Alma 6-7

(September 17, 2014)

                One lesson that I am just beginning to learn (a lesson that I understood intellectually before, but am becoming converted to) is of the importance of expressing gratitude and feeling gratitude for whatever happens.  Alma clearly says that in this chapter – we are to return thanks for whatsoever we receive.  It is not limited to returning thanks for those things that we identify as beneficial, nor is it returning thanks for those things we want – we are to return thanks for whatsoever we do receive.  We are to be thankful for the sunny days and the thunderstorms.

                Some may say that makes us Panglossian in our approach, to which I am coming to understand my answer is yes, because Pangloss was (half-)right.  We do live in the best of all possible worlds, if we understand that the world designed by God is designed to take us from what we were and are and to make us what we must become to have a fullness of joy.  Understanding that, everything that we experience is designed to bring us towards God (if we allow it to).  Our difference with Pangloss is on his passivity – there is no excuse for passivity.

                I find it ironic that I am coming to this understanding during a period of time when I have shed more tears than at any other point in my life – almost certainly the hardest time of my life thus far.  But upon second thought, that isn’t so surprising.  After all, Joseph Smith was given similar counsel only in his extremity in Liberty Jail.  The lesson that all things work for our good, and we should be grateful for everything (including our great trials), seems to be a lesson we are often taught during periods of great trials.