7 And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.
9…therefore, fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever.
Doctrine & Covenants 122:7, 9
One of my favorite sections in all of scripture is D&C 122. I take comfort when I read it. Depending on my mindset, I either ponder on what Joseph Smith went through and why he was called. And this is the year, by the way, we should be pondering his mission and what he did for us.
I also, when I read it, ponder my own life and what I must pass through. Granted, my struggles are in no way comparable to the Prophet’s, but I glean comfort in the Lord’s words here. “All these things shall give thee experience; and, shall be for thy good”and then He goes on to say “fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever”.
What comfort! What peace this brings to me! Everything I go through, simple and difficult, shall make me wiser (or at least should), and be for my good. For my good? Everything good comes of God. We know this. He “allows” hardships and trials but the consequences of passing successfully definitely come from Him. But I think those positive consequences are absolutely magnified to the point that the ratio of action to consequence is not mathematically aligned. In other words, when we endure trials, what we get will be so much more than we deserve.
Another point I want to make is the last sentence in section 122. “Fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever”. Man can’t do anything to us…mentally and spiritually. Nobody, nobody can take away what you believe, unless you give it away. Same thing with the adversary. Fear not what Satan can do. The only way he can get to us is if we let him. So fear him not. He is, and we will eventually see, that he is puny. He is so small in the grand scheme. We will wonder how and why he ever had a grip over us. Why we even allowed him to bruise our heels.