trust

a few months ago in sunday school we were talking about the relationship between God and joseph smith. mostly concerning the timing of events:

     

     first vision: age 14

          nothing for years

     angel moroni: age 17

          annual check-ups for four years

     received book of mormon: age 21

     church was organized: age 24

the class discussion was along the lines of joseph earning God's trust. that God was "testing" him, so to speak, before allowing him to fulfill his role as prophet of the restoration, of the last dispensation of the fulness of times. big job. big shoes to fill. better make sure he can really do it ...

but then it occurred to me: God is omniscient. He really has no need to "test" us. He knows us. He knows what we will do before we do it. that's what being all-knowing is ... knowing all. now given, we have agency, and our choice is ours to make, nevertheless, God knows you so well that he knows the way you will use you freedom to choose. those of you who are parents, think of how well you know your child(ren). how you can practically predict their every move by the age of 2. then think how many millennia God has known each of us as His child. how well does He know our every move! furthermore, to God, time is not linear like it is to us. it is "one eternal round". i don't know what that means, but i know He knows what i'm cooking for dinner. i, on the other hand, have absolutely no idea.

but i digress ... so why not give it all to joseph at age 14? why "line upon line, precept upon precept ... here a little and there a little"? i think, or rather it was enlightened upon my understanding, that it is a test, yes, but moreso the other way around. perhaps we are learning to trust God. additionally, perhaps we are learning to trust ourselves.

by God's continual acts of goodness, we begin to see He is a constant Being. that He's not going to deter from the course He is on. that there is a law "irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundation of the world" that if we are obedient to His commandments, He will indeed bless us. once we understand that and have it written on the "fleshy tables of our hearts" we can act in faith, hoping with a surety that things will turn out well in the end. 

and as we continue on this path of obedience, we become empowered by the goodness, the bit of Christ, that is in us. we "receive His image in [our] countenace ..." we realize, "yah, i can do this!" and can come to God and accept whatever trials, blessing, whatever circumstances He sees fit to throw at us, because we know His course is directed towards goodness, and we have the power, the shear will power to stay on that course. to endure, and to endure WELL, to the end.

so with joseph, as a 14 year old boy could he really believe in God enough, in himself enough, to do what would be required of him? to leave the place he was comfortable with? to endure the persecutions, the jailing, the mobbings, the tarring and feathering, the starvation, the hardships on his wife and family, the hardships on the early saints ... would he have known that he could do it and that God would see him through it? maybe ... maybe not.

maybe that's why we have trials. not so much to prove to God who we are, but to allow God to prove to us who we are. and to realize that we made it through because He is good. He is merciful, He is compassionate, He is a perfect Father. a perfect, loving Father. and when life seems insurmountably hard, you can crawl up in His lap and sob into His chest and He wraps His arms around you and embraces you with hope until you're strong enough to stand on your own two feet again. 

that's the God i know. the God i trust.