Phoenix North YSA Ward
July 28, 2024
All Things for Our Good by Elder Gerrit W. Gong
I was asked to speak about the most recent Conference talk by Elder Gerrit W. Gong, All Things for Our Good. It was amazing to study this talk in greater depth and I pray that the Spirit will be here to testify of the truths taught by an Apostle of God. I also will be quoting a lot from the book “Original Grace” by Adam S. Miller, which I highly recommend.
The title of the talk is based on the scripture in Romans chapter 8 verse 28, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
All things for our good. What does that mean? ALL THINGS. All of our experiences here on earth, good or bad, easy or hard. But how can we trust that everything will work out when life is so hard?
I have been monumentally blessed in this life. I do not feel in any way qualified to tell people that the horrible things that happened to them were for their good. I do not want to say that. Suffering is never deserved. Sometimes terrible things just happen. But I believe in a loving and all powerful God. He can take all the terrible things that happen in the world and turn it to good, somehow.
I love this quote from Adam S. Miller: “Does suffering in general have a purpose? No. Suffering is just a fact of life. But suffering can, by way of grace, be given a purpose. In addition to being relieved, it can be redeemed. It can teach and strengthen and empower. It can, in God’s hands, be repurposed for growth and progress.”
John 9:1-3 says
1 As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth.
2 “Rabbi,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?”
3 “It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins,” Jesus answered. “This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.
Adam S. Miller observes, “We have Jesus who keeps surprising his disciples. We have Jesus who, rather than seeing the blind man’s suffering as a punishment, sees it as an occasion for “the works of God.” We have Jesus who, without accusation, simply judges what’s needed and offers the needed grace.”
How can we repurpose our suffering for growth and progress? I don’t think it’s easy, but with Jesus Christ all things are possible. God will give us the grace we need to keep moving forward.
I love this quote from Alonzo Gaskill. “Sometimes the only thing that can change our spiritual trajectory in life is a crisis of faith. If we are committed to a belief system that is less than what God wants for us, sometimes the only way for Him to wake us up to something new--something bigger than we currently have--is to bring a little instability into our lives. If He can get our attention, He can recalibrate our direction.
For some, this is the way God gets us into the Church. For some, that divinely sent dissonance--and the fear of loss--is how He improves our marriage, or our relationship with a child. Sometimes this is the only way He can get us to change jobs. God is a master at using a crisis to get us pointed in the right direction. Thus the devastation is really a blessing in disguise.”
My stake young women's president once told a story of having a kidney stone. I’ve heard it is a very painful experience that can last for weeks. She went to the doctor and I think they must have had to do x-rays or an ultrasound or something, but the thing was that they found early stages of cancer while treating her kidney stones. They were able to remove the cancer and she is absolutely fine years later. If the doctors didn’t have a reason to be looking, they would never have found the cancer at such an early, treatable stage, and she might have died. The painful experience turned into a blessing in disguise.
We seek perfection in Christ
Some of the hardest times of my life were where I have changed the most for the better. I have gained valuable knowledge and experience from my mission in Brazil, my studies in college, and different heartbreaks. Some of these things I willingly chose to do, knowing that I would become a better person by the end of it. Other situations, I did not choose but learned from them just the same.
This makes me think of The Secret Garden, one of my favorite books. A disagreeable young orphan girl stays with her Uncle and finds out her young cousin has been confined to his room his whole life. He’s been sick and he needs the shelter of the indoors, of blankets and warm drinks. But he’s not actually sick at all. The disagreeable girl goads the sickly boy outside and through the winter and spring they both start to change. They tend to their secret garden and by summer he is a strong, healthy boy and she is a kind, understanding girl. What caused this transformation? The story is an “exaltation of nature and its effects on the human spirit,” but also shows us that we can’t stay inside and hide from our problems. The author, Frances Hodgson Burnett says in the book, “She made herself stronger by fighting with the wind.” We may get sunburned or fall and scrape our knees, but being outside is where we belong, and it’s where we can thrive if we trust all things happen for our good.
We need opposition to grow stronger. If we stand still then we are moving backwards. The gardener in the book tells the young boy “Where you tend a rose… a thistle cannot grow.” When we tend and cultivate the good, there is no room for the bad to grow. When horrible things happen, we have a choice to look to or away from God. We can go through this life alone, or with Jesus Christ at our side.
