During the first transfer of my mission in Switzerland, we taught a woman named Tanya Mader. She was our only investigator. We would spend so much time preparing our lessons because my companion knew how rare a progressing investigator was. Her husband and small son would listen politely during our lessons, but never really engage. We were so excited for our weekly appointments. We would pour out our hearts to this woman because we so rarely got to testify to someone who would actually listen. We got even more excited when she committed to baptism. The two weeks before her baptism flew by. She accepted all her commitments and began bearing her own testimony to us. Then, then on Saturday morning of her baptismal day, while my companion was ironing his white pants that he had never used, our telephone rang. After a short conversation, my companion pulled his white pants from the ironing board and hung them back in the closet. Immediately, my mind went to my Patriarchal Blessing. It states that my testimony would be accepted and relied upon during my mission. Even though I had about 20 months left, I still wondered, could God fulfill his promise?
Brothers and Sisters, our God is a God of promises. You probably know this if you’ve read a single page from anywhere in the standard works. His covenants and promises are everywhere. President Spencer W. Kimball said, “There are so many beautiful promises. To read the scriptures and turn the pages, it seems that it is almost all rewards, evidence of living the commandments of the Lord.”[1] We often see the Lord’s promises fulfilled in glorious and dramatic ways. We see this when prophets and people are delivered from oppression, saved from wild beasts or fiery furnaces, and when the enemies of the chosen people are miraculously defeated.
If we are supposed to liken the scriptures to ourselves, we must inevitably ask: could the Lord do this in my life? If he needed to, could the Lord deliver me from physical danger? Does the Lord really care enough about me to perform miracles in my life? In a recent Conference address, Elder Bednar said:
"Is it possible to exercise faith in Him, follow Him, serve Him, but not believe Him? I am acquainted with Church members who accept as true the doctrine and principles contained in the scriptures and proclaimed from this pulpit. And yet they have a hard time believing those gospel truths apply specifically in their lives and to their circumstances. They seem to have faith in the Savior, but they do not believe His promised blessings are available to them or can operate in their lives.”[2]
When I read these words, I can’t help but feel that Elder Bednar is speaking to me directly. Often I think, “Yes, yes that’s fine for others, but those types of miraculous events and fulfillment of promises only apply to others. People who deserve it more. People who are special. The Lord won’t do that in my life because he never has.” I mean, think for a moment of some of God’s wonderful promises:
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”[3]
“Ask, and it shall be given unto you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”[4]
“And all saints [...] shall receive health in their navel and marrow to their bones; And shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures; And shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint. And I, the Lord, give unto them a promise, that the destroying angel shall pass by them...”[5]
“...though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”[6]
Do you really believe that you can find rest in this tumultuous world? Can you really be given special revelatory knowledge from God? Can the Lord really make you healthier? Can the Lord truly erase your sins? Make them as if they’d never happened? The answer to these questions is yes. But maybe these aren’t personal enough blessings.
So instead think for a moment of something personal that the Lord has promised you, perhaps in a Patriarchal Blessing. Do you still believe the Lord can fulfill His promise to you? If you’re not sure, I know of someone who may have felt as you do. His name was Abraham. Wisely, the scriptures not only contain straightforward examples of promise-fulfillment, they also contain covenants or promises that have not yet been fulfilled, or promises that weren’t fulfilled in the way one would expect. The book of Romans speaks of Abraham as “being fully persuaded that, what [the Lord] had promised, he was able also to perform.”[7]
That is truly amazing when we think of what Abraham experienced. Year after year, he waited for the promised blessing of a son. And year after year, nothing. Surely he prayed. Surely he wept. Surely Sarah felt inadequate. After all, the Lord had promised a son, hadn’t He? Surely one or both members of this couple wondered if Hagar bearing Ishmael was the fulfillment of that holy promise. Perhaps they had misunderstood. And perhaps once they reached old ages they assumed that the son would come in the afterlife. But sure enough, Sarah bears a son in her old age, Isaac. What a time of astonished joy they must have felt. The Lord did it! Against all odds, He did it! The answer to that promise flew in the face of everything they knew about God and the natural order of life. But the Lord promised posterity and fulfilled His promise despite impossible odds.
And yet, a short few years later, Abraham hears this from the Lord: “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering...”[8] Even the Lord’s phrasing here is telling. The reference is clear: thine only son. Perhaps Abraham understood Isaac’s similitude to the Savior, perhaps not. Either way, how can the Lord ask this of Abraham? This is the most tender part of Abraham’s soul. Is the Lord going back on His promise?
