Why God Will ALWAYS Give Us More Than We Can Handle -- According to a 16 Year Old

I love my current assignment in church. I get to work with the young women, and they are a constant source of entertainment, information, and inspiration. Okay, and quite often stress, let's be honest. But I'm focusing on the awesomeness--because there's really a lot of that. Especially what happened on Sunday.


So. On Sunday we were having a lesson on patience during our class. And this new girl, who is a super attractive 16 year old who maybe if you saw her you'd think she didn't have a care in the world. (Which is what we do as humans. Especially female humans. We think attractive people have no problems.)


But she said, "I've had hard things in my life. But the thing I hate is when someone says, 'God will never give you more than you can handle. Because that is just untrue. Completely wrong.'"


And in my head I'm thinking of the scripture in Timothy that says we will never be tempted beyond what we can bear and thinking that in my mind maybe I often confuse those two concepts. Tempted beyond what we can handle isn't the same as tried beyond what we can handle.


So, Miss Gorgeous went on. "Of course God gives us more than we can handle. If we never got more than we could handle, we'd never grow. We'd just get stuff we could handle and move on. No biggie. The thing to remember is that He will never give us more than HE can handle. And then we depend on Him to carry us through it, and then, with His help, we can handle it."


I love that.
So true.


From the mouths of hot babes.

A Commandment I COMPLETELY Missed the Memo On

Yesterday the most fabulous thing happened.

For the past six or eight months, I’ve had a specific worry that has been weighing on my mind and heart. It was a situation that could very much affect my family, and that could potentially cause serious problems.

I’ve spent hours and hours on my knees trying to figure out solutions, begging for insight, making plans to combat this problem.

Finally, about two months ago, I just gave it to God. I’d done everything I could, physically, spiritually, emotionally to make this right. At that point, I just put it in the Lord’s hands, asking him to let my soul rest, to let the right thing work out. If the trial had to be, it had to be, and I would just trust Him to carry us through. It had to be enough. And I placed my faith in Him, that he would bless and protect us.

Along the way, there were little blips of help—things that reminded me He was aware of me, that He cared, and that He was still watching, even though there was no real solution as of yet. Those gave me courage and bolstered my faith.

Yesterday, the situation finally resolved. At last! And the news was good! And the threat has passed, and God is just so good to me. I feel everything lighter as the storm clouds pass away over the horizon. Last night, as I climbed into bed, I told my husband I was afraid I was a little like Memory Foam. That after a long time of pressure, I might not spring back immediately. There might be a bit of time to puff back out to my real shape, but that I could already feel the expansion as the pressure had lifted. Hallelujah.

This morning, as I studied the scriptures, I was pondering on the word “Thanks.” Of course! I looked it up in the topical guide and began going through the scriptures one by one, until one hit me—hard. And it wasn’t the thanks portion of it.

2 Nephi 9:52

Behold, my beloved brethren, remember the words of your God; pray unto him continually by day, and give thanks unto his holy name by night. Let your hearts rejoice.

The remember and the prayer and the thanks parts, I expected. However, it was the verb that starts the final phrase that arrested me.

 

Let your hearts rejoice.

 

Now, I’ve seen that phrase a lot of times in the scriptures. We all have, I know. It’s just there, all the time. For me it almost blends into the background. But…

Today I realized it starts with “let.” And that it can have a couple of meanings.
The first meaning that hit me was taking the word “let” in the meaning “allow.” I need to allow my heart to rejoice.

How many times do good things come to me, and I say, “Wow! That’s great. Now I can really focus on this other problem or weakness.” Or how many times do I think, “Whew. That’s nice. And now if I just didn’t have this other thing, I’d be almost there.”

Ugh! That’s starting to rejoice… and then instantly pulling back. It’s stopping myself from feeling the full joy of the moment, of the blessing.

The second thing I noticed about “let” was that it makes the whole sentence in command form. Let your hearts rejoice. It’s a command. It’s important enough for us to rejoice that the Lord’s words are not a suggestion, “Maybe you should rejoice.” Or “Think about rejoicing, but then move on pretty quick to trying to improve yourself in other ways.” Nope. It’s a command to take the time to rejoice. To fully feel the joy of the blessing He has afforded us.

