Trials and Motivation

Here are some of the highlights from the lesson I gave on Sunday (and by the way, I have no idea why I didn't think to blog about this yesterday).

My topic talks were Grateful in Any Circumstances by President Uchtdorf and Bear Up Their Burdens with Ease by Elder Bednar, so I wanted to talk about how, with a little bit of perspective, we could not only endure our burdens, but also actually be grateful for them. The trouble was that most of the members in my Elder's Quorum already understood that. In their comments, they talked about trials as being growing experiences and they told me that often their trials motivated them to draw closer to God. One of them even suggested that God sometimes gives us trials, or allows trials to happen to us, to let us know that He misses us and wants us to draw closer to Him, knowing that our problems often cause us to do that.

Previously, I've blogged about experience and exercise, and how adversity can make us stronger, but I've neglected to mention the aspect of motivation. A lot of people, at least on some level, think that if something isn't broken, there's no need to fix it. With that mindset, if we're already feeling pretty blessed, we aren't going to feel any urgent need to seek out more blessings. When that happens, our spiritual progression stagnates, and that's when Satan gets us. If God allows us to continually face opposition, that will keep us stirred up and trying to move forward. Our afflictions may even be necessary, if we're not wise enough to try to progress, spiritually, without them.

We all face adversity and affliction, trials and tribulations, but what we often don't realize is that we may need them. Not only do they make us stronger and give us chances to use our strength, they also often prove to us that our own strength isn't enough. If our burdens are heavy enough, they can force us to call upon God, which we should have been doing anyway. We need God. We always need Him, whether we're feeling particularly burdened or not. Sometimes, God feels the need to step back an remind us that we need Him. Hopefully, we can be wise enough to make that unnecessary. Hopefully, we can be wise enough to call upon God whether we're experiencing trials or not. But if not, maybe a good trial is exactly what we need to remind us.