This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Morning Session of the October 2011 Conference.
I loved Elder Robert D. Hales' talk about waiting on the Lord. That's a phrase that I've often wondered about, because when you are trying to get revelation about something, and it's not coming, there's no real way to know if you're, a.) asking the wrong questions, b.) not ready to understand the answers, c.) supposed to try harder and with more urgency, d.) supposed to "wait upon the Lord." And then what does it even mean to "wait upon the Lord"? Well, Elder Hales will tell us:
What, then, does it mean to wait upon the Lord? In the scriptures, the word wait means to hope, to anticipate, and to trust. To hope and trust in the Lord requires faith, patience, humility, meekness, long-suffering, keeping the commandments, and enduring to the end.To wait upon the Lord means planting the seed of faith and nourishing it “with great diligence, and … patience.”It means praying as the Savior did—to God, our Heavenly Father—saying: “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.” It is a prayer we offer with our whole souls in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ.Waiting upon the Lord means pondering in our hearts and “receiv[ing] the Holy Ghost” so that we can know “all things what [we] should do.”As we follow the promptings of the Spirit, we discover that “tribulation worketh patience,” and we learn to “continue in patience until [we] are perfected.”Waiting upon the Lord means to “stand fast” and “press forward” in faith, “having a perfect brightness of hope.”It means “relying alone upon the merits of Christ” and “with [His] grace assisting [us, saying]: Thy will be done, O Lord, and not ours.”As we wait upon the Lord, we are “immovable in keeping the commandments,” knowing that we will “one day rest from all [our] afflictions.”And we “cast not away … [our] confidence” that “all things wherewith [we] have been afflicted shall work together for [our] good.”
So basically…everything. "Waiting on the Lord" means we do everything. Have faith, stand fast, press forward, keep the commandments, pray, etc etc etc. Ha! It makes sense, but it's not as helpful as I would have liked. But this was:
Tests and trials are given to all of us. These mortal challenges allow us and our Heavenly Father to see whether we will exercise our agency to follow His Son. He already knows, and we have the opportunity to learn, that no matter how difficult our circumstances, “all these things shall [be for our] experience, and … [our] good.”Does this mean we will always understand our challenges? Won’t all of us, sometime, have reason to ask, “O God, where art thou?” Yes! When a spouse dies, a companion will wonder. When financial hardship befalls a family, a father will ask. When children wander from the path, a mother and father will cry out in sorrow. Yes, “weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” Then, in the dawn of our increased faith and understanding, we arise and choose to wait upon the Lord, saying, “Thy will be done.”
Somehow this made more sense to me. Waiting on the Lord is not just "doing everything." It's absorbing the trials and challenges that come to us, and being challenged by them (because that's what they're designed to do!)—and then, in our confused and shaken and perhaps wounded state, at that point choosing again to keep seeking God. I love how Elder Hales says "we arise and choose to wait upon the Lord" because I have been at that point and I know what it feels like. All the feelings that come first—the uncertainty, the fear, the discouragement, the exhaustion—are part of what comes next: our decision to stand up and move forward anyway. Of course, "moving forward" means continuing to do all the things we know we should do, but it also means holding on to our belief those things are working—that they matter—that they make a difference. And we believe that because we trust God. We trust him enough to wait for His promises to be fulfilled.
Other posts in this series:
The Book of Mormon—by Rozy
Oh goodness! I always read all your posts. (Often when I pull out my phone to read something before bed. … Which should probably be scriptures. But your posts are close enough. ☺️) But I realize that I’ve forgotten to comment for so long that I can’t even recall all the (likely excellent) comments I intended to make while reading!
ReplyDeleteBut I love that last paragraph from Hales you shared. It feels like one I’ve heard many times. (Though I can’t think how I would have.) And I loved your comments ON it. They both made me feel a little more … I don’t know noble and faithful I guess. So often, in those arising and choosing to trust again moments I feel so exhausted that I don’t feel particularly valiant. But reading this made me feel I somehow am. ❤️
I loved Elder Hales talk too, but didn't have the emotional bandwidth to comment on it, especially not as beautifully as you did.
ReplyDeleteI’ve thought lately about the idea of absorbing the trial, taking it inward and doing something useful with it. We hear all the time that all things (usually meaning negative things) will be turned for our good, like it’s a passive process that the Lord takes on and we are merely the benefactors of our experience. And maybe that’s true to some degree. But the many people who seem stuck in their relationship to God in spite of trials, and even people responding to trials by cursing God and wishing to die, I take as evidence that trials do not turn for our good automatically, at least on this life. And we benefit from taking some responsibility in facing the trial with faith in God, accepting the humility and perspective that the trial offers. And that in doing so we are putting a type of trust in God that is more resilient than the type of trust that is easier to give. Instead of trusting that God will make things good in the future, we begin to trust that the good can start for us now, if we can open ourselves enough to accept it.
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