I recently had a conversation that has my head and heart spinning a little bit. With a friend, we were talking about life and the lessons that we were learning these days, most of my lessons unfortunately being learned the hard way. At some point in our conversation he mentioned that maybe we might have the whole blessing and trial thing wrong in our minds, at least from how God sees things. It was an interesting thought that deserves some exploring.
For me, if I were to list out my blessings or kneel in prayer and give thanks for my blessings, my list would more than likely include those aspects of my life that are going well. I am grateful for healthy kids, my patient wife, good friends, temporal support that I receive, and the list goes on. As my mind shifts to trials, I naturally ask for help to get through the challenges or those parts of my life that are not going well. Repentance from sin lands here along with a not so cheery list of things like challenging relationships, personal weakness, trying times in the world around us, bad news, “burdens” of being me on any given day, and so forth. Perhaps the trial list might be disproportionally long compared to my blessings but that is probably a topic for a different post.
Now, going back to the teaching from my friend, what if I’ve actually got it wrong in my mind (and my heart!). If I ask for eyes to see truth or “knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come” (D & C 93:24) maybe I’ve got it wrong. With those eyes I might see things very differently. First and foremost, I would see that all of it is good. The smooth places where life feels “downhill” would be tender mercies that are part of His promised blessings that come from faith and might even help us to have strength unto the power of deliverance (1 Nephi 1:20). But how might He, He who sees all, see my “trials”? From the perspective of my loving Heavenly Father, He certainly sees things different. To Him, “trials” are actually blessings because He has the ability to see the growth and development that they foster as I draw closer to Him and exercise the faith necessary to endure through them. He would remind me that when things are good, I have a tendency to be far from Him and when the storms come I draw closer. He loves it when I am closer to Him.
I think that it’s fair to say that we’ve all seen both “sunny days that we thought would never end” and “lonely times when we could not find a friend.” I invite all of us to reflect on which seasons taught us more about who God and His Son are, who we are, and what matters most. Those would be blessed days and experiences indeed. I also invite all of us, the next time we kneel in prayer, to flip the script and call that which tries us a blessing and thank God for the opportunity to experience all that He has to give us. That perspective could change everything.
-President Freeman
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