Mormon 9

(December 16, 2013)
It is funny the way your mind works upon scriptures – interpreting them in light of your own weaknesses rather than their actual meaning.  For example, the scriptures that say that disciples of Christ, firm and unshakable in their faith and doubting nothing, shall have power to do whatsoever thing that they pray to the Father to have done.  I look at that and think to myself about how great it would be to have that kind of faith – I would be praying for this mighty miracle and that mighty miracle and I would set the world right in no time flat.

Then, after a moment of sober reflection, I realized that if the Lord has the power to do these miracles through a hypothetical me that has that kind of faith, He has the power to accomplish those things without me.  And yet He has not.  Why has He not done them?  It isn’t because He cannot, and it isn’t because He does not love His children.  No, it is because He understands what needs to happen in mortality better than I do.  So the thoughts of a hypothetical righteous me standing in front of a tornado, praying it away suddenly evaporate from my mind.

But, I thought, I would be able to heal others and forestall death for myself and those I love.  But a little thought stripped me of that notion as well.  God holds the keys of life and death, and He uses them with love for us.  Who am I, with no real knowledge of life beyond the veil, to say that remaining in mortality is the better option?  Isn’t that, also, just pride on my part?  The Father holds the keys of entry and exit to this mortal sphere, and I certainly lack the wisdom to supplant Him.

No, the more I thought about things the more I realized that the hypothetical me with the necessary faith and righteousness to have such effectual prayers would also be a me that is far more observant of my Father’s will, far less likely to use such power for fear of harming myself or His other children, and more patient in all types of afflictions.  It almost seems a power that, should I ever acquire it, I would never use it.  Perhaps that isn’t quite the case – perhaps, having thought these thoughts I have swung the pendulum too far in the opposite direction.  But at least I would be far more reserved in the use of such a power than I am now in my indiscriminate prayers (more akin to a wish list to Santa than a genuine effort to understand His perfect will).