Challenges

 What a beautiful post from dad on deliverance.  I would like to share some thoughts on this topic as well.  This week has been particularly challenging for me.  Julia has been gone and I think that it has been one of the hardest weeks I have had in my career.  Things just keep crumbling in on each other, and I have literally felt as if the things I am being asked to do are impossible.  

 

As I was wallowing in self pity tonight I came across a scripture that took on new meaning for me. It comes when Alma the elder has left King Noah and led his righteous band of followers into the wilderness.  They find a beautiful place to settle and everything seems to be going there way.  And then came the challenges.....

"Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith" (Mosiah 23:21).

  Doesn't it always seem that the trials of patience and faith come at the most inopportune times? I suppose that is what makes them real trials.  This got me pondering the subject and I realized a very important truth:

  

The challenges and trials I have been given through the years and this week, have never seemed timely at the moment; but looking back they were always exactly what I needed, when I needed them. And, in every instance that I was faithful, I was helped through them. You see, the Lord knew exactly where I was at, and he knew exactly where I wanted to be.  He facilitated a way for me to grow.  Why?  Because He sees the big picture, where I only see a slice at a time. I was reminded of an excerpt from a talk by Bruce C. Hafen called The Atonement: All for All

"Adam and Eve learned constantly from their often harsh experience. They knew how a troubled family feels. Think of Cain and Abel. Yet because of the Atonement, they could learn from their experience without being condemned by it. Christ’s sacrifice didn’t just erase their choices and return them to an Eden of innocence. That would be a story with no plot and no character growth. His plan is developmental—line upon line, step by step, grace for grace.

So if you have problems in your life, don’t assume there is something wrong with you. Struggling with those problems is at the very core of life’s purpose. As we draw close to God, He will show us our weaknesses and through them make us wiser, stronger. 7 If you’re seeing more of your weaknesses, that just might mean you’re moving nearer to God, not farther away."

I realize now that this week has been a challenge, but it also comes as I am reading the book of Mormon and desperately striving to draw closer to God.  He is helping me to get there.

Now, the second part of the equation.  Challenges will come, and they will always allow an opportunity for growth.  Especially, if we work through them the Lords way.  But, equally important to note is that we are not left to manage those challenges alone. In Mosiah 23:22 the Lord gives the disclaimer to the vs. I started with:

"Nevertheless - whosoever putteth his trust in him [God] the same shall be lifted up at the last day..."

As we read on in the story we find that as always the Lord lived up to His promise with the people of Alma.  And, He will do the same with all those who put their trust in Him.  I will end with these two versus and a testimony that no matter the challenge, if we trust in Him and are faithful the Lord will through his spirit speak this message to us:

"Lift up your heads and be of good comfort . . .  And I will aslo ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs... and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions." (Mosiah 24:13-14)

And there burdens were made light, as will ours be if we trust Him.  Oh, and one last note to tie into my last blog about Joy....

"they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord."  (vs. 15)  And so we should too.