When faced with adversity and challenges in life, it is helpful to keep a proper perspective. This section explains the purpose, origins, and benefits of adversity, then gives suggestions on how to successfully deal with our problems.
Information in this section was summarized from the booklet Learning Through Life’s Trials[1] with permission from the author.
Why There Must Be Adversity
God’s plan is that there is opposition in life. There must be wickedness to understand the good, there must be misery to appreciate happiness, and there must be suffering to enjoy good health. But simply understanding that adversity will come does not make it easy to face.
Righteous Living Does Not Guarantee an Easy Life
Living a righteous life does not mean that bad things will not happen to you. Lowell Bennion explained, Living the gospel of Jesus Christ does not necessarily bring with it physical health, freedom from accident and misfortune, freedom from pain and suffering, prosperity and long life.”[2]
The Savior came to heal broken hearts, not to prevent them from being broken. Living the gospel will not shield us from pain, but it is a resource to help us deal with pain.
Tragedy Is Not Always a Punishment For Sin
“And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (John 9:1-3). Tragedy does not always come as a punishment for sin. Of course, there are times when we do cause sorrow in our lives and we ought to take responsibility for it. But there are also many misfortunes that come through no fault of our own for which we have no right to blame ourselves. If we do, not only are we victims of the injury or unfortunate circumstance, but we make a bad situation worse by seeing ourselves as bad people who deserve it.
In his book When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Harold Kushner wrote, “A sense of our inadequacies and failings, a recognition that we could be better people than we usually are, is one of the forces for moral growth and improvement in our society. An appropriate sense of guilt makes people try to be better. But an excessive sense of guilt, a tendency to blame ourselves for things which are clearly not our fault, robs us of our self-esteem and perhaps of our capacity to grow and to act.”[3]
Therefore, we should take responsibility for things that are the direct result of mistakes or sin but not believe that every misfortune is our fault or is a punishment for wrongdoing.
The Origins of Adversity
When a bad thing happens in life, we often ask ourselves what we could have done to prevent it. We tend to blame ourselves and search for answers. Some things are the result of our actions and others simply happen because of the world we live in.
Bruce Hafen wrote, “We might think of the degree of our personal fault for the bad things that happen in our lives as a continuum ranging from sin to adversity, with the degree of our fault dropping from high at one end of the spectrum to zero at the other. At the ‘sin’ end of the continuum, we bear grave responsibility, for we bring the bitter fruits of sin fully upon ourselves. But at the other end of the spectrum, marked by ‘adversity,’ we may bear no responsibility at all. The bitterness of adversity may come to us, as it did to Job in the Old Testament, regardless of our actual, conscious fault.”[4]
It is important that we distinguish between the things that are our fault and those that are not because it is important that we accept responsibility for things that are our fault. On the other hand, it is unfair that we carry the burden of guilt for things that are not our fault. At times, this may be difficult to judge because between the poles we find such things as unwise choices and hasty judgments. In these cases, it may be difficult to determine how much personal responsibility we bear for the pain we feel or cause others to feel.
Much suffering in the world is the direct result of sin and evil deeds. However, many of the problems we face in life are a natural result of the world we live in. For the most part, God allows nature to run its course, and, in this imperfect world, bad things sometimes happen.
Jesus’s Atonement Heals All Suffering
We often think of Jesus Christ’s Atonement only in terms of relief from sin and guilt. But His Atonement is more. He suffered pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind—and even death—so He could understand our problems and know how to support us in our trials. Regardless of the source of suffering, Jesus’s Atonement can heal the effects of all pain. When suffering is our fault, we can be cleansed through repentance. But Christ’s Atonement can also compensate for the pain and suffering caused by the willful actions of others.
The Benefits of Adversity
If a tree grows with much water but little wind, it develops shallow roots, and when the wind comes it falls over. People can also be shallow. Adversity can help you develop strong roots. Trials and adversity refine us and help us develop character and strength.
How to Deal With Adversity
Since adversity will come to us all, consider the following ideas that can help us deal with adversity.
Recognize That God Loves You
God knows you personally. He knows your needs and he loves you more than you know. You can face adversity much easier when you understand who you are and who God is.
Recognize That Others Love You
Family and friends also love you. Rely on them. There are also angels in heaven ready to provide help.
