Pela santa Lei

For the holy Law

I’ve been reading an excellent book by Elder Neal A. Maxwell called Notwithstanding My Weakness. The first chapter was on the two great commandments: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself (see Matthew 22: 37-39). That chapter had several paragraphs in it that were perfectly applicable to different situations today, and the book was written in almost thirty years ago.

The next chapter was about hope and what hope is and what we should have hope in. Several paragraphs stood out to me in that chapter. One of them said:

If we have this kind of ultimate hope, there is no room for proximate despair. If the big things that really matter are finally going to work out in eternity, then the little things that go wrong mortally are not cause for desperation but perhaps only for a little frustration and irritation (p 50).

A discussion like that on hope was a perfect lead in to the next chapter which I have just finished about patience. Patience and I have been spending a lot of time together lately it seems. And Elder Maxwell’s words on this divine principle ring true to my experience.

Patience is not to be mistaken for indifference. It is to care very much, but to be willing, nevertheless, to submit both to the Lord and to what the scriptures call the “process of time.” (p 59).

Patience is, therefore, clearly not fatalistic, shoulder-shrugging resignation; it is accepting a divine rhythm to life; it is obedience prolonged. Patience stoutly resists pulling up the daisies to see how the roots are doing! (p 64).

In life, the sandpaper of circumstances often smooths our circumstances and patiently polishes our rough edges. There is nothing pleasant about it, however. And the Lord will go to great lengths in order to teach us a particular lesson and to help us to overcome a particular weakness, especially if there is no other way. In such circumstances, it is quite useless for us mortals to try to do our own sums when it comes to suffering. We can’t make it all add up because clearly we do not have all the numbers. Furthermore, none of us knows much about the algebra of affliction. The challenges that come are shaped to our needs and circumstances, sometimes in order to help our weaknesses become strengths… Our triumph here could not be complete if we merely carried our fears and doubts into the next world. (p 67-68).

I know there are people who feel that they know better than the Great Lawgiver, that the laws they would set forth are better for man. I know I could change my hope. I could alter my patience. But doing so would not bring me ultimate joy. The law has been decreed and will not change.

For those who think the Laws and commandments should change, or that they do not apply to them, Elder Maxwell states:

We are, of course, free to obey or not obey those commandments discarding the lamp noted in Proverbs. But we cannot get that lamp to make light by using a substitute fuel. We may, by legislation and regulation, vainly try to create a zone of private morality. But there is, ultimately, no such thing as private morality; there are not an indoor set and an outdoor set of Ten Commandments.

Those who disavow the existence of certain absolute truths must forever forgo disapproving of anything on moral grounds. They may try to evoke a social or political response by using the old words that went with the old values, but they will soon learn that words cannot, for long, be appropriated productively minus their moral content (p 35).

The holy Law has been given to us for a reason. And that reason is not to make us miserable, lonely, full of despair. It is to give us hope, strengthen our patience into virtue, and bring us joy. Anything else is a cheap imitation that will not last.