What about the enormous power within you? Think of this: you shouted for joy9 to come to a fallen world where all would face physical and spiritual death. We would never be able to overcome either on our own. We would suffer from not only our own sins but others’ sins too. Humanity would experience virtually every imaginable type of brokenness and disappointment10—all with a veil of forgetfulness over our minds and the world’s worst enemy continuing to target and tempt us. All hope for returning resurrected and clean to God’s holy presence rested entirely upon one Being keeping His promise.11 What empowered you to go forward? President Henry B. Eyring taught, “It took faith in Jesus Christ to sustain the plan of happiness and Jesus Christ’s place in it when you knew so little of the challenges that you would face in mortality.”12 When Jesus Christ promised He would come into mortality and give His life to gather13 and save us, you did not simply believe Him. You “noble spirits”14 had such “exceedingly great faith” that you saw His promise as sure.15 He could not lie, so you saw Him as if He had already shed His blood for you, long before He was born.16
He who authored the plan of salvation described the very purpose of our mortal probation using the words prove, examine, and try in ancient and modern scripture. “And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them.”
But periodic tests absolutely are essential to learning. An effective test helps us to compare what we need to know with what we actually know about a specific subject; it also provides a standard against which we can evaluate our learning and development.
Likewise, tests in the school of mortality are a vital element of our eternal progression. Interestingly, however, the word test is not found even one time in the scriptural text of the standard works in English. Rather, words such as prove, examine, and try are used to describe various patterns of demonstrating appropriately our spiritual knowledge about, understanding of, and devotion to our Heavenly Father’s eternal plan of happiness and our capacity to seek for the blessings of the Savior’s Atonement.
What do we learn from these examples—and the hundreds of others in the scriptures? First, the righteous are not given a free pass that allows them to avoid the valleys of shadow. We all must walk through difficult times, for it is in these times of adversity that we learn principles that fortify our characters and cause us to draw closer to God. Second, our Heavenly Father knows that we suffer, and because we are His children, He will not abandon us.8 Think of the compassionate one, the Savior, who spent so much of His life ministering to the sick, the lonely, the doubting, the despairing.9 Do you think He is any less concerned about you today? My dear friends, my beloved brothers and sisters, God will watch over and shepherd you during these times of uncertainty and fear. He knows you. He hears your pleas. He is faithful and dependable. He will fulfill His promises. God has something unimaginable in mind for you personally and the Church collectively—a marvelous work and a wonder.
At first it may have seemed that a worldwide pandemic would be a roadblock to the Lord’s work. For example, traditional methods of sharing the gospel have not been possible. However, the pandemic is revealing new and more creative ways of reaching out to the honest in heart. The work of gathering Israel is increasing in power and enthusiasm. Hundreds and thousands of stories attest to this.
In the past, we might have been so tied to traditional approaches that it took a pandemic to open our eyes. Perhaps we were still building with sandstone when granite was already available. Of necessity, we are now learning how to use a variety of methods, including technology, to invite people—in normal and natural ways—to come and see, come and help, and come and belong.
In a way, we are seeds. And for seeds to reach their potential, they must be buried before they can sprout. It is my witness that though at times we may feel buried by the trials of life or surrounded by emotional darkness, the love of God and the blessings of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ will bring something unimaginable to spring forth.
As you live worthy of the gift of the Holy Ghost, the Lord can direct you to safety even when you cannot see the way. For me, He has most often shown the next step or two to take. Rarely has He given me a glimpse of the distant future, but even those infrequent glimpses guide what I choose to do in daily life.
The greatest blessing that will come when we prove ourselves faithful to our covenants during our trials will be a change in our natures.
You might reasonably wonder why a loving and all-powerful God allows our mortal test to be so hard. It is because He knows that we must grow in spiritual cleanliness and stature to be able to live in His presence in families forever. To make that possible, Heavenly Father gave us a Savior and the power to choose for ourselves by faith to keep His commandments and to repent and so come unto Him.
