You hear the inspirational stories from time to time, how people trusted in God and arrived at their own Land of Promise. They followed promptings and got the house, the job, the fiancé, the pregnancy, or the healing blessing for which they richly and righteously yearned. You may also know other people who, despite faithful service and devotion to the gospel of Jesus Christ and their covenants, still feel like they are wandering in the Wilderness of Sin unsure when they will arrive at their own Promised Land. They remain single, sick, poor, uneducated, unemployed, or childless, despite faith, prayer and fasting. Both of these stories have one common theme- the people in them are trying to let God prevail in their lives. They are seeking righteous things in their lives and blessings from the Lord. Not achieving and not attempting may look the same in the outcome, but they take very different paths.
I lived what most would consider a faithful and devoted life as a youth. My mission president described me as the most prepared missionary he had ever met. My maternal grandfather was upset at first to not be able to pay for my mission until he learned that I intended to pay my own way. I married in the temple. I attended university and earned on a PhD in Biochemistry. Then my life went to hell. None of this happened because of me. It happened because of the agency of others.
You see, sometimes the things we think of as a Land of Promise depend on the agency of others. No matter how hard we try, we cannot mess with free will and have a happy ending. You cannot force someone to marry you, promote you, have children with you or the Lord to heal you. Sometimes other ends are God’s will. Virtuous ends come only from virtuous means, and that’s why God doesn’t mess with free will either. The stories of faithful Christians who follow promptings and have their dreams and hopes realized occur because of free will. So did mine, and so do the stories of others who are denied the blessings of family and posterity because of the agency of others.
Acquiescing to agency of other people is a way in which we let God prevail. God knows us and watches over us and wants us to be happy. He also allows other people to reject Him when they reject us because that is important to their growth and honest outcome as well. Elder F Enzio Busche once taught that “When you are forced to give up something or when something dear to you is taken from you, know that this is your lesson to be learned right now. Know also as you are learning this lesson that God wants to give you something better.” When my marriage fell apart and my vocational aspirations faltered, I falsely presumed that God would give me a better wife or a superior job. However, it was not something better in that way or even for me. God had a better work for me to do.
In the intervening years, the church has made some changes in its organizational structure to accommodate men like me. For many years, I sat in the overflow on the SWorD bench (Single, Widowed or Divorced) with other men in my ward who had nobody with whom to sit. There are many single WOMEN in the church in similar circumstances who also feel like there is no place for them because they don’t fit the stereotype. All I contributed to the kingdom was my tithe and as a statistic for purposes of the ward budget because several bishops used their agency to avoid asking God what He would have me do in their wards. Then, in 2021, a change occurred, I was put into a bishopric, and I began to hold down two jobs, three callings and raise my new beagle puppy. I am a counselor, a Sunday School teacher and a ward single adult representative for the stake. I have a work to do. It is “something better”, but it is not a family of my own or a fat paycheck.
Not all lands of promise look the same and not all lands of promise come in this life. Not all promises are for us. Despite his faithfulness, Moses did not get to enter the Promised Land. That was for Joshua and Caleb and those born in the wilderness. It seems that, for many of God’s faithful children, they must first spend some time wandering in a wilderness before receiving the blessings He has for them. So if you feel like you’re trapped inside a never ending night, then maybe you should take that as a sign that you are one of God’s favorites and that, when the time is right, He will lead you across the River Jordan into the land He prepared for YOU. Trusting God is difficult but always the right choice. When Midian invaded, Gideon pared his army down to only a few hundred souls who, because they trusted in and followed the Lord, drove out the invaders as they chanted “The Sword of the Lord and Gideon”. You can also be the SWorD of the Lord even if your life doesn’t fit the stereotype or have the happy ending for which you yearn. You can help God’s will and kingdom prevail if you seek His will, follow the promptings and trust in His grace, love and timing.
If you presume to know about how I live from the outcome of my life, I appear to be a dismal failure. I served a mission in a nation that underwent apostasy while there, a nation that no longer has its own mission and is an appendage to another mission. I have been divorced now for more than a decade. I have no children. I have never been promoted at my job. I have not had any friends since my friend moved to Ohio in 2017. I drive a 1995 Saturn and live in a modest but comfortable house. From all the metrics measured by man, I am a failure. However, talk to the youth of my ward, the bishop, my parents, and parents of the youth, to some of the septuagenarians in the ward I have taken it upon myself to shepherd, and they will tell you that I am anything but a failure. True, I didn’t find a lofty pay increase or the love of my life, but I know that God has taken me to a Promised Land, something better even if it’s not a land that holds promise for me. Like Nehemiah wrote, I know that I am doing a great work and cannot come down.
Elder Dieter Uchtdorf spoke in conference many years ago that the promises of the Lord are not often kept in the ways and timing that we might hope. The work of patience is this- to live diligently and faithfully, to trust God, and to never give up. In the end God will prevail, and if you let Him lead your life, you will prevail too, even if not in the way or timing that you expect. I don’t know if I’ll ever find anyone with whom to share life or want to. I doubt I will ever have children. I don’t know if any of the children of other men will take what I teach them in word and by example and change their lives for the better or give me attribution. I know that they have their agency. I know that I am giving young people the tools to a good life and teaching them how they work. It’s up to them to use them in the way God intends, to let Him show them how to build a better life.
God will prevail. He prevails upon all of us to trust Him. I may not be rich or married or be living happily after happily, but I have a dog who absolutely loves me absolutely, food in the fridge, money in the bank, marrow in my bones and strength in my sinews. And God gave me charismata, a myriad of spiritual gifts to use to bless others of His children outside my family. I have not achieved anything you can see, but it is not for lack of trying. It’s for lack of agency, but I only control mine, and I am choosing to do what I think will help God prevail and listening to Him when He tries to prevail upon me.
