When we struggle over long periods of time to reawaken and rescue a wayward child, we might occasionally lapse and wonder, What’s in this for me? It is not necessarily a selfish question. Peter asked and was given an answer to this same query. Parents might apply the interchange between Peter and Jesus to themselves: “We have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore? And Jesus said unto them . . . Every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.”[ii]

Imagine! Sacrifices made for the sake of Christ’s work are rewarded “an hundredfold” and with “everlasting life”! Persistently and righteously dealing with a wayward child is counted as a sacrifice in time and selflessness, among other things.

When adversity strikes, we often focus on what it is doing to us rather than what it is doing for us. The process of experiencing adversity is designed to chip away at our rough edges and strengthen muscles of character and spirituality that are essential to becoming gods. Joseph Smith said, “I am like a huge, rough stone rolling down from a high mountain; and the only polishing I get is when some corner gets rubbed off by coming in contact with something else . . . all hell knocking off a corner here and a corner there. Thus I will become a smooth and polished shaft in the quiver of the Almighty.”[iii]

Adversity is a Propelling Force

Adversity is painful but necessary for spiritual fervency. As long as the brother of Jared was struggling in the wilderness, he offered consistent, urgent prayer, which not only guided him day by day but also opened the windows of heaven to the vast library of celestial truth. But when he experienced a season of calm, he, one of the greatest prophets, became spiritually lax, for which the Lord severely chastised him.[iv]

Likewise, because the Lord wants us to keep growing in spirituality and moving toward exaltation, He will give us pressing reasons to pray (praying for a wayward child is an example). The present adversity simply acts as a catalyst to bring us to the Lord. The brother of Jared prayed to overcome the adversity of darkness in his barges and he was brought into the presence of the Lord.[v] Joseph Smith prayed for deliverance from Liberty Jail and was blessed with astounding information about the functions and promises of the priesthood.[vi] Abraham prayed for deliverance from the wicked priest of Elkenah and was given an amazing promise of priesthood ministry through which all of God’s children would be blessed.[vii]

These prophets received answers to their individual prayers, but the Lord had even more to give them. Adversity got them there. Praying over anything, even wayward children, can unlock the treasury of heaven. Contemplated in this light, then, adversity can be a gift. Humans seem to be naturally incapable of maintaining mighty prayer without the motivator of adversity.

Remembering Lehi’s exposition on the law of opposites, we learn that adversity is also essential for happiness to exist.[viii] We wouldn’t know joy for what it was without pain to compare it to. In addition, happiness is only one of the rewards for enduring adversity in faith; gain is another: God “shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain.”[ix] Like the examples of the brother of Jared, Joseph Smith, and Abraham, compensation that goes beyond the price of our present adversity occurs when God consecrates our afflictions for our gain. Heavenly Father enjoys the perfection of this principle; He deals with the adversity of wayward children all the time and yet describes His life as having a “fulness of joy.”[x] That fact should give us hope as we progress toward godhood; we should remember that our adversity will not always overwhelm us but will actually propel us into a life of complete joy.

The Work of Redemption: Pain and Joy at Extremes

Sometimes we may feel exhausted in trying to comprehend all that is required of us to reach this eternal goal. One exasperated father who was struggling with a rebellious son, joked, “The terrestrial kingdom is looking better and better all the time.” We might feel the same way—Is forever dealing with difficult children the definition of life in heaven? Perhaps understanding the opportunity in adversity might help us set our sites higher.

But our residence is not yet the celestial kingdom. For now the scales are tipped in favor of adversity, not joy. To help us arrive where He is at, be like He is, and experience a fulness of joy, Heavenly Father is not timid about allowing us to confront adversity. Because we desired to become like Him and covenanted do His redeeming work, should we be surprised that He takes our desires and our covenants seriously and therefore hands us redeeming assignments? The work of redemption can be long-term, excruciating work, but, as missionaries can testify, no work is more satisfying to the soul than that of redemption. Or, as parents can testify, the only joy greater than giving physical life is giving spiritual life—that is, to see their children turn from error and discover the safety and joy of living righteous lives.

