Did You Think To Pray?

When I was a little boy, prayers or apricots? was the defining question of my childhood. Apparently, if the truth be told, at one time in my life I believed the value of prayer was higher than whatever mundane task (bottling apricots) was before us.

As I have grown older and more self-reliant, perhaps hardened in my thinking, I believe I have become too proud to ask, too self-assured to need to bother Heavenly Father with trivial things -- even when "sore trials have come upon me," and even when I've been too weary to believe prayer would deliver the needed rest.

The words of a familiar hymn are instructive. I'd suggest you hit the play button and listen while you read:



You've all heard the stories about praying for lost keys and finding them, yet you wonder, don't you, if such simple things are worth taking to God in your prayers? I do. I tend to think He's got plenty on His plate helping His children in Sendai, Japan, for instance. In a city devastated by earthquake and tsunami, literally wiped off the map in a matter of minutes on March 11, 2011, surely Heavenly Father has his hands full with millions of petitions for help more urgent than mine. That's the way I sometimes rationalize about it.

To pray as a little child is a gift from heaven. I am reminded of this story this morning:

One night, one of the small children, saying her prayers while the Battle of Britain raged over London, asked the Lord to bless the members of her family who were absent, including her father who was serving in the Royal Air Force. And as she was about to close her prayer, she said: "And dear God, please take care of yourself — because if anything happens to you, we're all sunk!"

Too often our prayers are perfunctory and said begrudgingly, especially at night when we're the most tired and feel more like tumbling into bed without stopping to give thanks. But mostly, I find myself offering my gratitude. That's what most of my prayers are about these days. I have a growing long list of things to be thankful for. We are also praying for a lot of really big things too -- family members who are fighting cancer, parents suffering the ill effects of aging, daughters who are bravely suffering with health issues through their pregnancies, big decisions about employment and moving to another state, college students valiantly preparing themselves for a bright future, missionaries and near and dear friends who have much bigger problems than us.

Sometimes our prayers are heartfelt and meaningful. What they are is not dependent upon what God has willingly done or capriciously not done for us lately, like some unknown wispy ethereal spiritual essence who is always out of touch and beyond our reach. We too frequently imagine up to ourselves an unknowable wizard behind the black curtain who is always pulling strings (or letting them dangle) at will without our ability to affect His arbitrary decisions much at all.

There is a useful word to describe the reality of the existence of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, however. It is "anthropomorphic." We believe the most endearing attributes of these two separate and distinct beings (see D&C 130:22-23) is that they are exalted and perfect beings possessed of body parts and passions not unlike our own. It is the essence of our faith to believe they actually know us by name and are like us. Our Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ came to earth and anthropomorphically descended below all things so He may understand our condition in mortality more perfectly than in any other way possible. He is not a distant aloof Master. Neither He nor the Father is some mysterious being who pulls strings behind the black curtain, but our prayers are specifically dependent upon the degree to which faith in them operates in our lives.

Elder Neal A. Maxwell

We pray directly to our Father in Heaven in the name of His Son Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Ghost. Our prayers don't go through beads, the Holy Mother Mary, or even Jesus Christ. Like Paul, we may approach the throne of God the Father directly, boldly, and take our petitions, even as trivial as they may seem to us, to Him. (See Hebrews 4:16). He already knows before we ask what we are in need of, evidenced by knowing the falling of every hair from our head and every sparrow. His knowing is not the issue. We're the ones being tested here, not Him. We need to learn about ourselves, not questioning whether He knows and cares about us. Said Elder Neal A. Maxwell: "God has surely told us in enough different scriptures about how aware he is of us and of our needs. We have been told that he is so alive and aware that a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without our Father's noticing, and that the very hairs of our head are 'all numbered.'" (Matthew 10:29-30).

