Comments on: God’s Hand in History

By: lindberg

lindberg — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 22:44:14 +0000

It will be interesting some day to find out what exactly was the hand of the Lord and what was just coincidence. Sometimes, as in the timing of East Germany allowing missionaries in and out relative to the subsequent fall of the Berlin Wall, it seems easy to infer causality. Other times it’s much more subtle.

Personally, I don’t know, but I like what LeGrand Richards used to say about such coincidences: “I don’t know if the Lord had anything to do with that one or not, but I always thought he did!”

By: Julia

Julia — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 07:43:16 +0000

The details of my experience don’t really matter to anyone but me, but if surviving childhood incest, an abusive spouse, church leaders who were fallible men and did not always treat me well, a court case that was based on lies and was ultimately dismissed for lack of evidence, using all of our retirement savings on a good defense attorney, and having back problems that originated in childhood but waited until two weeks after the case was dismissed to become debilitating, can lead to a crisis of faith that led to an even deeper and more meaningful understanding of the Savior and the Atonement; it is easy for me to assume that I am not the only one that Heavenly Father gently watches over.

(I know the sentence was long and my English teacher mother would have a fit. I am tired and my back is cranky, so it will stay the run on sentence that it is.)

Julia

By: Maurine Ward

Maurine Ward — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 07:08:28 +0000

I have thought about this a lot with the direction my life has taken. I truly believe that God places choices in my path. A few times I have made wrong choices for me, and I can see how he has used other opportunities and choices to guide me back to where I should have gone. This may not make much sense, but I see where the Lord has definitely guided me and put people in my path to help me.

So, if he takes such pains to direct me in the right direction, then surely he can guide the things happening in the world, back in Old Testament times and today. However, there are choices that need to be made by our world (or city or state) leaders, and sometimes they choose wrongly (at least in my opinion).

By: The Other Clark

The Other Clark — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 03:52:07 +0000

This reminds me of this post and the debate it provoked over whether God can use bad people to accomplish His ends. My opinion is that God very carefully guides the fate of nations, and that the same righteousness factors that determined prosperity and peace in Book of Mormon times (and the OT) are at work today. At the same time I recognize that this is necessarily imprecise, as the rain falls on the just and unjust, and cities of Sodom are spared for the few righteous. In today's world though, this worldview is politically incorrect. (See Dan Cathy of Chick-Fil-A...) Decades ago, General Authorities used to make public pronouncements along the lines of Ardis' original post. Now, for whatever reason, they don't.

By: Britt

Britt — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 03:13:00 +0000

I have thought that God allows bad things to happen and can use anything that happens for good…but there are some pesky quotes and scriptures that imply a more direct involvment.

first we have this doozy from neal A maxwell..we could not trust in the perfectness of God’s judgement if we did not first know that He foresaw and carefully calibrated Or learning experiences accordingly.

Dn’t find maxwell as easy to dismiss as say…brigham young. Yet this quote is annoying. It sounds like a scientist adding just this much torture and pain to make the mix perfect.

Then there is Nephi, who gained the power that whatever he prayed would be right…and then is asked to pray for a famine. elijah has a similar experience. Which makes me wonder if I would ever want that get whatever you ask power. It feels like there is a lot of peripheral damage there..how can you possibly figure out every little thing and how it will affect every person.

Other times trials are so personal and so very difficult, .it’s hearetbreaking to consider God up there measuring exactly that much out.

By: Ugly Mahana

Ugly Mahana — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 01:11:39 +0000

I tend to think that Jesus is a very Old Testament kind of god, considering that he was Jehovah, too.

By: ray

ray — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 00:40:12 +0000

God’s hand in history seems like a very Old Testament idea, especially when we talk about wars being used to spread the gospel. It doesn’t sound like something Jesus would espouse, or Paul. I think we need to be careful in how we apply such thinking. If we really believe the ends justify the means, we can put our shoulders to the wheel of a lot of evil.

By: kevinf

kevinf — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 21:58:41 +0000

I’ve pondered some of these same thoughts myself over the last few years, and have come to a similar conclusion. Nothing in the plan of salvation can prevent the exercise of free will, so I firmly believe that the Lord has contingency plans to bring about long term change, but it is always pretty hard to spot these things in the present. I know some members of the church feel like that the church’s growth and development has had an air of inevitability about it and that it couldn’t have come about any other way. I’m not so sure; who knows who may have failed, or who may have stepped up unexpectedly by exercising their agency? I do think we have the capability on rare occasions of surprising our Father in Heaven in a good way, just as much as we often disappoint him.

As always, hindsight offers a better view, but even then, it is rarely 20/20, and as Stapley said, highly personal.

By: Adam G.

Adam G. — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 18:05:42 +0000

Both historically and personally, I can see God’s action, and God’s reason for acting, in specific events. But I can’t see a general rule or other way of categorizing them.

By: J. Stapley

J. Stapley — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 16:41:28 +0000

As a believer, I do accept that God manifests his hand in history, but I also generally think that such manifestations are inscrutable on anything more than a deeply personal level.