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We are speaking today on God’s love. As I’ve been pondering this topic, I’ve particularly asked myself how we are supposed to feel God’s love during challenging times.
In Doctrine and Covenants 101, the Lord gives Joseph Smith perspective for tribulations (this was while the saints were suffering from Mob violence in Jackson County)
1 Verily I say unto you, concerning your brethren who have been afflicted, and persecuted, and cast out from the land of their inheritance—
2 I, the Lord, have suffered the affliction to come upon them, wherewith they have been afflicted, in consequence of their transgressions;
3 Yet I will own them, and they shall be mine in that day when I shall come to make up my jewels.
4 Therefore, they must needs be chastened and tried, even as Abraham, who was commanded to offer up his only son.
God is making us into jewels fit for his kingdom. Jewels by their very nature are more valuable than other elements. It takes tremendous and CONSTANT pressure to transform carbon, a common element, into a diamond, a rare and valuable variant of the same element. Although the two might start out identical, horrific pressures significantly enhance the value of the one. In the same way, the Lord “will make a man more precious than fine gold, even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.” Such will be the case in this day as the Lord makes of his people HIS JEWELS
Malachi 3:16 - 17
¶ Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.
17 And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.
J - Jesus Christ - remember that our faith is in JESUS CHRIST
E - Eternal Perspective
W - Will - our Will, turn our will over to God
E - Endure - enduring to the end
L - Love - Remember God loveth his children, What do we love enough to fight for?
S - Seek - seek to apply eternal principles __________________________________________________________
J - JESUS CHRIST -
Jeffrey S. McClellan - BYU Devotional July 2018 “Thy Troubles to Bless”
“For years I struggled with how to have faith when giving blessings or praying for heavenly help. When all depends on God’s will and when God’s will seems unknowable or mysterious, how do I have faith that my petition will be granted? What do I have confidence in when I lack confidence in knowing God’s will? “Then I realized that we are not commanded to have faith in blessings but in the Giver of blessings. And the first principle of the gospel is “Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,” not faith in a charmed life free from trouble (Article of Faith 1:4, emphasis added). God does not expect me to pray for Caroline with faith that she will be healed; He invites me to pray for her with faith in Him, who is her Eternal Father and mine and who will, in His infinite wisdom, do what is best, though it may cause her and me—and Him—temporary anguish of soul. God takes the long view, and our ultimate good may mean short-term pain, confusion, or heartache.”
E - Eternal Perspective
Linda S. Reeves - October 2015 “Worthy of our Promised Blessings” Now is “not the time to receive all of our blessings. President Packer explained, “‘And they all lived happily ever after’ is never written into the second act. That line belongs in the third act, when the mysteries are solved and everything is put right.” However, a vision of our Father’s incredible promised blessings must be the central focus before our eyes every day—as well as an awareness “of the multitude of his tender mercies”1 that we experience on a daily basis.
- I do not know why we have the many trials that we have, but it is my personal feeling that the reward is so great, so eternal and everlasting, so joyful and beyond our understanding that in that day of reward, we may feel to say to our merciful, loving Father, “Was that all that was required?” I believe that if we could daily remember and recognize the depth of that love our Heavenly Father and our Savior have for us, we would be willing to do anything to be back in Their presence again, surrounded by Their love eternally. What will it matter, dear sisters, what we suffered here if, in the end, those trials are the very things which qualify us for eternal life and exaltation in the kingdom of God with our Father and Savior?
Linda K. Burton - April 2017 “Certain Women”
Drusilla Hendricks
- new convert, suffered persecution in Clay County Missouri
- Husband permanently paralyzed during battle of crooked river
- She was left to care for him AND provide for her family
- Son needed for Mormon Battalion, Drusilla resisted and wrestled in prayer, then it was as if a voice came to her: “Do you not want the highest Glory? …. Yes… “How do you think to gain it save by making the greatest sacrifices.”
Keep the eternal perspective in mind, begin to submit and trust and turn our will over to God.
W - Will - our Will, turn over out will to the Lord
Neal A Maxwell - Oct 1995 “Swallowed up in the Will of the Father”
"The submission of one’s will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God’s altar. The many other things we “give,” brothers and sisters, are actually the things He has already given or loaned to us. However, when you and I finally submit ourselves, by letting our individual wills be swallowed up in God’s will, then we are really giving something to Him! It is the only possession which is truly ours to give! Consecration thus constitutes the only unconditional surrender which is also a total victory!”
CS LEWIS - Troughs and Peaks - Screwtape letter 8, Screwtape mentoring an apprentice demon, Wormwood. Wormwood feels good that his human is struggling with faith, but Screwtape warns him that the troughs are a natural part of life, and not because of his/the devils doing.
“As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty. The dryness and dullness - are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make a good use of it. To decide what the best use of it is, you must ask what use the Enemy wants to make of it, and then do the opposite.
"Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks; some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. - He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself—creatures, whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. The Devil is empty and wants to consume and all other beings into himself: But God is full and flows over - he wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct. And that is where the troughs come in.