There is a human tendency well illustrated by this chapter of scripture that more often than not describes me precisely:

And thus we can behold how false, and also the unsteadiness of the hearts of the children of men; yea, we can see that the Lord in his great infinite goodness doth bless and prosper those who put their trust in him.
Yea, and we may see at the very time when he doth prosper his people, yea, in the increase of their fields, their flocks and their herds, and in gold, and in silver, and in all manner of precious things of every kind and art; sparing their lives, and delivering them out of the hands of their enemies; softening the hearts of their enemies that they should not declare wars against them; yea, and in fine, doing all things for the welfare and happiness of his people; yea, then is the time that they do harden their hearts, and do forget the Lord their God, and do trample under their feet the Holy One — yea, and this because of their ease, and their exceedingly great prosperity.
And thus we see that except the Lord doth chasten his people with many afflictions, yea, except he doth visit them with death and with terror, and with famine and with all manner of pestilence, they will not remember him.
O how foolish, and how vain, and how evil, and devilish, and how quick to do iniquity, and how slow to do good, are the children of men; yea, how quick to hearken unto the words of the evil one, and to set their hearts upon the vain things of the world!
Yea, how quick to be lifted up in pride; yea, how quick to boast, and do all manner of that which is iniquity; and how slow are they to remember the Lord their God, and to give ear unto his counsels, yea, how slow to walk in wisdom's paths!
Behold, they do not desire that the Lord their God, who hath created them, should rule and reign over them; notwithstanding his great goodness and his mercy towards them, they do set at naught his counsels, and they will not that he should be their guide.
O how great is the nothingness of the children of men; yea, even they are less than the dust of the earth.
For behold, the dust of the earth moveth hither and thither, to the dividing asunder, at the command of our great and everlasting God.
Yea, behold at his voice do the hills and the mountains tremble and quake.
And by the power of his voice they are broken up, and become smooth, yea, even like unto a valley.
Yea, by the power of his voice doth the whole earth shake;
Yea, by the power of his voice, do the foundations rock, even to the very center.
Yea, and if he say unto the earth — Move — it is moved.
Yea, if he say unto the earth — Thou shalt go back, that it lengthen out the day for many hours — it is done;
And thus, according to his word the earth goeth back, and it appeareth unto man that the sun standeth still; yea, and behold, this is so; for surely it is the earth that moveth and not the sun.
And behold, also, if he say unto the waters of the great deep — Be thou dried up — it is done.
Behold, if he say unto this mountain — Be thou raised up, and come over and fall upon that city, that it be buried up — behold it is done.
And behold, if a man hide up a treasure in the earth, and the Lord shall say — Let it be accursed, because of the iniquity of him who hath hid it up — behold, it shall be accursed.
And if the Lord shall say — Be thou accursed, that no man shall find thee from this time henceforth and forever — behold, no man getteth it henceforth and forever.
And behold, if the Lord shall say unto a man — Because of thine iniquities, thou shalt be accursed forever — it shall be done.
And if the Lord shall say — Because of thine iniquities thou shalt be cut off from my presence — he will cause that it shall be so.
And wo unto him to whom he shall say this, for it shall be unto him that will do iniquity, and he cannot be saved; therefore, for this cause, that men might be saved, hath repentance been declared.
Therefore, blessed are they who will repent and hearken unto the voice of the Lord their God; for these are they that shall be saved.
And may God grant, in his great fulness, that men might be brought unto repentance and good works, that they might be restored unto grace for grace, according to their works.
And I would that all men might be saved. But we read that in the great and last day there are some who shall be cast out, yea, who shall be cast off from the presence of the Lord;
Yea, who shall be consigned to a state of endless misery, fulfilling the words which say: They that have done good shall have everlasting life; and they that have done evil shall have everlasting damnation. And thus it is. Amen. (Helaman 12).

The earth moved violently last week in Japan, and the waves of the sea heaved and were tossed beyond their bounds in Sendai. (See D&C 88:89-90). The aftermath of destruction has been complicated by escaping radiation from nuclear reactors. In their extremity the people of Japan will be compelled to call upon God for deliverance. In like manner each of us in turn is sometimes compelled to be humble to more fully develop our faith. In our extremity, as it was with Joseph Smith, we are reminded, "Thou art not yet as Job."

I have noticed something about the quality and the quantity of our prayers. As I grow older my dependency upon my Father in Heaven and His Son, Jesus Christ, tends to increase. Recently, our one and only car needed repairs. I say "recently," but what I really mean is "for at least six months." I hit a pothole at freeway speed that rattled our teeth several months ago. Immediately, I began noticing a distinctive rattling sound emanating from the passenger side front wheel. I'd hear a clicking sound associated with the rotation of the wheel and when I applied the brakes. It was getting worse as the months went on. Fearing the worst, a large repair bill, I deferred addressing the issue until this week when the safety inspection was due again.

