When I teach young children, I often ask them what it means to be reverent. They normally respond, “Sit down and be quiet.” Teachers often tell children to be reverent when they really mean to tell them to behave, and so this is the definition most children have of the word. I follow up by asking them to listen to a story:

Susan is sitting in Primary (the children’s auxiliary in the Mormon Church) and is sitting very still. Her hands are in her lap, she isn’t talking, and she isn’t wiggling. She’s looking right at the teacher. Is she being reverent? The children say she is. Then I tell them there is more to the story. While she’s sitting still, not talking, not wiggling and looking at the teacher, she is thinking, “When I get home, I’m going to hit my brother. He was so mean to me this morning. I’m going to teach him a lesson.” I ask again, “Is Susan being reverent?” Even young children realize she is not being reverent, because although her body is doing the right thing, her mind is not.

I tell the children behavior is on the outside and reverence is on the inside. Then we sing a children’s song that emphasizes this message:

Rev’rence is more than just quietly sitting:
It’s thinking of Father above,
A feeling I get when I think of his blessings.
I’m rev’rent, for rev’rence is love. (Listen to Reverence is Love.)

Reverence is how we show our love for God and for Jesus Christ. Mormon churches have foyers meant for the inevitable socialization among a people who consider their congregation their second family. Once they enter the chapel or a classroom, they’re asked to stop socializing and to sit quietly, listening to the prelude music. Of course, that doesn’t always happen, but it’s the goal.

During the meeting, members remain quiet, listening to the speakers and doing whatever is needed to keep small children happy. In a Mormon church, even the tiniest child remains with his family during the main worship service, known as Sacrament Meeting. This allows children to be trained by their parents to be both reverent and well-behaved, and includes them in the spiritual life of the congregation.

True reverence, as mentioned above, is not just about sitting still and being quiet. While it’s certainly easier to feel the spirit when we’re well-behaved, our minds must also be focused on things of the spirit. As we walk through the chapel doors, we leave behind us the cares and thoughts of the world, and turn our full attention to God. In the quiet moments that are ours, we think of the Savior and His atoning sacrifice, and during the time people are speaking, we listen carefully and stay alert for promptings from the Holy Ghost as to how the speaker’s message can apply to us in our own lives.

This three hour focus each Sunday on the things of the spirit helps Mormons to move into the outside world renewed and ready to face the moral and secular challenges of everyday life. We feel ready to tackle life and the gospel with renewed strength and energy.

Of course, Church isn’t the only place reverence is needed. We can feel the spirit every moment of our lives if we work hard to do so. As we go about our weekday chores and tasks, we can surround ourselves with things that will help us keep the Holy Ghost near. Playing spiritual music, thinking about the gospel and how to apply it to each aspect of our lives, and reading appropriate books ensure the spirit will be present. Mormons are taught that when the Spirit flees, they must flee also, and the Spirit cannot be where there is sin. Mormons work to create an appropriate environment for themselves whenever possible, decorating their homes with spiritual things among the secular ones, playing appropriate music, interacting kindly to family members, and engaging in service and other appropriate activities.

They try to bring the gospel into their homes as much as possible. Each morning they have prayer and scripture study. They have a spiritually based family night once a week. They select other gospel-centered activities to do throughout the week, ensuring that their religion is not a three-hours-on-Sunday religion, but an all day, every day religion that impacts every moment of their lives.

There are times, of course, when we cannot control our environments, such as at work or school. However, we can choose how we interact with that environment. We do not need to participate in gossip or gripe sessions. When inappropriate music is playing, we can move to another room, encourage a change of music, or put on headphones where allowed. If all else fails, we can tune out or ask to be placed in a less offensive environment.

While we can’t always control the music or the language around us, we are always in full control of our own thoughts. We can fill our minds with religious music, spiritually uplifting thoughts, and a pleasant attitude. It’s what we do with what we can control that determines the presence of the spirit.

