Another beautiful day, off to a beautiful start. My beloved emailed me this morning, making it extra special. Lemme tell you, a surprise email like that gets me out of bed better than a strong cup of cappuccino.
…Just kidding. I don’t drink coffee. XD
Anyway. Lately I’ve been trying that Ponderize thing that Elder Durrant talked about in “My Heart Pondereth Them Continually.” I’ve been trying to do it off and on since that talk, but someone as forgetful as me can have a hard time keeping track of it all XD Be like, “Which verse was last week? I already forgot. Should I do it again? Which one should I do this week- oh, this one’s REALLY long…” (IhaveaterriblememoryLOL)
So, someone with a terrible memory like me needs every excuse to do memory exercises. I recently found out the church put out a nice little app for Ponderizing, and I wanted to mention it here because it’s great. For a forgetful person like me, it lets me know when to change the verse and reminds me to look at it every day. So it’s real nice.
Anyway. As you probably guessed by my title, I just switched to a new verse for this week 😀 Now I’m Pondering 2 Nephi 2:25, one of my favorite verses. I remember how I felt the first time I read that verse. It was such a game-changer for me. Before then, I never believed God truly cared about our happiness. That verse helped open my eyes to who God really is, and why he cares about us so much.
Before I converted, I used to believe that our salvation was all God cared about. Cuz let’s face it: our world can be a miserable, tragic place. I never understood the direct correlation between suffering and happiness, or how crucial one is to the other. The average Christian doesn’t seem to get this, either. Sin and suffering are just kinda viewed as the tragic result of Adam and Eve’s terribad choice. It’s just something we have to deal with, and as followers of Christ, life gets even harder, because then Satan is out to get you.
I was told as a kid that it’s dangerous to prioritize happiness. There are healthy forms, I suppose, but I was basically told that the human heart is sinful and untrustworthy. Therefore, if we make happiness a priority, our hearts will lead us into sin. By extension, our happiness is not God’s priority either. I suppose you could see it as a priority, since he does love us, but it’s certainly not at the top of the list. More important is whether we get saved or not. Heaven or Hell, and we want to avoid Hell. So life is hard, and Satan constantly tries to drag us down. The life of a Christian is largely full of suffering, and by extension, unhappy. But that’s just how it works out, because happiness is not what matters here. We can be happy in Heaven, but here, we’ve gotta put up with whatever life throws at us.
…This is faith outside the Church, folks.
With the place I was in back then, mentally and spiritually, this was not what I needed to hear. It translated to me that God really doesn’t care about me. He cares from a logical point of view, since he doesn’t want anyone to go to Hell. But the rest of our lives, he just kinda leaves us to suffer through mortality. So we’re left to suffer the consequences of a choice we never took part in, and many will not make it home, because “wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction.” Most people, it seemed, just don’t have the strength to endure. No wonder Paul said to the Philippians that “to die is gain,” because life as a Christian kinda sucks!
Needless to say, things started to change when I first read the Book of Mormon. It’s easy to feel abandoned when you can’t feel God’s presence at all. And I’d been closed off from him, by things I couldn’t control. But that Book has real power, and it will bring the Spirit directly into your life. Then I got to 2 Nephi 2, which truly opened my eyes. It answered so many questions I’d had for years. Why God allows suffering. Why God allowed Adam and Eve to do the stupid thing. Why he made us suffer for it, instead of just, say, killing Adam and Eve, and wiping the slate clean. Why he’d let me be kept away from him, when I really wanted his help.
Everything got answers in that chapter. And this verse was the final whammy. “Men are that they might have joy.” So we really were made to be happy. Salvation is happiness, and God does care about us and support us through this life. It’s not just a constant, endless test of our wills and endurance, to weed out the “bad people.”
Which was a huge relief to me, cuz I always thought I was one of the “bad people.”
Suffering is not a contradiction to happiness. It’s the catalyst for it. It enables happiness. The more we endure in this life, the more misery we face…not only does it increase our ability to feel joy, but it makes us wiser too. It teaches us things we can’t learn in a perfect world. It toughens us up; it isn’t meant to just tear us down. What a relief for me! Because I understood that there were things I had learned, enduring what I had, that many people my age didn’t get. There was something soothing in the knowledge that this was the whole point. I’d gained something from it. I’d learned things unique to myself. I understood things unique to myself. I’d become a little wiser for it. And wisdom is a deeply satisfying gift.
It also made me ponder a Christian apologist who my parents used to listen to regularly. Sadly, I can’t remember the guy’s name, but he spoke alongside Ravi Zacharias. He remarked, on the matter of human suffering, that the purpose of life is not human happiness, but rather a greater knowledge of God. Looking back, I’m left to marvel how he didn’t realize those are one and the same. Because God’s truth is sweet, and knowing him is what makes us happy. His ways are happiness! His truths take the pain out of all human suffering. His love gives meaning to an otherwise ugly world. It only stings if you’re that determined to remain in sin. If you’re that determined to not get any closer to him. If you’re that stubborn.
In which case, yer kinda stupid. ‘Cuz yer seriously missing out. LOL
(And I mean that in a playful way.) 😉
Your Daily Dose Of Scripture 