The point of the story is to say that the car has been the specific object of prayer in our companion prayers every day since. I should be blunt and more specific. It has been the object of Patsy's prayers, not mine. I'm just too darn proud to ask about such trivial things. This is a woman, who years ago all alone at the Ranch with a car full of kids in our VW bus prayed it off a rock upon which she had become high-centered! There were eye witnesses to that minor miracle -- all my children. They know of her faith. They have all been blessed by it.

Thanking our Father in Heaven daily for basic transportation in an old car sharpens and defines one's faith, and petitioning for a small repair bill may sound sophomoric to some perhaps, but I have learned a valuable lesson listening to her pray. Heavenly Father really doesn't care much about my car. It's an inanimate object subject to entropy like few other things I know.

But He does care about my wife and me. And this time the answer was $277.00.

Job (man or metaphor?) revisited. . .

Once every four years (sometimes more often when we talk about Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail, see D&C 121, 122, 123), the story of Job is bashed about in Gospel Doctrine class.  For us it happened again today.

I'm not sure why it is, perhaps it's just a Mormon thing, but whenever Job's name comes up the great debate begins again -- was Job a real guy?  Did God and Satan really have a conversation about him?  Or was the book of Job a metaphor?  I'm not certain it matters to anyone, but I believe we'll see Job again in the spirit world someday.  There, I just settled it.

The book is a real problem for a lot of people on many different levels.  Books have been written, symposia have been held, articles have been authored, and each attempts to resolve this "great and holy mystery" without success.  The debate was enjoined and renewed again today.

There are a host of "problems" associated with the book as it stands in today's Bible.  I summarize in the attempt to be brief (a challenge).

The book begins and ends with bookend conversations (Job 1-2; 42:7-17), then there's a story in the middle (Job 3:1-42:6).  In the beginning, God and Satan have a conversation, God brags about how loyal Job is to Him. Satan says that Job is only loyal because he has been rewarded with worldly possessions for his obedience.  Satan asserts God has bought Job's love with a price, and Job is so conditioned by his righteousness he believes blessings are his automatic reward for his faithfulness. Take those all away, Satan contends, and Job would curse God.

It's a little disturbing to most that such a barter would be going on between God and Satan over the soul of a man, but nevertheless God challenges Satan to do whatever he wants to Job.  God says Job will still be loyal.  The worst happens thereafter -- Job's fortune disappears in a New York minute, and his children are all killed in a freak accident.  But Job doesn't cave, he remains true and faithful.

Okay, Satan says, let's inflict a little physcial suffering into the mix, then Job will curse God.  So God gives Satan permission to really hurt Job.  His body is afflicted with painful boils from head to foot.  Still Job blesses God.

So God makes his point with the Devil, restores Job's possessions, his fortunes (twice what he had before) and even gives him a new family.

What are we to learn by this story?  Job was true and faithful, and therefore all righteous people who are loyal to God will prosper.  Job was prosperous as the story began, and after a temporary setback, Job regained the prosperity he deserved -- he was entitled to it because he was true and faithful and God is bound when we do what He says.  (D&C 82:10).

This is a theology based upon a covenant.  The revelation in D&C 82 involves the law of consecration.  The promise is all for all -- you give me all you possess, God says, and you will receive all that I have.  The Old Testmament is filled with the covenant.  The House of Israel is blessed when they are righteous, and they are cursed and punished when they reject righteousness.

The story inside the Job story, however, seems contradictory.  This theology seems to break down.  In his conversations with his friends (all have names, suggesting they are real people), no one shows any awareness of Satan's existence in what is going on.  Rather, the assumption they make is that it is God who is inflicting all this pain upon Job.  Because God is all-knowing, they reason, God must have a pretty darn good reason for doing all these bad things to Job.

