Moses 1:39. God's plan provides the greatest opportunity for success. There is order and purpose to our mortality. President Gordon B. Hinckley counseled, "Never lose sight that the Lord put you where you are." We don't always know the end, but we know the way.
Patricia Holland likens life to a tapestry. The bottom looks jumbled, confusing, and downright unattractive, but from the weaver's (God's) view, it has a purpose and a pattern, and the dark threads are as important as the silver or gold ones in the overall design.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland likens life to being actors in a three act play. The premortal existence was Act 1. Earth life is Act 2. That's the one we know about. Act 3 is the next life. The characters are introduced and the plot is laid out in Act 1. The conflicts and barriers to success comprise Act 2-- that's where the problems develop. In Act 3 we see the rest of the story and how it all comes together. We are all actors in Act 2 of a three act play.
Danish painter Carl Bloch painted a larger than life portrait of Christ healing the sick at the pool of Bethesda. Michael and I just want to an exhibit of Bloch's paintings. They were each exquisite. The Pool of Bethesda painting done in 1883 is 111" x 126." Bloch was known for his use of bright colors in an era of more subdued tones being fashionable in art. As you move closer to the painting, the designs and colors become more and more dull and uninviting until you are up close and all you see is a muddy brown gray. The closer we get to the painting, the more uninviting it becomes because of its scale and large scale panorama. Life is like that. We just see dull gray muddy stuff when we are nose to nose with life's challenges. It's only later when we can view the situation with a wide angle lens that we see the pattern and proportion of what we have experienced.
Although God will judge us individually, we do not get there alone. We all have people of influence in our lives to teach us and help us along. That's the way God wants it. Sister Mary Pay, Sister Hinckley's ancestor, drove a wagon pulled by a team of oxen across the plains to the Salt Lake Valley. She and the other wagons had orders not to pass the handcarts, even though the wagons could travel faster than the handcarts. They were ordered to help those with handcarts whenever possible. During the journey, two of Mary's siblings and her mother died, but they stayed with the others.
Enoch, an ancient prophet, was reluctant to accept his assignment as prophet. He wasn't just being mode3st. He was young, slow of speech, and the people hated him. But God helped him, and the same avenue of help is open to us. Enoch and the people of his city knew God would help them. We must cultivate and cling to that knowledge. Enoch's city was Zion because they w3re of one heart and one mind and there were no poor among them--no physically poor, intellectually poor, emotionally poor, or temporally poor in the entire city. In order for that to be both willing givers and receivers. Same is true of us today.
Scripture families transcend time and place. Whatever happened to them applies also to us in the here and now. Families today are under attack. If the family was not important in the eternal scheme of things, Satan would focus elsewhere. The same is true of the role of women.
We can be strengthened by acknowledging our inadequacies and then turning to the Lord for His help in overcoming them.
Paul the apostle counseled to hold fast to that which is good. Sometimes prayer in our lives is a last resort, not the first one. But it is to the Lord that we should turn first.
It is not pleasure but patience that brings joy in God's eternal plan of happiness.
Sister Scharman's husband built a big playhouse in their backyard for their grandchildren. That playhouse is like a metaphor of life. It was not too far from the big house. The kids would with shout "look at me," or cry for help. But at the end of the day, all came home.
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