The Value of Experience

Tom Sheppard

5/17/2020

In the winter of 1838-1839 Joseph Smith was imprisoned in a below-ground dungeon ironically named Liberty Jail, in Liberty, Missouri.  He was imprisoned as a direct result of him doing his best to heed the promptings of the Holy Spirit of God as it guided him to protect the welfare of the members of the nascent Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

He endured months of squalid conditions and malnutrition.  At the same time his mind and spirit suffered in an agony of anxiety for his wife and children and all those people he held dear.  He knew they were enduring terrible hardships as armed mobs forced them from their homes into the winter weather to fend for themselves without benefit of anything more than they could manage to carry away in their arms.  The threats and actuality of rape and murder hanging over their heads day and night until they could find their way out of the state of Missouri.

Near the end of this trying time, although he did not know the end was close, he finally broke.  Betrayed by friends and despairing of either justice or rescue, he recorded this prayer to God. (taken from Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Sections 121 and 122).

O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place? 

How long shall thy hand be stayed, and thine eye, yea thy pure eye, behold from the eternal heavens the wrongs of thy people and of thy servants, and thine ear be penetrated with their cries? 

Yea, O Lord, long shall they suffer these wrongs and unlawful oppressions, before thine heart shall be softened toward them, and thy bowels be moved with compassion toward them? 

O Lord God Almighty, maker of heaven, earth, and seas, and of all things that in them are, and who controllest and subjectest the devil, and the dark and benighted dominion of Sheol—stretch forth thy hand; let thine eye pierce; let thy pavilion be taken up; let thy hiding place no longer be covered; let thine ear be inclined; let thine heart be softened, and thy bowels moved with compassion toward us. 

Let thine anger be kindled against our enemies; and, in the fury of thine heart, with thy sword avenge us of our wrongs. 

Remember thy suffering saints, O our God; and thy servants will rejoice in thy name forever.

As I have grown in experience through my life, becoming a husband, father, and friend I have come to have a deeper understanding of what sort of anguish Joseph must have been suffering during this time.

Mark Twain once said, "I have experienced many terrible things in my life.  A few of them actually happened."  I am compelled to believe that during this time Joseph's mind must  have been wracked with horrible incidents, both real and imagined as he heard snippets of news of the fate of his friends and loved ones during this terrible time.

I put myself in Joseph's place.  I consider how my mind might run wild with imagining of the worst sort of depredations and oppression being poured out upon his wife and young children.  His family struggling through the countryside, exposed to the weather without him there to give them any protection or comfort.

God's response to his prayer is both wonderful and frightening.

His first words are of comfort.

My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; 

And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.

I can imagine that these words gave Joseph great comfort.  But this was not all God had to say in response to Joseph taking God to task for his appearance of inattention to the plight of his children.

Then followed a gentle rebuke.

Thy friends do stand by thee, and they shall hail thee again with warm hearts and friendly hands. 

Thou art not yet as Job; thy friends do not contend against thee, neither charge thee with transgression, as they did Job.

After this, Joseph records the promises of God to bring judgement upon the heads of those who seek to thwart his purposes and who persecute his children.  Accompanying this is the promise of eventual, total victory over evil and encouragement for Joseph to stay in the path set for him by God.

Then comes an ominous lesson and a final reproof.

If thou art called to pass through tribulation; if thou art in perils among false brethren; if thou art in perils among robbers; if thou art in perils by land or by sea;   

If thou art accused with all manner of false accusations; if thine enemies fall upon thee; if they tear thee from the society of thy father and mother and brethren and sisters; and if with a drawn sword thine enemies tear thee from the bosom of thy wife, and of thine offspring, and thine elder son, although but six years of age, shall cling to thy garments, and shall say, My father, my father, why can’t you stay with us? O, my father, what are the men going to do with you? and if then he shall be thrust from thee by the sword, and thou be dragged to prison, and thine enemies prowl around thee like wolves for the blood of the lamb; 

And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good. 

To recap, God says to Joseph if you are betrayed by friends, your life at risk, ripped from the company of your loved ones, threatened with unjust imprisonment, thrown into a hole in the ground and threatened with execution.

