"Remaining Faithful in Times of Adversity"
David Thomas
November 30, 2004
I want to thank President Bednar and the administration for their inspired leadership of this wonderful University and for the maybe less than inspired invitation given to me to speak. It is not often that anyone voluntarily asks a lawyer to speak – it usually costs too much.
This is really quite an overwhelming sight and a humbling invitation to address this group. I recently argued a case before the Utah Supreme Court and this is by far more intimidating and daunting. Before the Supreme Court I had only to advocate the rightfulness of my client’s cause, here I have been asked to speak and edify by the spirit – a truly more compelling challenge.
In the moments that I have here with you I would like to talk to you about a subject that is very tender and personal to me, and upon reflection probably very challenging for you also. At this particular time between the wonderful holidays of Thanksgiving, which we have only just finished with the feeling of fulness that it leaves, and Christmas; in this time of acknowledging and counting blessings and recognizing wonderful gifts that have been given to us, I would like to talk about a group of important blessings that we have or are receiving though often times they are not appreciated or even especially welcomed – these are our trials and adversities. In particular I want to talk about remaining faithful in times of adversity. In addressing this subject I would like to offer a simple but much maligned scripture, as instructive or a key to successfully making adversities into the blessings that the Lord promises.
Since I notice that you all have your scriptures I will give you the reference to this simple scripture now and let you look it up and maybe puzzle over it and what I could possibly say about it that would link it to the world of adversities. The scripture is 1 Nephi 2:15.
In addressing the topic of remaining faithful in times of adversity I want to try to address a couple of different aspects of this topic. First, the WHY question – why do we have trials and adversities. The second is if we understand the WHY, will it make any difference. And finally, the HOW. When faced with adversity HOW do we remain faithful.
First – the WHY. Why do we have adversity? Why do we have trials and why are they so painfully and discouragingly hard? Elder Faust in his most recent Conference talk shed some considerable light on this subject when he posed and answered the following questions:
Why was I born with physical or mental limitations?
What did I do to deserve this heartache?
Why hasn't the Lord answered our prayers the way we wished?
[Why do] people who have done some very bad things, . . . seem to have everything they want or need?
After posing these questions Elder Faust then answered the question by quoting Dr. Arthur Wentworth Hewitt, apparently an expert of some renown, who said, with what I believe was a great deal of candor: “First: I don't know. Second: We may not be as innocent as we think. Third: . . . I believe it is because [The Lord] . . . loves us so much more than He loves our happiness” (“Where Do I Stand,” 174 General Conference).
While it appears particularly difficult to tackle the Why question head on – who am I to go where Elder Faust was so careful to tread – let me try to address the WHY question a little differently by drawing some insights from some rather obvious observation about adversities.
The first observation if that while the reasons for our adversities may not be immediately known or discoverable, this life is nonetheless full of them both great and small. None of us are exempt, and none of us will be blessed with too few. For example, the chilling but prophetic words found inscribed on the crypt of the infamous Black Knight entombed in Westminster Abby in London, speaks of the certainty of pain and loss in this life. It reads “As you are, I once was, As I am, you will be.” As an aside it is interesting how an eternal perspective has taken this rather grizzly prediction of physical doom and turned it to a prophesy of infinite increase when President Lorenzo Snow offered his famous couplet: “As man is, God once was, As God is, Man may become.”
But again let me state the obvious; in our lives:
*Everyone at some time will be separate from their loved ones, i.e., separated from mother, father, husband, wife, children or friends, by death – either ours or theirs;
*Everyone of us and all of our loved ones will suffer life ending injuries or disease;
*Everyone will suffer disappointment because of poor choices of our own making or the choices of loved ones;
*And finally, at some point in our lives, all of us will be faced with the deep loneliness that comes because of separation from loved ones. Remember the pain of separation for those who have passed is no less than for those who have been left behind. In Doctrine and Covenants 138: 50 we learn that in such separation the dead “look upon the long absence of their spirits from their bodies as a bondage.”
Through these observations, I am not trying to be unduly negative or morose. I just want to point out that an essential element of this life is that regardless of how good we are or how hard we try to do the right things there will be trials, and they will be very, very difficult.
O.K. So now I have stated the obvious there are trials and there is pain – we are truly living in “veil of tears.” The other obvious observation that I can make is that the effect that these trials have on us is exactly, exactly what our Heavenly Father wants.
