The Suffering of the Righteous

Well, I am finally back to my everyday scripture study, after weeks of weird schedules on vacation and preparing for my lesson last week. Today I am reading Alma chapter 14...


I am a little worried. Yesterday there was a comment made during the lesson about how sometimes when you attend the temple your family may not be safe and it doesn't mean you are a bad person. Then, today the first thing that jumped out to me from my manual on chapter 14 was the section about how bad things happen to good people ("The Suffering of the Righteous.")


I really hope that the Lord isn't trying to prepare me for something...


Alma 14:8-11 Talks about how Alma and Amulek had the power to bring down punishment on the men who killed the believers of God, but didn't because he said that God permits the righteous to suffer for a purpose.


It says this in my manual:


"...if all sick were healed, if all the righteous were protected and the wicked destroyed, the whole program of the Father would be annulled and the basic principle of the gospel, free agency, would be ended. If pain, sorrow, and total punishment immediately followed the doing of evil, no soul would repeat a misdeed. If joy and peace and rewards were instantaneously given the doer of good, there could be no evil-all would do good and not because of the rightness of doing good. There would be no test of strength, no development of character, no growth of powers, no free agency, no Satanic controls...no suffering, sorrow, disappointment, or death...an absence of joy, success, resurrection, eternal life. and godhood.

More about Alma 12:7-11

I noticed there was a section in my manual for the scriptures I talked about yesterday. This talks more about knowing the mysteries of God by being faithful and believing, rather than talking about gaining knowledge. Here is some of the quotations:

"Men receive assurance and knowledge due to their faithfulness and adherence to the commandments of Jesus Christ. Those who reject their Redeemer and refuse to keep His commandments cannot know and comprehend these eternal truths...They cannot understand them because they are a 'fallen' man, and without the enlightening influence of the Holy Spirit, they are as the Lord expressed it, 'carnal, sensual, and devilish.'"

It goes on to talk about why the Lord spoke in parables, which we all know was so those that were not ready for the true meaning of the analogies would not be accountable for them.

Know the Lord

Mosiah 26: This chapter focuses on a couple different topics. I liked reading the scriptures 24-28 and the manual's interpretation of them. It talks about knowing the Lord, which is something that has been hard for me to grasp. I feel like I could never REALLY know the Lord until I meet him and see him. Here is what the manual says:

"The kind of knowing referred to in these scriptures involves obeying the Lord's commandments and becoming like him"

Elder Bruce R. McConkie said "To know God in that full sense which will enable us to gain eternal salvation we must...obey those laws that will enable us to acquire the character, perfections, and attributes that he possesses. And before we can obey those laws, we must learn what they are; we must learn of Christ and his gospel..."

This makes a lot of sense. The only way we can truly know the Lord is by studying His teachings and obeying his commandments. It seems like every time I am wondering what I need to be doing to please the Lord the answer is always those same primary answers: read the scriptures, pray, go to church, love one another, etc. But, they really are the answers! The gospel is simple! We just need to do the things we know we should be doing!