Elder Oaks explained, “As we study the life and teachings of Jesus Christ and gain an appreciation of the remarkable impact—both mortal and eternal—of His Atonement on our lives, we naturally experience the emotional responses of respect, love, and honor. Gospel obedience and Christian service then flow as appropriate expressions of these emotions. But without reverence, the expressions of respect, love, and honor are incomplete.

As we develop reverence for Jesus Christ, we are better able to pattern our lives after His perfect example. There are many facets to such reverence: faith that He lives, trust in His promised blessings, and obedience to gospel standards. But one of the most important facets is the feeling of our heart—the respect, love, and honor we feel toward Deity. We who respect, love, and honor the Lord will never take His name in vain and will be uncomfortable with demeaning or trivializing jokes about Him. Rather, we praise and revere our Heavenly Father and Him whom we worship as our Lord and our Savior.

The Lord gives clear direction regarding His expectation for reverence in Leviticus 19:30, where He states, “Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.” The respect we show for His temples and chapels is a reflection of the reverence for Him we feel in our hearts. Our degree of respect, love, and honor for the Lord is directly reflected in our reverence, as shown by our attitudes as well as by our decorum.” Robert C. Oaks, “Worship through Reverence,” Ensign, Dec 2009, 20–23

We are children of a loving Father in Heaven. That is the first item to place on any list. The second is that His Son, Jesus Christ, loved us enough to die for us. These two blessings can serve as the foundation for all other blessings on our list. Some things cannot be taken from us, no matter how little income we have or how few our possessions.

In the May 2000 Ensign, a talk given by Bonnie D. Parkin in the Mormon General Conference, talked about gratitude during even the hardest of times. (See Bonnie D. Parkin, “Gratitude: A Path to Happiness,” Ensign, May 2007, 34–36.) She suggested showing gratitude toward Heavenly Father for our blessings was one way to find happiness in our trials.

Sister Parkin said, “Let me share a sweet story with you. A family was going through a difficult time. It was hard for them not to focus on their challenges. The mother wrote: “Our world had completely crumpled, so we turned to Heavenly Father for guidance. Almost immediately we realized that we were surrounded by goodness and were being cheered on from every side. We began as a family to express our gratitude to each other as well as to the Lord daily. A close friend pointed out to me that our family’s ‘blessing basket’ was overflowing. From that conversation came a sort of game, which my children and I grew to love. Before family prayer each night we would talk about how our day had gone and then share with each other all of the many blessings that had been added to our ‘blessing basket.’ The more we expressed gratitude, the more there was to be grateful for. We felt the love of the Lord in a significant way as opportunities for growth presented themselves.”2

What would a “blessing basket” add to your family?”

We often have no control over the trials we’re given. They come to us through our own choices or through the choices of others. Sometimes we can work to improve the situation, but other trials are outside our control. However, we can control how we view those trials and we can control where we focus our attention. Certainly, some trials require a great deal of our attention, but others must simply be gotten through. With either type of trial, we can focus exclusively on the negative portions of the trial, or we can give time as well to the good things going on in the background. Every day of our lives, something good is happening to us. When we pay attention to those good things and remember to take a few minutes to thank God for them, somehow the trials don’t seem as overwhelming. We’re able to see God’s presence in the worst of times, and to remember there will always be goodness during bad times.

“Gratitude requires awareness and effort, not only to feel it but to express it. Frequently we are oblivious to the Lord’s hand. We murmur, complain, resist, criticize; so often we are not grateful. In the Book of Mormon, we learn that those who murmur do not know “the dealings of that God who … created them.”3 The Lord counsels us not to murmur because it is then difficult for the Spirit to work with us.

Gratitude is a Spirit-filled principle. It opens our minds to a universe permeated with the richness of a living God. Through it, we become spiritually aware of the wonder of the smallest things, which gladden our hearts with their messages of God’s love. This grateful awareness heightens our sensitivity to divine direction. When we communicate gratitude, we can be filled with the Spirit and connected to those around us and the Lord. Gratitude inspires happiness and carries divine influence. “Live in thanksgiving daily,” said Amulek, “for the many mercies and blessings which he doth bestow upon you.”4

Mercies and blessings come in different forms—sometimes as hard things. Yet the Lord said, “Thou shalt thank the Lord thy God in all things.”5All things means just that: good things, difficult things—not just some things. He has commanded us to be grateful because He knows being grateful will make us happy. This is another evidence of His love.”

