Some years ago when I was a campus bishop I interviewed with a new member in my ward, Brady. He was a very pleasant young man with a warm and gentle disposition. Yet I could discern he was a little disheartened with a sad wonderment about life. I assumed he was responding to the typical student pressures and young adult uncertainties. Brady had recently served an honorable full-time mission and was doing everything he could to honor his covenants and retain a spiritual centering. As I queried a little more to see how I might counsel with him, he began to unfold some recent disquieting events that led him to wonder if God had forsaken him. He rehearsed how not long after his mission both his parents were killed in a car accident by a drunk driver, and this had left him rudderless. And then, within only a few months prior to our interview, his dear sister had been murdered during a grocery store burglary. This left him despondent, bordering on anger. And though he would never acquiesce to some of his darkest thoughts, he admitted, that at times he wished to disappear into oblivion.
This temperate soul truly mourned, and in his sorrowing he was asking big questions about, “why?” Partly still in shock, and partly in deep reflection, he searched for a perspective he should take toward enduring these realities. He trusted that God loved him, but all the platitudes internalized since childhood did not provide him solace. His one remaining family member, another sister, encouraged him to come to BYU Hawai’i, to start fresh, to move, and if not forward, at least it was movement. So there he was before me, sincerely and nobly suffering, seeking a way to peer through the haze of his grief induced uncertainty and wonder. He supposed God had abandoned him, and was groping for clarity and strength to bear with patience such an unexpected turn in his life.
Through several tender and intimate conversations Brady and I explored ways for him to see, act, and heal. His principled character was displayed at his lowest moment. We talked much over the academic year, and I witnessed how, through the measure of time, mighty prayer, temple attendance, and purposeful service to others, even when he did not feel like it, his wounded heart and soul were being healed, and a purpose for life restored.
All of us carry burdens, perhaps not as acute as Brady’s, nonetheless they demand much from us. Some afflictions result from our own poor choices, our sins, or feeble, misguided, ignorant judgments. Much of our suffering we create for ourselves. But some troubles just happen as a condition of mortality, the vulnerabilities of bodies and minds. We get sick, we hurt, we age, and we die. There is no fault here, just the vicissitudes of a telestial condition. And then some loads we bear occasion the choices of others we have no control over. Others do things that may hurt us, whether intentional or unintentional, and we suffer for it. These acts may be daily inconveniences resulting from their self-interest, to unethical behaviors that affect livelihood, or cruelties to bodies, spirits, and minds. How do we make sense of, respond to, and endure these untoward actualities? Our suffering and perplexity may encourage two possible responses: We can entertain the “big” questions and allow the Spirit to teach us “…of things as they really are;”1 or conversely, in dark resignation, we may wish to “…curse God, and die.”2
To safeguard the principle of agency, suffering cannot be exempted; to ensure accountability, we must tolerate evil, cruelty and a myriad of inhumane deprivations. The restored doctrine regarding the role of agency in spiritual progress identifies its necessity, as father Lehi articulates, for discernment, consciousness, and even existence itself. The eternal consequence, that we may act for ourselves and not be simply acted upon, advances the only truly salient explanation for why an interested and loving God would tolerate evil and suffering. (While we commonly elaborate on all the wrongs perpetuated against us, we too often neglect to recognize and correct how we ourselves may become a burden or trial to someone else.)
Much of our capacity to manage unexpected difficulties, whether of our own or another’s making, calls upon us to revise how we think about the meaning of our circumstances. Have you ever had to discard what you considered true when new knowledge abruptly came to light? If so you are not alone, many of the great prophets had to adjust their thinking. Consider the Apostle Paul, who as he went about seeking to destroy the fledgling Christian movement, was sharply addressed by the Lord on the road to Damascus. Could we not say he changed his mind about things? Or in a parallel fashion, consider Alma the Younger and the Sons of Mosiah, who too were about making themselves a nuisance to the Church, and we must conclude, “stressing out” their fathers. Angelic visitations have a way of getting attention. Such encounters can lead to a complete transformation in perspective. And then there was the young Joseph Smith, who, while sincere and inquisitive, remained ignorant until his numinous encounter with the divine changed everything for him--he would never see things the same again. All three of these illustrations are atypical; they involved a pronounced visionary experience, an intervention from heavenly beings--not the normal experience of our quotidian lives. Perhaps something this bold and clearly marked is necessary when the outcome will affect so many (the entire primitive Christian movement, the spiritual and social realignment of the Nephite and Lamanite civilizations, and the restoration of all things in the latter-days). But there remains still a telling pattern here for us as individuals; any conversion through the power of the Holy ghost can prove an indelible moment that leads to profound changes in thought, attitude, and disposition.