And so, with that little slap in the face, er, reminder, I am just going to say that today, I am SO HAPPY! I will take the time to fully rejoice, to fully feel the gratitude and goodness of my God, of His love, of His blessing and care and mercy.

And then I am going to think about the other ways, not just this specific thing He’s given me, but the other things He blesses me with so much that they too kind of fade into the background, and LET myself feel joy for them too.

Because “Men are that they might have joy.”

I am going to LET myself have joy today.

The Need to Ponder--And What We Might Be Missing Without It

I was thinking about how connected everyone seems to the Internet these days. It's almost like an IV of information that no one can get off. I know I'm on here quite a few hours a day doing stuff like social networking and research for my writing. When you think about it, it's a little disturbing how much like creepy, mind-numbed robots we must all look from the outside.


There is a danger in being too connected all the time, though. Several dangers, I'm sure, like disconnection from *real* social interaction, that face-to-face time with friends and loved ones; or lack of physical exercise; or just plain idleness and waste of time.


This morning I was thinking about how even during church meetings I see people ignoring the message or the lesson and messing around on their phones. This includes adults and kids. It's almost weird. Of course, when *I* need to look something up, it's "important" that I know it right then... Ugh. I'm such a hypocrite!


Anyway, the danger that came to my mind this morning of always being hooked up to a constant feeding tube of information is our lack of time to ponder. Focused thinking, that's pondering, right? Sometimes I do my best pondering with a pen in one hand and a little notebook in the other, and sometimes it's while I'm driving alone with the radio off. Sometimes I ponder best while I'm on a walk at sunrise watching the full moon set. When do you ponder?


But my pondering time gets cut short throughout the day. Back in times gone by, people did a lot more physical labor than we do now, in general. Work in the fields, work hunting animals, work in the garden, work at the river washing laundry on a rock. It was solitary a lot of times, and there were no radios or audiobooks or music downloads to keep the mind occupied.


There was time to ponder. Plenty of it.


But do we have that? What's preventing us from it? In my case, it's being online too much. Guilty as charged!


But so what? Do we need it? Really?


I submit that we might be missing some important stuff by cutting out that important part of our lives.


A story from the Book of Mormon comes to mind. It's right at the beginning of the first book, First Nephi. Nephi's dad, Lehi, has had this vision about a tree, and Nephi wants to know what it means. All the family does (and their dad apparently doesn't provide any kind of explanation, so they're on their own.) Here's what Nephi says in 1 Nephi 11:1.


1 For it came to pass after I had desired to know the things that my father had seen, and believing that the Lord was able to make them known unto me, as I sat pondering in mine heart I was caught away in the Spirit of the Lord, yea, into an exceedingly high mountain, which I never had before seen, and upon which I never had before set my foot.


There are three things in this that Nephi says he does, and then, what unfolds to him is this miraculous vision (which he shares over several chapters following) and great understanding of his own life, of his family's future, of his posterity--and beyond. It's epic in scope, and he even sees our day. It's amazing.


What three things?
1) He desires to know and understand. He wants it.
2) He believes the Lord is able to make it known unto him.
3) He sits pondering it in his heart (which I assume includes some prayerful asking, but maybe not. It might have just been a think-a-thon.)


The result of his pondering is astounding. He not only sees the things his father saw, he gets to ask the meaning of them. And then he writes them down and tells us about it. It's so amazing. I love it.
And it's all because he did those three things.


Later on, after he's detailed it all, he runs into his brothers, and they're being surly. He asks them what their problem is, and they're arguing about what their father said he saw. Nephi asks a pointed question: Well, guys, have you asked the Lord about it? They answer, Nope. The Lord wouldn't tell us anyway.


The brothers are missing parts 2 and 3 in the formula. They didn't believe God would answer, nor did they bother to ask. Was Nephi more special and favorite and chosen than his brothers? Yes, but only because HE chose to put himself in that position. The Lord would have answered the brothers just as he did Nephi, if they'd believed and asked and pondered. I'm sure of it.


And so, if we have questions, and if we follow Nephi's formula, I'm convinced the answers are there for us. We might not get to see the whole future of our people laid out for us, but we will be able to figure out answers for our own families and children. We will be able to understand how to solve the daily problems, no matter how small or large, that perplex us. But not if we don't take time to ponder. If we are so constantly mind-occupied by things that distract us and occupy us.