The Book of Mormon, a book of sacred text used by Mormons alongside the Bible, tells of a man named Nephi. He wrote that he had been blessed all the days of his life. This might seem to be an unimportant, generic sort of expression until you realize those days of his life had been filled with trials that would do in the average person. As a young teenager, he had to flee his home with his family due to persecution, and leave for a strange new land. He was homeless for many years as he traveled through the wilderness. His two oldest brothers regularly abused him and even attempted to kill him numerous times. When his parents died, he, his family, and his supporters fled persecution and danger once again—this time escaping his oldest brothers.

And yet, despite a lifetime spent in a highly dysfunctional family and despite constant danger, he felt all—every one—of his days had been blessed. While he faced homelessness, he was never alone. While he faced abuse and attempted murder, he was always saved by angels or God’s power, and he always had the portion of his family that believed in him behind him. He seems to have focused his attention on the blessings, rather than the trials of his life. Certainly he couldn’t ignore the trials—it’s hard to overlook attempted murder—but they didn’t define his life in his own mind. Instead, he made a special point of noticing and expressing gratitude for the good parts.

Sister Parkin explained the blessings that come from a lifetime of choosing gratitude: “The kind of gratitude that receives even tribulations with thanksgiving requires a broken heart and a contrite spirit, humility to accept that which we cannot change, willingness to turn everything over to the Lord—even when we do not understand, thankfulness for hidden opportunities yet to be revealed. Then comes a sense of peace.”

Read “Gratitude: A Path to Happiness.”

Gossip--Don't Pass it on

 membership taken from them? Had they robbed a bank? Broken the law of chastity? Committed apostasy? No, not at all. They had done something most of them probably considered unimportant—they had gossiped. They had participated in a nasty whisper campaign about someone they believed had been immoral. The stories were lies and the damage was widespread. Church leaders found it necessary to take this drastic step to help their members understand that gossip is not entertainment or a minor sin. A reputation had been destroyed and it would be impossible to completely undo the damage, especially since the stories had spread outside the church. Read more

Staying safe is a matter of choices, and to make wise choices, we have to understand the concept of agency. This article will focus on agency, and future articles in this series will walk through the process of using that understanding to make eternally safe choices. Read more

In 2006, D. Todd Christofferson gave a talk in General Conference, a semi-annual international conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on the subject of true manhood. He said:

“Though he will make some sacrifices and deny himself some pleasures in the course of honoring his commitments, the true man leads a rewarding life. He gives much, but he receives more, and he lives content in the approval of his Heavenly Father. The life of true manhood is the good life.” D. Todd Christofferson, “Let Us Be Men,” Ensign, Nov 2006, 46–48

Elder Christofferson told the story of his mother, who had a dangerous surgery that caused her great pain when she used her arms for quite some time afterwards. One day his father took her to a shop and asked the shopkeeper to demonstrate a new machine that ironed clothing. It utilized peddles operated by the leg, not the hands. She was shocked when he purchased it and paid cash. She was extremely worried because it was very expensive and she was concerned about how they were going to manage after having spent so much. He eventually admitted that he knew what she had tried to hide—that when ironing, she had to go into the bedroom and cry until the pain subsided, and so he had quietly gone without lunch for a year to save the money for the machine.

Elder Christofferson said that this was a true man—one who took care of his family even when it meant great sacrifice. A man makes his family and his responsibilities to God his priority in life, and everything else is secondary. This means that while his peers may be out playing, he may find himself hard at work during the day, and then come home to chores, helping his wife with her responsibilities, and playing with his children. For a real man, one who honors his role as a servant of God, this is not a hardship, even if it is sometimes tiring or frustrating.

