Aug 14, 2023

Recently I attended a sacrament meeting in my wife’s hometown of St. George, Utah, in which all of the speakers were youth and leaders who shared insights from their stake’s trek activity. Multiple youth commented that their favorite experience was the final devotional given by their stake president at the end of their route, overlooking the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Simply from hearing them describe the event and location, I could feel the spiritual power of coming so close to a new family, enduring much physical hardship, and then listening at the edge of one of the great wonders of the world to the gospel truths and powerful history of those who came before us in the Church.

In this week’s Come, Follow Me, we read Paul’s writing: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). Surely, for the youth and leaders on that trek, suffering was common among them; however, a sobering reality of that activity and every one like it that the stakes of the Church organize is that it was only a few days long, accompanied by the comfort of good food, water, sleeping pads and bags and tents—equipment the pioneers sorely lacked. Another sobering reality is that many on that trek likely returned home to a more difficult emotional situation at home than the trek was physically. Many of us are burdened with the “sufferings of the present time.” Despite this truth, and like the final devotional at the rim of the Grand Canyon, we are promised that the sufferings we pass through “are not worthy to be compared to the glory” that will come after the storms pass.

On February 23, 1848, Wilford Woodruff recorded a discourse Brigham Young gave at a funeral. The prophet said many words in regard to the suffering of the Saints at the time, among which were the following: 

If I had power with the limited knowledge I have, I should sweep from the midst of this people sickness, pain, sorrow, poverty and persecution and mobbings. I don’t suppose I should ever have suffered this people to have been driven at all by a mob, but as the Lord knows so much more than we do He has suffered it so to be, and it is for a wise purpose in God. It is for our good and will finally prove for our exaltation and glory in the eternal world, and gives us experience in this life which we otherwise should not have had.¹

I have seen through my own experience that these words are true, that God allows us to pass through trials so we can learn to rely on Him, grow to be more like our heavenly parents, gain essential wisdom we would not otherwise be gifted with—and so we can truly appreciate our own spiritual scenic overlooks.

Braeden is a Senior Editorial Assistant and has worked for the Wilford Woodruff Papers for two years. He is entering his third year in the neuroscience program at Brigham Young University in Provo.