Elder Gong says, “Even in tragedy, spiritual preparation may remind us Heavenly Father knew when we felt most vulnerable and alone.” Whether I caused my suffering or not, Jesus Christ was always with me. With Him I can become my best self. Adam S. Miller has said that “a partnership with Christ isn’t just the means to some other end. A shared life lived in Christ’s presence is the end. It is salvation.” We can have someone who loves us and wants the absolute best for us in our lives to help guide us and support us in whatever we face right now, and that is Jesus Christ. Look to Him. When we have a solid relationship with Jesus Christ, we can overcome any obstacle.
Connection
We can strengthen our relationship with Jesus Christ in many ways. My favorites are prayer, scripture study, and service.
Lately I have been trying to say small prayers of gratitude throughout the day. I pause, take a deep breath and think of what I am grateful for in that moment, thanking God that I am here.
Service is a fantastic way to look outward and helps both the giver and the receiver. The world tells us that you need to focus on yourself when things get hard. I’ve seen people say “this year I choose me.” “Treat yourself” is a super common thing that I say often. But I’ve noticed that the times in my life where I’ve tried to do this to feel better, I hardly ever feel better. At the end of last year I wasn’t in a great place emotionally or mentally. I was unhappy, and struggling to strengthen my relationships like I wanted to. I realized that I wasn’t doing regular service projects and I wanted to change that. I decided to look for ways to serve weekly. As soon as I started focusing on helping others, my mind felt so much lighter and now I still feel so much happier.
There are so many easy ways to serve and I encourage you to find them. Magnify your church calling, worship in the temple, get baptized for a deceased ancestor, write a letter to your grandma, volunteer in the community garden or local food bank. Justserve.com is an amazing resource where I have found a lot of cool opportunities. Service will help you to see the blessings in disguise in your life.
The director of Latter-day Saint Charities, Sister Sharon Eubank once said, “As baptized members of the Church, we are under covenant to care for those in need. Our individual efforts don’t necessarily require money or faraway locations; but they do require the guidance of the Holy Spirit and a willing heart to say to the Lord: ‘Here am I, send me.’”
The Book of Mormon has so many people who are striving to draw closer to Jesus Christ. Elder Gong tells us this: “Written by inspired prophets who saw our day, the Book of Mormon begins with raw drama—a family dealing with deep differences. Yet, as we study and ponder 1 Nephi 1 through to Moroni 10, we are drawn to Jesus Christ with a firm testimony that what happened there and then can bless us here and now.”
For the past few years I have been trying really hard to strengthen my relationships with my family. At first I relied mostly on self help books and my basic knowledge of psychology. I took psych 101 in college so I must be a professional. I thought I could help my family like I was a therapist and get us all to have an intervention, let it all out and that would solve all our problems. Unsurprisingly, that blew up in my face. It took me a long time to realize that it is the Savior’s job to heal, and it is my job to love (Dale G. Renlund).
I read in the very beginning of the Book of Mormon about a family, struggling to get along with one another, and I felt the Spirit testify to me that the Book of Mormon is true, and that I could learn from it. Like Lehi, I could pray with all my heart on behalf of my family (1 Nephi 1:5). The Book of Mormon could help me draw closer to my family in a way I hadn’t thought of before, in a way that I didn’t know that it could help me.
I have also started focusing heavily on changing the way I view my time in the temple. Elder Gong said “As we recognize Jesus Christ at the heart of temple covenants, we refer less to “going to the temple” and more to “coming to Jesus Christ in the house of the Lord.”’ I don’t want to simply check the temple off of my to-do list, I want to come closer to Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father every time I set foot in Their house.
Elder Gong tell us, “In time and eternity, the purpose of Creation and the nature of God Himself are to bring all things together for our good.” I testify that as we come closer to God and Jesus Christ in any way we can, we will truly know that all things can happen for our good.
I would like to share one of my grandma’s stories about my mom. I tell the story in my grandma’s words.
“Our oldest daughter lived for a time in the Pacific Northwest, far from her family in the desert.
She had graduated from college and was starting to build a career with a large company near Seattle.
Then she met her eternal companion at a singles ward volleyball game and they married, somewhat late in life by Mormon standards. Both were anxious to have children and build a home for them that would last forever.
Well, our child got her heart’s desire, and then some, concerning that marriage and posterity thing.
