Learning Along the Way

This week I was challenged to find an answer to a specific question. As many times in our lives, the important thing I learned wasn’t necessarily the answer to the question, but the things that I learned in my search for it. Often, we search for answers that have been subconsciously predetermined in our minds according to our human desires. This bias can limit our ability to recognize the answer when it is put before us by the Holy Ghost. Therefore, humility to accept that you may be in the wrong is required to feel the full guiding effect of the spirit. If you search relentlessly and don’t find an answer, it doesn’t mean there isn’t one, but rather that you haven’t recognized it. Maybe a self-evaluative humbling process would be beneficial.

After learning this, I was eventually able to find an answer to my original question, but give more value to the lesson I learned than to the answer that I found. This principle holds true to how God’s plan for us was designed. From the beginning to the end, the purpose of God’s plan isn’t to get somewhere or something, but who we become throughout that journey. What would be the point of putting an unpolished diamond on a ring? Similarly God doesn’t intend to put his unpolished children in the Celestial Kingdom. Many examples of this can be seen in the scriptures. How often has God sent his chosen prophets to the wilderness? The reason behind this isn’t because there’s something hidden in the wilderness that they need to find, but because the wilderness is a new, wild place, where his children can learn and grow. It is clear that in our lives God often takes us out of our comfort zone not to punish us, but because he knows where we need to be to become polished.