Pausing the good things

My FAVORITE story from this week’s reading is the one that we catch glimpses of in Sections 71 and 73.

Joseph and Sidney Rigdon were doing great work.

Day in and day out, they worked in John and Elsa Johnson’s home in Hiram, Ohio, translating the Bible.

They were truly the example of being anxiously engaged in a good cause.

But then…

Ezra Booth was causing problems.

He had become disaffected with Joseph on their journey from Missouri to Ohio a few months previously, and even though all of the other men had forgiven each other and moved past it, Ezra did not.

He left the church and began writing pretty malicious letters about Joseph and the church, and publishing them in local newspapers.

And now, a lot of their neighbors in Ohio, who really had been welcoming and totally fine with the saints’ presence thus far, were starting to worry about who these church members really were, and who this Joseph really was.

So, the Lord told Joseph and Sidney, these two men who were working on a great, eternally important project to stop “for the space of a season” and preach the gospel around in Ohio.

They had to stop the good thing they were doing in order to put out the urgent fire of discord that was spreading in Ohio.

I wonder if Joseph or Sidney ever felt annoyed.

Or frustrated.

They had to stop their good work to go put out the consequences of someone else’s bad decisions.

But they did it anyways.

They spent about a month traveling around Ohio, preaching true doctrine and showing the people in Ohio who they really were.

And guess what?

It worked. The people in Ohio calmed down and a lot of rumors were squashed.

And in Section 73, we get to see the other end of this.

The Lord tells Joseph and Sidney that “it is expedient to translate again”.

Sometimes, we have to stop doing really good things that we are doing.

We have to put life on pause to deal with a medical emergency. We have to stop cooking dinner to deal with a frustrated child. We have to stop our normal routines to help a friend in need.

Sometimes, we need to put out the urgent fire for just a season, and then we can get back to the good things we had planned.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black