Among the most illustrative moments in scripture that demonstrates an abrupt change of perspective comes when Moses sees God face-to-face, as recorded in the Pearl of Great Price. Moses beholds the Glory of the Lord--just how far reaching and eternal is the One without beginning of days and end of years. He learns about the Only Begotten and how all time collapses into an eternal present with God. And then the Lord shows Moses a view of the big picture; in some kind of kaleidoscope of time he apprehends the history of the world and all the children of men in a moment. The grandeur of this vista leads Moses to exclaim, “Now…I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed.”3
In this telling moment Moses changes his mind; what he “supposes” to be the truth needs to be altered, due to what he comes to know. He expresses the supposition in the past tense; he had supposed it, but with revelation he must now amend his present understanding. Suppose is a verb, meaning to assume, consider, believe or take for granted. Moses had assumed or believed a greater importance to man. It is not that man lacks value in the sight of God, for as we will learn later in the same chapter, God’s very work and His glory is focused on mankind and bringing about our eternal lives. But here Moses learns how our micro-focused world pales in comparison to the grandeur of God and His works. Moses moves from a mortally delimited focus to an eternal one.
In the scriptures, whenever the writer uses the term “suppose,” it denotes a mistaken assumption or a belief ultimately revealed as false. Here are few instructive examples. The Book of Mormon prophet Jacob explains how the learned “…hearken not unto the counsel of God…supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and profiteth them not…”4 Nephi describes Laban’s confusion when “… he supposed (him) to be his master…”5 Likewise, to Olivery Cowdry, who desired the gift of translation, the Lord admonished, “…you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was asked to me.” 6 In the New Testament we see Paul affirm to Timothy, that corrupt minds, “…supposing that gain is godliness…”7 need to be avoided. A most powerful realization when what is normal proves otherwise, is when the resurrected Lord appears to His disciples. They are terrified and frightened, and “…supposed that they had seen a Spirit.”8 Most of our suppositions come from experience, and their experience did not lend itself to perceive a resurrected being. Can we blame them really, that they struggled with recognizing the Christ? I don’t think we should attribute to them a lack of faith, as if we wouldn’t have responded this way. “…and they believed not for joy…”9 -- this was just too good to be true – they doubted they should feel this happy! And in this they “wondered.” Then, he confirmed His corporeal reality to them and their false supposition faded away.
That our suppositions often prove wrong is humbling. We suppose a great deal. At least I catch myself too often entrapped by such assumptions. Part of our growth accompanies a willingness to adjust our conclusions, to discard them if necessary, and to align ourselves more fully with the Lord’s vision and His will. Our human understanding will inevitably prove wrong, or at least limited. Humility requires us to recognize limits to our perspectives. The prophet Isaiah clearly understood this human predicament when he so elegantly related these revelatory words, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”10 Well of course, but in our mortal hubris we often fail to recognize just how stuck we are, and we need a reminder that God occupies a relative position to the truth different from our own; His vantage point, as the omniscient and Eternal Father, provides an alternative to our earthly myopic view.
When Nephi was organizing all his plates for reasons he knew not, he inserts an interesting interlude into his narrative, he offers “…the Lord knoweth all things from the beginning; wherefore, he prepareth a way to accomplish all his works among the children of men…”11 It seems God makes preparations for the collective as well as the deeply personal. We can trust He possesses a more totalizing view, and it would be to our benefit to somehow obtain a sense of just what that may be. I encourage us to reflect on those most precious and poignant moments when we received a glimpse of God unfolding His purposes.