After noting all these perils that come from men God does not stop there but lists the perils of nature - cast into the deep (the sea), waves of the sea trying to swallow you, winds blowing against you, storms lashing about you, and all the elements combining to block you.

God then adds, after the powers of men and nature that might threaten, supernatural powers:  the very jaws of hell open to swallow you.

He then delivers the eternal lesson from all these horrible, terrifying, dismaying things.  "all these things shall give the experience, and shall be for thy good."

I don't know what went through the heart and mind of Joseph when he heard these words but I know what I think when I put myself in his place and imagine hearing them said to me.

All these horrible things will give me experience?  Experience?  Really?  Can't we get there without all this horror?  Can't we have lives filled with happy experiences instead of these horrendous situations where it seems all humanity is against us.  Not just humanity, but all nature as well.  And not just nature, but unseen powers that threaten to devour our very soul?  Can't we get good experience in other ways?  Is experience really that important?

God then concludes with an explanation, however brief.  "[These experiences} shall be for thy good."

At this point in the lesson I am thinking, "Is there anyone else up there I can talk to?  Perhaps someone who can show me a path that isn't so fearsome?"

Then comes the humbling capstone.  As I ponder all these terrible experiences and feel the weight of them upon my soul, though I have not yet experienced them, and I feel to cry out like so many do, "Why me Lord?" God says,

The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?

I am compelled by these simple words to admit that God is right and I am wrong.  If Christ "descended below them all", experiencing all these terrors and more, how can I say that it is not fair or just.  He was without sin.  I am far from that.  If I had to suffer all these terrible things just to pay for my own sins it would still not balance the scales.  Jesus suffered all this and much more even though he committed no sin.  I cannot in any rational or even emotional way put myself above him and say that he deserved such treatment while I do not.

After wrestling with the emotional turmoil of this lesson, I come back to the point.  "All these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good."

End the end, God will right all wrongs.  So, any injustice I might suffer will be expunged by his justice and mercy.  So, I can set aside any feelings of being abused by these experiences and try to understand how the experience of such terrible things could be for my good?

To understand this, we must go back to the beginning and answer that profound question which has boggled the greatest minds of man since the beginning of time, and continues to haunt most people today.

"Why am I here?"  Or its less self-centered corollary, "Why are any of us here?"

The beginning I speak of is not the moment of your birth, or even the birth of humankind on this planet.  It goes back to before the spirits of the first man and woman inhabited flesh upon this earth.

In the period before our birth in this world we lived as a very large family in the home and presence of our Heavenly Parents.  For an eternity we learned at the feet of God.  We knew Him as he is and we knew each other.  All that we learned there no one can say, for upon my birth and yours a veil of forgetfulness fell across our minds and those pre-mortal memories, though present still are not accessible to us through any exertions of our own.  Although, at times in this life we hear and see things which resonate deeply inside us as though we knew them before we heard them here.

During that eternity, like most children we loved our parents and wanted to be like them in every way.  Just like mortal children and parents there were three major differences between us and our Heavenly Parents.  Mature bodies, mature thoughts, and mature emotions.  Like any loving parent, ours wanted us to enjoy all the happiness they enjoyed.  They put in place the means for us to become like them both physically, mentally, and emotionally.

We are here to become physically, mentally, and emotionally mature enough to be able to appropriately use the immense powers which our Heavenly Parents possess.

Imagine how terrible it would be if God relinquished his self-control to fits of temper?  We would live our short lives on a razor's edge fearing instant, divine wrath for our slightest misstep, or even errant thought.

Instead, he is patient with us beyond our comprehension.  Despite our efforts to reject and offend, He reaches out to us with means calculated by his great understanding to draw us gently back to Him and into the path that will lead us to fulfill the reasons we came into this world.

I have heard it said that the great secret of repentance is that it allows us to gain experience without having to suffer all the adverse consequences of that experience.  The most adverse consequence we could ever suffer is to fail to mature sufficiently in mind, body, and spirit to become like our Heavenly Parents.  The Atonement of Jesus Christ made repentance possible.  Without his atonement, the inevitable price for our failings would be that ultimate failure.  With his atonement, we have the opportunity to repent and put our failings behind us, striving each day to be a little more like our Heavenly Parents in thought, word, and deed.


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Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM).

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein.

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