"You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But - to - Merely to over-ride a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He wants Servants who become sons - who are one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation.
"But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design to control them, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot “tempt” to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger, than when a human, no longer desiring, but intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."
When God withdraws, and we’re wresting and wondering why, remember that our determined will to still obey pleases Him
E - Endure - an example of enduring - Joseph of Egypt - When life seems unfair and we want to give up on God or on ourselves, remember Joseph of Egypt.
“The story of Joseph, the son of Jacob who was called Israel, is a vivid representation of the great truth that ‘all things work together for good to [those] who loved God.’ (See Rom. 8:28.) Joseph always seemed to do the right thing; but still, more importantly, he did it for the right reason. And how very, very significant that is! Joseph was sold by his own brothers as a slave and was purchased by Potiphar, a captain of the guard of Pharaoh. But even as an indentured servant, Joseph turned every experience and all circumstances, no matter how trying, into something good.
“This ability to turn everything into something good appears to be a godly characteristic. Our Heavenly Father always seems able to do this. Everything, no matter how dire, becomes a victory to the Lord. Joseph, although a slave and wholly undeserving of this fate, nevertheless remained faithful to the Lord and continued to live the commandments and made something very good of his degrading circumstances. People like this cannot be defeated, because they will not give up. ” (Hartman Rector, Jr., “Live above the Law to Be Free,” Ensign, Jan. 1973, p. 130.)
It reminded me of this quote by Joseph Smith: Joseph told George A. Smith “I should never get discouraged, whatever difficulties might surround me. If I was sunk in the lowest pit of Nova Scotia and all the Rocky Mountains piled on top of me, I ought not to be discouraged but hang on, exercise faith, and keep up good courage and I should come out on the top of the heap at last.”
Joseph of Egypt had it rough and his circumstances were totally unfair and undeserved. 13 years of servitude and prison? Yes maybe prison was a blessing, maybe God had protected him from death/execution? Some scholars believe that Potiphar's position of "captain of the guards" literally means "chief of the butchers" aka he was an executioner - executing capital sentences ordered by the king. Genesis 39:20 "Because Potiphar had great power and was perhaps even head of the royal executioners, it's remarkable that Joseph was only put into prison and not executed." So maybe Joseph was blessed and protected by being sent to prison instead of execution. Likewise, even in our trials, we can see there have been tender mercies and we can know the Lord has blessed us. So keep enduring, keep that helmet of hope, a hopeful perspective. Endure and keep doing it and obeying and trusting God when it's hard and we're tired.
L - Love - 1 Nephi 11:17 - I know that he loveth his children, nevertheless I do not know the meaning of all things.
What do we love enough to fight for? (Worth Fighting For) Sheri Dew's book "Worth the Wrestle" , she interview Randall Wallace - he received an Academy Award nomination and a Writer's Guild Award for the screenplay to Braveheart. He has also written and in some cases produced, such movies as Secretariat, Pearl Harbor, the Man in the Iron Mask, We were Soldiers, and Heaven is for Real.
"His career, though celebrated now, has had its share of intense ups and downs. At one point, when he faced the possibility of losing just about everything, he said he was determined that if he went down, he would go down fighting for what he believed, "with his flag flying." Sister Dew asked why he had produced and written so many movies about war, his answer reinforced the rest of his story: "I don't think of them as war movies," he said. "I write love stories. I want to know what a man or woman loves enough to fight for."
Remember to love life, love the Lord, love so much we’re willing to fight. And remember that God loves us and has fought (and conquered!) and is continuing to fight for us.
S - Seek - Seek answers in prayer, seek in the scriptures, seek out stories of faith from others - friends, ward/church, conference, pioneers, Ensign - seek not to compare our trials to theirs, but to learn and apply eternal principles.
- Phillipines, Brother Apilado, convert 1974
- 1997 Serving as Stake President
- Fire broke out, oldest son Michael rescued him, ran back in to rescue others.
- Wife Dominga and all 5 of his children died in the fire
“In sharing Brother Apilado’s story, I am concerned that the enormity of his loss may cause many to think their own sorrows and sufferings are of little consequence in comparison. Please don’t compare, but seek to learn and apply eternal principles as you wade through the furnace of your own afflictions.”
Know that, as Sister Julie Beck said in April 2010 General Conference - “Despite popular media messages to the contrary, no one is rich enough, beautiful enough, or clever enough to avoid a mortal experience.”
I will close with another poetic insight by C.S. Lewis in "The Great Divorce":
“‘Son,' he said, 'ye cannot in your present state understand eternity...That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, "No future bliss can make up for it," not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say "Let me have but this and I'll take the consequences": little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why...the Blessed will say "We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven, : and the Lost, "We were always in Hell." And both will speak truly.
J - Jesus Christ - remember that our faith is in JESUS CHRIST
E - Eternal Perspective
W - Will - our Will, turn out will over to God
E - Endure - enduring to the end
L - Love - Remember God loveth his children, What do we love enough to fight for?
S - Seek - seek to apply eternal principles
Testimony
