"Afflicted Precisely As We Are Now"

Brigham Young, ca. 1850

I'm constantly amazed by the things that I discover in the process of looking for something else.  Throughout my life, some of the best scriptures and quotations I have found were discovered while I was searching for some other scripture or quotation that I needed.  While some may attribute such discoveries to chance and dumb luck, I tend to believe that they are among the most "tender mercies of the Lord" (1 Nephi 1:20) that were so beautifully described by Elder David A. Bednar during the April 2005 General Conference.  These unexpected discoveries remind us just how much more the Lord truly knows about His plans for us than we know, and they serve as means whereby He often leads us to discover those paths He has for us.

I had just such a discovery yesterday as I was doing my scripture study.  I was searching for a quotation by Brigham Young about our personal relationship with the Father during the premortal life.  In the process of searching for that quotation, I came across another sermon of Brigham's with which I had not been previously acquainted (You would be shocked by how much Brigham spoke).  This sermon, given on May 4, 1856, included the following comments:

"Well now the Lord has compassion upon us upon the same principle that we have one towards another, precisely the same, for he has experienced those things Himself.  This is an item that the people can scarcely realize, that our Father and our God, him whom we serve, the Great Elohim, that he has once been afflicted precisely as we are now.  This is really strange.  We could hardly admit that this is the fact, and still it is good, sound. . . . There is not a person upon the earth or in the heavens, or anywhere else that could ever feel or sympathize for you or for me unless that person had suffered as you and I are suffering. . . . [T]here is not and never was a son but there must have been a father, and if a father he must also be a son, and. . . there never has been a father capacitated to beget sons without he having first passed through this ordeal himself. . . . Well now that father that we talk about and Jesus his son have once been precisely as we are: tempted, tried, buffeted and filled with weakness, with pain and sorrow and suffering just as we are.  I don't know that he has ever had the toothache or the headache as I have had them, but he was obliged to know sorrow, pain and the infirmities of mortality as well as us.  And why?  Because he would never know how to enjoy; he could not have the capacity to realize the value of ease, of comfort, of plenty unless He had suffered disease and sorrow, and it never could be known in all the eternities.  He never could have occupied his present station without these gratifications, it never was acknowledged upon any other principle."  (Brigham Young, Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, 2:1101).

Perhaps I am not alone in this fact, but I rejoice in the idea that not only does my Savior understand my pains and struggles, but so does my Father in Heaven.  I like the idea that He knows what it is like to have a migraine or to have joints that are hurt from time to time.  I like the idea that He knows what it is like to feel like there is more work to be done than there is time to do it.  I like the fact that He knows what it is to struggle and perhaps even fail from time to time.  For me one of the best aspects of family history research is to learn about the challenges my ancestors experienced and the ways that they responded to those challenges.  Somehow the thoughts of their struggles binds my heart to them and I experience a shared sense of mortality with them.  So it is with my Father and His Divine Son, our Savior Jesus Christ.  By knowing that They understand our challenges and the depths of our struggles, we come to feel a closeness to Them that would not otherwise be possible.

Brigham drew upon these insights and asked, "Well what does this bring us to, the few that are here this morning?"  He then answered, "It brings us to this one thing, that this experience is necessary for us in order to bring us to perfection" (Brigham Young, Complete Discourses, 2:1101).  That mere fact, the fact that our struggles are not wasted, that they serve a purpose and are for something, gives us the strength to "press forward with a steadfastness in Christ" (2 Nephi 31:20).

Brigham further counseled, "Then do not you nor I complain of hard times nor anything that we are called to pass through, for it is right.  No person would know the nature of poverty unless they had once been in comfortable circumstances; no person would know and realize the pleasure of ease in their bodies and the benefit of lying down and resting unless they had sometimes been in pain and had experienced sleepless nights and been anxious to rest, no person in any kingdom understands anything but by the contrast.  No person could know of the blessings of life, of light, of knowledge, of happiness in every particular degree unless they had tasted the opposite in its degree. . . . I tell you it is necessary for this people to experience every trial that they can possibly pass through" (Brigham Young, Complete Discourses, 2:1101).

I am grateful to know that we have a God who "mourns with those that mourn, and comforts those who stand in need of comfort" (Mosiah 18:8-9).  I am grateful to know that we have a God who hears our every prayer and numbers the tears of His children.  I am grateful to know that we have a God who in time will "wipe all tears from [our] eyes" and usher in an eternity in which "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain" (Revelation 21:4).  But I am equally grateful to know we have a God who lets us learn everything that we must learn, even if we must at times learn "by sad experience" (D&C 121:39), for it is often in those very sad experiences that we are tutored most profoundly in the lessons and principles of godliness.

Brett