Part of the reason

I spent a lot of time reflecting on the summer during the last two weeks of my stay in Oklahoma.  I came to realize that there would still be unanswered questions by the time I left, and I grew to accept that.  One morning, I was thinking about my mission and the experiences that changed me.  I remembered a talk that I had read called “The Fourth Missionary”, by Lawrence E. Corbridge (a leader in the LDS church).  The talk can be found here.  I owe a lot to these words, because they were instrumental in helping me become happy and content in missionary work, as opposed to just doing it because I was “supposed to”.  These were my thoughts as I read the talk a second time:

“This summer has been a kind of conversion experience, much like the mission.  I think the Lord wants me to keep doing hard things throughout my life.  And honestly, I wonder if the difficulty is why He sent me here.  Maybe if I had gone with another company, the sales would come easily, I would have success, and I wouldn’t have struggled or wished I could be somewhere else.  And even if the other company wouldn’t have put me in spiritual danger because of worldly success, I might not have grown because it might not have been hard.  Maybe I needed to go somewhere that would suck and where lots of hard things could happen so that I would feel dependent on the Lord.  I always thought of my purpose here in Oklahoma as me being here because I was supposed to do something important (and maybe it is), but I’m starting to think it’s because the Lord could try me and teach me here like He couldn’t anywhere else.  And that makes sense to me.”

I don’t think that was the only reason I was in Oklahoma.  But I do think that the Lord knew I would have a hard time leaving without any answer, so He gave me the part of the answer that I needed at the time.  I don’t expect to learn any more about this unless and until I am in a time of need.  He will give me piece by piece along the way.  My experience with revelation is that the Lord rarely administers more than what is needed at any given time.  If He does too frequently, opportunities for our spiritual growth are lost, and the reason we are here on this earth is defeated.  The Lord always answers to “need”, seldom to “want”.  Knowing this principle, sometimes I can look back on experiences I had with revelation, and determine, Yes, this was something I needed.  Sometimes I’m still not sure.

But far more importantly, this principle of revelation assists me with the present and the future.  Often I find myself praying very hard for something, but then I am reminded to pause.  I think to myself, How much of this is “want”, and how much is “need”?   I can then scale back my request, and I feel much more confident that the Lord will answer my prayer.  And I know that I will reap more blessings, because I will experience self-growth, which is greater than any other blessing we can have on earth.