Mormons are old-fashioned in some aspects of gender—meaning they stay with what God taught us men and women should be. The Family: A Proclamation to the World says of a man’s role:

By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. Extended families should lend support when needed.

Notice that it says men and women help each other in their duties. This means a Mormon man will often be found washing the dishes or changing the diapers, even though it might be primarily the wife’s role. A real man isn’t embarrassed to be found doing this, nor does he feel that a long day at the office protects him from the responsibilities of the home, because he knows a mother is putting in a much longer day than he is. Parenting is a two-person job.

Men who have doubts about his role as a real man is counseled, Elder Christofferson says, to turn to the Book of Mormon for advice. When Jesus Christ visited these people, he asked

Therefore, what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am (3 Nephi 27:27). This scripture tells us that a man who wants to understand his role in life should look at the Savior to see what sort of man He was. We know from many stories told us in the Bible that Jesus Christ was very respectful of women. He included many women among His friends and followers. He respected their ability to learn and He taught them individually. He didn’t save all the learning for the men, as we see in the story of Mary and Martha. This example shows us that a man should respect his wife’s intelligence and treat her as an important person, his equal, just as Jesus treated the women in his world as equals.

Jesus refused to allow his apostles to send children away who had come to see Him. Even though he’d worked a very long day and was tired, he put aside his need for rest and spent meaningful time with children, teaching them and building a relationship with them. His example tells fathers and other men what their attitude toward children should be. Although Jesus did not have children of His own, He demonstrated that a man’s children should be a priority, no matter how busy or tired they might be. He also demonstrated the responsibility to teach children the gospel.

Throughout the scriptures, Jesus is shown to be kind and gentle, not afraid to cry or to show compassion. At the same time, he had the courage to stand for the right against everyone, regardless of the cost to himself. He stood up for the downtrodden and those rejected by the world. He served those who were good and those who were “bad.” He defended the gospel without hesitation and refused to water it down to be politically correct or in tune with the times.

Elder Christofferson’s title comes from a Book of Mormon scripture that says, in part, “arise from the dust, my sons, and be men (2 Nephi 2:21).” To learn more about what it means to be a Mormon man, read the entire talk at LDS.org or watch the video below.

There is an often told tale of a man tossing starfish back into the ocean. Starfish that become stranded on the beach will die. A young man comes along and watches the older man for a few minutes. He looks around the beach at the hundreds and hundreds of stranded starfish lying on the beach and knowing the older man can’t possibly rescue them all, asks, “Why do you bother? It’s not going to make a difference.”

The older man picks up another starfish and throws it into the water. He turns to the younger man and says gently, “It made a difference to this one.”

There is a quote on my desk from Gordon B. Hinckley, the previous president of the Mormons. It says, “I believe in the principle that I can make a difference in this world. It may be ever so small. But it will count for the greater good. The goodness of the world in which we live is the accumulated goodness of many small and seemingly inconsequential acts.” (Gordon B. Hinckley, “I Believe,” Ensign, Aug 1992, 2)

Our three cans of soup might not do very much to end hunger. However, our three cans of soup might feed six people. Then, if our neighbor also contributed three cans of soup, twelve people would be fed. If enough people donated soup, and all the other foods necessary to sustain life, no one would be hungry. The accumulated donations would be enough to take care of everyone who needed them, even though ours alone can’t make a dent in the problem.

In order for this to work though, in order to be sure everyone who is hungry gets fed, and everyone who needs a place to live has one, everyone has to help. This doesn’t mean we can all sit around and wait for a handout. It does mean that those who have done the best they can do and still can’t quite make it will receive what they need. Anyone could unexpectedly find himself in a situation where he is dependent on others for his well-being. No one is immune from hardship. If we’ve helped others, we’ve earned the right to be helped without feeling guilty when we’ve truly exhausted our other resources.

