What good things have happened in your life simply because you had a desire and worked for it to happen? In sports, when two teams play, usually one team is favored above the other team to win. However, that doesn't guarantee that is what's going to happen. When the underdog beats the favored team, we call this an upset. In order for a team to pull off an upset victory is to have a great desire and a belief that you can win, even when nobody else thinks you can. They must have that desire if they are to win. One example in the 2007 NBA playoffs really stood out to me. The first round in the west side featured the number 1 seed Dallas Mavericks (best team in the playoffs) against the number 8 seed Golden State Warriors (last team to make the playoffs) in a best of 7 games series. Dallas won an outstanding 67 out of 82 games in the regular season, while Golden State had won an acceptable, but far less, 42 games. Dallas was coming into the playoffs looking for vengeance after blowing a 2 game to none lead in the NBA Finals the playoffs before, meanwhile Golden State was making their first playoff appereance since 1994. Dallas, and basically everybody who wasn't a Golden State fan, was not expecting the Warriors to be any sort of a problem whatsoever. Not only were they a problem, they were a downright nuisanse . The Warriors stunned Dallas by taking Game 1 on their home floor making spectacular plays that you generally see only in the video games. Dallas blew them out in Game 2 and everybody relaxed, saying the Game 1 victory was a fluke. But the Warriors, in front of a crazy home crowd, took Games 3 and 4 and led the series 3-1. Dallas, needing to win or be eliminated, delivered in Game 5 at home. However, that would be their last victory as Golden State demolished them in Game 6, winning the series 4-2 and becoming the first 8 seed to beat a 1 seed in the first round of the playoffs in NBA history.
If Golden State hadn't believed or even desired to believe that they could beat heavily favored Dallas, they would not have won. I know that even if we only desire to believe in the words of Christ, as Alma describes, we allow a place in our hearts for our testimony to grow. As we do all we can to learn the truth for ourselves, that desire will become a passion, and that passion will become a deep abiding love for the Savior which will lead to following His example.
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