Overcoming Adversity Isn’t the Point

[Third Hour]

We live in a fallen world. Millions of people are hungry. Depression is real. Cancer kills. Tragedy strikes. Life throws curve balls. That's the way things are. More often than not, our goal is to overcome the adversity that challenges us. We want to triumph over pain and suffering. We don't like it, and we're not meant to. But while Christ's atonement one day promises us the final victory in this war, our entire lives will still be spent doing the fighting. But hey, keep reading for the good news. Adversity isn't going anywhere Each of us falls somewhere on the spectrum of adversity. Some face more than others, but none are exempt. We face adversity a million times a day in a million different ways. Despite our efforts, nowhere in the Plan of Salvation is it written that we can wholly defeat adversity in this life. It's not going to happen. When we overcome one obstacle, there will always be another one down the road. Those that hope to earn an...

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[Guest]

Hmmm.  

I need to walk through this in my mind.  "Overcoming adversity isn't the point."  So I ask, "The point of what?" Life?  Of course not.  The point of life is to be tried and tested, to learn and grow. 

Then I enter catechism mode:

But what are we being tested for?  Righteousness.

Is that the same thing as being happy?  The Plan of Salvation was also known as "The Plan of Happiness."

So, is there a spiritual equivalence of Righteousness to happiness?  If wickedness never was happiness, then the corollary would be: Righteousness has always been happiness.

Is that true?  I don't know what that would look like.

Now exiting catechism mode and entering stream of consciousness.

We tend to think of happiness as "what good things happen to us."  Truly the root of "happy" is "happen".  So, there is some truth to that.  But in a gospel sense happiness is something more.  In fact, we tend to use the word "joy" an awful lot.  "Behold my joy is full."  "Man is that he might have joy."   We speak of "being in tune" with the Spirit.  We could "be in tune" with happiness.  Maybe that really is an important part of life.  Learn to be in tune with happiness no matter what "happens" to us.

It seems that we can be tried and tested to see if we can learn to be happy.  Through this process, we learn and grow.  Nice thoughts.

[dsnell]

Lovely thoughts. Also interesting to think about how Lehi's family "lived after the manner of happiness." I think happiness has many valid definitions, but I find it beneficial to view happiness, as Nephi apparently did, as a lifestyle. Theoretically, of course. Putting that paradigm into practice is ... well, the purpose of life, I guess.