Likewise, the only pain worse than physical pain is spiritual pain.

A mother in Arizona wrote,

“Nothing could have prepared me for the excruciating pain of my first delivery. I had thought that I wanted to have the full experience, so I turned down the epidural. I did fine for the first few hours, and then my water broke. The sudden, blinding pain was more than I could bear, and I was only dilated to three—I had hours to go. When the nurse offered me the epidural, I gladly agreed. In fact, when the doctor was delayed because he was treating another patient, I began to panic. I couldn’t get relief from the pain fast enough.

“At the time, I thought, Who would knowingly go through pregnancy and delivery again? But for as much pain as I experienced that day, it was nothing compared to the spiritual suffering I experienced when that same, sweet little boy abandoned the Church and broke my heart. And I have felt no [greater] joy and satisfaction than from lovingly and patiently working with him, and finally seeing him return to God and marry in the temple.”

God knows something about the work of redemption that we are in the process of discovering. With His eternal perspective, He must find great satisfaction in rearing children through all the stages of their existence and patiently working them through their periodic bouts of waywardness until He finally brings them to the point that they embrace the truth and never again depart from it. To learn the satisfying and eternal work of redemption, we need training, and what better place and time than here and now when the need for redemption is so great and the stakes are so high?

The Plan of Happiness is Worth Our Sacrifice

Speaking of the plan of happiness that we first must learn and then teach, Elder Bruce C. Hafen made the following statement:

“We are away at school, trying to master the lessons of “the great plan of happiness” so we can return home and know what it means to be there. Over and over the Lord tells us why the plan is worth our sacrifice—and His. Eve called it ‘the joy of our redemption’ (Moses 5:11). Jacob called it ‘that happiness which is prepared for the saints’ (2 Ne. 9:43). Of necessity, the plan is full of thorns and tears—His and ours. But because He and we are so totally in this together, our being ‘at one’ with Him in overcoming all opposition will itself bring us ‘incomprehensible joy.’”[xi]

To increase our capacity to do the work of redemption, Heavenly Father gives us gifts that would be difficult to develop without the vehicle of adversity. Two of these gifts are experience and redemption.

All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience

The Lord’s words, “all these things shall give thee experience,” [xii] are not always comforting. Of course, by experience we usually mean adverse experience. One father from Idaho said, “This is at once the most frightening and comforting phrase in the scriptures.”

Somehow we anticipate that our experience might include, as Joseph Smith was told in the bowels of Liberty Jail, our being “cast into the pit” where we helplessly stand by as our enemies decide our fate; or our being “cast into the deep” amidst the “billowing surge” and “fierce winds”; or our being enveloped by gathering “blackness,” while “all the elements combine to hedge up the way”; or worse, our being threatened by “the very jaws of hell” that seek to devour us.[xiii] We feel the weight of experience when our children rebel and break our hearts and when there seems to be little we can do to stop them. At such times of difficulty, we may ask, How can such harsh experience be for my good?

Somewhere deep inside us, we know the answer: By means of harsh experience we will gain, not lose, and, beyond every other consideration, what we will gain is the power of redemption. In the process, we are being blessed with invaluable spiritual gifts, and we are developing the necessary qualities of character to do redeeming work.

Redemptive Power Preceded by Opposing Experience

Evidently, eternal law requires that the receipt of power be preceded and developed by experience. Lehi put it another way—that to gain anything desirable, we must experience its corresponding opposite: “it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things.”[xiv] Therefore, there is opportunity in experiencing the adversity of weakness, sickness, financial woes, relationship problems, disagreeable people, wayward children, or, as Lehi listed, wickedness, misery, death, corruption, and insensibility.[xv]