When I was a missionary in the Marshall Islands long ago, I, along with my Samoan companion, Tuiletefuga, were initiating the work in a small, but historically significant village on Majuro Atoll. We had been working hard to learn the language upon our arrival and to establish positive relationships in the village, especially with the high ranking individuals. Our work was progressing slowly and in fact, we had become the target of some persecution that moved from verbal taunts to stones thrown at us as we rode our bikes at night on the dirt trails, and even attempts to use sorcery against us. My very robust and towering companion had little patience with such gestures, and I had some curious event filled moments ensuring he did not exact corporal punishment upon our antagonists (and he would have done so with vigor and efficiency I have no doubt). During this time of un-ease in the village we began teaching an old man, Labwujtok Lane, who as the son of a paramount chief held significant title and rank. We had baptized his wife some months before and she was numbered among our three congregants. We met often with Labwujtok, teaching him all the lessons at least four times over a six-month period. We considered taking him off our teaching list, nonetheless we would call on him for friendly visits and attend to him as he was quickly deteriorating with severe diabetes. During this time, the infections necessitated amputating his right leg just above the knee.
We prayed for Labwujtok, not just that he would come to accept gospel truths, but for comfort in the waning days of his mortality. Then one morning, we rode our bikes out to his compound, and when we called through the door he enthusiastically invited us into his hut to sit on mats next to him. He told us, “Elders, I had a dream the night before last, that I was outside my house near the trail leading towards the lagoon. People in white clothing were passing by me headed toward the lagoon. When I stopped them to ask what they were doing, they told me they were going to be baptized. So I followed them to the shore. Thousands of people were standing on the beach in white clothing, and as I pressed through the crowd I could see a man standing in the water, baptizing one person after another. When I asked who it was they told me it was the Apostle Peter. I was curious for which church he was baptizing, and they answered it was for the true church of Christ. And then I awoke wondering about the dream and which Church was that of Christ. Then last night I dreamed again, and it was the same dream. I followed the people in white down to the shore, and I asked again who was doing the baptizing. This time I was told it was Moroni, that he too had the power to baptize for the true Church of Christ. And then I awoke, and I knew then you young Mormon missionaries had this same authority and the true Church was on the earth. You will see, thousands will come to be baptized.”
Two days later we carried Labwujtok down into the water of the lagoon. Because he could not stand or walk, Tuiletefuga and I made a cradle with our arms interlocked, and setting him upon it we descended into the water. A senior missionary performed the ordinance. We then submerged Labwujtok by both of us squatting down and immersing under the water with him. We confirmed him at the water’s edge. A week later, we sat and prayed with him, until he died. I could not help but think of the words of the prophet Joel, that in the latter-days your “…old men shall dream dreams…”12 At the time I could only grasp a semblance of what this event may mean. But after this experience with Labwujtok the persecution stopped, and we began to teach, baptizing many converts every month, a pattern that continues to this day. When I was a missionary there were only four to six missionaries in all the Marshall Islands, and we were 2300 miles from the mission home in Guam. Today, a mission headquarters for the Marshall Islands and Kiribati is located on this atoll, and the first stake from the old Micronesia mission was organized there with thousands of members. The Lord had His time-table and His purposes for which He prepared a way. I had supposed that our missionary labors were stuck, that the people would not be receptive due to certain traditions and an entrenched Christianity. I had supposed wrong, but was allowed to peer into the Lord’s way of bringing about His purposes in His time.
We are not left to grapple alone with our suppositions. The Lord imparts ways for us to see into His world, to look over His shoulder if you will, to gain something of His perspective. The scriptures provide a record of His words and those of prophets. These words help us rise above our finite and limited thoughts, and we would do well to note the echoed truths spoken through the mouths of His servants. Many hold the popular view that prophesy tells of the future, portending major human events or the prediction of things to come, including things as banal as stock market prognostications or who a celebrity will marry. Tucked away in a footnote, the myth scholar Lewis Hyde provides a more insightful truth, that a prophet does not so much portend the unknown future, but “…speaks of things that will be true in the future because they are true in all times. The prophet disrupts the mundane in order to reveal the eternal.”13 We need to allow prophets to disrupt us from our mundane thought routines, to consider more attentively the eternal.
