Suffer No More, the Good Friday Miracle

Our scant knowledge of the events of the historical “Good Friday” informs us of one fact – God is in the details of the plan of salvation all the way, for there are no half measures here.

Interestingly, Utah may be one of the few states in the nation that does not observe Good Friday except in a casual way as an excuse for a quasi-extra day for a long weekend. Nationwide, Good Friday is a bona fide day off work when businesses formally shutter early for the weekend.

We pause on this day to contemplate the role of suffering. But there is normally cringing over suffering. I could never bring myself to watch the Mel Gibson film about The Passion. I felt I knew enough already in the Savior’s own chilling words:

Therefore I command you to repent — repent, lest I smite you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your sufferings be sore — how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not.
For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent;
But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I;
Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit — and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink —
Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men.
Wherefore, I command you again to repent, lest I humble you with my almighty power; and that you confess your sins, lest you suffer these punishments of which I have spoken, of which in the smallest, yea, even in the least degree you have tasted at the time I withdrew my Spirit.
And I command you that you preach naught but repentance, and show not these things unto the world until it is wisdom in me. (D&C 19:15-21).

He suffered for all of us so we wouldn’t if we repent and come unto Him. Why repent? To avoid suffering. It’s a simple covenant. Do we suffer for our sins? No doubt. Do others suffer because of our sins? Of course they do. There is no such thing as a "victimless" sin. The ripples in the ponds of our self-indulgence send rings of agony if left unchecked into future generations. That suffering, when it is intense enough, when the dregs have been drained, leads us to the foot of the cross at Golgotha in a figurative way. We partake of the fellowship of His suffering (see Philippians 3:10) only in part, in the allegorical sense by comparison. Our guilt for sin is an inestimable gift to help us keep our bearings on our mortal journey.

Our Father in Heaven and His Only Begotten Son showed us the way to avoid pain and suffering. However, the plan of salvation must be and is completely voluntary. We accept the vicarious suffering accomplished for us to avoid it ourselves. He accepts our repentance and we come to know in time that our earlier pain and suffering can be assuaged and relieved. But only if we truly forsake our sins, not in some feigned confession during Lent, then a quick return to degradation. Agency to choose and to act obediently overarches and undergirds the plan.

All these facts are lovely and they are true. However, when we witness a family member who sustains suffering for many, many years, when we are faced with personal or family tragedy and adversity over a protracted period of time, when addictions claim their victims among those we love most, there seems to be no relief in sight. How is our tolerance for faith in the plan then?

While serving in a bishopric years ago, we routinely visited a homebound sister who had lain in bed for many years, the victim of a debilitating disease that slowly disabled her. On those Sunday afternoons when we entered the temple of her suffering for visits we always came away uplifted. On one such afternoon, I dared to ask, “Mary, how is it that you maintain your faith, when the pain is so great?” She had raised a wonderful family, but lamented she could now do so little for them. Then she said something I never forgot. Diminished as she was in her physical limitations, she said, “But I can still pray for them.” And we all knew her prayers for them went straight to the throne of God.

In recent years, our global communication networks have assured we see human suffering without respite. Little is left to imagination. The work of earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, oil spills, nuclear power plant meltdowns, gang and drug murders -- all of it -- is on full display with unedited accuracy. Political strife and discord assault our senses. Awareness of suffering is on a grander scale now than at any time in history perhaps. Imagine what God sees and knows that we do not! Even seeing in part causes some to turn away and doubt there could be a God in the face of such agonies.

It is ever so much more difficult when trials of faith are no longer detached from us halfway around the world. When it is me who suffers, the pain is acute. The words, "All these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good" (D&C 122:7) hauntingly remind us there is still much to learn, apparently. The wintry reminders often make us shiver at the implications. We cry out, "Haven't I had enough of that experience yet?"

Elder Orson F. Whitney wrote: “No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude, and humility. . . It is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire.” (Cited in Spencer W. Kimball, Faith Precedes the Miracle [1972], 98).

Lacking understanding of God's plan of salvation, we often misread life's trials. We see others stricken with unrelieved ailments and we wonder, "Why?" The answer is that God and Jesus, possessed of perfect love and omniscience, demand that we trust Them. That simple requirement, "Trust me," is not discipleship for the faint of heart, knowing what the Savior said about His agony. "Trust me," He reminds us, "that my suffering was sufficient for you, and that ample provision has been made for your deliverance." That's tall timber in a vast forest of human suffering to have to chop sometimes, isn't it?

Do you sometimes shudder at the mention of “liken” scriptures? (See 1 Nephi 19:23). It seems everywhere we look on the pages of scriptures we find an invitation to engage – anxiously – in similar outcomes.

If in the plan we are not required to exercise moral agency, accept the risk of failure, and if uncertainty did not play a major role in our decision making, there could be no real sustainable and lasting character growth. Our faith must be tried in the furnace of affliction and accompanying discipleship. What will we choose first? Will we choose happiness? We are admonished to “be of good cheer.” Can we really choose that in the face of everything seeming to destroy us and make us suffer? Absent insecurity or anxiety, can you really step up to be counted?

Rest assured, we are informed we will all be tried at the weakest point of entry (see Ether 12:27) only so we can plumb the depths of our lowest lows, as did the One who descended below all things. In recent years, I have wondered as I have seen others' suffering, "Even this, Lord? Can you mend even this broken vessel?" In time as we grapple with weaknesses, we learn to see the enemy coming from afar off and we are given strength to overcome in the agony of Christ’s suffering for us if we ask for it.

