When we are passing through difficulties, what kind of assistance can we expect from God? As Elder Dale G. Renlund has pointed out, we can expect at least three things:
- Consolation: The prophet Jacob assured his people that God “will console you in your afflictions” (Jacob 3:1).
- Restoration: At the end of the book of Job, we read, “The Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before…. So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning” (Job 42:10, 12).
- Refinement: Perhaps most importantly, God can help us to actually benefit from the experience. Lehi reassured his son Jacob, “[God] shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain” (2 Nephi 2:2).
In other words, we can be better after passing through the trial than we were before. Here’s how Elder Renlund summarized it:
In unfair situations, one of our tasks is to trust that “all that is unfair about life can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.” Jesus Christ overcame the world and “absorbed” all unfairness. Because of Him, we can have peace in this world and be of good cheer. If we let Him, Jesus Christ will consecrate the unfairness for our gain. He will not just console us and restore what was lost; He will use the unfairness for our benefit.
“Infuriating Unfairness,” General Conference, April 2021
Today, I will be grateful for all of the ways I receive support from God. I will be grateful for the comfort He provides as I pass through difficult experiences. I will be grateful for the promise of receiving again everything I have lost. And I will be grateful for the knowledge that, by His grace, these experiences are not wasted; they are helping me become a better person.
I really enjoy your messages, they are helpful and good information, but there are far too many of them. I thought there would be one a day but it seems that every other email I get each day is from you. Please cut back to once per day.
Thank you!
Thank you for the feedback. I’m glad you are enjoying the blog and that you are finding my insights useful!
My usual schedule is one blog post per day, published each morning at 3AM ET. Some of my readers in the US like to read my posts first thing in the morning, and that schedule works best for them.
With that said, I have deviated from that pattern a little recently, with some posts appearing later in the day, and on at least one occasion (July 17), I published two posts in one day. I appreciate your reminder that each of these deviations has an impact on the inboxes of my subscribers. Most of the time, you can expect one post per day at 3AM.
I hope that helps.
Paul