For example, we know from the Book of Mormon that through adversities our Father in Heaven wants us to know opposition in all things. In 2 Nephi 2:15 we read: “it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.” When you have a minute go back and reflect on this scripture and notice as between the “forbidden fruit” and the “tree of life” which is sweet and which is bitter. While the fruit of the tree of life is described by Adam and Eve as “most precious and desirable” (1 Nephi 15:36) it is not described as “sweet.”
The scriptures also teach us that the Lord wants a people “tried in all things” (Doctrine and Covenants 136:31), how specifically will we be tried? He tells us, “Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith” (Mosiah 23:21). Some of us, Elder Neal A. Maxwell, has said will have “trials to pass through, while still others have allotments they are to live with. Paul, the great apostle, for example, lived with his ‘thorn in the flesh’ (2 Corinthians 12:7)” (Conference Talk, “Plow in Hope,” April, 2001).
Elder Maxwell goes on to explain
that mortality presents us with numerous opportunities to cope with those of life's challenges which are ‘common to man[kind]’ (1 Corinthians 10:13). In addition, there are also our customized trials such as experiencing illness, . . ., persecution, betrayal, irony, poverty, false witness, [and] unreciprocated love, . . . . If endured well, ‘all these things’ can be for our good and can ‘greatly enlarge the soul,’ by excavating the soul we are promised an enlarged capacity for joy (Doctrine and Covenants 122:7; 121:42).
Important in all of this is that our Heavenly Father knows what he want for us and from us and the trials we are given are intended to create the kind of person that the Lord expects us to be. It is the fact that he knows us and sees us that makes our trials – while not any more understandable – maybe more acceptable.
We know from modern revelation that our Heavenly Father knows the beginning from the end (3 Nephi 9:18, Doctrine and Covenants 35:1) – he knows how everything turns out, how we turn out. Since he already knows how all of this turns out why do we have to go through this? Let me submit that these experiences reveal who we are and they reveal the import of what the Lord wants of us and for us. For “the trial of [our] faith . . . [is] much more precious than gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire.. . . ” (1 Peter 1:7) In coming to know ourselves our trials are the best teachers, since such learning is very, very personal. As my father used to say, “The greatest pain know to medical science is your own.”
In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul describes for us the challenging nature of personal growth. He begins in verse 11 by saying:
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
Then in the all important and oft quoted verse 12 he explains:
For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
To better understand this important scripture, lets go through it line by line and reflect on it a little more carefully.
We know that we are here to grow and to experience all of the joys and pains of growth. This applies to both our physically and spiritually growth. As verse 11 indicates we move from being a child to an adult and in doing so we put off certain childish things – as you know from your own experience such growth is neither easy nor always fun. But we know it is absolutely necessary.
Verse 12 is often quoted but maybe not well understood. Again it reads: “For now we see through a glass darkly.” Let me stop there. Strangely this is usually all of this verse that is quoted and the rest is left out. This part of the scripture is usually interpreted as an observation concerning the great difficulty we have seeing or understanding the world around us thus leaving us to blunder and grope through the darkness. While those sentiments may certainly be true, I don’t think that this is what this scripture is talking about.
In this scripture it is important to understand what the “we” are looking at. The scripture says that “For now we see through a glass darkly.” What is a glass? Since the King James version of the Bible draws from 16th Century English, think of how the word glass is used in English stories such as “Alice through the looking Glass.” A glass in this instance is not a window with the implication that we are looking out on the world – but it is a mirror. Thus, in this scripture Paul is not talking about the inherent obscurity of the world but how difficult it is to see and understand ourselves for it is us that we are looking at in the mirror and it is us that we are trying to know.
With that understanding let’s look at the rest of verse 12. Paul goes on to describe more about coming to know ourselves when he says“but then face to face: now I know in part, but then shall I know even as I am know.” In our struggles to see ourselves we only get glimpses and see pieces of ourselves as we try to perceive who we are in the opaque and rough reflection provided by an imperfect world. While now we only know bits and pieces since only “part” is made available to us – here is the good part - “then shall I know even as I am known.” The good part; the important part, is that we are known! Our Heavenly Father has his eye on us. He knows us and he knows us perfectly. And we are promised that we will come to know ourselves, see ourselves, as our Heavenly Father knows and sees us. To know that we are known and known perfectly is so very important when we are faced with truly troubling trials. To know that the trials are part of who we are or who we are becoming lends an import to the experience that can make them into the blessings that they are meant to be.
