All Things for the Welfare of His People

One of the messages in this Mormon Message video about fathers is that just as little children have no idea of the things that their parents do to provide for them, so too do we not fully understand all that our Father in Heaven does for us.  I certainly have come to see that as I watch my children simply expect the necessities and comforts of life to be there for them, whether that means having milk in the fridge or clean pajamas or an air-conditioned car.  They don’t yet understand how much we work as their parents to make sure their needs are met.  And so too surely we have no real sense of how much God gives to us.  For example, we simply expect our bodies to work properly and rarely think about the fact that He is “preserving [us] from day to day, by lending [us] breath, that [we] may live and move and do according to [our] own will” (Mosiah 2:21).  We don’t usually pause to consider that God “maketh the sun to rise” each day or that He “sendeth rain” on us to provide life (Matt. 5:45).  Since God does not do things for us in order to be “seen of men” as He invites us to do, we have a very limited understanding of how He is constantly “doing all things for the welfare and happiness of his people” (Helaman 12:2).  As I see God answer calls for help from me in my life, I wonder how times He has helped me when I haven’t even asked.  Surely we are all not only “unprofitable servants” but far too ungrateful as well for the things He has done. 

                As I’ve worked in the electric power industry over the past several years, I’ve been impressed by the complexity of the power grid and the huge amount of planning and analysis that goes in to make sure that power is always available.   At nearly every moment in time the generation from thousands of power plants across the country is controlled to match the demand for electricity from billions of devices that draw power from the grid.  So I find it interesting that in most cases that power comes to our homes on power lines that are held up by poles that typically look like crosses.   For most power lines the power typically flows through the lines that are connected to the cross beam on the poles.  I can’t help but think that this is not symbolic: the thing that we depend on for nearly everything we do (electric power) comes to us without our so much as thinking about it, and it travels on a network lined with cross-like structures.  Surely the cross of Christ brings to us even greater and more important blessings through the atonement, and we likewise fail to recognize this power that strengthens us without our even knowing it.  Isaiah told us that “men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen” the great things that the Lord will do for those who love Him, and sure we similarly understand very little of all that He had done for us (Isaiah 64:4).