The Lord also offers us perspective through the Holy Ghost. To learn and follow the Spirit obliges us to be quiet, to shut off the invasive distractions of the world, and then to trust, as Nephi did, to be “…led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things that I should do.”14 To be lead in such a manner requires us to set aside our normal expectations and assumptions, to be open to consider and act upon things we have never considered, to glimpse “…things as they really are, and of things as they really will be…”15 -- those thrilling “ah ha” moments when we know we are aligned with the splendid and the true.
We also catch sight of God’s thought world through the temple. In the temple we step out from mundane linear time to enter timelessness, we remove ourselves from the everyday profane space to enter sacred space, to connect with the axis mundi -- the center or navel of the universe, where heaven and earth meet. In the temple we rise above a temporal view to see ourselves as part of a grander story. We are reminded of the big picture by rehearsing the order of the cosmos and God’s deliberate designs. We see ourselves in relationship to the divine, to eternity, and make far reaching covenants that bind us to God and each other. The temple holds the “…key of the mysteries of the kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God.” This is not just knowledge about God, but a portion of His knowledge -- via the “…ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest.”16 The temple disrupts our faulty suppositions and links us profoundly as consecrated saints, who in seeking to know and understand, align our lives in accordance with God’s higher ways. This then provides a script we should take with us, indeed we must take with us, into the world as we exit His sacred theater.
There is great danger with being absorbed in the present, whether for pleasure or when consumed by anxiety or suffering. We need to withdraw from the immediacy of the moment, to see the larger context, to “…let the solemnities of eternity rest upon (our) minds.”17 The temple provides a context for such meditations, including how there is something profoundly sacred about consecrated suffering, the Savior’s and our own. The temple raises some profound considerations about time. In mortality our experience with time is both rooted in nature and how cultures configure its cycles and patterns. In our modern lives we often limit our ability to see outside the immediacy and micro-focus of individual experience. Recognizing how God works deliberately through and across whole dispensations of time, and how sacred story and ceremony provide an exit from our insular experiences in time, I wish to adumbrate on those wonderful and personal surprises when the Lord weaves together earthly time and eternity.
Again, when I was a missionary, in the same village I referred to above, I came to know everyone. I remained there for a year and half with a total of two companions. After the experience with Labwujtok our teaching efforts accelerated. We were teaching a man named Amima Alik whose wife and some of his daughters had already joined the Church. Amima knew the truthfulness of the restored gospel but retained some personal challenges to overcome. But once he did, he became a backbone to the Church in the village. During one discussion we were considering eternal families and sealing ordinances. As we sat on mats in his humble home one evening, with a small wicker kerosene lamp providing light, he looked upon our picture of a beautiful temple, and he ruminated out loud, that such a blessing he could never realize. As a school teacher, he earned a little more money than some in the village, but he still greatly supplemented his subsistence by fishing and farming. His total annual salary was barely enough to buy two plane tickets to Hawai’i, and then how would they live for the rest of the year? All I could do was kindly submit that somehow, someday, he would be sealed to his wife. But honestly, I supposed I was offering an unrealistic hope to smooth over a moment of resignation.
This discussion was over 33 years ago. A few years back Elaine and I received a phone call from the temple to come up to help with some new patrons from the Marshall Islands who had just arrived. I felt pressed for time with my university and church responsibilities, but sensed I needed to somehow make arrangements to go. The temple president asked if I would interpret from English to Marshallese in the initiatory area for the new male Marshallese patrons. When I passed through the curtain to assist with the first brother I immediately stopped still, this man gazed up at me with a huge smile that quickly turned to tears. It was Amima. As he received the first part of this sacred ordinance I tried to interpret for him in his language, but I could barely utter the words through my tears and choking voice. Amima was shaking and wiping his eyes. The ordinance worker was puzzled, but knew something special was going on. In that moment I witnessed the power of unified souls, and we both knew God had given us a gift, that he had brought two points of time together, so we could both see his hand in this great tapestry of weaving together his purposes for the benefit of individual souls. For the remainder of the endowment Elaine and I aided as escorts for this great couple, and then, I served as a witness to their sealing as a couple and family. Time, temple and perspective, it all came together powerfully in the due time of the Lord.
