Brad Wilcox shared:
“Happily, God in His omniscience can distinguish between our surface needs (over which we often pray most fervently) and our deep and eternal needs. He can distinguish what we ask for today and place it in relationship to what we need for all eternity. He will bless us according to our everlasting good.”2
Elder Maxwell explained that sometimes suffering comes as a consequence of our own poor choices. Other times it comes in consequence of the poor choices of others. Often it happens just because we have a telestial world where storms blow, planes crash, children die, and wonderful young men get brain tumors. Whatever the reason for our suffering, the Lord is willing to succor and tutor us through it all.
Our hardships—even those that are self inflicted—become tools in the hands of the Master Teacher.
Sometimes bad things happen to good people “because they are most ready to learn.”3 The closer we come to God the more he is willing to teach us by requiring us to do what we don’t want to do get what we don’t want to get (as my friend Hal Jones used to say). “Though stretched by our challenges,” wrote Elder Maxwell, “by living righteously and enduring well we can eventually become sufficiently more like Jesus in our traits and attributes, that one day we can dwell in the Father’s presence forever and ever.”4
Because God is both omnipotent and benevolent, the father who lost his son will have the opportunity to be reunited with him. Katherine will have the chance to raise her Lily. Because of the Atonement of Christ and His love and grace, these parents and children can choose to learn more about God and His plan, accept His invitation to help them grow, and be better because of their pain, not in spite of it. Because God is both powerful and loving, my student Tyler is not just learning a lot about cancer. He is learning a lot about Tyler.
A loving Heavenly Father can prevent our hurts, but He may not always choose to do so for the same reason a loving earthly father will not forever run behind his child’s bicycle. He knows that there comes a point at which protecting the child from every fall, bruise, and scrape will stifle growth. God can clam every storm, fly every airplane, heal every child, and dissolve every tumor, but “the whole program of the Father would be annulled,” taught President Spence W. Kimball. “There would be no test of strength, no development of character, no growth of powers.”5 ~Brad Wilcox, Changed Through His Grace (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2017), 214-218 Dwarsligger edition.
