You’ll Never Walk Alone – Sunday, April 14, 1985
If we would have our way, we would book ourselves a safe passage through this life.
What day, after all, would we ever choose to face terminal illness, the loss of our dearest love, the winds of adversity or failure? When would we say, “This day I choose pain? Today I choose disappointment?” No day. Yet, the solemn reality is that life will bring us experiences we would never choose, and we are left with that awesome encounter—the revealing of our own character.
Spencer W. Kimball said, “Now we find many people critical when a righteous person is killed, a young father or mother is taken from a family or when violent deaths occur. Some become bitter when oft-repeated prayers seem unanswered…but if all the sick were healed, if all the righteous were protected and the wicked destroyed, the whole program of the Father would be annulled and the basic principle of the Gospel, free agency, would be ended.”1
Pain and sorrow do not immediately follow sin, nor does reward come instantly upon the heels of righteousness. If it did, no one would ever be good simply to be good.
Life will always have sharp edges. The ground will not be soft when we fall on it; viruses will not lose their potency when they near us. So, what are we to make of it all? How are we to wend our way happily in a world so potentially dangerous?
Be assured that we can do the things we must. The great message of the gospel is we don’t need to do them alone. We are in the Lord’s hands, and what better place to be than in those hands pierced with the nails. Who can hold us more gently against the storm?
The happy ones of this earth are not those free of trial. Hardship is blind and comes to all. The happy ones are those who know where to seek comfort when the rain falls.
Thomas Carlyle said, “For man’s well-being, Faith is properly the one thing needful; how with it, Martyrs otherwise weak can cheerfully endure the shame and the cross; and without it, worldlings puke up their existence, by suicide, in the midst of luxury.”2
Misery need not make us miserable. The sharpest pain can be blunted and turned to peace. When you choose to put your hand in the Lord’s, though the storm blows, you’ll never walk alone.
1 Kimball, Spencer W. “Tragedy or Destiny,” BYU Speeches of the Year, 1955. pp 4-5
2 Richard Evans Quote Book Publishers’ Press, p 130
April 14, 1985
Broadcast Number 2,904