Pain Runs Deep...

Sometimes in life, pain runs deep… what I mean by that is that sometimes we find ourselves in grieving circumstances, or painful situations, whether it be a result of our own doings, or someone else’s, that we wonder why we have to experience such misery. I know what that feeling feels like. At least to some extent. I know what it feels like to have someone let you down. I know what it feels like to give someone your heart, and have them break it. I know what it feels like when you’ve let yourself down. I know what it feels like… to fall. In life, we’ve all fallen to sorrow or misery in one aspect or another.

One of the first stories in the Bible is the story of the first man, Adam, and his companion Eve. In this story, Adam and Eve lived in a perfect place called the Garden of Eden. Adam was told by God not to partake of a certain fruit in that garden, or else he would be cast out of Eden, and left to experience a miserable world. We all know the ending to this story, Adam did partake of the fruit, and he and Eve were cast out. They experienced pain, suffering, sin, and misery for the rest of their lives.

 Looking on that story, we might be inclined to feel sorry for Adam. In relation to us, we might be inclined to feel sorry for ourselves when we see that in the present, we are experiencing pain or misery. I would invite you to look on your pains in a different light, however. There is a scripture in the Book of Mormon that talks about the commonality between misery and joy. It says:

“And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden…wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no ^bjoy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no ^csin.”

Sometimes in life, pain runs deep. We may experience pains that cause us to question if life is even worth it. On the other hand, life also hands us those moments of pure joy. We must realize that if Adam hadn’t walked the path of misery, he wouldn’t have known the path to joy. So when those painful moments come to you in your walk of life, remind yourself that you are quite literally walking the path that Adam has paved for you.   For “Adam ^bfell that men might be; and men ^care, that they might have ^djoy.”

   

I came across a scripture in the Bible the other day…it was Amos 5:8 – “Seek him that maketh ^athe seven ^bstars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the ^cmorning, and maketh the day ^ddark with night: that calleth for the ^ewaters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: ^fThe Lord is his name:” It got me into thinking about science, physics in particular, and how man’s theories of what we’re made of and how we play a role in this great universe has evolved immensely. In fact, it was only a few centuries ago that man proposed that the earth was the center of the entire universe, and that the sun, moon, and stars revolved around this great planet we call earth. It was no sooner than when Galileo put his eyes up to the first telescope, however, that we realized that earth wasn’t the only planet in the outer space. Man came to realize that we might not be alone, and that we might not even lie at the center of our own solar system. Wow, has physics changed. Today we propose physical theories that purport to know everything from the smallest particle that every piece of matter is composed of all the way to how the largest pieces of mass react at speeds close to the speed of light.

If there is anything that modern science has taught me, it’s that there is so much more to life than what the eye can see. In fact, in the whole grand scheme of things, it seems to me that the eye sees relatively nothing. In that scripture I quoted at the beginning, we are encouraged to look to God, that great creator of the universe. That One that encompasses all that we have to see and more. For when we look outside of ourselves, we behold a marvelous piece of work. A piece of work so much bigger than us, something so much more glorious that we couldn’t bear looking back on the idea that we were the glorious ones at the center of the universe. Seek Him that maketh us, and he will show us His glory.

Of this I Know...

Ive been pondering the concept of faith lately. (Not that that should come to anyone’s surprise) Faith is a belief in something that is not seen, but is true. God asks us to have faith in Him. I find it interesting that God tells us to have faith in Him, or to believe in Him first, and then we can come to a sure knowledge of Him and His teachings. There’s a scripture in the Book of Mormon that kind of talks about this. It says …“if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.” (Alma 32:27, page 289-290) Then it goes on to talk about how faith is like a seed, and when you nourish it, it will grow, similar to how your belief, and eventual knowledge of God’s existence will grow…

Having been a track athlete for a number of years, I’ve found that this concept parallels how I’ve come to know what kind of an athlete I am, or what kind of abilities I have. Like many athletes, I want to know where my limits are, or how fast I really can run. However, I have the tendency to doubt my abilities and question whether I really can run as fast as my coach or fellow teammates tell me I can, even when I would seem to do well in some races. I would stand on the starting line and ask myself, “Am I really good enough to race these people?” But then my mind would always go back to something that my mom taught me as a girl, about believing in myself. She would tell me that only those people that believe they can win actually get the prize. On the alternative outlook, she would ask me, “do you think that those Olympic track athletes ever won a race without actually believing that they could win?” She was teaching me faith. I realized that I had to have faith in myself before I could actually see what I could do. This directly relates to our understanding and our coming to the knowledge that God is real, and that He plays a role in our lives. It is only until we take that step of faith or even “desire to believe” that He will show Himself unto us. If we but “experiment” upon His words, the words of Christ, we will come to know of a surety that He is there. There is real power in coming to know God. He knows everything about us, and He knows who we really can become. Through faith, we can know, or do, anything. “…for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed… nothing shall be impossible unto you.”