I’ve been asked to speak on the gospel principle of endurance; the focus being enduring it well. There are many accounts in the scriptures of the prophets teaching of the importance of enduring, for example “If ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, ye shall have eternal life” (2 Nephi 22:31) and then again “if they endure unto the end they shall be lifted up at the last day” (1Nephi 13:37). Over and over again the importance of enduring to the end is stressed in scripture. At some point we must begin to wonder why? Or perhaps we begin to wonder why is enduring so vital? Or this is hard why must I do it? Why can’t it be taken from me? What role does the Atonement play in enduring? What is the purpose behind the need to endure? The direction I want to go today is to answer some of these questions. I want to testify the principle of enduring to the end is vital if we are to claim the promised blessings associated with the ordinances and covenants we have entered in to.
To endure is
to remain firm in a commitment to be true to the commandments of God despite,
temptation, opposition and adversity. The word endure come from two Latin
roots. The prefix en means “within”. The remainder a verb durare, means “to be
firm or solid.” Thus, to endure means “to become firm within yourself.” To
endure connotes a commitment within one’s soul. Thus we can conclude that enduring
to the end is a very personal component to our salvation and exaltation. It
fundamentally doesn’t matter what ANY ONE else does or doesn’t do. I can’t be
saved by my parents, my husband or my children. Ultimately the unwavering faith
and testimony necessary for exaltation has to be my own. In the Doctrine and
Covenants we read concerning the spirit children of God who would come to
mortality that would be tested “and we will prove them herewith, to see if they
will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them.” That
explanation helps us understand WHY we face trials in life.
I know it is
easy to fear, to be tired of, or to feel we lack the strength to stay the course
when we are going through life’s adversity. I love Elder Maxwell’s thought
provoking words, “How could there be refining fires without enduring any heat?
Or greater patience without enduring some instructive waiting? Or more empathy
without bearing one another’s burdens- not only that other’s burdens may be lightened,
but that we may be enlightened through greater empathy? How can there be later magnification
with-out enduring some present deprivation?” I find this quote really puts into
perspective the purpose of the need to endure adversity.
In a talk by
President Eyring he said a District President he worked with gave him this
advice, “When you meet someone, treat them as if they were in serious trouble,
and you will be right more than half the time”. President Eyring said he
thought the man was a pessimist, but now more than 40 years later he can see
how well the man understood the world and life. With this in mind I wanted to
spend time learning from Joseph Smith’s life as there are powerful principles
taught as we do.
Elder
Holland gave a powerful CES broadcast in 2008 titled Lessons from Liberty Jail.
In the
Prophet Joseph’s letters, he spoke of the jail being a “hell, surrounded with
demons … where we are compelled to hear nothing but blasphemous oaths, and
witness a scene of blasphemy, and drunkenness and hypocrisy, and debaucheries
of every description.”2 “We have … not blankets sufficient to keep us warm; and
when we have a fire, we are obliged to have almost a constant smoke,” he said.3
“Our souls have been bowed down”4 and “my nerve trembles from long
confinement,” Joseph wrote.5 “Pen, or tongue, or angels,” could not adequately
describe “the malice of hell” that he suffered there.6 All of this occurred
during what, by some accounts, was considered the coldest winter on record in
the state of Missouri.
Most of us,
most of the time, speak of the facility at Liberty as a “jail” or a
“prison”--and certainly it was that. But Elder Brigham H. Roberts (1857–1933)
of the First Council of the Seventy spoke of the facility as a temple, or, more
accurately, a “prison-temple.”7 Elder Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) used the same
phrasing in some of his writings. Certainly this prison-temple lacked the
purity, beauty, comfort, and cleanliness of our modern temples. The speech and
behavior of the guards and criminals who came there were anything but
temple-like. In fact, the restricting brutality and injustice of this
experience at Liberty would make it seem the very antithesis of the liberating,
merciful spirit of our temples and the ordinances performed in them.
So in what
sense could Liberty Jail be called a “temple,” and what does such a title tell
us about God’s love and teachings, including where and when that love and those
teachings are made manifest? In precisely this sense: that you can have sacred,
revelatory, profoundly instructive experiences with the Lord in any situation
you are in. Indeed, you can have sacred, revelatory, profoundly instructive
experiences with the Lord in the most miserable experiences of your life--in
the worst settings, while enduring the most painful injustices, when facing the
most insurmountable odds and opposition you have ever faced.
He continues
In one way
or another, great or small, dramatic or incidental, every one of us is going to
spend a little time in Liberty Jail--spiritually speaking.
But the
lessons of the winter of 1838–39 teach us that every experience can become a
redemptive experience if we remain bonded to our Father in Heaven through it.
Elder
Holland speaks so powerfully I will continue with some other things he shared
that night, he says:
Everyone faces
trying times; when that happens we can sometimes fear that God has abandoned
us, and we might be left, at least for a time, to wonder when our troubles will
ever end. As individuals, as families, probably everyone has had or will have
an occasion to feel as Joseph Smith felt when he cried from the depth and
discouragement of his confinement: “O God, where art thou? … How long shall thy
hand be stayed … ? Yea, O Lord, how long shall [thy people] suffer … before …
thy bowels be moved with compassion toward them?” (D&C 121:1–3).
