Why Was I Born! – Sunday, February 28, 1943
Those who are discouraged, and especially those who are both young and discouraged, are sometimes heard to give voice to this query of complaint: “Why was I born!” Many who have encountered disappointments in life, from which they think for the moment they cannot recover, are inclined to ask the question. Young people whose dreams have been shattered, whose ambitions have been indefinitely postponed, who breathlessly have expected much from life and find that it doesn’t come up to their expectations, are sometimes heard despondently to ask it.
Those whose faith in the future is not equal to the shock and stress of the present often voice the same complaint: “Why was I born, anyway? I didn’t ask to be.” We hear those who blame their parents for bringing them into the world, and those who profess to believe that they would rather not have been born at all. The question, sometimes spoken earnestly and sometimes sighed merely for its melodramatic effect, is heard commonly enough among young and old alike to call for answer.
Job was no doubt one of those who wondered at times why he was born. “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said…. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou has understandings.. When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? . . .” (See Job, chapter 38). The sons of God shouted for joy because of the prospect of birth, birth into a world where the free agency of man is fundamental, and where man may work out his own salvation and proceed to yet greater things. A re-examination of the record of scripture and of all of the other known facts will point many strong evidences toward this conclusion—evidences to the effect that an All-wise Eternal Father, the directing Intelligence of the Universe, gave to men a plan for their never-ending progress, a plan which included the experiences and circumstances of this life, without which we could not reach our highest possibilities—a plan which included freedom of choice and of action under conditions of strict accountability for our use of that freedom. And so, when we hear someone ask, “Why was I born?”, the answer is—because birth is the entrance into this life and this life is prerequisite to a greater life to come.
We were born because we wanted to be—wanted it more than anything else that could be given to men, and earnestly sought the privilege back in that life, the memory of which is shielded from this one. We were born because somehow we earned the right to be born, and despite all the discouragement of the present, despite seeming futility at times, there are indescribably yet more glorious things to come for those who respect the privilege of life.
By Richard L. Evans, spoken from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, Feb. 28, 1943, over Radio Station KSL and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System. Copyright – 1943.
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February 28, 1943
Broadcast Number 0,706