It's Okay for Life to be Hard

Let's face it: most of the time, we want life to be easy. We want to sleep in every morning, love our work, have kids (and siblings and parents and in-laws and...) that always get along, be the picture of health despite a few indulgences, have lots of free time and always have enough money for everything. Sometimes falsely imagining that money alone brings a life of ease, we glamorize wealthy actors and athletes who we suppose live such a life and dream about what it must be like. We yearn with Fiddler on the Roof's Tevye: 'If riches are a curse, may God smite me with it! And may I never recover!'

Tevye's prayer concludes with a pleading question to which most of us can relate:

Lord, who made the lion and the lamb,

You decreed I should be what I am;

Would it spoil some vast eternal plan,

If I were a wealthy man?

We know we are on earth to be tested, but must life be so hard sometimes? Would it be so bad to catch a few more breaks?

Elder Oaks answered Tevye's inquiry in a 2003 General Conference address. 'Yes, Tevye, it might,' he said. 'The revelations, for which we are grateful, show that we should even give thanks for our afflictions because they turn our hearts to God and give us opportunities to prepare for what God would have us become... Let us give thanks for what we are and for the circumstances God has given us for our personal journey through mortality.'

The Lord does not allow difficult things in our lives to punish us or make us miserable. Rather, He taught Moroni, 'I give unto men weakness that they may be humble.' If we humble ourselves and have faith in Him, 'then will I make weak things become strong unto them' (Ether 12:27). The Lord has told us we should 'fear not', 'let [our] hearts be comforted', 'rejoice evermore', and 'in everything give thanks' because the hard things in our lives will 'work together for [our] good' (D&C 98:1, 3). He is in control; we can trust Him to make even the bleakest challenge a great blessing in our lives.

One of the bleakest times in Church history was the winter of 1838-39. While the members of the Church were persecuted and being driven from Missouri by the governor's 'extermination order', the Prophet Joseph Smith and five others were held in the cold, damp, cramped and smoke-filled dungeon of Liberty Jail. Joseph called it a 'hell, surrounded with demons... where we  are compelled to hear nothing but blasphemous oaths, and witness a scene of blasphemy, and drunkenness and hypocrisy, and debaucheries of every description'. They were poisoned four times in their food, 'making them so violently ill that for days they alternated between vomiting and a kind of delirium, not really caring whether they lived or died'. Only a little dirty straw insulated them from the cold stone floor while they slept and there were insufficient blankets for what remains the coldest winter in Missouri history. Unable to help their families through persecutions and a forced march to Illinois, the depression became so overwhelming that the prophet pleaded in his prayers, 'O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?'

The Lord responded with some of the most comforting language in scripture: 'My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes... for their bounds are set, they cannot pass. Thy days are known, and thy years shall not be numbered less; therefore, fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever.' Again the Lord assured the prophet that the hard things in his life were necessary and not in vain: 'If the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good' (D&C 121-122).

The sacrifices made in Liberty Jail were rewarded with revelations and peace even greater than the suffering. Despite the brutality and vile atmosphere, the prison became a sacred place, a spiritual temple of sorts, where the prophet received revelation for the Church and the faith of the incarcerated men was reinforced an hundredfold as they were protected and sustained by an Almighty God when no other thing prevented them from death. Five months of misery were followed by five years of the peace and prosperity of Nauvoo, a blessing that included many more revelations that may not have come as they did without the prison-temple experience of Liberty Jail.

President John Taylor was among those persecuted and driven from place to place with the Saints. He left his struggling family to serve missions in Europe without purse or scrip, witnessed the murder of the Prophet Joseph in Carthage, walked the plains to the Salt Lake Valley, and spent much of his later life in hiding. He taught, 'We have learned many things through suffering. We call it suffering. I call it a school of experience... I have never looked at these things in any other light than trials for the purpose of purifying the Saints of God that they may be, as the scriptures say, as gold that has been seven times purified by the fire' (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: John Taylor [2001], 203).

The Lord desires to say of us what he has said of John Taylor, Joseph Smith, Abraham, Nephi, Isaiah and others: 'For, behold, I have refined thee, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction' (1 Nephi 20:10). Can we expect to earn the same reward if we are not willing to pay the same price?

We live in an age of convenience and instant gratification. Few of us struggle to survive with what we can grow in gardens or build with our own hands. Our lives are generally easier than the billions who have come before us over the last six thousand years. Despite our many blessings, each of us must spend some time in our own figurative prison-temples.

Often these prison-temple moments are thrust upon us with a diagnosis, the loss of a job, the death of a friend or family member, or the actions of others. Other difficult things in our lives are brought on by our own choices, particularly as we let appetites overcome discipline or as pride engenders ingratitude and entitlement.

In this month's Ensign, President Monson cautioned us all against the dangers of taking life too easy. 'We forget how the Greeks and Romans prevailed magnificently in a barbaric world', he wrote, 'and how that triumph ended—how a slackness and softness finally overcame them to their ruin. In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security and a comfortable life; and they lost all—comfort and security and freedom.'

