You're Strong Enough (9 page)

Your second quest,
after discovering your weaknesses and how they may have hindered your progress, take a look on where you are on your path. Have you been falling off just a little bit (lying, gossiping…), or by great heights (drugs, theft…)? Write down what you have done in your life that has knocked you off your path towards greatness. Then use the atonement of Christ to get back on the path and start fresh. In fact, start by recognizing you need the atonement to conquer Satan and his followers in order to make it back home.

There is power in acknowledging and accepting the fact that you need Jesus Christ to be happy and successful as an heir to the Kingdom of God. When we realize we need the Savior Jesus Christ, it helps us not stress over the little things we do wrong. Be open to your need for ’s sacrifice to make it back home and write down what you need to repent for.

Your last quest
is to learn to communicate with God. Pray and see if He is there. Ask Him if you have what it takes to make it back home. Prayer is something you can take with you anywhere in the world. Learn its power and how it guides you. Build a relationship again with your First Father. Talk to Him daily and ask for strength to overcome Satan.

You have been given strengths to build confidence.

You have been given
weaknesses to stay humble.

You have been given the Atonement to keep going.

You have been given
prayer to be guided.

K
nowing who you are and why you are here and how to fix your problems is a huge boost of strength for your quest. But, as you know, others are also on individual quests. Some of them may have lost their way and will be trying to knock you down or thwart your efforts to become an heir to the Kingdom of God. You may have realized that this quest is not easy. In fact, it can be very difficult. No doubt, you’d like some answers for why it is so hard.

Why Can Life Be So Hard?

We have trials and difficulties on our quest for three main reasons: First, so that we may learn to seek and follow the counsel of God, second, because of free agency. And third, the difficulty of the quest builds character and teaches us lessons.

First: Remember God

Ask yourself: Would you pray or need a higher power “God” if your quest was problem free? If your path had no obstacles, no people trying to push you off, or no dragon trying to destroy you, would you pray? Maybe, maybe not.
Having trials, challenges and Satan in our life encourages us to draw close and reach out to
God.

If your quest is full of easy paths, blue skies and nice people would it be a real test? In order for a quest to do its job in proving our worthiness, it must have difficulty. Though this quest will be difficult, that doesn’t mean that we can’t conquer it. But to conquer it, we must reach out to the one who has done it before us and to the One that sees all and knows all, namely Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father.

As we go through difficult times, we need to learn to love and have faith in our Heavenly Father—no matter what happens on our path. We need to believe that our Heavenly Father is watching out for us and will assist us every time we ask. Trials and challenges are there to draw us close to our Heavenly Father.
He wants us to call on Him for help, understand and use the atonement of Christ, and seek His guidance and counsel so that we can achieve our goal and live with Him
again.

Second: Free agency

Free agency is the biggest reason why our quest is fraught with difficulties.
Though free agency is what we fought for in the Preexistence and was given to everyone as a gift, it can sometimes put quite a damper on our quest, sometimes because of us, and sometimes because of others. There is power when making choices, but sometimes this power can be abused.

It hurts our Heavenly Father to watch His children harm each other. But, He cannot take away anyone’s free agency. If He were to take away our free agency and force us nor others to do what is right, then He would be following Satan’s plan and cease to be God. Our Heavenly Father understands the quest can be difficult when we make poor choices or when others abuse their free agency and it affects us. But, God promised if we conquer our quest, despite what happens to us, we will be rewarded.

God is a loving and just God. Therefore, those that abuse their free agency and hurt you will have justice served to them—either here in this life or in the next. Please understand that, though God cannot take away the free agency of man and though He will make sure justice is served to those who abuse it, He has given us everything we need to overcome anything. When we mess up because we abuse our free agency, the atonement can wipe it clean.
When others mess up and hurt us because of their free agency, the atonement can heal
us.

So many have asked why bad things happen to good people. Most often it is because of the misuse of free agency.
But God is a wise God, when we get hurt by others, He will use our trials and challenges for learning and growth. And because God is a just God, His justice system will punish those who abuse their free agency. Let’s say you’re being bullied at school. God cannot take away the free agency of the bully, but He can make you strong enough to endure what you’re going through, brave enough to tell someone about it and smart enough to learn from this experience. Furthermore, if the bully does not repent, our Heavenly Father will make sure he pays for what he did to you in the next life.

Though others have their free agency to hurt you, you have the free agency to choose whether what has happened to you will destroy your life or make you stronger.
We always have a choice on how to act when others’ behavior affects us badly.

