It's Not Easy, But It's Not Hard

As promised, I tried to think a little more about what to say today. So, in the past week I was thinking about this topic of adversity and yesterday in sacrament meeting a Stake High Counselor helped when he said: "It's not easy, but it's not hard." 

Think back to the many times I've hinted at that saying in what I write home. 

Let us not be slothful because of the easiness of the way. Alma 37:44;46

The pattern is simple, but not easy to follow.  President Henry B. Eyring (Act In All Diligence)

This week we were really trying to hit it hard with the Book of Mormon. Reading here in Mexico just doesn't happen, so reading the scriptures... even less. We always make the same committments, they always say yes, but never any progress seems to be made. So, we had a little talk with one of the families. This family involves a girl of 18 who has plans to get married to another returned missionary of the ward. 

We tried to explain that she would not be able to teach her children what she did not know. But she quickly had a reply. "Isn't that what the spouse is for?" Thankfully her boyfriend was there and disagreed. She said then, she would look on google, ask on the internet, or ask a friend. Now stop here.

What honestly takes more time. Spending your time collecting answers, putting them together, trying to find the right one and forming a report to give to someone else, or simply reading a few verses or pages a day. We cannot pass life with SparkNotes. That's not even a question. Would you waste your time on SparkNotes if you had the answer sheet right in front of you? The scriptures are the answer key, not the test. 

But, as with anything else in this life, it is a matter or desire--or "want to". The question is, do you want to? Whether you agree with me or not that you chose to come here in the pre-earth life or you'd rather believe you evolved from some organism, the point is, that at one point of time, at least a part of you said, "Yes, I want to."

"He who wants to arrive, looks for the way; he who doesn't want to arrive, looks for excuses." Vicente Cassanya

1 Corinthians 9:23-27

23 And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you.24 Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.
25 And every man that striveth for the ^amastery is ^btemperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible ^ccrown; but we an^dincorruptible.
26 I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air:
27 But I ^akeep under my ^bbody, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

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Life is difficult so that you might learn. Whether you believe in scripture or science, there is always an opposite (2 Nephi 2:11 or Newton's Third Law). The opposite of life is not easy is not that it is hard. Life is not hard. 

Do not slaken your strength because of your many afflictions. (2 Nephi 4:29)

You were chosen in the furnace of affliction. (1 Nephi 20:10) 

Just as glass is put under extreme heat and pressure so that it can shine and be purely, transparent, so are your difficulties refining you.

In lacrosse and football. Music. School. Whatever it may be. I have seen teams and people that should come out on top lose. I have beaten better teams than I should have. I have lost to a few I shouldn't have. Everything is based on your desire. Life is a test to see what you will do. Life is a test to be worthy and be pure so that you can one day return to live with Him. "So run, that ye may obtain."

Elder Andrews

Alma 62:41