The Mormons have a number of programs designed to help make our small contributions count for the greater good. One such program is the bishop’s storehouse. The storehouse resembles a small grocery store with one big exception-there is no cash register. Mormons meet with their church leaders to evaluate whether or not the member has done everything in his power to take care of himself. Has he cut his expenses down, and gotten rid of the luxuries? The church doesn’t help people maintain their lifestyles. It only helps them live. This means if a member wanted food assistance, but was keeping up a gym membership and a nice boat, he would be turned down.

The church leaders would also help the member learn to live more frugally if necessary. Then, when they were determined to be eligible for help, they would be able to fill out, with help from a leader, a form that lists all available food and personal care items available. They’d select what they need and go to the storehouse every other week to pick it up.

A member receiving this help would be expected to “pay” for it with work that might not entirely cover the cost, but would be tailored to that person’s individual circumstances. A member might come to the church building on Saturday evening to help clean it for the next day’s services, or mow lawns for elderly church members. Those who can come early to the storehouse and work there for an hour or two before filling their order. This maintains a person’s self-respect and dignity, because he’s not taking charity.

The money for this program comes from Mormons, who go without food for twenty-four hours, ending the first Sunday of each month. They skip two meals this way and then donate at least the amount they saved by not eating, drinking, or snacking during this time to a special fund called a Fast Offering. All the money from this fund goes to care for those in need. This allows the person who could normally only afford to donate two cans of soup to donate more once a month. Again, while the amount of money saved from two meals might not be a lot, when combined with the money from all the other skipped meals, it feeds and cares for a great many people around the world.

Each Mormon congregation has a woman’s Relief Society. This Relief Society has a woman assigned to be the Compassionate Service Leader for her congregation, working with assistants if needed. The compassionate service leader makes certain the needs of the congregation are met in terms of service. For instance, a grieving family will receive meals for a few days from members of the church. A woman with a broken leg might driven to the doctor by another woman, and a single mom with a critical job interview might have her children watched while she’s away. In this case, the accumulated goodness is in the form of time, rather than money. Not all needs can be met with money, and Mormons are taught to respond to those needs with their own time and resources.

The Savior Jesus Christ taught us to serve each other. He told the story of a time he was hungry and wasn’t fed or homeless, but was turned away. When his followers wanted to know when they had done that, he reminded them that what they do to others is what they do to the Savior. When we feed a hungry person, it’s a gift to Jesus Christ.

We may not be able to change the world alone, but when we combine our small but loving efforts with those of others, the world does get changed.

According to FAIRLDS, controversy built up around the Mormons’ desire to build a temple in Stockholm, Sweden in 1985. Stendahl contacted Truman G. Madsen and offered to hold a press conference in a Mormon church building endorsing the building of the temple and also suggesting the appropriate way to treat religions other than your own.

In this speech, he outlined three rules, now called, “Stendahl’s three rules of religious understanding. These are good rules for anyone to follow, regardless of their faith.

The first rule is that if you want to know about a religion, you should ask the faithful members, and not the enemies. Anyone who follows partisan politics knows that those who feel so strongly about something sometimes think it’s okay to lie as long as it helps you “win.” If someone is trying to learn about you, it’s likely you’d rather they ask you personally, rather than rounding up your enemies for a hearty bashing session. When Jesus was living on the earth, he taught that we should treat others as we want others to treat us, which makes responsible fact-gathering a Christian responsibility. When learning about another religion, stop to think how you want people to learn about your own religion. Go to the source.

The second rule is to not compare your best to their worst. This is a very basic principle of fairness. Imagine, for instance, a person were to say, “Well, I know this church is bad because last week, the newspaper had a story about someone from that church who got arrested. In the very same paper, there was a story about a person from my church who works for the poor.” While that’s a rather stark example, it does make a clear point. It’s very likely both churches have people who get arrested and people who serve the poor. To selectively point out the worst person, and compare that person to another congregation’s best is hardly a balanced way to evaluate a faith. A fairer way to do this is to look at Congregation A’s work with the poor and compare it to Congregation B’s work for the poor. Of course, poverty relief is only one aspect of Christianity, but we have to compare things on an equal basis-as the old saying goes, don’t compare apples with oranges.

