Their powers would lie dormant

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Afternoon Session of the April 1996 Conference.

Sam was talking to his students this week about a quote he heard from a film director: “Through conflict comes understanding.” They discussed all the ways this applies to stories, and it was interesting to ponder in which ways it might apply to real life as well. I thought about it again when I read this quote, from Elder W. Mack Lawrence's talk (and he's quoting George Q. Cannon):

Unless [individuals] were exposed to temptation they never could know themselves, their own powers, their own weaknesses nor the power of God.…All their powers would lie dormant, for there would be nothing to arouse them. They would be destitute of that experience which prepares men to become like God, their Eternal Father.

It also makes me think about the Come Follow Me chapters for last week and Jacob's mysterious "wrestle" with the angel the night before he met Esau. We know that contention is not of God. But what about wrestling? It seems that something about the conflict, the struggle or the wrestle—to believe? to love? to understand?—is important. 

I've never liked conflict. Honestly, I'd rather let most uncomfortable topics fade away, unsaid. That method has served me…pretty well, in most relationships. But I'm also learning that it occasionally robs me of the chance to deepen a relationship or broaden an understanding. I've glimpsed (though I still don't completely understand it) that in certain relationships, being willing to stay and struggle and hang on—even when it would be easier to pull away—is its own kind of love.

I know temptation and conflict aren't necessarily the same thing. And there's obviously lots of good in being a peacemaker, turning the other cheek, etc. But this just makes me wonder about what "dormant" powers we might be able to activate through a struggle. Look where it got Jacob!