The descendants of the ancient Nephites that saw the risen Christ fell away because they knew only prosperity and so became proud and abandoned the principles that had brought their successes. We who live in the last gospel dispensation and carry the legacy of the pioneers in the world's most prosperous times cannot afford to meet the same fate.

The Lord has given us the difficult things in our lives to help us be humble and avoid the kind of spiritual and temporal destruction that met the Nephites. Our experiences will help us be disciplined and stand firm for truth and freedom. Our task is not to change the difficulty of our lives, but to have faith in the guidance we receive from God and gratitude for the circumstances God has given us for our personal journey through mortality.

The Lord to whom Tevye prayed loves each of us and wants us to become like Him. The experiences we have are gifts that give us the best possible opportunity of developing those traits that will make us happy and allow us to return to our Heavenly Parents. Therefore the Lord admonishes:

Verily I say unto you my friends, fear not, let your hearts be comforted; yea, rejoice evermore, and in everything give thanks; Waiting patiently on the Lord, for your prayers have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, and are recorded with this seal and testament--the Lord hath sworn and decreed that they shall be granted. Therefore, he giveth this promise unto you, with an immutable covenant that they shall be fulfilled; and all things wherewith you have been afflicted shall work together for your good, and to my name's glory, saith the Lord (D&C 98:1-3).

How Firm a Foundation

In Mark chapter 10, we read of a noble, rich man that inquires of Christ, "What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" Finding that the man had kept the commandments from his youth, the Savior instructed the rich young man to, "go thy way way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor... and come, take up the cross, and follow me." Though we do not know if or when this young man may have obeyed, at the time of his encounter with Christ he, "went away grieved: for he had great possessions."

Turning to his disciples, the Master Teacher commented, "how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God!" Then again, "With men that trust in riches, it is impossible [to enter into the kingdom of God]; but not impossible with men who trust in God and leave all for my sake, for with such all these things are possible."

Honest self-evaluation may reveal to each of us what we may have in common with the young rich man. It is easy to feel like everything will be okay because the bills are paid with money left over for groceries and maybe even some savings. Do we pray more sincerely when our cash reserves are low?

The principle behind what Christ taught the young, rich man is taught more explicitly by King Benjamin in Mosiah chapter 3: "There shall be no other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent." Faith in Christ is the first principle of the gospel and absolutely essential to salvation in the kingdom of God. When we place our trust elsewhere, we introduce false idols and false security into our lives. We become like the foolish man, who built his house upon a sandy foundation.

Even the mention of idol worship conjures up ideas of gold calves made thousands of years ago or the neighbor that is always out in his front yard washing his new car. Yet when tragedy strikes or stress mounts, where do you and I turn? If we look for comfort in a batch of freshly baked cookies or retreat to the chocolate stash in our dresser drawers, we may well find that sweet treats have hindered or even replaced the deepest, most sincere trust in God that is required to return to Him.

Riches of cash or of calories are not alone in their ability to replace our faith with false security. Some create idols of intimacy, of drugs or alcohol, and still others trust most in their own education, their favorite sports team, the power of their preferred political party or their ability to control or influence those around them. When we put our trust in these things more than God-- when we turn to them in our difficult moments rather than to our Heavenly Father who waits to teach us and to bless us-- it is as though each of us were departing from the Savior just as the young rich man.

Victory over this form of idolatry requires a healthy dose of humility. We must change our thinking from, "What do I want to do?" to "What would the Lord have me do?" We recognize that the comfort we find in idolatrous trust of money or food or whatever allows the natural man to gain strength; so we strive to "yield to the enticings of the Holy Spirit" that put off the natural man as they help us become, "submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, [and] willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon [us]" (Mosiah 3:19). In other words, as we find success and refinement in humility, we will also develop a deep and abiding faith in our Savior, Jesus Christ.

The Lord has promised that he will care for our needs, "for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things" (3 Nephi 13:32). Our job is to believe him-- believe he will do what he says he will do-- then take up our cross and build upon his firm foundation.

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,

is laid for your faith in his excellent word.

What more can he say than to you he hath said,

who unto the Savior for refuge hath fled?

In every condition, in sickness, in health, 

in poverty's vale or abounding in wealth,

at home or abroad, on the land or the sea

as thy days may demand so thy succor shall be.

Fear not, I am with thee; oh, be not dismayed,

for I am thy God and will still give thee aid.

I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,

upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,

the rivers of sorrow shall not thee o'erflow,

for I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless

and sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,

my grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply.

The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design

thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.

E'en down to old age, all my people shall prove

my sov'reign, eternal, unchangable love;

and then when gray hair shall their temples adorn,

like lambs shall they still in my bosom be borne.

The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose

I will not, I cannot, desert to his foes;

that soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,

I'll never, no never, no never forsake.

(How Firm a Foundation, attr. to Robert Keen, 1787)