The third rule is to leave room for “holy envy.” Stendahl suggests it’s perfectly okay to admire something in a church you don’t actually want to join. Every church has it’s good and it’s not necessary to trample it just to make your own church look better. It’s even okay to admit that another church does one particular thing better than yours, or maybe just differently than yours but in a way you like. Stendahl was able to picture himself going through the temple ceremonies, even though he didn’t want to become a Mormon. He didn’t have to think we had it all right to admire that aspect of the Mormon faith. He wasn’t threatened by the fact that we had something he personally admired.

These rules reflect basic Christian principles, but they also demonstrate Stendahl’s comfort in his own religion. His testimony of his Lutheran faith was strong enough that he didn’t need to trample another religion in order to feel okay about his own, nor did he feel the need to eliminate or blockade another religion to keep his safe.

If you are sure your own faith is true, you won’t be worried about what other religions are doing. You’ll be too busy sharing the wonders of your own faith to devote your life to trampling the beliefs of others.

While we might not agree with everything Stendahl did in his religious life, we can find wisdom in these three rules that are right for any religion.

Watch the video on why Mormons build temples.

Why Mormons Build Temples

There are two types of needs people have when they are struggling financially. The first is to develop long-term skills that will help them leave poverty and succeed in the future. The other is to get through right now until those long-term plans begin to work.

The short term is often centered around immediate survival–food, clothing, and shelter. In addition, there is usually a call for spiritual and emotional support, particularly if poverty is new for the person experiencing it. Becoming poor after a life-time of being comfortable, particularly if you were always sure it couldn’t possibly happen to you, or even if you looked down on those who have struggled previously and now find yourself in that position, is hard on one’s self-esteem.

Immediate needs can be met fairly simply by those who care. A bag of food dropped off at the house, some cash quietly handed to someone, a bill paid for them, or an offer of childcare while parents work out solutions or go on job interviews provide both assistance and the feeling that others care. Of course, some people are embarrassed to have others aware of the need, and in these cases it often works best to have the service given discreetfully or tactfully. For instance, a family can be invited for dinner and sent home with left-overs the host family “won’t have a chance to use up because we’ll be away during dinner over the next few days.” A woman who buys a large bag of apples can drop a few off at a friend’s home, insisting they were a great deal, but there were too many in the bag for her family. During a particularly difficult time, I left my purse on a pew at church and went to another part of the building for a few minutes. That night, I found a large amount of money tucked away inside it. We frequently found groceries on our porch after an unexpected knock at the door by someone who knocked and ran during that time. On New Year’s Eve, someone left all the supplies for a party on our porch. Those moments made me feel someone cared and wasn’t judging our situation.

Long-term help usually requires more commitment. Often it’s done through a church or community organization, but individuals can also offer help to someone they know.

Often education is a problem. It’s very difficult to find work without an education. If you know someone facing this challenge, you may be able to help. The first step is to find out why they weren’t educated and what school was like for them when (and if) they went to it for a while. Often, people who have had little education can’t read well enough to survive in the workforce. It doesn’t require a degree to help someone learn to read. Mormons can turn to the Relief Society’s literacy program for help. Others can go onto the internet or to the library and learn how to teach someone to read.

Others need help learning to speak English, use a computer, improve their grammar, or search for work. Some might be best-served by creating a home-based business, and a person who knows how to do this can offer to mentor a neighbor through the process.

Another long-term help is to show the newly poor how to save money and still be comfortable. Because I’m not very domestic, I find the need to cook from scratch every single day during hard times to be very stressful. When someone offers to show me an easier way to do something, I’m always very grateful.