Of course, being busy defines daily life. It might be impossible to carve out a pondering time during the day. But maybe I need to get up earlier or simply choose a time to shut down everything noisy or on a screen and simply ponder. Because I have things that perplex me, that I worry about, that I wish I knew how to fix. I trust that God knows how to fix them, though. And this three step method is a way to tap into that great wellspring of His knowledge--that He is willing to give me if I simply desire, believe, and ponder.

Does God Really Have Time for Me?

A few years ago a friend of mine gave me a collection of her favorite quotes. It was so good it made me want to start keeping my own collection. The other day while looking for something else, I found my little quote journal. This thing I'd written down really struck me, and I've been thinking of it every day since.


"[God] has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. He does not have to deal with us in the mass. You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created. When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only man in the world." --C.S. Lewis


I don't know about everyone else, but there are times when I know the worries in my life are trivial. There are so many others who have bigger concerns, that when I want to pray about my problem, ask for help with my dumb little thing, I feel guilty asking for help. Answering my prayer would be a waste of His time. Right?


This quote says no. That way of thinking is a fallacy. He has infinite time and infinite attention.


My concerns might be small compared to others' but they're still mine, and He still cares for me enough to stop, listen, help. He doesn't have to take His eyes off someone else in order to look my way. I am not a waste of His time.


How liberating! How comforting! How much LOVE I feel just in this idea alone.


I am His. He is mine. And He cares for me and my cares, great or small. It makes me want to go to Him more, to trust Him more, to give him more opportunities to guide and bless my life.

How Can I Strengthen Others?

Like I posted a few weeks ago, I have seen lots of friends and family around me lately facing trials--some that almost seem too much to bear. This morning I just pondered on that for a while and asked the question, "How can I strengthen others?"


I know that I can't stop someone's illness. I can't take away the pain of the loss of a child. I can't fix the big heartbreaks. It's not in my power. I'm just...me. And I have my own little muddles I'm working through, and I have kids to care for and their muddles.


Still, I wish I could somehow lighten others' loads.


So this morning I turned to the scriptures to see if there was some way I could help. I started by checking the index under the word "strengthen."


One verse stuck out to me:


5 Wherefore, be faithful; stand in the office which I have appointed unto you; succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees. (Doctrine and Covenants 81:5)


A lot of my dear ones right now have hands which hang down. But how could I lift them?


The next verse I found was in the Book of Mormon.


3 And thus we see that the commandments of God must be fulfilled. And if it so be that the children of men keep the commandments of God he doth nourish them, and strengthen them, and provide means whereby they can accomplish the thing which he has commanded them. (1Nephi 17:3)


Of course *I* wasn't going to do the strengthening, and this made it clear. God does all the strengthening. And according to this verse, the promise is that He will strengthen His children when they keep the commandments. Maybe I could help my loved ones keep the commandments. Just exactly how to do that isn't clear. But I did have a chance to take a young friend to church (after a while of being away) a couple of weeks ago, where she was embraced by friends, and since then I've seen so much strength come into her life. Maybe something like that. Not sure. Maybe something else will come to me.


Another little story in the Book of Mormon helped me think of another thing. These people had been pretty wicked, and just as they were in the process of repenting and getting their lives back on track, a group of bad guys swooped in and enslaved them. So they were praying. A lot. And then things got worse:


11 ...he put guards over them to watch them, that whosoever should be found calling upon God should be put to death.

 12 And Alma and his people did not raise their voices to the Lord their God, but did pour out their hearts to him; and he did know the thoughts of their hearts.

 13 And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord came to them in their afflictions, saying: Lift up your heads and be of good comfort, for I know of the covenant which ye have made unto me; and I will covenant with my people and deliver them out of bondage.

 14 And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.

 15 And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.

 16 And it came to pass that so great was their faith and their patience that the voice of the Lord came unto them again, saying: Be of good comfort, for on the morrow I will deliver you out of bondage (Mosiah 24:11-16).

But like this says, after the people prayed anyway, even if only in their hearts, with great earnestness, a miracle occurred. Prayers were answered and God strengthened their backs, which made their burdens light.

I can pray for those I love who are in trials. I can pray with them. I can encourage them to keep praying. Prayer is key. I've seen this in reality in my own life.

