Foreordained to Suffer

As I talked with a friend yesterday who has faced terrible challenges this past year, we discussed this question: were we foreordained to have certain trials and difficult experiences in our mortal life?  We know from the Prophet Joseph that “every man who has a calling to minister to the inhabitants of the world was ordained to that very purpose in the grand council of heaven before this world was” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 365).  Alma similarly taught that many were “called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God… to teach his commandments unto the children of men” (Alma 13:3, 6).  If we were foreordained for such good works in this life, were also foreordained to the suffering and heartache we would experience one earth? 

                We know of course that for at least One the answer is absolutely yes.  The Savior was foreordained to come to earth and complete the atonement, the greatest suffering ever experienced.  John wrote that He was “slain from the foundation of the world” and that we “overcame [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb” in the premortal realm so sure was the power of His future sufferings (Revelation 12:11, 13:8).  Peter taught that Christ “was foreordained before the foundation of the world” and many others prophesied of the great suffering He would encounter well in advance of His coming to earth (1 Peter 1:20).  Isaiah foretold how he would be “oppressed” and “afflicted” and be brought “as a lamb to the slaughter” (Isaiah 53:7).  The angel told King Benjamin that Christ would suffer “even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death; for behold, blood cometh from every pore” (Mosiah 3:7).  Zenock, Neum, and Zenos all prophesied of the specific events surrounding Christ’s atonement, saying that Christ’s sufferings would be so great that the physical upheavals on the earth would cause “the kings of the isles of the sea… to exclaim: The God of nature suffers” (1 Nephi 19:12).  Clearly the Savior was foreordained for His great suffering.

                But what about us?  Are some of the specific difficulties that we face actually part of the personalized plan that God had for us?  The scriptures certainly seem to suggest this.  Elder McConkie summarized some of the teachings of Paul about foreordination this way: “He (Paul) says that the faithful members of the Church, those ‘that love God’ and ‘are called according to his purpose,’ are foreordained ‘to be conformed to the image of his Son,’ to be ‘joint-heirs with Christ,’ and to have eternal life in our Father’s kingdom.”  If as His followers we indeed were foreordained to be “conformed to the image” of Christ, then would it not stand to reason that we too must have been foreordained to suffer (in a much smaller way) like Him?   I think Christ alluded to this when He told His disciples, “The servant is not greater than his lord.  If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20).  Signing up to follow Christ is signing up, at least to some degree, to suffer and be persecuted as He was.  Since our choice to follow Christ was made first in the pre-mortal realm, it stands to reason that we knew of this future suffering even in the pre-existence.

                Several accounts in the scriptures suggest that there was indeed planned mortal suffering for some.  For example, when the disciples passed the man who was born blind with Jesus, they asked, “Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?  Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (John 9:1-3).  In other words, it was God’s intent to make this man blind from birth for His divine purposes.  The Lord also seemed to have foreordained Paul to the great tribulations he would face as a missionary and apostle.  As Christ said to Ananias, “He is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake” (Acts 9:15-16).  Paul was certainly not a “chosen vessel” for anything he had done up to that point in mortality, and so clearly the Lord had destined him for his mission—and associated suffering—in the premortal world.  In the Old Testament we read that Jeremiah received his calling before this life to teach the wicked inhabitants of Jerusalem in his day: “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations” (Jeremiah 1:5).  We often quote this verse as evidence of a pre-mortal existence—which it is—but it is perhaps also an indication that the Lord has some pretty hard tasks planned for his faithful.  Jeremiah’s foreordained mission was to preach to a people who were about to be destroyed and who would utterly reject him.  Jeremiah’s life was so bad that the Lord had to make him into “an iron pillar” just to survive (Jeremiah 1:18).  He spent 40 years preaching and “tried to stem, almost alone, the tide of idolatry and immorality” and “faced continuous opposition.” He was placed in stocks, mocked by the people, put in jail, and ultimately (according to tradition) stoned to death.  It’s no wonder he wrote a whole book entitled “Lamentations.”  It’s sobering then that of all the prophets the Lord could have picked to be the prototype of being foreordained, it was Jeremiah the sufferer.

                Joseph Smith said this about the unending tribulations that he faced: “And as for the perils which I am called to pass through, they seem but a small thing to me, as the envy and wrath of man have been my common lot all the days of my life; and for what cause it seems mysterious, unless I was ordained from before the foundation of the world for some good end, or bad, as you may choose to call it.  Judge ye for yourselves.  God knoweth all these things, whether it be good or bad.  But nevertheless, deep water is what I am wont to swim in.  It all has become a second nature to me; and I feel, like Paul, to glory in tribulation; for to this day has the God of my fathers delivered me out of them all, and will deliver me from henceforth; for behold, and lo, I shall triumph over all my enemies, for the Lord God hath spoken it” (D&C 127:2).  He felt of his own “perils” were in some way part of what he was ordained to experience “from before the foundation of the world.”  Perhaps this belief that God has planned not only the great blessings of our life but the challenges as well helped Joseph to trust more completely that the Lord could see him through all his difficulties.  We may not understand the reasons for the trials we are called to face during this life, but trusting in the God—who architected not only the universe but our own individual lives as well—we can with Joseph ultimately “triumph” over them all.