Always calculated to bless

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Morning Session of the October 2012 Conference.

It was hard to choose a talk from this session. Elder Holland's talk, "The First Great Commandment," is one of the best talks ever! (I miss him!) President Packer's talk on the Atonement of Jesus Christ is also great. And Elder Eyring's "Where is the Pavilion" made a big impression on me the first time I heard it. I'm writing about that last one because it has been the most baffling to me, in a way. As with so many of Elder Eyring's talks, I've felt that there is something about it I just cannot grasp. I remember reading it several years ago hoping it would have answers to my questions, but I just couldn't find them.

Something shifted this time and I think I understand a little more. The "pavilion" covering God is an image that works for me. And it makes sense that this is true:

Many of us, in moments of personal anguish, feel that God is far from us. The pavilion that seems to intercept divine aid does not cover God but occasionally covers us. God is never hidden, yet sometimes we are, covered by a pavilion of motivations that draw us away from God and make Him seem distant and inaccessible.

Of course if God seems distant, the problem is on our side and not His! But so many times I've felt frustrated with Elder Eyring's remedy for it:

Our own desires, rather than a feeling of “Thy will be done,” create the feeling of a pavilion blocking God. God is not unable to see us or communicate with us, but we may be unwilling to listen or submit to His will and His time.

Our feelings of separation from God will diminish as we become more childlike before Him.

I think I've just felt in so many cases that I already am trying to accept God's will, and I don't know what else to do. And when any person is feeling alone because God's love isn't getting through to him or her, it feels unfair to add another burden of guilt saying "That blockage you feel is your own fault!"

That's where my perspective shift came this time, as I realized how actually liberating it is to know that truth! Just imagine if we didn't know it was our fault. If we had to guess whether or not God actually was withdrawing from us; to wonder if He had removed His loving presence because of our sins or for some other reason. It would be horrible because if God Himself decided not to be close to us, what recourse would we have? What could we do about it? Nothing. Whereas, knowing He wants to be close—knowing He is always there as soon as we are ready—puts the next steps within our own control and gives us something solid to hope for.

The other thing I realized is that Elder Eyring isn't really saying "the problem of the pavilion lies with you!" as an accusatory thing. He is saying "the problem of the pavilion is a part of our mortal experience, but your efforts to figure out how to remove it will not be in vain!" He talks about the faithful woman longing to have children children, who 

"felt as committed and consecrated as Mary, who declared, 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord.' But although she spoke these words in her heart, she could hear nothing in reply." 

Clearly this woman wasn't doing anything worthy of censure. She was trying! She did want God's will! But the fact that "she could hear nothing in reply" showed her that she needed to search for an even deeper understanding. This wasn't a punishment but a blessing! God was inviting her to trust His purposes and His plan on a new level. And she did it!:

For the first time, she asked not for another child but for a divine errand. “Heavenly Father,” she cried, “I will give you all of my time; please show me how to fill it.” She expressed her willingness to take her family wherever they might be required to go. That prayer produced an unexpected feeling of peace. It did not satisfy her mind’s craving for certainty, but for the first time in years, it calmed her heart.

The prayer removed the pavilion and opened the windows of heaven.

Again, it was suddenly clear to me this time that there is no shame or blame attached to our needing time and effort to reach these new depths of understanding:

Submitting fully to heaven’s will, as this young mother did, is essential to removing the spiritual pavilions we sometimes put over our heads. But it does not guarantee immediate answers to our prayers.

Abraham’s heart seems to have been right long before Sarah conceived Isaac and before they received their promised land. Heaven had other purposes to fulfill first. Those purposes included not only building Abraham and Sarah’s faith but also teaching them eternal truths that they shared with others on their long, circuitous route to the land prepared for them. The Lord’s delays often seem long; some last a lifetime. But they are always calculated to bless. They need never be times of loneliness or sorrow or impatience.

In other words, the whole point of a person taking responsibility for the "pavilions" between her and God is not for her to feel guilty about it. It is so she can think, without "loneliness or sorrow or impatience," "Okay, I know God still loves me and hasn't withdrawn. That truth is a constant. So the fact that I feel alone right now means I have some work to do. Somewhere I am missing something He needs me to know. Now I need to search for what."

I've seen so many times where, in my own life and the lives of those I love, the clouds of mortality are obscuring our vision. I'm sure Satan is actively encouraging those clouds to cover us too. It's not even necessarily our fault…but whether it is or not doesn't matter because the next step always lies within our power: look up anyway. Seek God anyway. He is close, He loves us, and He will always reward our efforts to try harder, look closer, be more trusting, wait more patiently, understand more deeply. Those are the very efforts that will clear the clouds. As Elder Eyring says: 

For any of you who now feel that He is hard to reach, I testify that the day will come that we all will see Him face to face. Just as there is nothing now to obscure His view of us, there will be nothing to obscure our view of Him.