Sometimes life sucks. We stub out toes. Our favorite things break. A favorite TV show is canceled. Someone that we know and love passes away. Our time on the earth may sometimes feel like it is an endless drudgery of sadness and heartbreak. We might feel like nothing can change or get better. It can be easy to feel that life is pointless or wearisome as we face challenges in life.
In the Book of Mormon, Lehi dealt with some of the same feelings. Listen to how he felt looking back over his life as he spoke to his son Jacob:
Thou art my firstborn in the days of my tribulation in the wilderness. And behold, in thy childhood thou hast suffered afflictions and much sorrow, because of the rudeness of thy brethren.
He describes his time in the wilderness as a tribulation. I think that each of us can at times feel that we are in the wilderness, in much the same way.
Lehi had a similar experience in his vision of the Tree of Life. He said,
5 And it came to pass that I saw a man, and he was dressed in a white robe; and he came and stood before me.
6 And it came to pass that he spake unto me, and bade me follow him.
7 And it came to pass that as I followed him I beheld myself that I was in a dark and dreary waste.
I can think of another couple who was driven out into the wilderness after they had spent time living in the presence of God: Adam and Eve. They started out living in the presence of god in the Garden of Eden. Later, after sinning, they were separated from the presence of God and entered a wilderness.
The scriptures are filled with instances and examples of using 'wilderness' to describe a time of affliction and hardship, or maybe life as a whole. They are times when we are separated from the presence of God and when we are more open to temptation. The New Testament relates that after His baptism, Jesus Christ went out into the wilderness to be tempted.
I hope that I have established by now that there are times that life is not joyful; if any of you somehow doubted that. I also hope that I have also established that the scriptures also often talk about times of affliction as being like a wilderness, or as afflicitons as taking place in the wilderness.
Life is like the wilderness. We are separated from God and are not immediately in His presence. But we do not have to remain out of God's presence, even as we remain in the world. Jesus Christ is the solution to that riddle.
10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
(Luke 2:10-11)
Jesus Christ came into the world to experience affliction and overcome it. He comes into our lives to experience our afflictions and overcome them. much as Lehi and his family had the Leahona to guide and direct them in the wilderness, we can have the influence of God as we try to navigate our lives.
What does that do for us? Even when we know that God is with us on our journey through the wilderness, it is still a journey and it can still feel like a long way. But it is not so much of a wilderness because we have a path. There is a goal to reach and a way to get there. Having the influence of God in our lives does not change the sorts of things that we might experience during this life. Good things and bad things happen to both members of the church and staunch athiests, but having God with us in our mortal journey allows us to relate to our struggle in a different way. It changes or redeems the trials that happen to us. Knowing that God is present in the world allows us to have faith, even as Lehi had faith, that "he shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain".
Another way of thinking about it is that recognizing the influence and presence of God in the world and in our lives instills our lives with meaning. It fills the patterns of human life and the hardships that accompany it with meaning and purpose. That is something that I like to think about.
Lehi wrote a bit about that in the context of his vision.
8 And after I had traveled for the space of many hours in darkness, I began to pray unto the Lord that he would have mercy on me, according to the multitude of his tender mercies.
9 And it came to pass after I had prayed unto the Lord I beheld a large and spacious afield.
10 And it came to pass that I beheld a tree, whose fruit was desirable to make one happy.
When Lehi prayed to the Lord, his situation changed. He was able to see a goal to reach where there was not one before. Similarly, he wrote to his sone Jacob that
14 And now, my sons, I speak unto you these things for your profit and learning; for there is a God, and he hath created all things, both the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are, both things to act and things to be acted upon.
15 And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man, after he had created our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and in fine, all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition.
25 Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.
(2nd Nephi 2:25)
10 And in that day Adam blessed God and was filled, and began to prophesy concerning all the families of the earth, saying: Blessed be the name of God, for because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy, and again in the flesh I shall see God.
11 And Eve, his wife, heard all these things and was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.