Today in my Book of Mormon class at Brigham Young University, we talked about Lehi (an ancient prophet) and his vision of the tree of life. In the book of 1st Nephi (a book contained in a volume of scripture known as the Book of Mormon which is revered as scripture by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or sometimes mistakenly called the “Mormon Church”) chapter 8, Lehi has a vision, in which he sees a path leading to a tree. The tree can be symbolic for our salvation. The entire vision is a symbol for the plan of salvation—the way that we live and come to receive salvation through Jesus Christ. I have long imagined the path leading to the tree was a flat road, leading straight to the tree. However, my teacher told us today that the path is more like a steep mountain slope.
If the path we are supposed to climb is a mountain, we have to realize that we can’t always see the top. As with climbing any mountain, there are many curves that the trail has to wind around. More often that not, we set a goal to reach the next point. Once we get there, we realize there’s another point to get to, and keep pressing on until we reach the top.
Life gets really hard sometimes. We go through times when we feel like we cannot get through more than a day. This last week was much like that. Adjusting to college schedules, planning a school-wide event for Friday night, and lots of homework piled on me. I wasn’t getting enough sleep because all the homework that I had was due the next day—for the whole week. Many people go through family troubles, physical ailments, and emotional struggles. These are all part of God’s plan for us. He gives us trials and hardships so that we become more like Him. It’s like making steel—it must go through a refiner’s fire in order to be made pure and clean and strong. As we go through these trials, we can gain comfort in knowing that if we react positively to hard things in our lives, we will be made better people.
God loved us enough to give us His Son, Jesus Christ
Another comfort in our trials is knowing that Heavenly Father understands exactly what we are going through. He sent His son, Jesus Christ, to suffer for us so that we can be like Him. The general Christian world believes that Christ paid for our sins so we can be forgiven. However, not only did Christ suffer for our sins, but He also felt everything that each individual person would go through. Every physical pain, every emotional struggle, every sorrow and sadness and grief for family members and friends, He felt as He suffered. Christ knows exactly how each of us feels when we hurt. He did this for us so that we would not have to go through any kind of hardship alone.
I am so grateful that Heavenly Father loves us enough to do this for us—to send His Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer so that we can all be more like Him. Because of it, every person can turn to Him and find comfort and love. Because of it, we can become more like our Heavenly Father when we have trials and hardships.
By Elizabeth W.
Elizabeth is a BYU student who wants to go into nursing. She enjoys playing piano, swimming, reading, and eating chocolate.
Additional Resources:
Recent Comments