Trust That God is in Control
Camille Fronk observed, “No one can tell you just how your life will evolve, nor how to avoid misfortune. You can design your most hoped-for life and painstakingly work to achieve it. But I would dare say that fortunately for you and me, it may not unwind as we have planned. There will be surprising turns that we never could have anticipated. The Lord is in control. He is the Potter. And as a result, we have richer, more meaningful lives. As you look at your own past, you can recognize the obvious guidance of the Lord…. Why should we question that he will continue to direct us in the future?”[5]
Accept that life is difficult
- Scott Peck begins his book The Road Less Traveled with the following insight: “Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult—once we truly understand and accept it—then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters. Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy.”[6]
Dr. Peck explains that “it is in this whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has its meaning. Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually.”[7]
Remember That Everyone Has Challenges
When we consider the challenges that other people have, ours may not seem so difficult. A lady in my church congregation fought a battle with cancer. Although she endured pains and heartache that few people understood, she remained cheerful and optimistic. She lost her hair from radiation treatments and after spinal surgery wore a metal brace around her head and chest to immobilize her head. As embarrassed as she must have felt by her appearance, she still came to church meetings and smiled and cheered up everyone else. She wrote her own obituary which, in part, reads “Today at the young age of 33 I left this mortal existence to a holier sphere. I was born…to wonderful parents…who taught me to live life well…. We have three sweet children who I will miss greatly. At the young age of 29, I was introduced to something called cancer. Cancer was my great adversary but I have learned that in this life our enemies can become our choicest friends; the secret is in learning what to do with the conflict.” Through her suffering, she learned more about her nature. An important mystery of life is to discover who we are, who God is, and who we are together.
Let Adversity Strengthen You
Adversity effects people in different ways. For some, it becomes a challenge to overcome, for others an excuse to fail. Harold Kushner observed, “We may not ever understand why we suffer or be able to control the forces that cause our suffering, but we can have a lot to say about what the suffering does to us, and what sort of people we become because of it. Pain makes some people bitter and envious. It makes others sensitive and compassionate. It is the result, not the cause, of pain that makes some experiences of pain meaningful and others empty and destructive.”[8]
As you experience adversity, will you bear it through the bondage of bitterness or through the freedom of forgiveness? When hurt happens in your life, you can either keep it inside and become bitter or you can choose to grieve, let the emotions surface, feel the pain, then give it to God.
Let God Carry Your Burdens
Sometimes, God does not answer our prayers by removing our trials, but by helping us to bear the burden. God can ease your burdens and make them light.
Don’t Expect Quick Solutions
We live in a day of instant gratification. We want fast food and instant solutions to our problems. If we can’t solve a problem in minutes or days, we become frustrated. We also think that we should be instantly emotionally comfortable. But God expects this life to be a challenge for us. That helps us grow. It is expected that we will suffer some amount of anxiety, depression, disappointment, and even some failure. It is through these struggles that we grow and progress.
Maintain Balance
Learn to keep things in balance. If you are asked to make a cake for a birthday party, you could spend all day making it perfect, but you should evaluate what it is worth, considering all your other responsibilities, and spend the appropriate amount of time on it. Learn to balance your time and energies among the many things that are important. If you spend excessive amounts of time with your male friends, for example, you may be ignoring the more important, eternal relationships found in your family.
Know That There is a Time For Everything
When I was in high school, my father and I volunteered many hours in community service delivering food to the poor. When I got married and began raising a family, I had to reduce the hours of community service I could volunteer. My father, who is retired, spends many hours a week visiting people in a nursing home. I look forward to doing that when I retire, but I can’t do that now. We are usually our own worst judges. Perhaps when all is said and done, God may not beat us with stripes so much for what we did not do but bless us for what we did do.
Make the Best of Your Situation
People who succeed in life don’t waste time looking for the right circumstances. They make the right circumstances. Take the challenges you have been given and use them to your advantage. It’s always too soon to quit, but never too late to keep trying. You can choose to complain and drown in your problems, or you can make the best of the situation and choose to grow through your problems.
Recognize That Happiness Comes From Within
We generate our own happiness, and we generate our own unhappiness. Many people say things like, “Everything would be fine if I just didn’t have to work such long hours” or “If my children would show me more respect….” We tend to blame unhappiness on someone or something else. The truth is that unhappiness is generated internally. Although life can be brutal, relationships can fail, and families can go through crises, it is still you who decides how to react. This doesn’t mean that you should be happy in the face of a crisis, because there is legitimate unhappiness at times. But there is a time to say “enough” and get on with life. That is what repentance is all about. Focus on what can be changed and not how bad things are. We all think we have it worse than someone else. But if everyone could take all their troubles and put them in a bag and place them on a table, and we could choose any bag we wanted, we would probably pick our own again.