Free agency not only brings difficulty when people abuse it, but it brings opportunity for us to prove to our Heavenly Father that, no matter what happens to us here on Earth, we will achieve this quest. Every king or queen has hard choices to make when others in their land are making poor choices or trying to depose them. Similarly, this quest is to prepare us for our eternal reward as heirs in the Kingdom of God. We will need to learn how to act when others choose unwisely.

With your power to choose, you are strong enough and gifted enough to act wisely and choose how your trials and challenges will affect you.

Some of the acts done to you by others abusing their free agency have probably really gotten you down. Remember, God would not have sent you here on Earth if He didn’t believe you could overcome anything with His help. If you are at the point where your feel like you’re losing your grip while scaling a mountain (difficult trials) trying to reach better heights, extend your hand and ask God to help you. Our Heavenly Father will do everything in His power to help you without intruding on your free agency or that of others.
Trust Him and believe that He has your best interest at
heart.

Our Heavenly Father is very aware of the pain that we can feel because of our poor choices or the poor choices of others. This is why He is placed so many tools on Earth to assist us. One of them is the shield of faith. Faith that God will deal justly with those that harm us and faith that we are strong enough to climb any mountain placed before us. It is essential we have faith that God knows what we are going through when we are hurt and that He will send us exactly what we need when we ask.

God has made sure that we have people around us that can help us when we are struggling. He has made sure that we are strong enough, especially with His help, to get through anything. With that said, be careful where you place the blame when bad things happen to you, for your view could be clouded and darkened.

Blame game

One of Satan’s biggest tools to thwart our divine nature and individual quests is to convince us to play the blame game.
Satan wants us to blame God for all the bad that happens in this world. He wants us to blame God for others hurting us when they chose to abuse their free agency. Remember, God cannot take away the free agency of any human—no matter how evil that person is.

Watch out for Satan’s Fiery Darts of Lies!

If Satan succeeds in convincing us to blame God for the choices of humans, He may also convince us to take God out of the picture. If we take God out of the picture, then what happens to our quest, our divine nature and our individual worth? Those will also be tossed out. The day that that happens, we truly will be wandering aimlessly in a dark world.

Let God’s actions be accounted unto God, and man’s actions be the responsibility of man.
Do not blame God for what man has done. Every human on Earth has the freedom to choose to be good or bad. Don’t let Satan convince you to blame God, so you won’t counsel with Him, seek His guidance and continue your quest.

If you find yourself deeply discouraged because of the actions of others, pray and ask our Heavenly Father for help. Ask Him to heal you and help you overcome the bad that has happened to you. Don’t get stuck in the blame game. If you do, you will never find a solution to your problems. Though God can’t take away man’s free agency, He can help us through with the tools He has given us, through the healing power of the atonement and through helping us to try and learn from our trials and challenges.

3rd: Build Character and learn lessons

The things that happen to us on our quest will always be the product of free agency—our free agency and the free agency of others. Typically, when good things happen to us, we don’t question it. But, when bad things happen to us, we question. Therefore, our Heavenly Father does not want us to just let go when things go wrong in our life. He wants us to learn from it. The trials you face here on Earth are for your learning and growth. They are the obstacles on the course that we must conquer.

Trials are uniquely chosen for us for our ultimate growth. Challenges are caused by others’ poor choices. Our Heavenly Father wants us to learn and grow from both. You have unique strengths and gifts to overcome and learn the lessons that God wants you to learn.
Others may encounter similar trials, but they aren’t you and they won’t learn the same lesson you
do.

For example: Let’s say two of your friends have been date raped by the same guy. (He went to jail.) One learned, over time, to forgive and move on. The other learned to forgive as well, but decided to make sure it didn’t happen to others. So, she started a website to educate women on what to look for when dating. Each moved on, but ended up learning different lessons.

Each trial and challenge is unique to us and so are the lessons.
Everyone will learn something different from their past experiences, though their experiences could be similar. Don’t compare yourself to others when it comes to learning and growth. Each person learns and grows at a different speed, and with different lessons learned.

When looking at your past and discovering what you have learned from experiences in your life, please remember one thing:
Your past is there for you to learn from, not dwell upon.
Our past experiences are there to build character and teach us lessons. Our past is not there to be dwelt upon or consume us. If you dwell on your past and the negative things that have happened to you, you will find yourself stuck and unable to move forward.

Look at your past experiences and see how you can learn from them so you can move forward with your quest. For example, if you come across a berry bush on your path and you decide to eat this fruit, which results in making you sick, wouldn’t you stay away from this type of berry next time? Similarly, God wants us to learn from our mistakes, trials and challenges, so as to make us wiser for the next obstacle during our quest.