"Pray always, that ye may not faint, until I come. Behold, and lo, I will come quickly, and receive you unto myself. Amen."
Doctrine and Covenants 88:126
I like that this verse makes it clear that prayer is for our benefit. Prayer isn't some sort of payment to God, or mystical fuel sustaining him in some sort of spiritual vampirism. It is the communication and contact that *we* need in order to get God's help in our lives. We are commanded to pray always so that we don't forget to draw on the Lord's offer of assistance in our lives, and become overwhelmed trying to live life without him.
The idea that we often hear in the gospel, that God doesn't give us anything that we can't handle, is partly true and partly false depending on how we choose to look at it. As Nephi tells us, God never commands us to do anything without preparing a way to accomplish it (1 Nephi 3:7), and in that sense the saying is absolutely true. However, the way to accomplish what God asks, as we also learn from Nephi's story, also often includes many failures, and sometimes even a miracle, before the end. If we try to handle things without relying on God, then very many things may indeed be impossible, because we aren't meant to handle everything alone. God's assistance is *necessary* to our success.
Too often we encounter failure and we assume that God's promises are untrue. But failure is part of the process. Moses had to try an awful lot of things before freeing his people from Pharaoh. The children of Israel had to wander 40 years in the wilderness before they were ready for the promised land. The Brother of Jared had to solve problems with his barges that he couldn't have solved without divine assistance. Ammon required some supernatural sword skill to protect the flocks of the king. Samuel the Lamanite not only had to climb a way, but get some divine protection from arrows so that he could deliver his message.
Today, let's remember that physical and spiritual accomplishments require endurance, patience, and faith. Our task in life isn't to learn to be independent from God, but how to learn to rely on and work with him, so that we can learn more and become more than we ever could alone. Let's pray always and not faint, continuing to try when we fail, getting up each time we fall. It is that sustained effort and continued prayer, working together with God, that will lead us to our happy ending, where God will receive us unto himself.
Doctrine and Covenants 88:126
I like that this verse makes it clear that prayer is for our benefit. Prayer isn't some sort of payment to God, or mystical fuel sustaining him in some sort of spiritual vampirism. It is the communication and contact that *we* need in order to get God's help in our lives. We are commanded to pray always so that we don't forget to draw on the Lord's offer of assistance in our lives, and become overwhelmed trying to live life without him.
The idea that we often hear in the gospel, that God doesn't give us anything that we can't handle, is partly true and partly false depending on how we choose to look at it. As Nephi tells us, God never commands us to do anything without preparing a way to accomplish it (1 Nephi 3:7), and in that sense the saying is absolutely true. However, the way to accomplish what God asks, as we also learn from Nephi's story, also often includes many failures, and sometimes even a miracle, before the end. If we try to handle things without relying on God, then very many things may indeed be impossible, because we aren't meant to handle everything alone. God's assistance is *necessary* to our success.
Too often we encounter failure and we assume that God's promises are untrue. But failure is part of the process. Moses had to try an awful lot of things before freeing his people from Pharaoh. The children of Israel had to wander 40 years in the wilderness before they were ready for the promised land. The Brother of Jared had to solve problems with his barges that he couldn't have solved without divine assistance. Ammon required some supernatural sword skill to protect the flocks of the king. Samuel the Lamanite not only had to climb a way, but get some divine protection from arrows so that he could deliver his message.
Today, let's remember that physical and spiritual accomplishments require endurance, patience, and faith. Our task in life isn't to learn to be independent from God, but how to learn to rely on and work with him, so that we can learn more and become more than we ever could alone. Let's pray always and not faint, continuing to try when we fail, getting up each time we fall. It is that sustained effort and continued prayer, working together with God, that will lead us to our happy ending, where God will receive us unto himself.
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