Finally, since I was running out of scripture time this morning, I flipped to the Old Testament, where I found one of the coolest answers to my question. It wasn't that I meant to look for it. It just happened to be in the chapter I was in my daily reading, 2 Chronicles chapter 20.

In the story, Jehoshaphat had been preparing the people of Judah for a huge battle against the Syrians and Ammonites. To prepare them he set his mind, declared a day of fasting, gathered his people at the temple, and prayed with incredible humility and strength, putting all his trust in the LORD.

Then came the thing that surprised me. He appointed SINGERS. Singers? Yep. He put them out in FRONT of the troops who were lining up to battle They went before the front line, singing songs of praise and strengthening the resolve and faith of those who would fight.

God fought their battle. All their enemies fell before them--and it seemed like the enemies turned on each other and started wiping each other out. Jehoshaphat's army prevailed through the Lord.

Music. Maybe I can find good, uplifting music to share with these loved ones of mine to help them get through.

It's hard to feel so helpless as I witness suffering, but maybe there's even a little something I can do. The scriptures really are full of incredible answers to even the small, everyday questions.

She's Hatin' It -- Dealing With a Bad Day

I've been remembering a bunch of lingo from days gone by lately. Cool beans, anyone?


I went to see a young woman I know, and her boyfriend was there. Both of them were having a bad day. He was describing some of the people he'd run into during his last job (sales) as "buttmunchers." It wasn't a word I really ever used, but it took me back.


Then I started thinking about the term "hating it"-- or as we pronounced it, "hatin' it." My friend's boyfriend was, as we said in the '80s and '90s, "hatin' it." Lost his job, was getting kicked out of his house, had not a dollar to his name, couldn't find another job, needed cash to get to a city 1000 miles away to his only kind family member. Hatin' it.


That term floated around a lot. Something bad would happen to someone and we'd be discussing it and almost inevitably the word would come up. "Oh, man. She was doing a triple flip off the diving board and belly flopped. Man, she was hatin' it." Or, "Dude dropped all his classes and then found out he wasn't going to be able to go on the trip after all. Now he's hatin' it."


Any bad situation could be described as hating it.


Sometimes I end up having a bad day. Like, for instance, today. Not that I've attempted any triple flips or enrolled in college or even planned a failed trip. However, things have just been tough to take today. (And I am not sure if that's because things were actually hard, or if it's attributable to that old problem of "that which we don't persist in doing becomes more difficult to do, not because the nature of the thing itself has changed, but because our ability to do has decreased." Okay, that was warped--but I think it might describe my state of being.)


Anyway, the old term came up. I was hatin' it.


Then a scripture from the New Testament came to mind:

John 12:25

25 He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.


I think most of the time, I'm living a very blessed life. I know that is so. And it's because I've been lifted up by the arms of giants -- my parents and grandparents and ancestors and other people of great faith. Teachers, relatives, kind friends, my dear husband. I know that the blessings I enjoy are not of my own making. Sure, I have tried to be appreciative of the blessings I've been given by not squandering them for the most part, but it's clearly not a case of being a self-made woman. Most of the time I'm loving my life. (See above.)


However, I do know people who are hating it. Trials given to good people. Lack of opportunities or support through which others must muddle.Those who don't have a spiritual grounding to give them stability and strength, which alone would make anyone so they were hating it.


But then, like Savior taught, the good news is this: hating it can be a good thing. It's something the Lord uses to our advantage. Those of us who live a good life most of the time may not have the opportunities to learn to lean on the Lord, may not grow in faith. The hating it portions of life are the times when the mettle is tested.


And we all end up hating it sooner or later. The Lord has customized trials for each of us.


Like I have said before, writing fiction has taught me a lot of things, and one of them is about how conflict (in fiction or in life) reveals character. Probably a day like today, where a few minor things weren't going my way, revealed that my inner character is a big, fat whiner in need of greater faith. What I need to remember is that the Lord is playing "the long game" with my soul, and I need to look farther down the line.


Another idea has hit me lately, and that is when we are in the thick of things and everything looks horrible and like it's "total wackness" (another '90s saying that I obviously didn't say much because I sound stupid even typing it), that what we need to do is remember that this moment is nothing but what I call "a snapshot in time."