The most important service is to help without judgment or without presuming the newly unemployed person has nothing to do. During our unemployment, we both spent ten hours a day at least, searching for a job for my husband. I scoured the Internet for jobs and he wrote personalized cover letters and resumes. Because of the internet, job hunting is now a full-time job. When those ten hours ended, there were still all the regular duties of everyday life-volunteer work, family time, homeschooling, housework, and my writing. The homemaking took longer as I had to do everything without conveniences. Presume your newly unemployed friends are busier than ever and don’t impose on their time or make comments about how nice it must be to have a little vacation.

Listening can be a wonderful service. Both the unemployed person and his spouse-as well as the children-are faced with daily fear and stress. A non-judgmental and sympathetic listener can make all the difference, and during the listening, you might well figure out what it is they really need.

Little things matter and will be remembered long after the crisis ends. Small acts of kindness I remember include:

–A friend who took me out to lunch often because treats lift the spirit

–Someone who casually mentioned that Thanksgiving is a bit complicated during hard times and she was curious to see how we were adapting our menu and what we were cutting out. I mentioned cutting out pie because, never having mastered pie crust, I didn’t own a pie pan. She promptly went into her kitchen and gave me pie pans.

–Someone who decided to start driving my children with hers to church activities so I could save gas.

Look for the little things when deciding how to help, but at the same time, this is an excellent time to take on some long-term volunteer work to help those who haven’t been as fortunate as you have been. We never really know when we’ll be on the receiving end, and when we’ve been giving, it’s easier to receive.

<span style="font-size: small; font-family: Arial;”>Today, the world feels pretty unstable to many people. With unemployment rising, a world at war, and crime on the rise in many areas, many people are afraid and this fear can become paralyzing. How do we keep going when things could fall apart at any moment?

Believing in God and in Jesus Christ can give us hope. It’s hard to feel hope when everything depends on mere mortals who can never be sure their plans will work. But when the world is in the hands of a loving Father, we can feel secure. A belief in God gives meaning to the life we’re living and a reassurance that in the end, we’re being watched over and there is a reason for us to live, and even that every trial has a purpose that makes it worth getting through the trial and on to the next stage of life.

The Bible and the Book of Mormon both offer us hope. They promise us that God won’t leave us alone, and in the darkest times, He will give meaning to our lives and promise us something better in the future if we hold on to our faith and try to make the right choices.

When we have a complete understanding of how God operates, we realize this life is a test of our ability to learn, progress, and make wise choices. When you play a video game, obstacles are constantly put in your way, and the challenge of the game is to learn how to overcome them. Without those challenges, most people wouldn’t bother to play the game, because there would be no purpose. In real life, we also need challenges, because they push us to be more than we once were, and help us appreciate the good and easy days. Whether we win or lose the game of life is up to us, and it’s largely a matter of attitude and choices. When we choose to face challenges and something to work on, and search the experience for how they helped us, we win, because we’re overcoming difficulties placed in our way and becoming more fit to live with God.

The Book of Mormon tells the story of a man named Lehi who was a prophet in Jerusalem at the time of the prophet Jeremiah. He was commanded by God to take his family into the wilderness to preserve his life. His two oldest sons faced the challenge of leaving behind their wealth for a life of primitive living badly. Instead of seeing it as a great opportunity, they constantly whined and complained. On the other hand, the fourth son, Nephi, saw everything as a chance to grow. He assured his father he understood God would never give them commandments or trials without also showing them how to succeed if they asked for His help. As a result, although Nephi’s life was filled with trials-many the result of his abusive older brothers-he came to the end of his life feeling he had been blessed and feeling he’d had a great life. Laman and Lemuel spent their entire lives simply fighting everyone else and complaining. They learned nothing from the experiences they had and never found the peace their younger brothers all found by facing trials with faith.

Combining hope with faith makes even the hardest life bearable. Adding the third leg of the stool, charity, keeps a person who is facing trials from feeling too picked on. When they serve others, they understand they aren’t the only people with problems, and that many of the problems faced by others are worse than their own. It takes them outside themselves and keeps their spirits up.

When you’re looking ahead to the economic trials and the other challenges of the world today, keep in mind the three-legged stool and look for the blessings tucked into the trials.