Acknowledge There is More Good Than Bad
God has created a world where there are many more good things than bad. Harold Kushner explained, “We find life’s disasters upsetting not only because they are painful but because they are exceptional. Most people wake up on most days feeling good. Most illnesses are curable. Most airplanes take off and land safely. Most of the time, when we send our children out to play, they come home safely. The accident, the robbery, the inoperable tumor are life-shattering exceptions, but they are very rare exceptions. When you have been hurt by life, it may be hard to keep that in mind. When you are standing very close to a large object, all you can see is the object. Only by stepping back from it can you also see the rest of its setting around it. When we are stunned by some tragedy, we can only see and feel the tragedy. Only with time and distance can we see the tragedy in the context of a whole life and a whole world.”[9]
Jon Kabat-Zinn, the great mindfulness teacher said, “as long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than wrong with you, no matter what is wrong.”[10]
Serve Others
We heal ourselves of pain when we reach out to help others. Service to others is a great healer. Harold Kushner writes about the old Chinese tale of the woman whose only son died. “In her grief,” he wrote, “she went to the holy man and said, ‘What prayers, what magical incantations do you have to bring my son back to life?’ Instead of sending her away or reasoning with her, he said to her, ‘Fetch me a mustard seed from a home that has never known sorrow. We will use it to drive the sorrow out of your life.’ The woman set off at once in search of that magical mustard seed. She came first to a splendid mansion, knocked at the door, and said, ‘I am looking for a home that has never known sorrow. Is this such a place? It is very important to me.’ They told her, ‘You’ve certainly come to the wrong place,’ and began to describe all the tragic things that had recently befallen them. The woman said to herself, ‘Who is better able to help these poor unfortunate people than I, who have had misfortune of my own?’ She stayed to comfort them, then went on in her search for a home that had never known sorrow. But wherever she turned, in hovels and in palaces, she found one tale after another of sadness and misfortune. Ultimately, she became so involved in ministering to other people’s grief that she forgot about her quest for the magical mustard seed, never realizing that it had in fact driven the sorrow out of her life.”[11]
Overcome Discouragement
Read the following account about the inventor Thomas Edison and note his attitude during a trying time. “Thomas Edison devoted ten years and all of his money to developing the nickel-alkaline storage battery at a time when he was almost penniless…. One night the terrifying cry of fire echoed through the film plant. Spontaneous combustion had ignited some chemicals. Within moments all of the packing compounds, celluloids for records, film, and other flammable goods had gone up with a whoosh. Fire companies from eight towns arrived, but the heat was so intense and the water pressure so low that the fire hoses had no effect. Edison was 67 years old—no age to begin anew. His daughter was frantic, wondering if he were safe, if his spirits were broken, how he would handle a crisis such as this at this age. She saw him running toward her. He spoke first. He said, ‘Where’s your mother? Go get her. Tell her to get her friends. They’ll never see another fire like this as long as they live.’ At 5:30 the next morning, with the fire barely under control, he called his employees together and announced, ‘We’re rebuilding.’ One man was told to lease all the machine shops in the area, another to obtain a wrecking crane from the Erie Railroad Company. Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, ‘Oh, by the way, anybody know where we can get some money?’”[12] Virtually everything we now recognize as a Thomas Edison contribution came after that disaster. Some of his most famous inventions include the electric light bulb, the phonograph, motion pictures, the electric voting machine, the stock ticker, and the mimeograph machine. How would the world be different today if Mr. Edison had become discouraged and given up?
When you feel discouraged, admit your weaknesses to God and positively work at solving the problem at hand. The following scriptures may provide encouragement: 2 Corinthians 4:8–9; Joshua 1:9; Proverbs 3:5–6; Romans 5:3–5.
Conclusion
In God, we can find comfort in the face of adversity. Don’t pray that God will make your life free of problems, but pray for hope, strength, and courage to bear them. Adversity can bless our lives if we let it purify us and teach us.
[1] Richman, Larry L. Learning Through Life’s Trials, Century Publishing, Salt Lake City, UT, 2024. Also see The Uses of Adversity, by Carlfred Broderick. Also see https://rusch.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/the-uses-of-adversity.pdf.
[2] Bennion, Lowell. Teachings of the New Testament, Deseret Sunday School Union Board, Salt Lake City, 1953, pp. 178–80.
[3] Kushner, Harold. When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Avon Books, New York, 1981, p. 94.
[4] Hafen, Bruce. “Beauty for Ashes: The Atonement of Jesus Christ,” Ensign, Apr. 1990, p. 10.
[5] Fronk, Camille. “Lessons from the Potter and the Clay,” Devotional Address at Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, 7 Mar. 1995, pp. 8–9.
[6] Peck, M. Scott. The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1978, p. 15.
[7] Ibid. p. 16. Also see 1 Peter 3:17-18.
[8] Kushner, Harold. When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Avon Books, New York, 1981, p. 64.
[9] Kushner, Harold. When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Avon Books, New York, 1981, pp. 138–39.
[10] Kabat-Zinn, Jon. Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness.
[11] Ibid. pp. 110-11.
[12] Holland, Jeffrey R. “For Times of Trouble,” New Era, Oct. 1980, p. 10.