Opposition “must needs be,” Lehi declared. We must experience the opposites or opposition in all things. Therefore, we are not sheltered from opposition here. Otherwise, there could be no righteousness, holiness, goodness, incorruption, happiness, sensation, and no existence.[xvi] Thankfully, in the process of experiencing opposition, we secure power through the Atonement to overcome opposition. That is, our opposition experience leads to power: “Ye receive no witness [blessing] until after the trial of [opposition to] your faith.”[xvii] To become like God, we must experience what He has experienced, so that we, like He, might gain the power to triumph.[xviii]

Here, we learn again that every effort we make to face and overcome opposition by sanctifying ourselves has a redeeming effect upon the person for whom we are praying. Sanctification infuses us with power to triumph over the opposition so that might better do the work of redemption. In the end, the redeemed do the redeeming. How do we sanctify ourselves? By accepting and learning from our experiences, by our efforts to improve ourselves spiritually, and by our encounters with the Holy Spirit. These things lead to wisdom, which leads to power, which collectively make us better partners with God in the work of redemption. Thus, the cycle of redemption is one of faith in Christ, repentance, purification through committing to and better living the covenants, becoming more sanctified through the Holy Ghost, divine rescue from adversity, then helping other to duplicate this cycle.

How the Prophets Gained Redemptive Power

Consider Enos, who went through the cycle of experiencing adversity then redemption by applying the teaching of his redeemed father, Jacob. Subsequently, Enos desired to extend the blessings of redemption to his family, his countrymen, and even his enemies. Once he had been redeemed, he could not rest without trying to redeem someone else. Evidently his desire and consequently bestowed power to redeem others remained with him to the end of his life. When he was about to die, he declared that he had been “wrought upon by the power of God that I must preach and prophesy unto this people, and declare the word according to the truth which is in Christ. And I have declared it in all my days, and have rejoiced in it above that of the world.”[xix]

Consider Alma the Elder, who experienced adversity and then repented of his sins at the preaching of a redeemed Abinadi. When Alma experienced personal redemption, he “went about privately among the people, and began to teach the words of Abinadi—Yea, concerning that which was to come, and also concerning the resurrection of the dead, and the redemption of the people, which was to be brought to pass through the power, and sufferings, and death of Christ, and his resurrection and ascension into heaven.”[xx] The now-redeemed Alma the Elder had gained, through the cycle of experiencing adversity and being redeemed from it, the power of redemption by which he helped to redeem the entire Church and his own wayward son.

Consider Alma’s son, Alma the Younger, who experienced adversity, then also repented of his sins after remembering the teachings of his redeemed father, who had developed the power of redemption to the extent that he could call down angelic help from heaven. When the now-redeemed younger Alma had experienced the adversity-redemption cycle, he declared that he had been “redeemed of the Lord . . . redeemed from the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity.”[xxi] Thereafter, the redeemed Alma the Younger went about “from this time forward” to teach the unredeemed people, “preaching the word of God in much tribulation, being greatly persecuted by those who were unbelievers, being smitten by many of them” [xxii] in order that he, along with the sons of Mosiah, might become the redeeming “instruments in the hands of God in bringing many to the knowledge of the truth, yea, to the knowledge of their Redeemer.”[xxiii] Within eight years, the redeemed Alma the Younger developed the power of redemption to the point that he could succeed his father as president of the Church and thereby extend his redeeming influence to embrace many people.

Consider the sons of Mosiah, who Mormon described as “the very vilest of sinners.”[xxiv] Nevertheless, by the teachings and prayers of their redeemed father, they were rescued by the same angelic experience as Alma the Younger. Now having experienced the adversity-redemption cycle, they sought to become the redeemers: “Now they were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea, even the very thought that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble.”[xxv] Through experiencing adversity and redemption, the sons of Mosiah gained the power of redemption and helped to save “many thousands of [their] brethren . . . from the pains of hell; and they are brought to sing redeeming love.”[xxvi]

And so it is with each of us who experiences adversity followed by redemption. Once we are redeemed we begin to gain the power to redeem others, and as we seek to sanctify ourselves through righteous living, that power to redeem increases.