To help understand a little better the importance of having a creator who clearly sees and knows our trials let me give you an example that I thought of that was helpful to me.
I love wood. I love its feel, its smell, and its texture. And I love to carve in it even though I am not particularly skilled. Carving or sculpturing something out of wood or any other material for that matter is an interesting and difficult process. Michelangelo was once asked how he sculptured his amazing statuary. He responded provocatively by saying “I see the angel in the marble and carved until I have set it free” (www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/michelangelo.html). While it is easy for a Michelangelo to be so eloquently in describing such a difficult process in such an off-hand manner, his comment is helpful in that it emphasizes probably the most important part of the creative process. To free the angel from the marble the sculptor must clearly see what the material contains. Vision therefor is the starting point of the creative process.
Again I indicated I love wood. Take a look at this piece of beautiful golden mahogany, which comes from Hondorus and this piece of red mahogany which comes from the Phillipines. Both of these pieces of wood are exceptional, if not perfect. They are flawless, and they are solid – not joined or glued together. They are also exceptional because of their size. The first is 24 inches wide which means that it had to come from a tree that is over twelve feet in circumference and the other is 36 inches wide meaning it came from a tree over 18 feet around. Both of these pieces are very beautiful just as they are. But what do you see in them? Well, this is what I saw in one and what I am seeing in the other.
Now, lets be a bit anthropomorphic for a minute and think of the wood’s feelings. What does this carving process feel like to the wood? Carving is a violent process. In this case I pretty well tortured these otherwise beautiful pieces of wood to get them to where they are. To get to the vision that I saw I had to remove a fair amount of what would appear to be perfectly good wood – even perfectly beautiful wood. To the wood, I can imagine that my cutting, gouging, scraping and sanding was exceedingly painful, and might even have appeared to be somewhat random, arbitrary, completely unnecessary, or even just mean. But the problem is the wood and I did not necessarily share the same vision of how things should turn out.
I am sure that you can follow my analogue. We are beautiful even exquisite material from which the Lord has a plan to make us into something. In our case we even know what we are to be – beautiful sons and daughters full of perfection. One thing that we don’t really fully appreciate – like the wood – we do not know have a clear view of what the end result is to look like and we do not always appreciate how difficult and painful the process of freeing the angel really is.
Elder Hugh B. Brown reports the following personal story that illustrates the point I am trying to make. He states:
I was living up in Canada. I had purchased a farm. It was run-down. I went out one morning and saw a currant bush. It had grown up over six feet high. It was going all to wood. There were no blossoms and no currants.
I was raised on a fruit farm in Salt Lake before I went to Canada, and I knew what ought to happen to that currant bush. So I got some pruning shears and clipped it back until there was nothing left but stumps. It was just coming daylight, and I thought I saw on top of each of these little stumps what appeared to be a tear, and I thought the currant bush was crying. I looked at it and smiled and said,
“What are you crying about?”
You know, I thought I heard that currant bush say this: “How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as big as the shade tree and the fruit tree that are inside the fence, and now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me because I am not as big as they. How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.”
That’s what he thought he heard the currant bush say, and he thought it so much that he answered.
[He] said, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and someday, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, “Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down. Thank you, Mr. Gardener.”
Years passed and Elder Brown found himself in England in the Army and in line for a very important and prestigious promotion. He was wrongly and rudely denied that promotion and he reports that as he returned to his camp on the train with a broken heart, with bitterness in his soul, every click of the wheels on the rails seemed to say, “You are a failure.”
When he got to his tent, he was so bitter that he threw his cap on his cot, clenched his fists, and shook them at heaven, and said, “How could you do this to me, God? I have done everything I could do to measure up. There is nothing that I could have done – that I should have done – that I haven’t done. How could you do this to me? At that moment he reports that he heard a voice, and recognized the tone of the voice. He said, “It was my own voice, and the voice said, “I am the gardener here. I know what I want you to do.” He reports that the bitterness went out of his soul, and he fell on my knees by the cot to ask forgiveness for his ungratefulness and bitterness. While kneeling there praying for forgiveness, he heard a song being sung in an adjoining tent by a group of LDS soldiers. He heard them sing
But if, by a still, small voice he calls
To paths that I do not know,
I’ll answer, dear Lord, with my hand in thine:
I’ll go where you want me to go (Hymns, 270)
Fifty years later in telling this story Elder Brown said that he felt even more deeply, “Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.”
