Letting God Prevail

Imagine that you are the parent of a young child. Your family wanted that child more than anything else in the world. You struggled through years of infertility. You prayerfully begged God. And finally, a miracle. You love your child more than anything in the world. You would do anything for your child. You would give up your own life for the child. All of your hopes and dreams for the future are placed in this precious miracle child

But one day, God tells you something dreadful and incomprehensible. The child is going to die. And not only that, but God is telling you to not only let your child die, but to be responsible for his or her death.

This is of course the impossible choice that the Patriarch Abraham faced when he was asked to sacrifice his son Isaac. For Abraham there could have been no more agonizing a request. Indeed, the Prophet Joseph Smith explained that “if God had known any other way whereby he could have touched Abraham’s feelings more acutely and more keenly he would have done so.”

But Abraham dutifully obeyed the will of God. Somehow he mustered up the courage and faith to trust in God’s promises As the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews explained, Abraham was full of hope that “God was able to raise him up, even from the dead.” Abraham prepared to do the unthinkable trusting in the will of the Lord.

And then God sent another miracle of deliverance, an angel and a ram in the thicket. And Abraham and his posterity was blessed beyond measure. His faith and trust was richly rewarded.

I was reminded of this story recently when listening to President Nelson’s sermon on Israel. President Nelson shared his new insight that Israel meant “let God prevail.” Accordingly the key determination of whether we are truly a part of Israel is whether each of us are “willing to let God prevail in his or her life.”

This is a hard teaching. It is hard to let God prevail in our lives. It is much easier at times to want to assert our freedom and our independence. We chaff at the very idea of being controlled by anyone else. In our rights focused society we seek liberty even from the great liberator and redeemer of mankind.

As President Nelson described, each of us can sometimes become myopic in regard to our lives. We can place so many different things before following the will of God. Some of these things are truly important things like family or vocation. At other times we let much smaller and less significant things get in the way like a bad habit or a desire for physical gratification. These things seem so much more real and concrete at times than following the abstract will of God and disciplining our desires.

Most of the time we get away with our half-hearted discipleship. We are able to follow God becuase it is mostly convenient or does not require too much sacrifice from us.

But as Elder Neal A. Maxwell warned, “[i]n time,” Eeach person will receive a ‘customized challenge’ to determine his dedication to God.” We will all be put to the test as Abraham was.

Now is the time to prepare to meet that test. When we are comfortable we must avoid becoming complacent. We must seek daily to learn the will of God and put off anything that is incompatible with his will.

It is only by doing so willingly when things are relatively still that we will be able to build up a reservoir of faith and hope that will allow us to meet the customized challenges that will surely come our way. As President Nelson explained, “it takes both faith and courage to let God prevail. It takes persistent, rigorous spiritual work to repent and to put off the natural man through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It takes consistent, daily effort to develop personal habits to study the gospel, to learn more about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, and to seek and respond to personal revelation.”

Abraham did not develop his great faith and willingness to obey in the instant when he was tested. He built up his faith through following the will of God over a whole lifetime. He was willing to leave family and homeland behind to trust in God’s great promises. He trusted in the goodness and mercy of God and followed him. He slowly built the faith he needed to follow God’s will even when he asked the unthinkable.

We will all face our own customized tests. We must prepare now. As we do so, God will bless us and strengthen our faith. As we do so, the Holy Ghost will help to sanctify us and prepare us for the challenges that we will still face. And as we do so will feel the quiet and soothing assurances of the comforter and come to know that “our God is ‘ God of miracles'” and that his promises for us are truly great. God demands all of our will, but in return he promises us all that he has. May we all have the faith and courage to allow God to prevail in our lives each and every day.