The Pros and Cons of Now and Then

For the last several days, perhaps weeks, I've been griping, both inwardly and occasionally to others, about how hard life is. I know that life isn't physically difficult. I remark almost weekly about how awesome technology is and how convenient everything is now that we live in the future. But spiritually, life seems as hard as ever, if not harder. Satan has a good deal of control over most of the world, and it's getting harder and harder to even hold traditional values, let alone express or endorse them.

Yet, the modern age has its spiritual advantages. Scripture is more available now than ever before, especially since we can carry the whole Standard Works, plus several magazines and manuals, on our phones. Temples dot the globe. And we can listen to the words of prophets as easily as we can type their names into a search box on Youtube, follow a link, and stream the video. Tapping into sources of inspiration is now virtually effortless (pun intended).

Back in the day, communication was harder, and there were fewer meetinghouses. It was harder to gain access to the word of God, unless you were closely in tune with the Spirit. And while Satan didn't have back then the advantages that the internet gives him now, he had other ways to affect the world for the worse. The early saints faced a lot of persecution, and they faced it with the strong support system we have now.

That, I'm learning, is at least part of the reason why God commanded the saints to gather in Kirtland, to support each other and build a faithful community away from persecution and to be enable the saints to assemble and hear the words of the prophet. They also eventually built a Temple in Kirtland, affording them even more blessings. Things we take for granted, the early saints had to travel and physically gather in one place to obtain.

So, each era has its pros and cons. The early saints had plenty of hardships and some advantages, and we have plenty of hardships and advantages, too. It doesn't really make sense to compare who had it harder or easier. We each have our own lot in life, and we each have to live with it or deal with it as well as we can. It doesn't help me at all to bemoan my fate and regret living in a day when Satan has so much power. This is where God put me. It may not be fair, but that's life. I'm pretty sure that everyone, at one point or another, has thought that their life was hard, and they were right. Life is, was, and will be hard for everyone. Each life has its own advantages and disadvantages. It doesn't make any sense or do any good to compare or complain.