Joseph Smith described his refining process a little differently, he said:
I am like a huge, rough stone . . . and the only polishing I get is when some corner gets rubbed off by coming in contact with something else, striking with accelerated force. . . . Thus I will become a smooth and polished shaft in the quiver of the Almighty (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [1976], 304).
As to the pain inherent in this cutting, sculpturing, and polishing process Elder Maxwell has given us a great perspective. He said:
In those moments when we feel the pain which is a necessary part of the plan of happiness, we can remember that there was an ancient time when that plan was first unveiled. Then the perceptive among us voted not secretly, but audibly – by shouting for joy! Let us not go back on those feelings now – for we saw more clearly then what we are experiencing now! (“The Neal A. Maxwell Quote Book,” p. 248)
O.K., so adversity and pain are part of a very important and personal plan. Does knowing and understand that really help? Surprisingly it does. This is what life is about – and we don’t get out of life without living it.
Now to turn to the final question, HOW do we remain faithful when faced with adversity. If we understand that our Heaven Father has a plan for us and we know and believe that he “will support us in our trials . . . troubles . . . and afflictions. . .” (Alma 36:3) – what does he give to help us? The scriptures are replete with stories and examples of individuals that are put to severe trials. Many have been asked to travel in real or personal wildernesses. The reality of the wilderness and its symbolic value is drawn upon heavily in the scriptures, and is often repeated. Adam and Eve were given their wilderness in the form of this “lone and dreary world,” (“The House of the Lord,” 1968 pp. 83-84). Abraham escaped the civilized world of Ur of the Chaldees and wander in the wilderness of Mesopotamia his whole life; Moses with the children of Israel wander for 40 years in the wilderness until being lead to the promised land and then he was denied entrance; and finally Lehi and his family wandered for eight years in the wilderness before finding the Land Bountiful, and then the promised land. We too have been given personal wildernesses to negotiate. For most of us it is not only life in an increasingly unforgiving and secular world but it also contains the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” (Hamlet (III, i, 56-61).
In our wildernesses like all wildernesses the elements are as rough, inhospitable and forbidding as any desolate place on the earth. The Lord knows this. But He has given us a simple symbol readily understood by our nomadic ancestors of the help that he can and has provided for us in our wildernesses. It is found in 1 Nephi 2:15. If you are like me this is one of the first scripture that you memorized from the Book of Mormon. Yes, it is “And my father dwelt in a tent.” Why would Nephi report something so silly or trivial in such an important book where he constantly claims that writing was difficult and space was at a premium, and what does this have to do with remaining faithful in times of adversity? To help tie all of this together I need to make reference to another story.
This story is one of my favorites. It is by the Noble prize winning author Isaac Beshiva Singer. Isaac Beshiva Singer is a wonderful, spiritually insightful Jewish writer who sets many of his stories in 17th and 18th century Poland among the orthodox Jews. His stories usually explore the problem of maintaining faith in a pervasively secular world. In this particular story entitled “Joy” he tells of a very devote Rabbi who through a series of terrible Job-like events loses all that he truly loves – all of his children. It is reported that when the Rabbi’s youngest daughter dies he is so shattered by her loss that he can not even follow her Hearst to her grave. These losses challenge and overwhelm him and the unimaginable happens, he loses his faith. His great learning offers no answers as to why these things have happened. Even though his faith is shaken, remarkably the Rabbi does not curse God or his circumstance, but he is humble and filled with piety. Piety is an important word in this story and means the a desire to do the things that one knows are right and good. For example the Rabbi continues to read the Torah even though he concedes that at times he feels he understands less and less. He continues to go to the ritual bath. He observes all of the commandments, and rituals and he becomes even more devoted to relieving human suffering by giving to the poor including selling all that he has – for this many of his erstwhile followers consider him to be a fool. Yet he persists in doing all of these things because, he reports, these are things that he can understand.