We can't judge things based on the moment. What may seem like a tragedy right this minute could be a completely different situation in a few days, weeks, or even years. A couple of months ago, I was really down about a situation with some loved ones that had seemed impossibly bad for about five years. Then, within a few days, I heard news that showed that things had turned around drastically for all of these dear ones.


My despair had been based on a snapshot in time.


Things get better. Things won't always be bleak. If you're "hating it" right now, there is a good time coming. We have to hold on. And in the meantime, latch onto the idea of the long game. God is playing the long game with our lives. He lets us hate our lives so he can make us into something beautiful. And even though there are some lives that seem like unmitigated sorrow (we've all known situations like this), we must latch onto another idea--that those who hate their lives in this world will be blessed with eternal life. God will not let the downtrodden go unrewarded. He notices. He cares. He will bless those who suffer. He chastens those who He loves. (Us. All of us.)

Why Bad Things Happen To Good People -- A Bible Answer

Maybe it's only me, but it seems like life goes in waves sometimes. There are peaks and valleys, times of ease and times of trial. Right now in the lives of many people I love and care about, it seems like waves of trial. A loss of a job -- complicated by a dire illness in the family, a child stricken with disease, a wayward loved one making destructive choices, financial crises, marriages in trouble, health struggles, and so on. I have mourned with them, and wondered why these good people are going through so much difficulty.


But that is the age-old question: Why should good people have to suffer bad things?


We've heard it a hundred times. Shouldn't the righteous be blessed and the wicked punished? And yet it doesn't seem to work that way. Sometimes the wicked seem to prosper and the righteous struggle. How could a just God allow that to happen? Those who are following Him, doing their best, still end up with trials--some of them simply huge.


Some people say the scriptures don't address this, and yet, the words of Christ teach us this is going to happen-- and why. Granted, it's in the Gospel of John, and the words in that book are somewhat poetic, and maybe a little harder to grasp the meaning, at least for me, but here's the passage I'm thinking of.


John 15:1-8
1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.


The first part means, since these are the words of Christ, He is the "true vine," the thing from which we all grow from and find nourishment in. The second part means the Father is the one in charge of the whole vineyard. He decides how to take care of all the grapevines and then is the one that keeps the fruit at the end. Christ always gives the glory to His Father.


2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.


We're the branches on the vine. When we don't bear fruit, the Husbandman takes them away. I think that means the Father doesn't let those people have His Spirit with them.


When, however, we do bear fruit, he "purges" us. The footnote for the word "purgeth" says it comes from a Greek word meaning "try, test, prove."


My husband is a backyard farmer and has been taking good care of our grapevines this year.  We've gone a few years with only tiny, sour grapes--too many bunches of them, all basically inedible. This year, though, he got rid of the fruitless branches so they wouldn't suck up all the soil's nutrients. And he went through and cut back the good branches so we'd get more grapes. We're having a good crop of sweet grapes this year because of his work.


The Lord has to cut us back. He has to purge us, prune us. This scripture says the Husbandman gives us trials, for His purpose, and that He wants the branches to bring forth fruit.


I guess there are ways we, too, can cut back in our lives. We can get rid of the things that are sucking the nutrients we need. Time wasters, friends who keep us from doing what we know we should. (Sometimes friends can be clutter.) Bad habits. That's a tangent, but I could benefit from a pruning I give myself and my time for sure.


There are more verses about this and then verse 8 says this:


8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.


That is the Father's glory. I know the greatest feelings I glory in are the successes and growth of my children. I sense that is a tiny taste of how our Father feels about us and our growth.


And it is what makes us Christ's disciples.


As I pray for my friends and family members in their times of need, I think of the times of trial I've faced as well. I know there are waves of trial coming my way too, and I hope I can follow the examples of faith of these dear ones. These good people are clinging to the True Vine, the Savior, and He is nourishing them as they go. I'm struck by my friends' faith. It is giving them strength to endure, and I'm inspired by their love for God, and God's love for them.


It's interesting that the verses that follow this passage I've just noted are all about love. God's love is evident in the way he purges us. He wants to make us disciples of Christ, and to glory in us, His children.


And so maybe the bad things happening to good people are actually just "proof" (since the word purge means to prove) that we belong to the True Vine and that we allow the Husbandman to work in our lives. Because He loves us and wants to make us His.