Desiring and Being Empowered to Redeem Others

One mother expressed how her personal cycle of redemption resulted in her increased capacity to help to redeem others. We will call her “Joy.”

After having been redeemed from her own suffering during a difficult recovery after childbirth, Joy felt a desire to redeem others. One day, while she was bathing her newborn child, she felt an overwhelming gratitude for Heavenly Father’s mercy in helping her overcome that difficult delivery; she thus offered a prayer asking how she might extend that mercy to others. Suddenly, a beautiful woman appeared before Joy and told her that she was Joy’s third great-grandmother. The woman said that she loved Joy as if there were no generational distance between them. She desired to be sealed to Joy and asked Joy to help her.

Although Joy had never done family history work before, she began immediately and was filled with the testimony of that work. Over time, her capacity grew, and her happiness eventually exceeded the suffering of the former difficult recovery that had brought her to this point. Having now experienced the Lord’s redeeming mercy in her life, Joy received the desire and divine power to become a redeemer. Through her efforts, Joy not only brought the blessings of salvation to her third great-grandmother but to thousands of her kindred dead.

Within every experience of adversity there is a waiting blessing that will transcend the experience, and that blessing will usually come in the form of greater ability to redeem others.

So here is the point: If the only way we can gain the power of redemption is through personally experiencing redemption, it stands to reason that we need something to be redeemed from. Therefore, Heavenly Father places us in a fallen situation where weakness and adversity are certain and where sin are inevitable. The plan of redemption provides that once we are hurt or slip up, Jesus would be there to heal and redeem us. Then, having experienced redemption firsthand, we gain the desire and power to become the redeemers for other. Over time, as we exercise the power of redemption, we grow in our capacity to redeem until we become like God, who has infinite redemptive power.

Thus, the Fall was necessary and potentially a huge blessing. Nevertheless, experiencing its effects and watching it break those whom we love can be heart wrenching. During such times, we pray for perspective to see the opportunity in the present adverse experience, and we plead that God will increase our ability to redeem so that we likewise might help to rescue wayward ones. Our ultimate hope, of course, is that the wayward soul will overcome the adversity and experience redemption firsthand. When that happens, the cycle will repeat itself, and the redeemed soul will gain the power of redemption and desire to redeem others.

Author’s Note

Note: This article is adapted from Rescuing Wayward Children. Follow this link to learn more.

Also, to receive a sample of my new 5-book series, The Three Pillars of Zion, Click here.

[ii] Matthew 19:27–29.

[iii] Joseph Fielding Smith, ed., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 304.

[iv] See Ether 1–2.

[v] See Ether 2–3.

[vi] See D&C 121.

[vii] See Abraham 1:15–19.

[viii] See 2 Nephi 2:11.

[ix] 2 Nephi 2:2.

[x] 3 Nephi 28:10.

[xi] Bruce C. Hafen, “The Atonement: All for All,” Ensign, May 2004, 98.

[xii] D&C 122:7.

[xiii] D&C 122:7.

[xiv] 2 Nephi 2:11.

[xv] See 2 Nephi 2:11.

[xvi] See 2 Nephi 2:11.

[xvii] Ether 12:6.

[xviii] See Joseph Fielding Smith, ed., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 297.

[xix] Enos 1:26.

[xx] Mosiah 18:1–2, emphasis added.

[xxi] Mosiah 27:24, 29.

[xxii] Mosiah 27:32.

[xxiii] Mosiah 27:36.

[xxiv] Mosiah 28:4.

[xxv] Mosiah 28:3.

[xxvi] Alma 26:13.

God programmed the experience of life to be one of continual lack. Our resources and abilities seldom equal what is required to heft our burdens. As we struggle to cope and progress, we find ourselves in the constant need of seeking help from someone who has greater strength and ability. Try as we might, we cannot change life’s program. But once we admit that we will never have enough and that we need constant help, we will be in a better position to come to Jesus and draw strength from a Resource that never diminishes.

