Chosen to Suffer

I have been listening to the final book in the Fire and Steel series by Gerald Lund which tells the story of two families in Germany during the mid to late 1930s.  The historical fiction account is sobering knowing that the type of cruelty described really took place in a Christian nation.  One of the families is Jewish, and in the book the father said something I’ve been pondering.  Describing how much suffering the Jewish people had been called upon to endure, he explained that they were God’s chosen people, and, he suggested, what were they chosen for? To suffer.  Surely a look at history makes it seem that way; we would be hard pressed to find any religious group that has suffered more than the Jewish people have over more than two millennia.  Isaiah wrote these words of the Lord to His people: “Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction” (Isaiah 48:10).  Being chosen is inextricably linked with being called to suffer and pass through affliction.

               Clearly history has shown that for God’s “ancient covenant people,” the Jews, being His people has meant an unimaginable among of suffering (2 Nephi 29:4).  For all of Israel, suffering is a part of being the people of God.  When Saul was chosen by the Lord to proclaim His name to the Gentiles, He 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 chosen by the Lord and called to suffer for Him.  The people of Alma who suffered under the hand of oppressors were described by Mormon this way: “Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith” (Mosiah 23:21).  To be the Lord’s people is to be chastened and tried, to suffer for His name’s sake. In our day the Lord said it similarly about His Saints: “Yet I will own them, and they shall be mine in that day when I shall come to make up my jewels. Therefore, they must needs be chastened and tried, even as Abraham, who was commanded to offer up his only son” (Doctrine and Covenants 101:3-4).  To be the children of Abraham and the covenant people of the Lord we will need to be ready to be tried and tested even as He was. 

Ultimately it is the Savior who is the Chosen One and who was called upon to suffer more than all.  God said to Enoch, “He suffereth for their sins; inasmuch as they will repent in the day that my Chosen shall return unto me” (Moses 7:39).  None has suffered more than the Savior, and He was the one chosen from before the foundation of the world.  All those who wish to be His people must be willing to likewise suffer.  Even knowing that and following Him we may not be able to explain all the suffering some are faced with, but we can trust in these words of the Book of Mormon about the Lord’s people: “Nevertheless—whosoever putteth his trust in him the same shall be lifted up at the last day. Yea, and thus it was with this people” (Mosiah 23:22).