Elder Gilbert, new Q12 member

[california boy]

21 hours ago, Tony uk said:

As we grow from childhood to adulthood. Along the way, we may feel hard done by or confused by the attitude of parents to us. However, along the way as we become adults ourselves, and fortunate cases, parents ourselves. In many ways, we start to understand the attitude of our parents towards us. I feel this is how God is with his people. Sometimes we maybe confused by the things God does, or allows. But in time as we grow in knowledge, and allow ourselves to be open to his calling. We can understand that what is being done is for the best. Even at times if we are confused by the events God allows. We just need to trust in him as we would a parent who is there for us.

As I grew older, I also realized that not everything my parents did was that wonderful.  There are plenty of attitudes my parents had while raising me that I vowed to not repeat those same patterns.  Hopefully my children are better off from me not just blindly following the example my parents gave me.  And hopefully they will also evaluate the lessons and how they were raised to be better parents themselves.

I used to be totally in to this concept of revelation and God teaching his children through his prophets.  But the more I studied and the deeper I got into what the scriptures say as well as modern actions I am more and more convinced that it is words written down by men of their time whether thousands of years ago or recently, maybe not with any malice, but none the less, not dictated by God either.  

I haven't had much success from church leaders telling me the advice they gave me came from God.  I have had greater success pondering and seeking out my own answers from God.  I think it is perhaps the biggest reason why so many are leaving organized religion.  Those organizations have failed man dramatically and don't really come out well on the opinions they have claimed came from God.  Too many headlines in the papers of behavior that would be hard to claim came from God.  The church is no different than the rest of them.  

[gopher]

On 2/23/2026 at 5:39 PM, The Nehor said:

Probably lots of carnal, sensual, and devilish sinning.

No, it is a systemic problem at this point. It didn’t start with LGBT issues. It started with a promise from God that failed. Then I realized that the same spirit of revelation that gave that promise is what convinced me the gospel was true. So all that is unreliable. So I started a deep dive into scripture without making excuses for God to see what was there. And realized how silly a lot of the justifications were that I used to say God was good when God wasn’t being good. I mean, you can do the whole God is working towards some unseen greater good rationale but the scriptures sometimes give reasons for why God acts and that isn’t the reason. So when God has his followers writing his supposedly inspired scriptures and can’t put His best foot forward even there it gets really silly.

So now I am waiting for something more from God. I’ve got a clock on this so will find out if God is gonna come up with a method to convince me.

Good luck!  It will be interesting to see how it works out for you.  I didn't realize we can put a timetable on when God fulfills His promises.  But it seems fair to abandon your faith and belief in God if you go your entire life without any promises from God kept.  That seems like a much better reason than giving up because of historical accounts or social pressures.  There sure are a lot of people in and out of the church that are convinced God has answered prayers and delivered promised blessings though.  I wonder why you are an exception.

[Rain]

11 minutes ago, gopher said:

Good luck!  It will be interesting to see how it works out for you.  I didn't realize we can put a timetable on when God fulfills His promises.  But it seems fair to abandon your faith and belief in God if you go your entire life without any promises from God kept.  That seems like a much better reason than giving up because of historical accounts or social pressures.  There sure are a lot of people in and out of the church that are convinced God has answered prayers and delivered promised blessings though.  I wonder why you are an exception.

Are you being honest here or snotty?  My first assumption was snotty, but I'm trying to be better about not assuming thingsvof people.

Edited March 1 by Rain

[Calm]

7 hours ago, gopher said:

wonder why you are an exception.

I don’t think you should label him an exception until you know the numbers of those who see their lives similarly. It’s more than an handful who I have come across who say promises in the Patriarchal Blessing never came to pass as well as many other instances. 