Job suffers.  He even curses the day he is born.  There were other prophets, notably Jeremiah, Jonah, Nephi, Paul, Moses, Isaiah who come immediately to mind who did as much.  All were filled with not only self-doubt but worse -- they couldn't imagine themselves up to the challenges God put them up to.  Job complains bitterly because he can't see any good reason why God should torment him.  He's been a good son.  He claims he is innocent.  He wants to know why he is being thus tormented and afflicted.  He complains that the heavens seem sealed above his head.  God is either not there or He is not listening.  Job finds no comfort, nor does he get the help he needs.

Job's righteous friends are apparently very familiar with the theology that in obedience we can claim God's blessings, so their only conclusion based upon that theology leads them to conclude Job must not really be what he appears to be.  He must have done something bad to bring down God's wrath upon himself and his family.  They suggest if he would just repent, then God would restore him to his previous condition.

It's not unlike the people who observed the boy who was blind in Christ's time.  "Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"  (John 9:2).  This assumption -- that if something goes awry in our lives that it must be our fault because we are sinners is well-entrenched.  In our present calling at the Employment Resource Center we see it repeated again and again.  Unemployment still seems to carry a stigma that those who lose their employment are somehow at fault.  I know, it's stupid, but try to tell that to some of the people I meet who are still suffering under the stigma of well-meaning ward members whose comments tend to reinforce the false premise.  Even some priesthood leaders, I have been told, have suggested as much to their ward members who tell me of their interviews.

At the end of the story God finally appears to Job in a whirlwind and says, "I created everything.  Job, what can you do compared to that?  What do you know compared to what I know?"  God does not answer any of Job's questions and does not take sides in the debate about His covenant -- what it takes to acquire His blessings.  Instead, He seems almost to insult and taunt Job for being little more than "a creature."  Job responds, Moses-like, that he had not understood.  Having seen God, he now despises himself and repents.

On some level Job can be viewed as an "every man" figure metaphorically.  I know many Jobs in today's world searching for jobs, and for the most part I believe they are righteous, faithful people, whether of our faith or not.  I meet many who are not members of the Mormon Church.  In fact, we see about as many job placements among members as we do among non-members.  I believe most have suffered their fate of unemployment through no fault of their own.  The similarity between losing a job (little "j") and Job (big "J") is not lost on me.  To suggest they have lost their jobs through unworthiness is simply a bridge too far for me.

We see Job discussing his plight with his friends in the story, but that could be nothing more than the self-talk I have witnessed with many of our candidates in the Professional Placement Program.  Almost to a person, the first question on their lips is "Why?"  They are simply trying to make sense of their suffering, when sometimes there is no sense at all to it.  Sometimes, most often in fact, we don't get the answer to the "Why?" question until we are on the other side of the crucible looking back.  Or maybe it will be on the other side of the veil before we know.

I believe the message I see in Job's story is that there is no correlation between what people get and what they deserve.  The moral of Job's life story is sometimes there is no answer.  Sometimes there is no reason behind our suffering.  We can suffer for sins, we can observe consequences for sins, but sometimes there is no answer -- stuff happens. 

A few months ago, we had a wonderful speaker at our Monday morning networking meeting at the LDS Business College, U.S. Olympian Mike Schlappi, a paraplegic who was shot accidently by his best friend and was paralyzed from the chest down.  He wrote a book called Shot Happens.  Here's how he describes the book:

"I got shot. What's your problem?  Does that sound sardonic or terse or dismissive? I don't mean it that way. I did get shot and it is my problem. A .38 caliber bullet fired at point-blank range, slammed into my chest, clipped my lung, narrowly missed my heart, and lodged in my spine; paralyzing me from the chest down and I had to deal with it. I still have to deal with it every day. That is my problem. Now, what is your problem? What do you have to deal with today or every day? Do you have something lodged in you maybe not in your spine, but perhaps in your heart or mind that causes you pain and makes you feel paralyzed one way or another? What position are you taking relative to your problem? In other words, what is your attitude relative to your situation? You see, in my book (and this is my book), attitude is a position not a mood; and it is the position we take toward our circumstances that turns bad days into good days. Are you tired of people in wheelchairs talking about attitude? Well, don't put this book down, because what it says about attitude will rock your world. Okay, maybe it won't rock your world, but it will change your world -- at least it will change the way you look at things. . . and that will rock your world."

