The July 2017 Ensign had a really good article from
Elder Bednar called “On the Lord’s Side: Lessons from Zion’s Camp” (p27) that
had a big section in it that I want to comment on.
The leaders of
the Lord’s Church clearly have identified some of the collective or
generational tests we can expect to encounter in our day and generation. As the
President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1977, President Ezra Taft
Benson (1899–1994) raised a prophetic voice of warning in a meeting of regional
representatives. I now quote extensively from President Benson’s message and
invite your focused attention on his timely counsel:
“Every
generation has its tests and its chance to stand and prove itself. Would you
like to know of one of our toughest tests? Hear the warning words of Brigham
Young, ‘The worst fear I have about this people is that they will get rich in
this country, forget God and His people, wax fat, and kick themselves out of
the Church and go to hell. This people will stand mobbing, robbing, poverty,
and all manner of persecution and be true. But my greatest fear is that they
cannot stand wealth.’”
President
Benson continues: “Ours then seems to be the toughest test of all, for the
evils are more subtle, more clever. It all seems less menacing and it is harder
to detect. While every test of righteousness represents a struggle, this
particular test seems like no test at all, no struggle and so could be the most
deceiving of all tests.
“Do you know
what peace and prosperity can do to a people—It can put them to sleep. The Book
of Mormon warned us of how Satan, in the last days, would lead us away
carefully down to hell. The Lord has on the earth some potential spiritual
giants whom He saved for some six thousand years to help bear off the Kingdom
triumphantly, and the devil is trying to put them to sleep. The adversary knows
that he probably won’t be too successful in getting them to commit many great
and malignant sins of commission. So he puts them into a deep sleep, like
Gulliver, while he strands them with little sins of omission. And what good is
a sleepy, neutralized, lukewarm giant as a leader?
“We have too
many potential spiritual giants who should be more vigorously lifting their
homes, the kingdom, and the country. We have many who feel they are good men
and women, but they need to be good for something—strong patriarchs, courageous
missionaries, valiant family history and temple workers, dedicated
patriots, devoted quorum members. In short, we must be shaken and awakened from
a spiritual snooze.”7
Consider that
affluence, prosperity, and ease can be tests in our day equal to or greater in
intensity than the persecution and physical hardships endured by the Saints who
volunteered to march in Zion’s Camp. As the prophet Mormon described in his
magnificent summary of the pride cycle contained in Helaman 12:
“And thus we
can behold how false, and also the unsteadiness of the hearts of the children
of men; yea, we can see that the Lord in his great infinite goodness doth bless
and prosper those who put their trust in him.
“Yea, and we
may see at the very time when he doth prosper his people, yea, in the increase
of their fields, their flocks and their herds, and in gold, and in silver, and
in all manner of precious things of every kind and art; sparing their lives,
and delivering them out of the hands of their enemies; softening the hearts of
their enemies that they should not declare wars against them; yea, and in fine,
doing all things for the welfare and happiness of his people; yea, then is the
time that they do harden their hearts, and do forget the Lord their God, and do
trample under their feet the Holy One—yea, and this because of their ease, and
their exceedingly great prosperity” (Helaman 12:1–2).
I invite you
specifically to note the final phrase in the last verse: “and this because of
their ease, and their exceedingly great prosperity.”
President
Harold B. Lee (1899–1973) likewise taught about the collective test of
ease that we face in our day: “We are tested, we are tried, we are going
through some of the severest tests today and we don’t realize perhaps the
severity of the tests we are going through. In those days there were
murderings, there were mobbings, there were drivings. They were driven out into
the desert, they were starving and they were unclad, and they were cold. They
came here to this favored land. We are the inheritors of what they gave to us.
But what are we doing with it? Today we are basking in the lap of luxury, the
like of which we’ve never seen before in the history of the world. It would
seem that probably this is the most severe test of any test that we’ve ever had
in the history of this Church.”
So, Elder Bednar notes that
affluence, prosperity, and ease can be tests in our day equal to or greater in
intensity than the persecution and physical hardships endured by the Saints who
volunteered to march in Zion’s camp.
Many of us might listen or
read these words and like Tevye from “Fiddler on the Roof” we might say, “Well,
if wealth is a curse, may God smite me with it! And may I never recover!”
But that just shows we don’t
understand the danger. So many of us are driven and motivated to action by the
needs of the moment, driven to acquire what will enable us to live, driven by
the needs of those who depend on us.
But what happens when we reach a state when our needs are all met, when
no one makes any demands? It sounds wonderful. But where will you find
motivation if you have no need?
That is
the test. The test is to create your motivation and stay anxiously engaged in a
good cause day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year. The test is
to keep it up, even though you don’t need
to. The test is to sacrifice your comfort and ease to bring about righteous
purposes. The test is to push out of ease willingly into a cause fraught with
frustration, inconvenience, difficulty, challenge, persecution, pain, etc. And it is a test. The natural
man and woman loves to loll about and will protest when you think about trying
something know or doing something hard that you don’t have to do. (At least
mine does.)
It is true that ease puts
people to sleep. When there’s no need, you feel like you don’t have to try too
hard because the penalty for failure or laziness is low. That is how prosperity
saps people of vigor.
Again, Elder Bednar points
out the test of affluence, prosperity, and ease can be equal to or greater in
intensity than the persecution and physical hardships of Zion’s Camp. Ponder
that. Equal to or greater in intensity
to mental and physical fatigue, bloody blisters, inadequate food, unclean
water, disappointments, dissentions, rebellions, and threatening armies. In
what way are they equal? The prophet Joseph Smith called these men to leave
their comfortable homes and march to save others. In our day, the prophet will
similarly call us to leave our comforts and ease and suffer inconvenience,
difficulty, persecution, etc. to save others. In that way, the tests are equal.
That kind of sacrifice is
the same that Moses made when he put aside his status as a prince of Egypt and
chose to suffer privations with the enslaved children of Israel.
How to deal with this test?
How to prepare for it? I think one way to prepare for it is to choose at least
one good cause to engage in along with all the things we need to do, and keep at it. Keep at it even though there is nothing
urgent about it because someday you’ll need
that skill. The labor of love will
prepare you for the time when all your labors become non-urgent.
Another part of this test is
that when needs are taken care of, one doesn’t quite know what to pray about.
What to ask for? That puzzle may cause neglect of prayers. But if one is
anxiously engaged in a good cause, then one finds more to pray about, and one
realizes how much one needs help to fight the inertia of the natural man or
woman.