There is comforting assurance of the purpose of our suffering. We read about it in Abraham 3:25 and Mosiah 3:19; 23:21). These true doctrines can brace better for the battle within us. Unwillingness to even try to slay the natural man within can turn him into a raging beast that will rob us of our agency if we succumb and submit, however. I love what C.S. Lewis said:

C.S. Lewis

"Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. . . We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means — the only complete realist." (Mere Christianity).

President Brigham Young was ever the optimist, a much-needed attribute today, when he observed:

"If you could see things as they are, you would know that the whole plan of salvation, and all the revelations ever given to man on the earth are as plain as would be the remarks of an Elder, were he to stand here and talk about our every day business. You may now be inclined to say, 'O, this is too simple and child-like, we wish to hear the mysteries of the kingdoms of the Gods who have existed from eternity, and of all the kingdoms in which they will dwell; we desire to have these things portrayed to our understandings.' Allow me to inform you that you are in the midst of it all now." (JD 8:115).

President Brigham Young

Having faith in all the subtleties of the the plan of salvation here and later on and forever, is probably what the Apostle Paul understood when he said "that all things work together for good to them that love God" (Romans 8:28). Nephi, likely overwhelmed with what he had just experienced, concluded, "I know that [God] loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things." (1 Nephi 11:17).

Isn’t it strange that a little boy in our ward who took an “unsupervised swim” at age two and nearly drowned, lost all his mental and physical faculties? Now he lies thirty-odd years later in a special needs chair, his limbs badly atrophied and without speech. He seems to want to “get out" of his crippled body and do so much more, while there are so many able-bodied ones out there in the world, who seem to want to just “get out” of this life by ending it with their own hands. They suppose their pain is so much harder to bear than my shriveled friend in a chair.

Some languish for years in old age longing for departure, searching in vain it seems for the exit door, while young people are snuffed out in the prime of life instantly in a tragic accident. How can one make sense of any of that?

I have wondered if there is another level of understanding in the parable of the talents. When we know more, perhaps we will learn that those with so little in this life like the crippled one in the special needs chair, have done so much before and even now without our knowing. The sanctifying care giving of his parents and family stand as a testament of love, charity and service. God's perfect love and mercy will someday bestow a crown upon those valiant parents and brothers and sisters. The words for which the disciples yearn, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant," will no doubt ring in their ears. And what if we were to learn later on of a pre-mortal agreement to accept those physical limitations? Would such awareness now further humble us in our haughtiness over how much we are called upon to suffer in selfishness? Look around. You can count so many more blessings on fingers and toes that work.

Have you often wondered as I do, "Does God really know what I’m dealing with? Does He really hear my impassioned pleas for help?” We believe in a God with body parts and passions like our own. That’s a good question to ask on Good Friday. Does the Father understand passion? The Passion? Would He listen to your pleas now, knowing what His Beloved Son sacrificed for you? The answer is "Yes!" He knows! He cares! He loves you! He knows the end from the beginning. His foreknowledge of your life, your pain, your suffering was all taken into account in the plan. Only in His knowing beforehand, perfectly, could He deliver us here and now. We worship an omniscient Father. His perspective is attuned to our pleading for deliverance. We are endowed with the very the DNA of the Gods. But in our neophyte mortal state we can only develop faith by not knowing, not seeing, not being perfect yet. Experience is lacking. It enables our progress.

Alma prophesied, “he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and. . . he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people. . . That his bowels may be filled with mercy, . . . that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.” (Alma 7:11-12, emphasis mine).

So why does He not always intervene for us? Why are not all blessings for health answered? Why are not all wayward children restored instantly to the path of righteousness in answer to a parent’s passionate plea?

Knowing everything as He does will never alter agency one bit. We and our children are left to choose, even though He knows the choice in advance. It’s why we call the atonement infinite. Everything was taken into account in advance. Joseph Smith said God "has made ample provision," so the purposes in His plan of salvation will be achieved — including our part within that plan if we are faithful. (See Luke 10:17, 18; John 8:44; Revelation 12. In the light of these references consider also Isaiah 14:12-32, and D&C 76:25-90). To overcome evil and the tempter's snares, the plan was based on His perfect knowledge of Satan's role too.

“Behold, ye are little children and ye cannot bear all things now; ye must grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth. Fear not, little children, for you are mine. . . Wherefore, I am in your midst, and I am the good shepherd." (D&C 50:40-41, 44).

This Easter weekend there will be legions of Christians around the world proclaiming their belief in Jesus Christ. The better question is, “Do you believe Christ?” Without the willingness to believe in the foreknowledge of the Father and Jesus Christ, one stares with vacant eyes at the prophecies in scripture and wonders aloud, “How can that be?” To say God is not there or does not care is to discard foreknowledge, if believed, that will sanctify and save us.

So believe it. You will be resurrected. You can be transformed, redeemed and exalted. Yes, even you and me.

On this Good Friday before Easter Sunday, in the midst of destruction in all its manifestations, remember the Lord Jesus Christ is working on a plan of eternal increase, of wisdom, intelligence, honor, excellence, power, glory, might, and dominion, and all the godly attributes that fill eternity. In an upper room the night before Good Friday, knowing what was coming, He gave us the ordinance of remembrance. How simple the objects, broken bread and wine, to symbolize His suffering for us.

What principle does the devil work upon? It is to divide, subtract, destroy, dissolve, decompose, and tear in pieces. This destruction includes marriages, friendships, faith, self-esteem, and life itself.

We worship the One who made the "great and last sacrifice." (Alma 34:10). He triumphed. We benefit when we recognize and accept the gift by emulating His life.

His suffering on Good Friday was sufficient for us all, and today we remember that after Gethsemane followed by the betrayal, the false accusations, the miscarriage of justice, the scourging, the crown of plaited thorns, the mocking at the crucifixion and the thunder and lightning with the earthquake, comes Easter Morning.

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."