Mike's book illustrates beautifully that righteous people do suffer and that there may be no reason behind their suffering.  Shot happens.  That reality provides no ammunition, leaves no excuse for the belief that suffering is evidence that God is punishing someone.  When the Grand Designer set moral agency into the equation as the necessary mainspring to make the plan of salvation possible, to introduce sin and consequences, He had to walk away from micromanagement.  So do parents. 

That notion cannot sustain the belief that God tries individuals to test their faith or to improve them. The book legitimizes the right we all have to ask the toughest of life's questions.  What the book also proves to me is that often there are just no good answers. 

I believe Job was a real man facing real life difficulties, but perhaps the best part of the book of Job for me is that it compels me to think about life's imponderables at least every four years.

Before Job was afflicted, he believed as his friends did:  God really does reward the righteous and punishes the wicked during their mortal lives.  But it seems to me since Job did not really deserve his suffering, he had to revise his assumptions and his faith as it was stretched a bit beyond his comfort zone.  He modified his original belief that God was dispensing His rewards and punishments justly.  Some of what happened to him just did not seem fair.  But no matter how he felt about whether or not he was being treated fairly he never lost faith in the Grand Designer behind it all.  I'm using "Grand Designer," because that was the way President Thomas S. Monson characterized our Father in Heaven in his Easter Sunday message at General Conference last April.  I just taught that lesson in our high priests group this morning, so it's fresh on my mind.

Because he never lost faith in God, Job believed He was still the cause of what happened to him, even when the going was pretty tough and the reasons behind his suffering seemed unknowable, even unthinkable.  Job said, "Who knoweth not. . . that the hand of the Lord has wrought this?" (Job 12:9).  He saw God, not Satan, as the cause behind his suffering.  Job cried to his friends, "Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends, for the hand of God hath touched me!" (Job 19:21).

In The Book of Mormon, God promises the Nephites and by extension the Latter-day Saints today that He blesses His people when they are righteous and punishes them when they are not.  Much is made in Sunday School lessons about the Nephite cycles of prosperity, then pride, then hardship, then repentance, then restoration.  (Perhaps the most famous statement of this expectation of being blessed for our righteousness comes from Mary Fielding Smith as told by her son, Joseph F. Smith. She explained to young Joseph F., "If I did not pay my tithing, I should expect the Lord to withhold His blessings from me.  I pay my tithing not only because it is a law of God, but because I expect a blessing by doing so.  By keeping this and other laws, I expect to prosper and to be able to provide for my family."  "Tithing Blessings," Friend, March 1981, 36.  It's such a familiar story it has become iconic).

So why do faithful saints who pay their tithing not recieve the promised blessings of financial independence?  Why are not all addictions relieved immediately upon a humble pleading?  Why are not the effects of illness erased when faith is present?  Why do infants die, when some old folks suffer for years in a diminished state with little or no quality of life?  Why does unemployment continue to plague us as a country despite trillions of dollars in stimulus legislation?  Why do Republicans reject everything Democrats do and vice versa?

Because shot happens.

We have a plethora of scriptures that teach a harsh doctrine.  For example, Doctrine and Covenants 59:21 says God's wrath is kindled against "those who confess not his hand in all things."  Doctrine and Covenants 87:6-8 teaches God chastens people by famine, plague, earthquakes, and storms.  (Compare D&C 43:25-26).  The Millennial Star's regular column, "Signs of the Times," pointed to various natural disasters in the news — volcanoes, floods, tornados, and famine — as being God's judgments upon humans. (In Manchester Mormons: The Journal of William Clayton, 1840-1842, ed. James B. Allen and Thomas G. Alexander [Santa Barbara: Peregrine Smith, 1974], 5-6.  Also see Orson Hyde, in "A Timely Warning to the People of England," attributing England's hardships to "the withering touch of the Almighty").

We have a well-developed theology associated with this cause and effect cycle, don't we?  In more recent years, quoting President Joseph F. Smith, President Boyd K. Packer once told Latter-day Saint scholars that those who are wise and careful "see in every hour and in every moment of the existence of the Church. . . the overruling, almighty hand of Him who sent His Only Begotten Son to the world."

So what do we believe about these questions?  Do the diseased, the unemployed, the woeful sinners, the dying, the divorced, the faithful poor suffer at God's hands, if He is truly in everything?  Does He mete out instant rewards and punishments?  Does every righteous person get a life of ease and comfort?  Does every other person who falls short have to struggle against all odds? 
 
