Of being smacked around by trials, tribulations, dangers, traps, sickness, temptation, and all the horrors of life? As God told Joseph Smith while he was stuck in jail, it’s for our experience. Ultimately whatever happens to us is a result of living among billions of imperfect people, the vast majority of which do not know the truth, or because we’ve been disobedient, or because we need to grow.
But why? Why do we need experience? I just want to lay around all day and take naps and watch Blues Clues.
You’re not here to do that. You’re here, ultimately, to become converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s said that only the pure in heart will see God. The reason for this is that they’re the only ones that will be able to. The pure in heart will see God because they’ll have learned the lesson of life and what it means to be converted. They will be graced to do so because they are willing to do whatever it takes to do so.
We came here to receive a mortal body so that we could experience mortal life. Before that we were spirits, and before that, intelligences. We, as far as I know, have always existed in some manner. Now we have this rented sack of meat, this sacred incredible body, and we have to learn how to bend the body to the will of the spirit.
Ultimately that is our biggest, hardest lesson. Because your spirit, the part of you that came from Heaven, knows the truth and chose to obey God and come down here to Earth is already hard-wired to obey God, the closest we can be to God is to get as close as we can to who we were back in Heaven. Once we do this, once we understand that the body is carnal and sensual and often wants exactly what is worse for itself, and we learn how to make our Spirit’s take control, we’ve achieved one of the most important steps to lead us to become an overall better person.
The best form of mastery is self-mastery. The warrior that does not know himself, does not know who she is or what she wants, is the warrior that will not fight with everything they have, because they don’t have everything to fight with. It’s only when we align our will with that of God’s that we have any chance to do any good here. Yes, we can do good on our own, of our own merit, for our own purposes, but it is laughable in comparison to anything we could do while we’re on God’s side.
Another view on this is that we find who we were to lose who we are in God so that we become a new creature. That’s what spiritual rebirth is. And because emotions are rooted in spirit, not flesh, we are totally remade when we are reborn of spirit.
The point, brothers and sisters, is to learn to trust God, wholly, fully, totally, having all faith in Him and His words.