Twins came close on the heels of a son and a daughter.
She then assumed that all her troubles were over now that she'd been blessed with what she'd wanted for such a long time.
But it turned out that life was still quite a challenge in those early days of motherhood, to say the least.
It seems that being pregnant with twins while caring for a husband and two young children is hard. Who knew? We all went to give aid and comfort right after the twins were born, but soon had to leave them on their own to care for themselves and four children under the age of five.
Yes, heartfelt prayers had been answered, and the dream came true. But life still turned out to be a challenge.
Isn't that always just the way?
One day our daughter was feeling particularly overwhelmed.
Her existence seemed to be an endless round of dirty diapers and preschooler tantrums.
She began to question the choices she’d made.
Whatever happened to the career she had been educated for?
What happened to her body in such a short time?
What about her hair? Why did it look like this?
Where were her real clothes like high heels and designer suits?
Who were all these little people and why didn’t they speak English?
You get the picture.
It so happened that right in the midst of all this angst she began to think of the Relief Society lesson she had heard on the previous Sunday. At least what she could remember hearing of it while juggling babies on both knees.
The lesson was about the second coming of Christ.
The questions asked were about personal readiness for that great future event.
The teacher wanted the sisters to think about their lives and how they spent their time. “If the Savior came back today, what would He find you doing?” she asked. “If He walked in on you today, unannounced, would you be okay with that?”
As she was thinking about this she gazed around her messy house.
There were kids’ toys everywhere, graham cracker crumbs scattered from the front door to the back, and two babies sitting in their rockers suddenly beginning to smell suspicious.
She went to them to check the situation and found that both had apparently had too much apple juice, resulting in a diaper mess of such gigantic proportions that it spilled out onto the rockers, up their backs and into their hair!
She decided to think later.
These babies needed an entire bath right now, even though she’d just bathed them that morning. Diaper wipes would not be anywhere near adequate for this situation.
So she carted the rockers into the bathroom, knelt down by the tub and began to bathe the babies. Her three year old followed hot on her heels to watch the show.
Tears of frustration began to well up in her eyes as she knelt there.
The three year old began hopping back and forth over her legs while singing.
She began thinking again……“My house is a mess! My kids are a mess! I’m a mess!
I was supposed to be doing great things with my life by now! If the Savior came back today He’d find me and my college degree in a messy house on my knees next to a bathtub washing two poopy babies with a three year old hopping back and forth over my legs singing “Mommy’s gross…Mommy’s gross!”
As she soaped the squirming twins the truth came to her, of course, and she began to cry in earnest.
(I didn’t raise stupid kids you know.)
She realized that what she was doing with her life at that exact moment would be acceptable to the Savior.
She was trying to build an eternal home and family.
She decided that the Son of God might even possibly say something to her that was distinctly positive….like… “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
Feeling much better about many things she said a silent thank you prayer for the Relief Society lesson.
As she finished with the last baby she turned her attention to her three year old son. “Honey, why are you singing Mommy’s gross? That’s not very nice.”
“Because you are gross, Mommy,” he replied. “Look at your feet!”
She looked.
Both feet, clad in white tennis shoes, were resting right in the middle of a dirty diaper.”
I love this story about my family. One, because it’s hilarious. Two, because it shows me that life can be hard even after we get what we want, but it’s the way we look at it that matters.
I love this quote from Elder Holland: “…If we give our heart to God, if we love the Lord Jesus Christ, if we do the best we can to live the gospel, then tomorrow—and every other day—is ultimately going to be magnificent, even if we don’t always recognize it as such. Why? Because our Heavenly Father wants it to be! He wants to bless us. A rewarding, abundant, and eternal life is the very object of His merciful plan for His children! It is a plan predicated on the truth “that all things work together for good to them that love God.” So keep loving. Keep trying. Keep trusting. Keep believing. Keep growing. Heaven is cheering you on today, tomorrow, and forever.”
Conclusion
I conclude with this quote from Elder Gong, “When life is cluttered and purpose isn’t clear, when you want to live better but don’t know how, please come to God our Father and Jesus Christ. Trust They live, love you, and want all things for your good. I testify They do, infinitely and eternally…”
I know that these things are true, and I pray that you can find this out for yourselves as you pray, serve, read the scriptures, and worship in the temple.
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