Whenever
these moments of our extremity come, we must not succumb to the fear that God
has abandoned us or that He does not hear our prayers. He does hear us. He does
see us. He does love us. When we are in dire circumstances and want to cry,
“Where art Thou?” it is imperative that we remember He is right there with
us--where He has always been! We must continue to believe, continue to have
faith, continue to pray and plead with heaven, even if we feel for a time our
prayers are not heard and that God has somehow gone away. He is there. Our
prayers are heard. And when we weep He and the angels of heaven weep with us.
When lonely,
cold, hard times come, we have to endure, we have to continue, we have to
persist. Keep knocking on that door. Keep pleading. In the meantime, know that
God hears your cries and knows your distress. He is your Father, and you are
His child.
We are not
alone in our little prisons here. When suffering, we may be in fact nearer to
God than we’ve ever been in our entire lives. That knowledge can turn every
situation into a would-be- temple.
Lessons from
Liberty jail also teach us that even the worthy will suffer: In giving us this
sober reminder of what the Savior went through, the revelation from Liberty
Jail records, “The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater
than he?” (D&C 122:8).
No, Joseph
was not greater than the Savior, and neither are we. And when we promise to
follow the Savior, to walk in His footsteps, and be His disciples, we are
promising to go where that divine path leads us. And the path of salvation has
always led one way or another through Gethsemane. So if the Savior faced such
injustices and discouragements, such persecutions, unrighteousness, and
suffering, we cannot expect that we are not going to face some of that if we
still intend to call ourselves His true disciples and faithful followers.
I also
wanted to share from President Faust. In referring to the Martin Handcart Company
he retells an account told to him by President McKay;
President
McKay relates an occurrence which took place some years after the heroic
exodus: “A teacher, conducting a class, said it was unwise ever to attempt,
even to permit them [the Martin handcart company] to come across the plains
under such conditions. (poverty, lacking proper equipment and late in the
season)
“[According
to a class member,] some sharp criticism of the Church and its leaders was
being indulged in for permitting any company of converts to venture across the
plains with no more supplies or protection than a handcart caravan afforded.
“An old man
in the corner … sat silent and listened as long as he could stand it, then he
arose and said things that no person who heard him will ever forget. His face
was white with emotion, yet he spoke calmly, deliberately, but with great
earnestness and sincerity.
“In
substance [he] said, ‘I ask you to stop this criticism. You are discussing a
matter you know nothing about. Cold historic facts mean nothing here, for they
give no proper interpretation of the questions involved. Mistake to send the
Handcart Company out so late in the season? Yes. But I was in that company and
my wife was in it and Sister Nellie Unthank whom you have cited was there, too.
We suffered beyond anything you can imagine and many died of exposure and
starvation, but did you ever hear a survivor of that company utter a word of
criticism? Not one of that company ever apostatized or left the Church, because
everyone of us came through with the absolute knowledge that God lives for we
became acquainted with him in our extremities.
“‘I have pulled
my handcart when I was so weak and weary from illness and lack of food that I
could hardly put one foot ahead of the other. I have looked ahead and seen a
patch of sand or a hill slope and I have said, I can go only that far and there
I must give up, for I cannot pull the load through it.’” He continues: “‘I have
gone on to that sand and when I reached it, the cart began pushing me. I have
looked back many times to see who was pushing my cart, but my eyes saw no one.
I knew then that the angels of God were there.
“‘Was I
sorry that I chose to come by handcart? No. Neither then nor any minute of my
life since. The price we paid to become acquainted with God was a privilege to
pay, and I am thankful that I was privileged to come in the Martin Handcart Company.’”
(Relief Society Magazine, Jan. 1948, p. 8.)
Here then is
a great truth. In the pain, the agony, and the heroic endeavors of life, we
pass through a refiner’s fire, and the insignificant and the unimportant in our
lives can melt away like dross and make our faith bright, intact, and strong.
In this way the divine image can be mirrored from the soul. It is part of the
purging toll exacted of some to become acquainted with God. In the agonies of
life, we seem to listen better to the faint, godly whisperings of the Divine
Shepherd.
From my own
experiences, and those especially over the last year I can add my testimony to what
I have shared today. We went through more in the last year then I could ever
hope to explain in a 15 minute talk. But I can tell you that I felt peace- not
always because I am still learning to turn to the Savior. And through the year
I learned that God does not abandon us. He is with us. Angels minister to us.
If we will keep going the path becomes clear. Things don’t always make sense.
The list of burdens on us can be VERY long but we can still endure. I testify
that the tender mercies of the Lord are upon us. That bad days come to an end,
that faith always triumphs and that heavenly promises are always kept. I am
going to take Elder Hollands words to express my testimony of angels, both
heavenly and the mortal kind. In doing so I am testifying that God never leaves
us alone, never leaves us unaided in the challenges we face. Always there are
those angels who come and go all around us, seen and unseen, known and unknown,
mortal and immortal.
May we ever
remember our role and purpose in the plan of salvation and take courage that
the Lord is on our side as we face the adversity of our days in mortality. We
must prove our discipleship and our commitment to our Father in Heaven and in
doing so we must prove that we will live the gospel and develop God’s characteristics
in the best or easy times and in the
worst or hard times