When we are healthy and prospering, loving God and being loyal to Him is simple.  When our children shine forth as righteous examples and make our buttons burst with "righteous pride" (though there really is no such thing), we think God has blessed us because we deserve it.  Or do we?  How do we explain others who are suffering, who so far as we can discern are every bit as righteous as we are?  Does God put them in that position because for whatever reason we don't know God thinks they deserve their circumstances?  Worse, what if we're righteous and we're still suffering?  I think what I really believe is that what matters is how we answer those questions for ourselves.  

It is natural to wonder, as Job did, "What have I done to deserve this? Why has God done this to me?"  It's the first thought that ran through my head when our infant daughter, Adrienne, died quietly in the night. My first thought was this was not a random event.  It had to be the purposeful design of the Grand Designer for a lesson I was to learn.  But what?  He made me totally uncomfortable with my life.  I had to re-examine, reassess, and it was painful beyond belief.  It shook me to the roots.  I was knocked off kilter for months thereafter.  I couldn't accept that "shot happens" -- I had to find a reason, to attribute my suffering as part of God's plan even though I didn't understand it.  I had to continue exercising my faith without knowing the answer.

I said it was natural and I highlighted my experience, but there are a host of others we could cite.  If God truly gives us the situations we deserve (after all, He put us here on earth as part of the covenant, right?) and then those situations cause us to suffer, then our rational mind tells us we must have done something to deserve it.  What were we thinking?  That we were righteous?  Are you kidding me?  Our self-talk continues, "You're an idiot to think you were righteous.  Your personal disasters are your own fault.  I'm suffering, therefore I am guilty.  God has caused me to be infertile because I was on birth-control pills to put my husband through school.  God didn't heal me because I didn't have enough faith.  I didn't get that job I wanted through nine rounds of interviews because I'm just not humble enough, and I didn't seek the Spirit earnestly enough."  I call that "stinkin' thinkin'" and it's destructive.  In this frame of mind, like Job, we suffer not only the pain of the circumstance, but also the burden of unwelcome and undeserved guilt associated with it.

Taken to its extremities, we may also associate the suffering of our loved ones as somehow being attached to us.  "My daughter is dying of cancer, therefore God is punishing me for something."  Then you must believe, if that's what you really believe, that you are more important somehow in God's eyes than your daughter if you are the one being singled out.  I'm going to punish you, Dave, to teach you a lesson by taking your youngest daughter away from you.  I know, it's obvious how stupid that reasoning is, but I can tell you from personal experience it happens, as irrational as it is.

I'm beating around the bush, so let me just say it straight out.  This kind of thinking is false doctrine.  I loved what President Packer said in a General Conference address about handicaps.  We witness those who are physically handicapped in some way, and those handicaps are easier to spot, but having kicked around the planet for a few years now I can tell you what I have come to believe -- we are ALL handicapped in some way.  We do the best we can to manage handicaps in the job search (you're too old, you're too inexperienced, you're too overqualified), and we learn to focus instead on the things we're really, really good at.

President Packer said we are wrong to believe suffering is necessarily a direct result of sin. "There is little room for feelings of guilt in connection with handicaps. Some handicaps may result from carelessness or abuse, and some through addiction of parents. But most of them do not. Afflictions come to the innocent. . .  The idea that all suffering is somehow the direct result of sin has been taught since ancient times. It is false doctrine." (“The Moving of the Water,” Ensign, May 1991, 7).

Sometimes we eventually are able to put a positive spin on our suffering, thinking God has caused difficulty in our lives for some larger and grander purpose. We or someone else we love dearly will ultimately benefit from our suffering if only we can endure it well.  Oops, I thought it was the Savior who made the infinite vicarious sacrifice, not us.  If we are righteous, "all things shall work together for [our] good." (D&C 90:24).  Here's how this line of reasoning goes:  "God gave our family this sick child to bring us together." Or, "God called my father home to the spirit world so he could to do missionary work on the other side of the veil." Or, "God gave my teenager AIDS so He could teach other teenagers that immoral behaviors can have tragic consequences." Or, "God needs my child back with Him more than I need her here on earth." You may find comfort in some of those explanations, but do we really think God has caused a tragedy, if He hasn't told us He has, or that we presume to know His motives when they remain unrevealed?

