(January 17, 2014)
I don’t know why we believe that we can be comfortable and still properly living the Gospel. The Gospel is a source of comfort, but it is not comfortable. Look at the calamities that will face the world before the Second Coming. These disasters will be enough to shake the faith of even the elect. Why do we feel we have the right, because of our faith, to not have to suffer through the indignities of being cut off in traffic? Or having a bad hair day? Or even a back ache?
We think in terms of the prophets of old, and what it will mean to qualify ourselves for the same Exaltation that they receive. But, by the same token, we can liken the prophesies to ourselves and think what characteristics we would need in order to have that same faith that would empower us to remain diligent in our testimonies even with everything in the world crumbling around us. We living in a trying age, to be sure, when the forces of atheism are ascendant and actively proselyting a materialistic and deterministic dogma. It is a dangerous and deceptively persuasive idea, and resisting it is hard. But how do we think we can stand with Abraham, who maintained his faith in spite of being called upon to sacrifice his son the way he was nearly sacrificed, or to stand with our progeny, who will maintain their faith as the stars fall from the sky and experience famines and pestilence and earthquakes and other catastrophes, if we cannot resist the materialistic threats to our faith in our days.
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