“Well, if this is the case,” you might say, “shouldn’t His love and mercy simply part our personal Red Seas and allow us to walk through our troubles on dry ground? Shouldn’t He send 21st-century seagulls winging in from somewhere to gobble up all of our pesky 21st-century crickets?” The answer to such questions is “Yes, God can provide miracles instantaneously, but sooner or later we learn that the times and seasons of our mortal journey are His and His alone to direct.” He administers that calendar to every one of us individually. For every infirm man healed instantly as he waits to enter the Pool of Bethesda,3 someone else will spend 40 years in the desert waiting to enter the promised land.4 For every Nephi and Lehi divinely protected by an encircling flame of fire for their faith,5 we have an Abinadi burned at a stake of flaming fire for his.6 And we remember that the same Elijah who in an instant called down fire from heaven to bear witness against the priests of Baal7 is the same Elijah who endured a period when there was no rain for years and who, for a time, was fed only by the skimpy sustenance that could be carried in a raven’s claw.8 By my estimation, that can’t have been anything we would call a “happy meal.” The point? The point is that faith means trusting God in good times and bad, even if that includes some suffering until we see His arm revealed in our behalf.9 That can be difficult in our modern world when many have come to believe that the highest good in life is to avoid all suffering, that no one should ever anguish over anything.10 But that belief will never lead us to “the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”
With apologies to Elder Neal A. Maxwell for daring to modify and enlarge something he once said, I too suggest that 'one's life ' cannot be both faith-filled and stress-free.' It simply will not work 'to glide naively through life,' saying as we sip another glass of lemonade, 'Lord, give me all thy choicest virtues, but be certain not to give me grief, nor sorrow, nor pain, nor opposition. Please do not let anyone dislike me or betray me, and above all, do not ever let me feel forsaken by Thee or those I love. In fact, Lord, be careful to keep me from all the experiences that made Thee divine. And then, when the rough sledding by everyone else is over, please let me come and dwell with Thee, where I can boast about how similar our strengths and our characters are as I float along on my cloud of comfortable Christianity.'12 My beloved brothers and sisters, Christianity is comforting, but it is often not comfortable. The path to holiness and happiness here and hereafter is a long and sometimes rocky one. It takes time and tenacity to walk it. But, of course, the reward for doing so is monumental. This truth is taught clearly and persuasively in the 32nd chapter of Alma in the Book of Mormon. There this great high priest teaches that if the word of God is planted in our hearts as a mere seed, and if we care enough to water, weed, nourish, and encourage it, it will in the future bear fruit 'which is most precious, ' sweet above all that is sweet,' the consuming of which leads to a condition of no more thirst and no more hunger.13 Many lessons are taught in this remarkable chapter, but central to them all is the axiom that the seed has to be nourished and we must wait for it to mature; we '[look] forward with an eye of faith to the fruit thereof.'14 Our harvest, Alma says, comes 'by and by.'15 Little wonder that he concludes his remarkable instruction by repeating three times a call for diligence and patience in nurturing the word of God in our hearts, 'waiting,' as he says, with 'long-suffering ' for the tree to bring forth fruit unto you.'
Brothers and sisters, suffering in righteousness helps qualify you for, rather than distinguishes you from, God’s elect. And
As you allow Him to do so, you will discover that your suffering was not in vain. Speaking of many of the Bible’s greatest heroes and their griefs, the Apostle Paul said that “God … provided some better things for them through their sufferings, for without sufferings they could not be made perfect.”19 You see, the very nature of God and aim of our earthly existence is happiness,20 but we cannot become perfect beings of divine joy without experiences that test us, sometimes to our very core. Paul says even the Savior Himself was made eternally “perfect [or complete] through sufferings.”21 So guard against the satanic whispering that if you were a better person, you would avoid such trials.
Some things happen to us because of our own mistakes and our own sins, as contrasted with suffering brought on because we are Christian. Peter makes this distinction very well: "But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men's matters. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf." (1 Peter 4:15-16.) Even indecision—about whether or not to be a believer—can produce its own unnecessary trial and sorrows, as President Brigham Young observed: "As to trials, why bless your hearts, the man or woman who enjoys the spirit of our religion has no trials; but the man or woman who tries to live according to the Gospel of the Son of God, and at the same time clings to the spirit of the world, has trials and sorrows acute and keen, and that, too, continually." (Journal of Discourses 16:123.)
