given me while recognising that I need opportunities to progress. I can value the relationships I have built while being honest about what I need from my professional life. I can remain committed to my responsibilities without abandoning the goals I have set for myself.
The challenge is learning how to make those decisions with patience, wisdom and a positive outlook, rather than allowing fear to determine what I do next.
A sentence that stayed with me
Recently, I joined a group call with YPA in which Elder Adrien Bettridge, an Area Seventy leader in my church, initially shared career advice and experiences from his own life.
Towards the end of the call, he shared a line that has remained with me:
“Negative things happen. Negative mindsets make them harder.”
It was a simple statement, but it made me reflect on something I have recognised in myself for a long time.
I have generally considered myself a positive person. I believe in working hard, pursuing opportunities and trying to make the best of difficult circumstances.
However, I have also developed a habit of anticipating that something will eventually go wrong.
Even when things are going well, part of me can remain alert to the possibility that the situation might change. An opportunity might disappear. A plan might fall apart. Something I have been working towards might not turn out as I hoped.
It is a difficult way to live because it means that, even while experiencing something good, you can find yourself preparing emotionally for it to become bad.
And when life does become difficult, that expectation can make the experience even heavier.
Elder Bettridge’s words challenged me to consider how much additional pressure I might be placing on myself by expecting the worst before I know what will happen.
The reality is that negative things will happen. Plans will change, people will disappoint us, opportunities will not always materialise, and some seasons of life will be more difficult than others.
A positive mindset cannot prevent those experiences.
But it can change how we respond to them.
Instead of immediately assuming that a setback means everything is going wrong, we can ask what it teaches us. Instead of allowing uncertainty to convince us that our ambitions are out of reach, we can focus on the next decision within our control. Instead of treating every difficult moment as evidence that our future is falling apart, we can recognise that one difficult chapter does not define the entire story.
For me, that shift is something I need to practise.
I cannot keep praying for a better future while allowing the fear of things going wrong to dictate how I experience the present.
If I want to grow as a journalist, build Beyond the Pitch and become the person I believe I can be, I have to allow myself to approach life differently.
That means remaining realistic without becoming pessimistic. It means acknowledging difficulties without allowing them to overshadow every possibility. And it means learning to trust that I can respond to challenges without needing to predict every outcome in advance.
Faith does not remove the work
There is another lesson football has reinforced for me: belief alone is not enough.
A young player cannot simply pray to become a professional footballer and expect the opportunity to arrive without training. They must practise, listen, improve, make sacrifices and take advantage of the opportunities available to them.
Even then, there are no guarantees.
Talent is crucial but means little without the preparation, circumstances, opportunity and factors outside a player’s control.
I believe there is a similar responsibility in how we approach our faith.
Prayer can provide comfort, perspective and guidance, but it does not remove the need to act. We still have to apply for the job, develop our skills, have difficult conversations, manage our finances and make decisions about the situations we find ourselves in.
We cannot control every outcome, but we can take responsibility for our effort and our choices.
For me, that means continuing to pursue opportunities in journalism rather than waiting indefinitely for the perfect one to arrive. It means taking Beyond the Pitch seriously, investing in its development and recognising that building something meaningful will require consistent work. It means addressing the practical realities of my circumstances while remaining open to the possibility that my path may look different from the one I originally imagined.
And it means accepting that I may not always know whether a particular decision is the right one until I have taken the time to understand its consequences.
Faith should not become an excuse for inaction. Equally, ambition should not become an excuse to neglect the values that have shaped who I am.
I want the two to work together.
I want to be someone who prays for guidance and then dares to act on what I learn. Someone who remains hopeful without expecting life to be easy. Someone who works towards his ambitions without becoming so consumed by the destination that he forgets the importance of the journey.
Learning to lead by faith
I am still working through the questions that have brought me to this point.
I do not have a perfect plan for how every aspect of my professional life will fit together. I do not know exactly when the opportunities I am seeking will arrive, or how the decisions I make now will shape the years ahead.
But perhaps that is where the real lesson begins.
For a long time, I have wanted certainty. I have wanted to know that the work I am putting in will lead somewhere, that the sacrifices I am making will be worthwhile and that the future I imagine for myself is genuinely within reach.
I still want those things.
However, I am beginning to understand that I cannot make certainty a requirement for moving forward.
A footballer does not know exactly how good they will become when they begin training. They cannot guarantee that every session will go well, that every coach will believe in them or that every opportunity will arrive at the right time.
What they can do is continue developing, learn from experience and make the most of the opportunities they receive.
I want to approach my own life with that same commitment.
I want to keep praying, keep working and keep developing, while learning not to let the fear of a negative outcome consume the possibilities in front of me.
I want to recognise the small victories rather than dismissing them because they are not yet the breakthrough I hoped for. I want to remain open to opportunities I may not have anticipated, even when they require me to reconsider the direction I thought I was taking.
Most importantly, I want to stop treating every period of uncertainty as something I must overcome before I can feel hopeful about my future.
Perhaps some of the growth happens precisely during those periods.
Perhaps the conversations, setbacks, decisions and small moments of clarity that seem insignificant today are helping to prepare us for something we cannot see yet.
I cannot promise that everything will work out exactly as I want it to. Faith does not give me that certainty, and neither does hard work.
But I can choose to approach the unknown with a different mindset. I can continue to seek guidance, take responsibility for my decisions and trust that a difficult present does not automatically mean a disappointing future.
In football, we often judge progress by the final result. We look at the scoreline, the performance and the achievement at the end of the season.
Yet the result is only one part of the story. There are countless hours of training, small improvements, difficult lessons, and moments of perseverance that come before it.
Life is not so different.
We may spend months praying for a breakthrough, wondering when things will change and questioning whether our efforts are making a difference.
Then, one day, we might look back and realise that we have grown in ways we did not recognise at the time. We may find ourselves living a life that once felt distant, understanding that the journey involved far more than the moment we finally reached our destination.
I am not at that destination yet.
I am still learning, still working, and still praying for guidance. I am still trying to build the future I want while making sense of the circumstances I face today.
But I no longer want to let the possibility of things going wrong prevent me from believing in what could go right.
Leading by faith is not about knowing where every step will take us. It’s about having the courage to take the next step, even when we cannot yet see our destined path.
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