The Great Discovery

One of the great discoveries of life is that God can take care of us. Here are two examples:

Years after the Israelites had wandered in the wilderness, the prophet Nehemiah offered a prayer of thanksgiving, remembering how God had easily yoked with his people and shouldered their burdens:

Thou in thy manifold mercies forsookest them not in the wilderness: the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day, to lead them in the way; neither the pillar of fire by night, to shew them light, and the way wherein they should go. Thou gavest also thy good spirit to instruct them, and withheldest not thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for their thirst. Yea, forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, [so that] they lacked nothing; their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not.[ii]

The Lord never forsook them; he was with them both day and night; he instructed them and provided manna and water to sustain them so that they never lacked anything. Amazingly, neither their clothing nor their shoes wore out during those 40 years! Truly, the Lord’s yoke is easy and his burden is light.

Here is another of example of “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

At the end of Jesus’ life, just before he entered Gethsemane, he reminded his apostles of the time when they went out to teach the people with neither purse nor scrip. Then Jesus asked them: “When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing.”[iii] They lacked nothing!

Here, then, is the solution for those who of us lack:

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.[iv]

We could rephrase this scripture by replacing the word “wisdom” with “anything.”

If any of you lack anything, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth [chastises] not; and it [the blessing] shall be given him.

Notice the inclusive language: anything,” “any of you,” and “all men.” Now notice the word “liberally,” meaning abundantly. Clearly, the Lord is anxious to freely take care of our needs, if we will ask him. If we will sincerely request that he yoke with us and help to carry our burden, he will neither chastise us nor turn us away; rather he will gladly give us the blessing we seek.

Grace and the Lord’s Yoke

One of the greatest gifts that Jesus offers us is his grace: his ability to add to our strength to make us equal to any challenge. Grace is that divine power which enables us to become more than we are and do more than we could if we were left to ourselves. But by yoking with Jesus, we become as strong as our Partner.

A Divine Formula

We can no more explain grace than we can understand how the Lord’s yoke works. But here is how the formula works:

• Come unto Christ and ask for his help.
• Do our best to carry the load.
• He will make up the difference.

A Pattern for Shifting Burdens

Jesus gave us a pattern for shifting the weight of both the burdens of sin and the difficulties of life. He said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”[v]

Let us examine some words and phrases in these verses:

• “Labour”—a woman in labor descends into the valley of death to bring forth new life. To survive the labour she needs comfort and encouragement. Jesus is offering us his comfort and encouragement.
• “I will give you rest.” The word rest has at least two meanings: “I will share your load” and “If you will come unto me, I will give you eternal life.”
• “Take my yoke upon you” means “Because I am the Savior I am already wearing a yoke. I going your way and have a place open in my yoke if you want to take it.”

• “Learn of me” means “I am inviting you to get to know me. We are family; we are friends. Family and friends learn about each other. As we travel along, yoked together, you will get to know me better.”
• “I am meek [patient, humble, gentle, submissive to your requests] and lowly in heart [not proud]” means “I want you to learn about me: I am always willing to help, and I am harmless.”
• “Ye shall find rest” – Our journey together ends with the great promise of eternal life.
• “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” means “You are going to notice a marked difference in the weight of your load.”

In the scripture, four verbs and their phrases describe how we can lighten our burdens when we easily yoke ourselves to Jesus:

1. Come unto me.
2. Take my yoke upon you; it is easy.
3. Learn of me.
4. Find rest.

1) Come to the Savior

Don’t try to see how long you can tough it out. Don’t drive yourself into spiritual and mental exhaustion by trying to carry the burden alone. Come to the Savior—ALL of you “that labour and are heavy-laden.”