But all is managed in the wisdom of God and in ways that we mortals must simply trust, because of our faith in the omniscient Lord. It is significant, in this as well as in many other respects, that the vision of those in the celestial kingdom (seen by the Prophet Joseph Smith) was of those "who overcome by faith"—not because while in mortality they had it all figured out, being perpetually able to give a logical, precise explanation for everything. (D&C 76:53.)
Is not our struggling amid suffering and chastening in a way like the efforts of the baby chicken still in the egg? It must painfully and patiently make its own way out of the shell. To help the chick by breaking the egg for it could be to kill it. Unless it struggles itself to break outside its initial constraints, it may not have the strength to survive thereafter.
Afflictions can soften us and sweeten us, and can be a chastening influence. (Alma 62:41.) We often think of chastening as something being done to punish us, such as by a mortal tutor who is angry and peevish with us. Divine chastening, however, is a form of learning as it is administered at the hands of a loving Father. (Helaman 12:3.)
Elder James E. Faust of the Council of the Twelve has said, "In the pain, the agony, and the heroic endeavors of life, we pass through the refiner's fire, and the insignificant and the unimportant in our lives can melt away like dross and make our faith bright, intact, and strong." (Ensign, May 1979, p. 53.) Elder Faust continued, "This change comes about through a refining process which often seems cruel and hard. In this way the soul can become like soft clay in the hands of the Master." (Ibid.)
As one who suffered much in a concentration camp, Victor Frankl observed that the one freedom that conditions cannot take from us is our freedom to form a healthy attitude toward those very conditions, grim as those may sometimes be.
President Kimball said, "Could the Lord have prevented these tragedies? The answer is, Yes. The Lord is omnipotent, with all power to control our lives, save us pain, prevent all accidents, drive all planes and cars, feed us, protect us, save us from labor, effort, sickness, even from death, if he will. But he will not. "We should be able to understand this, because we can realize how unwise it would be for us to shield our children from all effort, from disappointments, temptations, sorrows, and suffering. . . . If we looked at mortality as the whole of existence, then pain, sorrow, failure, and short life would be calamity. But if we look upon life as an eternal thing stretching far into the pre-earth past and on into the eternal post-death future, then all happenings may be put in proper perspective."
Elder Orson F. Whitney wrote, "No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted." Such cosmic conservation! He continues, "It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God." (Ibid., p. 4.)
God carefully scales "all these things," since we cannot bear all things now. He has told us: "Behold, ye are little children and ye cannot bear all things now; ye must grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth." (D&C 50:40.) We will not be able to say shruggingly at judgment time, "I was overcome by the world because I was overprogrammed or overtempted." For the promises are that temptation can either be escaped or endured. (1 Corinthians 10:13.) The promise is also that throughout tribulation God's grace is sufficient for us—He will see us through. (2 Corinthians 12:9; Ether 12:26-27.) Thus, for a host of reasons, correct conduct under stress is more likely when one has correct expectations about life. If we understand the basic purpose of life, we will find it easier to see purpose in our own life.
For instance, if one is impatient and patience is a requirement for sainthood, the Lord appears willing to have tribulation visited upon such so that he may learn patience—because it is a virtue that seems to be acquired in only one way. (See Mosiah 3:19; James 5:11; Romans 5:3; Romans 12:12; Mosiah 23:21; D&C 66:9; D&C 31:9.) Correcting circumstances, therefore, can be a form of divine communication to us
Paul, who suffered much, observed that "our light affliction . . . is but for a moment." (2 Corinthians 4:17.) The Prophet Joseph was told that his afflictions would be "but a small moment." (D&C 121:7.) Learning by correcting circumstances is apparently a process not to be hurried.
Life presents challenges and setbacks, and we all must face some dark days and storms. Through it all, if we “let God prevail in our lives,”21 the light of the Holy Ghost will reveal that there is purpose and meaning in our trials, that they will ultimately transform us into better, more complete individuals with a firmer faith and brighter hope in Christ, knowing that God was there with us in our dark days all along. As President Russell M. Nelson has counseled, “The increasing darkness that accompanies tribulation makes the light of Jesus Christ shine ever brighter.”