“If I kept all of the commandments, why didn’t I get that job that I wanted?”
“I’m reading my scriptures each day, so why am I still struggling to be patient with my kids?”
“I followed that very specific prompting, so why did that friend start pulling away from me?”
I’ve thought these questions, and many more like them, at various points in my life.
Basically, they are all a form of:
If I’m being loyal to God, why aren’t the circumstances of my life awesome?
The Israelites were really good at looking at their outside circumstances.
And when they looked at what they had physically been through… boy, was there a lot to complain about.
“Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness!… were it not better for us to return into Egypt?” (Numbers 14:2-3)
They had endured so much since leaving Egypt, so wouldn’t it have been better to just endure the hard things they had to face in Egypt?!
Why did life seem to be getting harder and more difficult, even though they were following the Lord and the prophet?
Oh children of Israel, I can relate to that question.
And this is why I love studying the scriptures.
Because from far away, I can see the answer that the Lord wanted to teach the Israelites.
It seems crystal clear and obvious.
And then I go… “Oh yeah. Duh. He’s doing the same thing in my life, too.”
God doesn’t want us to measure the success of our life by our circumstances.
He never has, in Old Testament times, New Testament times, Book of Mormon times, and modern times.
So why would I think my life would be the exception?
Boom. I love studying the scriptures for this exact reason. I see the PATTERNS the Lord has worked with for centuries.
Why does the Lord care if we keep His commandments with sincere intent?
Because He cares about the journeys that our hearts take.
Are we becoming more devoted? More dependent? More likely to align our will to His?
That’s what a successful disciple’s life has looked like, dispensation after dispensation.
He wants to see where our hearts go and what they become.
Happy Studying!
-Cali Black
