Faith Unto Enlargement Through Adversity

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Group 4 Created with Sketch. In an interview with a Nazi prison camp survivor , the survivor said: Love can be difficult. But without it, life is impossible. And in fact, it's a waste of time. Here are five ways to keep faith when it seems impossible: Be generous to others. Surround yourself with people you admire. Get the ball rolling first thing in the morning.

Carve out 10 minutes in the morning to focus on faith. I'm a journalist who got his start from a broken heart. When my last relationship ended in suicidal thoughts, I knew I had to change. So I studied love, channeled my sexual desire into Related Posts Recipes icon recipes. Phoebe Lapine 9 hours ago. Stephanie Eckelkamp 10 hours ago. We know why he made it his Psalm.

He might well have been the originator of it, so true was his life to all that is here. It is just an explanation and a summing-up of all his experience. This Psalm was really born out of experience, and it is that that makes it live. There lies behind it very deep history, especially in two particular connections. In the first place, this Psalm, whose composer no one seems to know, was at least adapted to, if not composed for, the Passover after the dedication of the second Temple. You are probably acquainted with the history of the second Temple. You have to turn, of course, to the Book of Ezra, and alongside of it to the Book of Nehemiah, and then to the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah; and when you have read those four books, you have the setting of Psalm Read again verses 5 to 16 of the Psalm in the light of that, and you will see what light is thrown upon these verses.

Or take a fragment - verse They compassed me about…" And turn to the Book of Ezra, chapter 4, verses 9 and Here you have a whole host of nations all gathered against Ezra and the building of the second Temple. They compassed him about - all these nations compassed him about - they compassed him about like stinging bees. Thus this description of adversity, of opposition, gives this Psalm a very real, practical application: We must remember that the 'I' and the 'me' repeated in this Psalm represent the personification of the remnant or of the nation.

It is as though the nation were speaking as an individual; it is a collective 'I'. The nation is here saying: The Lord had promised His people, when they were in that far-off exile and captivity, that He would 'open their graves' and bring them out Ezekiel They are out - out of that grave of captivity; and a grave it was. There is no singing in the grave. It is a new Psalm on resurrection ground. So the Psalm, to begin with, is one of life out of death. And then quite clearly it is one of release from bondage. These people are so rejoicing in this aspect of their position by the lovingkindness of the Lord, that they are reminded of their earliest great deliverance, and you will see here in the Psalm a reference to the great deliverance from Egypt, and a quotation from the Book of Exodus.

They bring the two together - deliverance from Egypt and deliverance from Babylon - and the deliverance from Egypt is always, in the Scripture, termed deliverance "out of the house of bondage". The Psalm, then, is the Psalm of release from bondage.

Now, bringing that into the rebuilding of the second Temple, you can see how the remnant were straitened, were pressed, by the nations represented by these people who had been brought into Samaria. What a time Nehemiah had from these people in building the wall! He was pressed on every side. What a time Ezra had! How those prophets suffered!

• 2. Be generous to others.!
• Mármara (Spanish Edition).
• The Sustaining Power of Faith in Times of Uncertainty and Testing - Richard G. Scott.

The work was held up for more than a decade by reason of this opposition and adversity all around. But the point is that the Temple was built and finished and dedicated, and this Psalm was sung at the Passover which followed the dedication. The thing is done: So "the Lord answered me and set me in a large place" v.

From death to life, from bondage to liberty, from limitation to enlargement - into a "large place" - and this represented a very great thing on the Lord's part. Consider all that the Lord had to cope with - though of course it is putting it in a wrong way to say the Lord ever has to 'cope with' anything, for He is so supremely superior to every situation.

April 2003 General Conference

Yet what was against His people was no small thing. To bring them out into this enlargement meant the overcoming of tremendous difficulties. We went through fire and through water; but Thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place" Psalm It is a Psalm of triumph over limitation, bringing into enlargement. The version from which I have quoted uses the word 'lovingkindness'. The version which is perhaps more familiar has the word 'mercy' - "His mercy endureth for ever".

I think there is a note about 'lovingkindness' - God's lovingkindness' - that touches the heart, when you think of the failure and the unfaithfulness of His own people.

What a story it is all the way along, right through the lives of the major and the minor prophets. It would seem that if ever the mercy of God, the lovingkindness of God, could have been exhausted, it would have been so with these people, so terrible were their reactions to the mercy of God. Mormon Apostle Neal A.

Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then, let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy! His colleague, Apostle James E. There seems to be a full measure of anguish, sorrow, and often heartbreak for everyone, including those who earnestly seek to do right and be faithful. And the Apostle Russell M.

To help us through the precarious landscape of our trials on earth, God gave us an Advocate and Counselor who paid for all of our sins in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross. Perhaps even more extraordinary was that He chose to endure it. That choice made in the Garden of Gethsemane became one of His defining moments—the moment He developed supreme empathy for our struggles by literally living through those struggles first, before we ever came to earth.

This passage of scripture includes a compelling reference to the spiritual prisons we sometimes build for ourselves by the choices we make, by sinning or wallowing in pain and anger when Christ has already shown us a better way. He had agency just as we have, and He used His agency to overcome His afflictions and to use His spiritual strength to help others.

We have that same agency, and how we use it defines us.