2) “Take my yoke upon you”

Here are two examples of people’s burdens made light by their taking upon them the easy yoke of Jesus Christ:

• Moses’ people were punished. A plague of poisonous serpents bit all of Moses’ people for their disobedience to God. Moses created a brazen serpent and raised it on a pole, symbolizing the Savior’s being lifted upon the cross, and invited the people to simply look upon the serpent and be healed. But many of the people perished because they would not look; the solution was too easy and therefore too unbelievable. The prophet, Nephi, explained, “The labor which they had to perform was to look; and because of the simpleness of the way, or the easiness of it, there were many who perished.”[vi]
• Referring to this event, the Book of Mormon prophet, Alma, taught his son: “For behold, it is…easy to give heed to the word of Christ, which will point to you a straight course to eternal bliss…. O my son, do not let us be slothful because of the easiness of the way; for so was it with our fathers; for so was it prepared for them, that if they would look they might live; even so it is with us. The way is prepared, and if we will look [unto Christ] we may live forever.”[vii]

Clearly, the burdens of sin and life are hard, but yoking ourselves to Christ is easy.

The Easy Yoke of Jesus Christ

President Howard W. Hunter described Jesus’ easy yoke:

In Biblical times, the yoke was a device of great assistance to those who tilled the field. It allowed the strength of a second animal to linked and coupled with the strength of a single animal, sharing and reducing the heavy labor of the plow or wagon. A burden that was overwhelming or perhaps impossible for one could be equitably and comfortably borne by two bound together with a common yoke….

Why face life’s burdens alone, Christ asks, or why face them with temporal support that will quickly falter. To the heavy laden it is Christ’s yoke, it is the power and peace of standing side by side with a God that will provide the support , balance, and strength to meet our challenges and endure our tasks here in the hardpan field of mortality.[viii]

What is Christ’s ‘easy yoke’?

Covenants, such as the baptismal covenant, are the easy yoke of Jesus Christ. A covenant is made by two people promising each other: “I promise you and you promise me.” By mutual promises, the two parties are bound (yoked) together.

When we keep our part of a covenant, Jesus keeps his part. And his part always includes removing the burden of our sins and helping us to carry the weight of our problems. Then our burden becomes light and manageable.

Examples of Jesus Making Our Burdens Light:

• The Paralytic Man. The friends of a paralytic man broke through the roof a house to lower a sick man and his bed to Jesus for healing. Their faith was rewarded by the Savior’s healing the man and lifting his burden. Significantly, after the man was healed, Jesus directed him to carry home his bed. The healed man gladly obliged; the bed weighed much less than the infirmity that the Savior had removed from him. Now his burden was light.[ix]
• Alma. The Book of Mormon prophet, Alma, was once the vilest of sinners. When he came face to face with his own rebellion, he repented mightily and the Lord forgave him. Thereafter, he devoted himself to the Lord’s work, which required a lifetime of sacrifice and service. But his sacrifice burdened him much less than the burden of sin that he had carried alone.

Examples of Christ’s Easy Yoke–“We’re in this together”

Peter’s life provides two significant examples of the Lord’s standing with us and absorbing our mistakes when we are yoked to him.

When tax collectors asked Peter if Jesus paid tribute, Peter erroneously answered yes. Later, Jesus corrected him, but because they were yoked together, Jesus provided a solution “lest we should offend them.” Notice that Jesus includes himself in the solution. Peter’s burden was to go out and obtain the tribute money, but Jesus’ part was to provide the miracle by which that happened. When Peter paid the tribute money, Jesus said it would be “for me and thee.” Why? Because Peter and Jesus were yoked together; they were carrying this burden together. Jesus didn’t abandon Peter to suffer the consequences alone.[x]

Later, Peter made another mistake that the Savior rectified. When Judas betrayed the Savior, Peter drew his sword and cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant. Again, because Jesus and Peter were yoked together, Peter’s actions impacted Jesus. Therefore, Jesus told Peter to put away his sword, and quickly he healed the servant’s ear, repairing Peter’s mistake.[xi] When we are yoked with the Savior, he assumes and covers our mistakes.

3) “Learn of me”

The lessons we must learn about Jesus are lessons that we can only learn after we have taken upon us his yoke and traveled with him. What will we learn? That he is kind, just, consistent, non-discriminating, all-knowledgeable, all-powerful, and filled with perfect love.

