“Are all men’s lives… broken, tumultuous, agonized, and unromantic… Who knows?… I don’t know. Why can’t people have what they want? The things were all there to content everybody, yet everybody got the wrong thing…. It’s beyond me. It’s all darkness.” (PBS production of “The Good Soldier,” by Ford Maddox Ford, viewed in early 1983)
As if speaking to this point, the Prophet Joseph Smith observed, “Knowledge does away with darkness, suspense and doubt; for these cannot exist where knowledge is… and; There is no pains so awful as that of suspense. (Teachings, pp. 287-88)[i]
Joseph, of course, was speaking of a particular kind of knowledge. Thus our view of education is the same as that Jesus prescribed with regard to our other Christian duties: namely the weightier matters should receive their deserved prominence without leaving the lesser learning chores “undone”…. The Prophet Joseph also taught the following points, ‘If you wish to go where God is, you must be like God, or possess the principles which God possesses.’ (Teachings, p.216), ‘Satan cannot seduce us by his enticements unless we in our hearts consent and yield.’ ‘Our organization is such that we can resist the devil; if we were not organized so, we would not be free agents….’ and more, ‘The devil has no power over us only as we permit him; the moment we revolt at anything which comes from God, the devil takes power.’[ii] ~From a talk by Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
The above gives balance to the blessing of agency that God has given us. Surely we have our ‘free will or agency’ from Him and can ultimately do ‘whatever we want’ in this life. But as with good earthly parents who strive to teach patterns of a productive, happy life (and often miss in their methods), so our Heavenly Father has given us patterns and teachings through His ordained Prophets, ancient and modern. They never miss in their methods when encouraging direction in His name. Rather they stand forever different than the best life coach filled with good ideas, because their ‘good ideas’ are counsel and commandments to the souls of the honest in heart… encouraged by God himself! kdm