Near the end of his life his youngest daughter appears to him to bring him home, and in an instant all is made clear and his faith is restored. But before he dies he is permitted to spend one more holiday with his people. At this last festival he is described as celebrating it with more passion and more devotion than he had ever celebrated before. As part of the celebration there is an important scene where the Rabbi explains how his faith was restored. In this scene it describes the Jewish custom of the Rabbi commenting on a scripture or explaining the meaning of some obscure verse. I would like to read to you this section of the story:
The rabbi took up the question of why the moon is obscured on Rosh Hashannah. The answer is that on Rosh Hashannah one prays for life, and life mean free choice, and freedom is Mystery. If one knew the truth how could there be freedom? If hell and paradise were in the middle of the marketplace, everyone would be a saint. Of all the blessings bestowed on man the greatest lies in the fact that God’s face is forever hidden from him. Men are the children of the Highest, and the Almighty plays hide and seek with them. He hides His face and the children seek him while they have faith that he exists. But what if, God forbid, one loses faith? The wicked live on denials; denial in themselves are also a faith in evildoing, and from it one can draw strength for the body. But if the pious man loses his faith, the truth is shown to him and he is recalled. This is the meaning of the words, ‘When a man dies in a tent:’ when the pious man falls from his rank and becomes like the wicked, without . . . shelter, then a light shines from above, and all doubt ceases. . . .” (“Joy” The Collected Stories of Isaac Beshiva Singer, pp. 29-37).
Because the Rabbi was pious, that is, he refused to abandon the protective trappings afforded by the rituals and practices of his religion and continued to do all of the things that he could, he stayed where he could be found, he was protected from the wilderness of unbelief and he was redeemed.
Let me try to examine the symbol of the protection afforded by a tent in the wilderness as it might relate to our spiritual lives. Those of you that have spent a night outside in freezing weather or in a fierce storm know how important a tent can be. You probably have marveled, as have I, at what a couple of millimeters of nylon or canvas can mean in such a circumstance. Those couple of millimeters of nylon may seem pretty insubstantial but you know or have learned from your experience that if you are caught without that protection the difference can be the difference between life and death or at the very lease comfort and real misery. In out spiritual lives we can and do have similar fierce storms or freezing nights and certainly need similar protection from the buffetings of unbelief.
For our spiritual lives the Lord has provided us literally and figuratively with protective trappings. Like a tent the physical trappings of the gospel might at times feel only paper thin or appear to be insubstantial in dealing with the buffetings of the storms of a secular world, but I want you to know that those physical trappings nonetheless have the power to protect.
While we know and understand that there are certain saving ordinances in the gospel – baptism, the Gift of the Holy Ghost, the endowment, and marriage that can bring us unto salvation, let me suggest that there are also certain saving practices that provide us shelter and leave us in a place where we can be both protected and redeemed
For example, we know that there are times that “the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41), but I feel that there are also times when “the spirit is weak but the flesh is indeed willing.” When the Lord made us of both spirit and flesh He knew that there would be times when the spirit and the flesh would have to support and lift each other up. There are times that the physical rituals of daily scripture study, thoughtful pray, devote attendance of Church meetings, reaching beyond ourselves to serve those in need and doing every other good thing are things that the flesh can do to help tutor and buoy up a flagging spirit.
In those times of spiritual storm these things, while seeming insignificant in the face of such challenges, can and do shelter us from the brutality of the storm that would have us blown “by every wind of doctrine” (Ephesians 4:14). Continuing to abide in these trappings also has the valuable effect, like it did with the Rabbi in Singer’s story, of keeping us close and within the fold were the Lord’s spirit can work on us to reveal what we need to understand and so that our faith can be restored. Putting off those trappings and wandering from the protection of the tent leaves us without shelter and subjects us to the full intensity of the storm. I know that at least to some degree you have all felt the effect of the protection of the tent. I am sure that there are times when the press and demands of the world have caused you to put off the simple rituals of daily scripture study, prayer and meaningful church participation. At those times haven’t you felt unprotected, vulnerable, alone or even lost? It is also at these times that the trials and adversities that life has for us are all the more confusing, hard and harsh.
While the image of the tent and its protection is one that may not readily speak to us in our comfortable surroundings, and may be equally hard to understand in the context of trials and adversities, the need for protection when stressed with challenges is crucial in making adversities into the blessings they can be.
I want to leave you with the challenge and the blessing that the Lord left with Israel at the time of Isaiah. Again it draws on the image of the tent and the promises that it invokes. The Lord commanded Israel to:
Enlarge the place of thy tent and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations . . . strength . . . thy stakes and enlarge thy borders forever, that thou mayest no more be confounded that the covenants of the Eternal Father which he has made unto thee. . . may be fulfilled (see Moroni 10:31, Isaiah 54:2).
I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.