In President Kimball’s lesson for this week, he notes the cycle that repeats throughout the Old Testament, and then, later, through the Book of Mormon. A group of people worship God in righteousness. They receive blessings and prosper. That prosperity leads them to trust more in the arm of the flesh and turn their back on the world, and they become wicked. They are then humbled or even destroyed. As we go through our lives, we must be careful not to fall into a similar cycle.
I have been thinking lately about how most of the Saints I have come in contact with are doing fairly well, financially. While I know that there are many who struggle, I would hazard to guess that the majority are making ends meet and perhaps doing a little better than the national average. (Mind you, this is a guess, based solely on my experience, with no research to back it up.) Of course, joining the church and living the gospel does not mean you will receive instant money, but much of what the church teaches will actually put you on the right track financially – no debt, save money, things of this world are temporal and not lasting, family is more important than belongings, etc. If this observation is true, it means that we are blessed as Saints – but also that we have to make sure we do not fall into the cycle that those blessed in the scriptures fall into.
Yesterday, we talked about how trusting in the Lord is more important, even, than managing our careers. We should trust in Him more than we trust in finances. No matter how much money we save for a rainy day, there will always be trials that can wipe our bank accounts clean in an instance. But when we trust in Him and lean on Him to walk with us through our trials, we will never find a zero balance. We will always have an account with Him, filled to the limit with His eternal love.
When you think about it, it makes sense that the Nephites and the Israelites always ran into trials when they relied upon worldly things rather than Him. Even the faithful have trials. But when you trust in the finite, those trials will almost always break you. You will always find yourself beaten down to a humble position. On the other hand, when the faithful have trials, they have a different perspective (or, at least, they work very hard to maintain that perspective, even when the world tells them to do otherwise). They know that their trials are temporary, that any possessions lost are not worth anything in the eternal perspective and any loved ones lost will be with them always. When your focus is on the world, your losses are devastating. When your focus is on God, they are temporary. Think of Job. Though he lost his possessions and his family, I would not say that he was humbled. He was already humble before the loss. The world told him his losses were great, but He knew they were trifling in the grand scheme of things. And so his trials were not to his destruction but to his uplifting.
We will certainly encounter trials as we go through our lives. Some may sap our financial and emotional resources to the utmost. If we are trusting in money, in family, in our jobs, in our things, more than we are trusting in Heavenly Father, these losses will be destructive. But if we are trusting in the eternal God who loves and supports us, they will be but a moment.
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