When Our Hearts Were Depressed and We Were about to Turn Back

While he was in Liberty Jail, far from the fellowship of the Saints, Joseph Smith wrote of the particular love that exists among the membership of the Church.¹ I have been blessed by that love many times as I have attended wards across four continents. Wherever I travel throughout the world, when I am with the Church, I immediately feel that I am among family. That love is just one of the many reflections of the love that God has for us and the love of Jesus Christ, his Son.

The Book of Mormon contains a description of how we feel when we receive the love of God. Ammon was a missionary who, at the end of his mission, considered the great blessings that he had received in his own life and in the lives of the people he taught. “Therefore,” he said, “let us glory, yea, we will glory in the Lord; yea, we will rejoice, for our joy is full; yea, we will praise our God forever. Behold, who can glory too much in the Lord? Yea, who can say too much of his great power, and of his mercy, and of his long-suffering towards the children of men? Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel. Who could have supposed that our God would have been so merciful…?”²

I read that passage knowing that sometimes it is very hard to feel the love of God as we struggle through the challenges of life. Ammon felt that way. As he remembered his mission, he also talked about the times his heart was depressed and was ready to turn back. He said, “Behold, we have come, and been forth amongst them; and we have been patient in our sufferings, and we have suffered every privation; yea, we have traveled from house to house, relying upon the mercies of the world – not upon the mercies of the world alone but upon the mercies of God. And we have entered into their houses and taught them, and we have taught them in their streets; yea, and we have taught them upon their hills; and we have also entered into their temples and their synagogues and taught them; and we have been cast out, and mocked, and spit upon, and smote upon our cheeks; and we have been stoned, and taken and bound with strong cords, and cast into prison….”³

Thankfully, we are unlikely to find ourselves spit upon and smote upon our cheeks and cast into prison. But we do come and go forth, and we must be patient as we teach and serve in houses, on the streets, upon the hills, in the temple, and in the Church. At times we may feel that we are cast out or forgotten or that our service and struggle are of no effect. Like Ammon, our hearts will be depressed, and we will be about to turn back.

Ammon’s experience reminds us that membership in the Church, obedience to the commandments, and devoted service do not free us from trials. Indeed, it often seems that the harder we try the more difficult our challenges become. However, Ammon also reminds us that if at times we struggle and ask why and how long we must suffer, it doesn’t mean that God has forgotten us. Ammon remembered that when things were the very hardest, “behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren…and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success.”⁴

We come into the Church because of the feelings we receive as the Holy Ghost witnesses to us the truths of the Gospel. However, there is a lesson that the scriptures teach over and over again: After we respond to promptings, the Spirit often withdraws and we feel that we are left on our own. In these times, the adversary comes with fear and doubt and the temptation to believe that all of our efforts have been in vain.

Joseph Smith experienced it. When he read James’ exhortation to ask of God, He felt the confirming witness of the Spirit. He said, “Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did.”⁵ He was obedient to the prompting, and he went into the grove to pray. What Joseph described next is chilling but absolutely true to form as the adversary tries to overwhelm the illumination we have received. It is also a powerful promise that God will always come through for us.

I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.

But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction – not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being – just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.⁶

We know what happened next, and though our experiences will not be as dramatic as Joseph’s, the feelings of despair will be just as real, and our reaction will be just as critical. Likewise, our salvation will probably take a different form than a personal visitation, but the saving power will be the same.

The lesson that the Lord seems so determined to teach us is that although we will be stretched to our very limits, he will always come to us. His arrival will often seem delayed, and, like the Nephites who waited for him anciently, we may wonder if our faith has been in vain.⁷ But come he will – always.

Perhaps more than anything else, that is the message I take from the scriptures. Except for Jesus himself, I know of no expression of this promise more beautiful than that recorded by Isaiah:

Thus saith the LORD, In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee: and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages….

Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the LORD hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted.

But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.

Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.

Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.⁸

1. Joseph Smith. Epistle to the Church, March 25, 1839. In History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Vol. 3, 304. [↩]
2. Alma 25:15-16 [↩]
3. Alma 26:27-29 [↩]
4. Alma 26:27 [↩]
5. Joseph Smith – History 1:12 [↩]
6. Joseph Smith – History 1:15-16 [↩]
7. 3 Ne. 1:8 [↩]
8. Isaiah 49:8, 13-16 [↩]