From the book “A Year of Powerful Prayer”. . . .
We may not get an answer to our prayers because the Lord is about something much greater in our lives than we can see at the moment.
Years ago I was in a Church history class at Brigham Young University. We had studied the Missouri persecutions, the exile form Nauvoo, the sacrifices of the Saints as they made their arduous journey across the plains to the Rocky Mountains—especially the Willie and Martin handcart companies.
After we had rehearsed that catalog of adversity and suffering, one of the students asked this question: “Why was the way so hard? I know they were being tested, but did it have to be so relentless, so intense?” The professor’s answer showed tremendous insight into the purposes of God. He said: “What you have to realize is this. There was a great work to be done, and these people were just common folk. They weren’t great crusaders or proven heros. However, by the time they reached the valley, many of the physically weak had died, and almost all of the Spiritually weak had apostatized. So what Brigham and to work with was pure steel.”
. . . What may appear to be indifference on God’s part may actually be one of the greatest evidences of his love for us. Like so many other Saints before us, we may simply be in the midst of an intense divine tutorial. ~~Gerald N. Lund, A Year of Powerful Prayer (Salt Lake City; Deseret Book, 2013) p.263-64