But we do not have to learn everything about him before he manifests his power in our lives. An apostle, Boyd K. Packer, said, “You need not know everything before the power of the atonement will work for you. Have faith in Christ; it begins to work the day you ask.”[xii]

4) Find Rest Unto Your Souls

Consider what these people found or discovered when they decided to yoke themselves to the Lord and allow him to help carry their burdens:

• Job. This prophet experienced terrible trials, but the Lord remained constantly yoked to him and carried his burdens. During the process, Job learned lessons about the Lord that he could not have learned otherwise, and in the end the Lord appeared to him.

Then Job answered the LORD, and said, I know that thou canst do everything [you have all power], and that no thought can be withholden from thee [you know everything]…therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not [I thought I knew you, but what I have learned being yoked to you is too wonderful for me to describe]…I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.[xiii]

In other words, Job came to know the Lord more by being yoked to him than he ever could have otherwise. Finally, he came to know him in the ultimate sense: Job saw him and found rest to his soul.

• Abraham. After Abraham had nearly lost his life to the wicked priest of Elkenah, he yoked himself to the Lord and escaped the land of Ur with his wife and kindred. Then in the land of Haran, his journey with the Lord resulted in the Lord’s appearing unto him and giving him great promises. When the vision ended, Abraham said in his heart, “Thy servant has sought thee earnestly; now I have found thee.”[xiv] Abraham’s resolve to yoke himself to the Lord resulted in his finding the Lord, meaning knowing and seeing the Lord.

If we will submit to be easily yoked to Christ and allow him to help shoulder our burdens, we will receive in return his guarantee of support and the assurance that we will come to know him intimately.

Alma’s Testimony of Jesus’ Easy Yoke

Every person who tests the Savior will eventually stand as a witness that Jesus Christ indeed has an easy yoke, that he will lighten the heaviest of burdens, and that he will take care of us. The prophet Alma gave the following testimony, after having lived a life of sacrifice and service, which had caused him relentless and unbearable persecution:

I have been supported under trials and troubles of every kind, yea, and in all manner of afflictions; yea, God has delivered me from prison, and from bonds, and from death; yea, and I do put my trust in him, and he will still deliver me.[xv]

Alma’s testimony could be echoed by every soul who hearkens to the Savior’s invitation: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”[xvi]

Author’s Note

To receive a sample of my new 5-book series, The Three Pillars of Zion, Click here.

(I wish to thank Ted Gibbons for sharing his thoughts on this article.)

[ii] Nehemiah 9:18-21.

[iii] Luke 22:35.

[iv] James 1:5.

[v] Matthew 11:28-30.

[vi] 1 Nephi 17:41.

[vii] Alma 37:44,46.

[viii] Hunter, Conference Report, October 1990, 20.

[ix] Mark 2:2-12.

[x] Matthew 17:24-27.

[xi] Matthew 26:51.

[xii] Packer, “Washed Clean,” Ensign, May 1997, 9.

[xiii] Job 42:1-3, 4-5.

[xiv] Abraham 2:12.

[xv] Alma 36:27.

[xvi] Matthew 11:28-30.

Garbage day—that became the measuring stick of our survival. We felt that we were succeeding if we could just make it to another garbage day.

The joke was not so funny, however. During those protracted periods, I would often survey my life and mourn. How much of my mortal existence had I wasted on survival? How many opportunities had passed me by because I was not in a position to embrace them? Sometimes I felt that my life had been dedicated to enduring and that I had accomplished nothing of significance.

Granted, I was wallowing in self-pity, but I wonder how many of us doubt that our lives have much substance when we, too, slip into extended periods that exhaust our strength and challenge the limits of our endurance? Is our life without purpose? Is our faith in God vain?

A Dream

Once, when I felt that I was slogging uphill in the mud, I dreamed that I was on an airplane flying at 600 miles per hour. After a while, I noticed a crippled man stand and hobble toward the front of the plane. Each difficult stride covered a mere twelve inches, and the man seemed frustrated by his slow pace. Then suddenly I was on the ground observing the same scene from a different vantage point. Now from my new position, every step that the crippled man took spanned several miles! From his point of view, he was hardly making any progress at all; but from my point of view he was covering incredible distances.