Hasn’t Abraham suffered enough? Hasn’t Sarah? Abraham is intimately familiar with the evils of human sacrifice, and this is what the Lord asks? Of all things? Is this not the covenant child? Isn’t Isaac the living fulfillment of a lifetime of waiting? And the Lord asks Abraham to kill his little boy? There is no example in all of scripture that demonstrates so fully what God asks of us as his disciples. The Lord asks for us to lay everything we have on the altar. All of our pride and selfishness and disbelief. And sometimes, just sometimes he asks for that which may be the most precious to us: a child, a parent, a spouse. President John Taylor said: “You will have all kinds of trials to pass through... God will feel after you, and He will take hold of you and wrench your very heart strings, and if you cannot stand it you will not be fit for an inheritance in the Celestial Kingdom of God.”[9]
The scripture reads: “Therefore, they [who profess discipleship] must needs be chastened and tried, even as Abraham, who was commanded to offer up his only son. For all those who will not endure chastening, but deny me, cannot be sanctified.”[10]
Think about that! We all have to be tried like Abraham in order to be sanctified. This may sound harsh, but remember the Lord also says “after much tribulation ... cometh the blessing.”[11] So what then is the blessing? What is the point of this suffering? President George Q. Cannon said:
There is no sacrifice that God can ask of us or his servants whom he has chosen to lead us that we should hesitate about making. In one sense of the word, it is no sacrifice. We may call it so because it comes in contact with our selfishness and our unbelief, but it ought not to come in contact with our faith. Why did the Lord ask such things of Abraham? Because, knowing what his future would be and that he would be the father of an innumerable posterity, he was determined to test him. God did not do this for His own sake for He knew by His foreknowledge what Abraham would do; but the purpose was to impress upon Abraham a lesson and to enable him to attain unto knowledge that he could not obtain in any other way. That is why God tries all of us. It is not for His own knowledge, for He knows all things beforehand. He knows all your lives and everything you will do. But he tries us for our own good, that we may know ourselves.[12]
Two things stand out to me from this quote. One, that God knows what we need so well, that he can tailor your trials to fit your exact circumstances. He knows not only what you need, but how you need it. If you let Him, He will teach you things that you wouldn’t be able to learn in any other way.
And two, God knows you. God loves you. God not only knows you as you are right now, but He knows who you’ve always been and who you eventually will be. The problem is that you don’t know who you are. He does. He isn’t asking you to wait or withholding blessings to torture you. He is trying to teach you who you are. He wants to tell you what He knows about you. You are here to find out what you are capable of.
D&C 132 states “Abraham received promises concerning his seed, and of the fruit of his loins—from whose loins ye are [...] This promise is yours also, because ye are of Abraham [...] Go ye, therefore, and do the works of Abraham; enter ye into my law and ye shall be saved.”[13]
So what exactly are the promises of Abraham? What did the Lord promise Abraham in exchange for laying everything he had on the altar? And by extension, what has the Lord promised us if we do the same? His promise is of exaltation. Godhood. “For whoso is faithful... They become... the seed of Abraham, and the church and kingdom, and the elect of God. ...therefore all that my Father hath shall be given unto [them].”[14] This is no small promise. Yes, it hurts to lay all that we have on the altar. Yes, it will be the most difficult thing we are called to do. But the promise is sure: everything. You get everything. All you have for all that the Father has is worth it. He promises that it will be.
With 4 months left to go on my mission, I was in the Mission President’s home for a leadership meeting when the zone leaders from my first area approached me. One of them had a photo in his hand. It was a picture of Tanya Mader, dressed in white. But she wasn’t alone. Her husband was standing with her, dressed in white as well. Today I still carry that picture in my scriptures as evidence that the Lord always fulfills his promises. I know that He can fulfill his promises. Not only do I know it, I believe Him when He promises me all that He has. That’s not to say I never waiver. I’m far from perfect. But I’m getting better at trusting Him. Truly Moroni was right when he wrote: “For the eternal purposes of the Lord shall roll on, until all his promises shall be fulfilled.”[15] In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
[1] Jan.1974, The Rewards, The Blessings, The Promises
[2] Nov. 2016, “If Ye Had Known Me”
[3] Matt 11:28
[4] 3 Ne. 14:7-8
[5] D&C 89:18-21
[6] Isa. 1: 18
[7] Romans 4:21
[8] Gen. 22:2
[9] Journal of Discourses, 24:197
[10] D&C 101:4-5
[11] D&C 103:12
[12] Gospel Truth, 89
[13] D&C 132: 30-32
[14] D&C 84: 33-38
[15] Mor. 8:22
