What to Learn From Affliction

My search for the purpose of adversity took me all over LDS.org and the standard works, and eventually led me to this talk:





As I thought about adversity yesterday, I thought that God must be trying to teach us something. But what, exactly? Wisdom? Patience? Perseverance? Kindness? Empathy? Maybe He's trying to make us stronger, or prove to us how strong we really are. Maybe it's any or all of the above.

In this talk, Elder Paul V. Johnson says that trials "are vitally important to the process of putting on the divine nature." At the risk of misinterpreting the words of a General Authority, I would say that "putting on the divine nature" sounds like becoming like Jesus Christ.

One thing that I sometimes forget about adversity and affliction is that Christ suffered it, too. In fact, even not counting Gethsemane, He suffered more than most. And if you do count Gethsemane, He literally suffered more pain and affliction than all of us combined.

Elder Neal A. Maxwell, then of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, said:

How can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, "Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken. Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then, let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy!"
-Neal A. Maxwell, "Lest Ye Be Wearied and Faint in Your Minds," Ensign, May 1991

God knows, as we mortals often fail to understand, that in order to grow spiritually and become like Jesus Christ, and thus experience true joy, we have to face some opposition first. Elder Paul V. Johnson put it this way:

Sometimes we want to have growth without challenges and to develop strength without any struggle. But growth cannot come by taking the easy way. We clearly understand that an athlete who resists rigorous training will never become a world-class athlete. We must be careful that we don’t resent the very things that help us put on the divine nature.

Yesterday, I admitted a feeling of resentment against my challenges. I thought that all the suffering on earth was meaningless, and the fact that God allowed it to occur anyway revealed that He was secretly cruel. How wrong I was! How little wisdom I had and have! But thanks to the Apostles, I have a little more wisdom now than I did yesterday.

Passing through trials and adversity strengthens us and gives us opportunities to become better and wiser than we were before. If we're given enough of those learning and growing experiences, we can eventually learn and grow to be good and great, just as the Savior is. Some lessons can only be learned the hard way, and some strength can only be gained by pushing it to its limits again and again. God knows this. He knows that struggles and trials are essential to our growth and our ultimate happiness. That's why He put us here. That's why He lets bad things happen, even to good people. That's why He made life so hard. The greater the challenge, the greater the victory.

I'm grateful that God has given me this perspective. I'm grateful that He was patient with me through my period of ingratitude and even antagonism toward Him. I'm lucky He didn't destroy me for calling Him a jerk! But I guess God has thicker skin than that. He's endured suffering before. He's endured being mocked, insulted, and even hated, without retaliating. He's learned how to be a good person, even when it was really hard. That's what He wants me, and the rest of His children, to learn. And unfortunately for all of us, there's only one way to learn that.