It is not easy as we wait upon the Lord; it requires us to “…submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.”18 And then patience leads to a measure of clarity. I have been thinking lately about Joseph, the son of Jacob. It appears he was a spoiled child, a bit precocious and annoying really. Indeed, he was the favored one. And then his life took a seemingly tragic turn. This story unfolds over many years: his brothers sold him into slavery, he became the servant to Potiphar, and when he rejects a wife’s lust, she falsely accuses him and they cast him into jail. But he rises from his adverse circumstances again, interprets the butler’s and baker’s dreams, is forgotten, interprets Pharaoh’s dream, finds his way into Pharaoh’s trust, and becomes the governor of the land. Because we know the end from the beginning we see in this story the Lord working things out for Joseph’s whole family and even a civilization to come, all the while Joseph was doing his part to work things out the best he could. He ultimately saves his family, and in that affecting moment when he reveals his identity, he tellingly proclaims, “…ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.”19 In his worst days Joseph may not have had such clarity, but through his perseverance and patience, he gained this profound insight on how God works. There is healing, reconciliation, and realization in unexpected ways. We know not how it will work out, and the seemingly delayed or circuitous route of the Lord will unfold in time and in a manner we may not suppose, and may I propose, in ways that will prove delightfully surprising.
May I also offer, the Lord is not only patient with us as we exercise our agency, but he lets us work our own salvation in a diverse set of personal circumstances; He gives us ample room to make our own unique way. Sometimes we seem to want to insist upon the Lord that He provide a spiritual confirmation for a singular path we should take. There is an instructive moment in D&C 61. This is when Joseph Smith and his companions were traveling between Missouri and Kirtland, Ohio. There was some consideration about the course of travel and potential dangers. And then the Lord discloses an unexpected truth, “And it mattereth not unto me, after a little while, if it so be they fill their mission, whether they go by water or by land; let it be as it is made known unto them according to their judgments hereafter.”20 The course was less important; it was the destination that mattered. It is not always the route to get there, but that we get there. If returning to the God’s presence or Zion, is our mission or destination, and this is what really matters to us, then how we get there may be open to more diversity than we think. Sometimes we may suppose there is only one course of study or career path, or a single person to marry, or one way only to get the Lord’s work done. If there is a truly unfavorable or just wrong choice, or one out of harmony with revealed truth and the commandments, then we would do well to heed the warning or stupor of thought. But perhaps we fail often to appreciate that there is more than one good choice, and the Lord allows us to use our able judgment to choose among good things. You decide, and then make it right (the career path, the spouse, means of service), and the Lord will consecrate your choice for you.
And now back to my ward member Brady, who waded through so much affliction with the tragic deaths of his parents and sister. Together we found solace in Joseph Smith’s experience in Liberty Jail, when things were not going well at all for Joseph and the saints. We find in D&C 121 a confessional lapse for Joseph. He is basically complaining, and asking, “When? When will you come through for us Lord?” Then the intensity breaks with soothing revelatory words, “My son, peace be unto they 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….”21 These comforting words, that tendered an alternative perspective, were a balm to Brady’s soul.
President Monson poses these honest words, “None of us makes it through this life without problems or challenges….”22 and then echoes the Savior, “Wherefore, be of good cheer, and do not fear, for I the Lord am with you and will stand by you…”23 As we wrestle with our messy suppositions and wonder how to endure our lonely mortal challenges, may we remember how the Christ exhibits a most penetrating motivation, “…the world…shall judge (or suppose) him to be a thing of naught; wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it; and they smite him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and long suffering towards the children of men.”24
[1] Jacob 4:13
[2] Job 2:9
[3] Moses 1:10
[4] 2 Nephi 9:28
[5] 1 Nephi 4:21
[6] D&C 9:7
[7] 1 Timothy 6:5
[8] Luke 24:37
[9] Luke 24:41
[10]Isaiah 55:8-9
[11]1 Nephi 9:6
[12]Joel 2:28
[13]Lewis Hyde, 1998:284
[14]1 Nephi 4:6
[15]Jacob 4:13
[16]D&C 84:19-20
[17]D&C 43:34
[18]Mosiah 24:15
[19]Genesis 50:20
[20]D&C 61:22
[21]D&C 121:7-8
[22]Thomas S. Monson, April, 2009
[23]D&C 68:6
[24]1 Nephi 19:9