Whether big or small, heartbreaking or inconvenient, it can be challenging to know what to do when a righteous desire goes unmet. Especially when you feel like you really, really deserve it.
Former Brigham Young University religion professor Camille Fronk Olsen and All In host, Morgan Pearson, discuss on the podcast a few ways to press forward when life isn’t looking the way you hoped and prayed it would.
1. Trust in God and His Detours
Camille believes that, though it’s not always easy to trust God, it becomes easier the more we do it. What can feel like unanswered prayers or blocked blessings may actually be divinely planned detours.
For example, she says that at 21 years old, she persistently felt that she was supposed to serve a mission. This path was not something she’d envisioned for herself, but she resolved to follow God’s direction. Upon returning home from her mission, she was presented with the opportunity to teach seminary. She felt compelled to take it, but this was not her dream career. Camille jokes that, at the time, being a female seminary teacher was like being a nun.
“I just felt so geeky,” Camille says. “Here I am at home, studying scriptures to get ready for the next day of school, and all my friends were out doing fun things.”
In hindsight, though, she sees how these unexpected roads led her to a life of fulfillment, both personally and professionally. In recognizing these blessed detours, Camille has become more trusting of God.
“There was a door I hadn’t imagined, and it led to another door I hadn’t imagined, and it led to another door I hadn’t imagined. … I think sometimes it might be the next life that we start seeing how this whole tapestry fits together. But if going down that detour that He has sent us down leads us to trust more in Him, it is a glorious life. It is better than we could have ever expected.”
2. Disconnect the Blessing from the Commandment
Sometimes, we may expect specific blessings for keeping certain commandments. For instance, we may expect marriage if we keep the law of chastity, good health if we keep the Word of Wisdom, and financial wealth if we pay a full tithe.
“I think it’s just so important to disconnect the blessing from the commandment,” Morgan says. “I think that the Lord definitely blesses people financially for paying tithing, but that doesn’t mean that that’s always the blessing that’s being poured out.”
She quotes Elder D. Todd Christofferson, who said:
“It is essential that we honor and obey His laws, but not every blessing predicated on obedience to law is shaped, designed, and timed according to our expectations. We do our best but must leave to Him the management of blessings, both temporal and spiritual.”
While this is often easier said than done, we can also recognize how leaving the management of blessings to God is ultimately an act of relief—we don’t need to calculate what we, or others, “deserve.” Instead, we can rest assured that God is in charge.
3. Turn to the Scriptures
When we’re struggling to trust God while facing the reality of an ungranted blessing, Camille suggests turning to the Book of Mormon:
“One of the really nice three purposes of the Book of Mormon that are listed on the title page is to recognize what great things God has done for our fathers and our mothers. … Looking at the way God blesses others in scripture in just profound ways and at profound times helps engender greater patience in our own challenges and trust in God.”
She believes that the power of the Book of Mormon lies in the fact that it doesn’t read like a fairy tale. We can gain valuable perspective as we study the complicated situations and trials that people in the scriptures faced.
“[I don’t mean] just reading a verse of scripture here [and there] and having our favorite ones—but looking at context and not being afraid to ask really hard questions and stewing on it for a while and going back and reading again, looking at scripture from a different angle,” Camille says. “If we continue to read scripture each day the way we have always read it, we’ll continue to see the same things in them.”
As she’s made a point to study the women of the scriptures, she’s found that not one of them had it easy. But their ability to turn toward the Lord in their challenges inspires Camille to believe that she can do the same.
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