I wonder if that is how God sees us—rocketing through space toward an eternal destination?

What Profit Is It?

Speaking for God, the prophet Malachi chastised us for questioning how the Lord works with us: “Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord.”

We are shocked by his denouncement. After all, we have been trying so hard. Incredulously, we ask, “What have we spoken against thee?”

Then the Lord answers, “Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts?” In other words, we have kept our covenants; we have prayed and fasted to the point of exhaustion; we have served diligently in our callings; we have humbled ourselves and faithfully attended the temple – and our lives never seem to improve! What profit is it?

Worse, we look around us and see people prospering who are not living the commandments. “And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered” (Malachi 3:13-15).

What is going on here? Is it vain to serve God? We feel like the crippled man, who longs for a healing that eludes him. So he is forced to inch along while the proud experience happiness, the wicked prosper, and deliverance comes to those who are Godless. How can this be?

Please tell me that I am not the only one who has felt this way.

In the Shadow of God

In your scripture studies, do you know the name Bezaleel? Probably not. And yet he was one of the most important people in the Old Testament. The responsibility for building the tabernacle fell to him (Exodus 31:1-11). In Exodus, we are informed that he was a skilled artisan in all works of metal, wood, and stone. Where had he acquired these skills? In Egypt, as a slave.

Imagine the years of hopelessness, laboring day after day with no end in sight. I am certain that Bezaleel wondered about the purpose of his life. Would he ever be able to use his gift for anything more than constructing and beautifying the Pharaoh’s cities? Had God forsaken him?

Interesting, the name Bezaleel means “in the shadow or the protection of God.” God was watching out for him after all. Bezaleel was being prepared not only for deliverance but for a mighty work that he would do to bind Israel to her God. Bezaleel’s work would become the model for all subsequent Israelite temples and even has application today.

Isaiah took up the subject of our apparent captivity as the seedbed of preparation for greater things: “…hearken ye people from far; the Lord hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.” Personalizing this scripture, we might say that the Lord has a plan for our lives that began before we were born. Isaiah called the Lord’s suppressing us for a purpose being “hid up” and “polished.”

And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me.

Notice what has happened while we were being held back, unaware of what the Lord was making of us, our real potential and worth invisible to the world. This is a temporary situation. In time, the Lord will retrieve us from his sheath as a sharp sword or from his quiver as a polished shaft. Our being “hid” had purpose after all: “Thou art my servant…in whom I will be glorified.” But while we were in the “shadow of his hand,” we felt useless: “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for naught and in vain.” Nevertheless, the day will come when “[I will be] glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength” (1 Nephi 21:1-5). What we cannot see now has purpose; a perfect plan is being worked outside our view.

When I Make Up My Jewels

Making it to the next garbage day seems to make all the difference.

Job didn’t enjoy the process of preparation any more than we do. He also experienced reaching out to heaven and temporarily receiving silence in return: “Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: on the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him.”

But Job also understood that what he was going through was seasonal. The furnace associated with the baptism of fire is hot, but “when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold” (Job 23:8-10) – stunningly beautiful and infinitely valuable.

The Lord explains our emergence and value this way: “And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.” Our waiting patiently for the Lord to deliver us from the captivity of our circumstance while he sharpens and polishes us for a greater purpose serves to distinguish us between “the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not” (Malachi 3:17-18).

Each of us experiences times when we feel that God is distant. Regardless of our best efforts to serve him, we imagine that our prayers and righteous efforts are vain. We wake up every morning to face the same distress; we feel that our life is slipping away and that we are making no progress at all. That is from our point of view. However, if we could step outside our present circumstance and see through the eyes of God, we might observe that we are traveling at light speed, and perhaps we are being prepared to construct a temple where we can meet our God and bring in others to meet him also.

The captivity season of our life wasn’t wasted after all.

Author’s Note

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