I'm sorry, but I don't believe in a God who routinely causes catastrophes, displacements and disruptions for His children's benefit or punishment.  It makes Him unknowable to me.  This natural world is filled with lots of suffering occurring naturally.  Ask yourself as a parent if you would do that to one of your children, to knowingly cause them pain and suffering to serve some higher purpose you will not or cannot explain to them for their own good.  Would you do that?  Neither does God.

Richard Holzapfel, when he taught our Gospel Doctrine class was fond of reminding us, "Discipleship either makes us better or bitter."  It's a choice to decide what we will do with what happens to us. 

How often are we reminded of the old expression that we must have "the patience of Job?"  Well, the story of Job tells something different.  He was anguished, angry and bitter.  "I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul." (Job 7:11; 10:1).  He shouts at God, "Let me alone, that I may take comfort a little, before I [die]." (Job 10:20-21).  "God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked. I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder: he hath also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark." (Job 16:11-12).

People who have lost their retirement investment portfolios in this latest economic disaster and are bitter might think, "God could have preserved my investments so I could have retired early and served Him in the mission field, but He didn't choose to.  If He hates me that much, then I hate Him too." Or, "God let my husband walk right out the door and abandon me and my children.  What's the divine purpose in Him doing that to us?"  Or, "God could have healed my boy with cancer, but He didn't.  What good is righteousness, how is that binding Him to answer my prayers, when He just turns His back on us?"  Or, "I've been loyal to God just like Job, but look at what He has done to me."  P.S. He can take it, He's heard it all before.

I've heard all those words come out of the mouths of people I know and love, even out of my own mouth.  The story of Job, fact or metaphor notwithstanding, is as fresh as today.  My God is not responsible for everything that happens.  Why isn't it okay for us to say, "I don't know why it happened?"  My favorite answer to gospel doctrine questions I only thought I knew the answer to when I was younger is increasingly, "I don't know and you can quote me on that."

I don't know why a large semi-truck hit and killed a faithful mother in our stake.  I don't know why on a snowy morning a young faithful father was instantly killed while his daughter in the front seat next to him was spared.  I don't know why a young teenager was thrown from a four-wheeler and drowned in a ditch.  I don't know why people are losing their jobs, and I don't know where or when they will find the replacement income they have lost.  Might as well add, I don't know when the Second Coming is coming. . .

I don't know anything about what the Obama administration has been attempting to do in these last eighteen months, and I certainly can't discern their motives, whether they are pure, evil, or just wrong-headed.  I just don't know.

I do know this:  Natural law is at work and causes accidents and disasters. When drought limits harvests, people starve. When cars crash, people get hurt or die. Some proportion of the population will be infertile, and some proportion will get cancer. Some outliers in the bell curve will have homosexual tendencies and others on the other end with overdeveloped heterosexual tendencies make them abusers and murderers.  Some X and Y chromosomes don't get aligned properly at birth.  Despite the efforts of faithful parents, some children will abuse their moral agency and make horrible and destructive choices.

Rather than making God accountable for everything bad that happens to us, I turn again to President Packer.  It sounds harsh that God has no regard for human feelings, but here it is:  "The very purpose for which the world was created, and man[kind] introduced to live upon it, requires that the laws of nature operate in cold disregard for human feelings. We must work out our salvation without expecting the laws of nature to be exempted for us." (Ibid.).

God does help, He does hear our prayers, He often intervenes in the affairs of men and nations when faith is sufficient, He does reward faithfulness, He does allow the consequences of willful sin to play out.  He does provide inspiration to go this way, not that way, He does offer comfort and assurance.  God can help us be the wisest, most loving parents it is possible to be. God can direct us to new employment, He can give us courage to press on into the darkness ahead, and He can help us respond to our difficulties with a mature and disciple-like faith that Father really does know best, even when the heavens overhead seem as brass and our prayers seem to bounce off without response.  He can fill us with the gifts of His spirit, and we can embrace the best gifts He offers us.  We can trust Him.  He is trustworthy.

Even when "shot happens."