Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Orange You Glad?

     Look at the picture and imagine that orange skin was you.  It's definitely hard lifting the things that weigh on you the most.  Heck, if I were that orange skin, I wouldn't be able to lift up half the weight that that guy has to!  It's tough, life, and we each will one day have to lift something of a burden like that.  It's not going to be fun.  It's not going to be easy.  It's most certainly not going to feel good.  Why do we exactly carry something that we don't like?

     In the 48th chapter and the 10th verse of Isaiah, it says "behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction."  In a bigger picture, Isaiah says this, addressing the Jews in Babylon-- the fact that they're toiling and suffering in a foreign and heathen nation, it's all going to be for their own good.  God pretty much says a similar thing to Joseph Smith as he was in that varmint-ridden hellhole of a prison in Missouri.

     While living on this place that we call Earth, the challenges we have are actually very precious to us-- it allows us to be stronger and shinier than we were before.  We gain wisdom from adversity.  We gain strength from our falls.  Our burdens are the heavy-laden fruits in which we can reap from if we can toil and labor through, carrying it as far as God wants of us.

     What if the fruit is too heavy for us to carry?  What if I don't think it's worth the effort carrying such a weight?  Notice again that there's something that helps the weight become lighter.  Of course, God will give us just enough to handle, but at times it'll feel like He's giving us too much.  If we drop to our knees, clasping our hands together and just pray for the strength, He will give it to us so that we will be able to carry that weight-- His hand will help us.

     Nothing is impossible with God.  All things good can only result in further good, even if it may not seem like it yields any results.  You'll see the fruit soon enough.  As through the trials I have gone through here, I know that this is true.  It'll turn into something you're definitely going to enjoy.

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