Doctrine and Covenants 105:6

"And my people must needs be chastened until they learn obedience, if it must needs be, by the things which they suffer."
Doctrine and Covenants 105:6


I think sometimes when things seem stressful or hard in our lives, that we wonder why God isn't stepping in and making it all better.  "Men are that they might have joy," and "all things work together for good to them that love God," etc.  So, why do things go wrong?  I think that this verse tells us part of why.  It isn't always chastening, but sometimes it is.  We are here on this earth to learn, and we have *so* much to learn. :)  This is a good thing... we need to learn and grow and become so much more than we are in order to live up to our potential.  And God, as a tender parent, needs to let us learn our lessons sometimes rather than stepping in and doing it for us.  We can get angry about God not helping us, but until we realize that we're just children throwing a temper tantrum, we aren't grasping the essentials that we need to get beyond this most basic lesson.  When we're young it is hard to see the wisdom that our parents have in teaching us things that we don't think that we need to know, but eventually we realize that we need those skills to get along as adults.  With God it is the same, but we are usually much slower to learn the spiritual side of things than we were learning to tie our shoes or memorize multiplication tables.  ... and the other verses are still true, even when things are tough.  Often, even at the worst times, all it takes is to be humble instead of angry, and to get on our knees and talk to our heavenly father and ask him what to do, and he will grant us peace, and joy, and comfort... helping us work through whatever it is that we face.
Today, whatever we're going through, let's try to learn the lesson instead of raging against it.  Let's go to God in prayer and find out what we need to learn, and then do everything we can to see past the suffering and learn the lesson.