The usual responses in my experiences are 1) agency plays a part, blessings aren’t guaranteed and dependent on not only the self but others choices (God isn’t going to force marriages for example) or 2) blessings are to come in the next life or 3) a combo.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

9 hours ago, gopher said:

didn't realize we can put a timetable on when God fulfills

That’s just it though. If there is no timetable, it really makes the believability that something comes from God rather suspect. God answers prayers, but sometimes he gives us the wrong answer on purpose. Sometimes his answer is silence. Sometimes we get what we need but other times the answer is no which of course is God helping us grow. No matter what happens, it’s interpreted as a divine answer to prayer. And when everything that happens is a divine answer, nothing is. 

[The Nehor]

10 hours ago, gopher said:

Good luck!  It will be interesting to see how it works out for you. 

I am not sure which outcome I am rooting for.

10 hours ago, gopher said:

I didn't realize we can put a timetable on when God fulfills His promises.

You can do whatever you want. That is the joy of agency. God might not honor it but that is kind of His problem.

10 hours ago, gopher said:

 But it seems fair to abandon your faith and belief in God if you go your entire life without any promises from God kept. 

If the Spirit that made the promise was unreliable then I am not inclined to trust any other promises from the same source.

10 hours ago, gopher said:

That seems like a much better reason than giving up because of historical accounts or social pressures.  There sure are a lot of people in and out of the church that are convinced God has answered prayers and delivered promised blessings though. 

Most promises are subjective and/or they await the next life for their fulfillment. In either case they are not particularly testable. And yes, you can find scores of people from every Abrahamic monotheistic faith that will talk about getting promised blessings.

10 hours ago, gopher said:

I wonder why you are an exception.

You can also find legions of people that have left their faith over what they felt were broken promises or insufficient blessings or lack of evidence the faith works or whatever. I am not an exception. I am just being more blatant about it than most.

Edited March 2 by The Nehor

[Calm]

4 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

sometimes he gives us the wrong answer on purpose

Is that how the “I was inspired by the wrong answer” is actually explained?  I remember the story of going down the wrong road for a short distance, but can’t remember who shared it to doublecheck how he phrases it.  I understood it as God allows us to continue to understand something incorrectly rather than forcing correct understanding, may even do something that we might interpret as confirmation (I think of it as more him just conveying ‘I am okay with you working on that level”) when we can learn something of value even with the wrong understanding rather than God telling us something wrong and we hear and understand that revelation/inspiration correctly.

As to the rest of your point…all our allowance for God answering our prayers in various ways (immediately or delayed, yes, no, maybe, conditional, etc) does make the belief unfalsifiable imo as we always have a valid doctrinal reason for it not turning out the way expected.

Added:  found it…it is presented as giving the wrong answer…or rather the right answer to a different question…what road should they take in order to get home safely with the least amount of problems and worry.  Since they took the wrong road first and were able to quickly see it was wrong, the least amount of time was wasted. 

But it does have God giving the wrong information to the prayer asked even if they later accept it was the right answer for their actual needs.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/new-era/2005/07/wrong-roads-and-revelation?lang=eng

Added again….it also shows that Pres Holland expected himself to have doubts and likely change his mind even after receiving strong inspiration of the right road if he was getting conflicting information afterwards (the right road didn’t look that right until they got to familiar places) because of his belief they were both told to go down the wrong road first so that doubt wouldn’t later cause him to turn around and go back to try the wrong road when it was much later.  So either it was not unusual for Pres Holland to second guess inspiration (I think that is a very human and reasonable thing to do) and even act against it when in doubt or in his efforts to come up with an explanation, he created a rationale that didn’t match his typical behaviour.  I think it’s more likely the first (added third time:  not so sure now, see below post with video, this might be wishful thinking on my part)…which is both reassuring and troubling.  Why would one be confident in acting on inspiration for major things if one believes one can be that easily mistaken about it?

Especially if that inspiration seems unreasonable?

Since I don’t think it’s a bad idea to question one’s certainty as well as questioning one’s doubts, I don’t see the ambiguity as that big of a deal. I do wonder about how some teach about revelation and how confident we should be about it as well as how we use it to weigh our choices (some members seem to believe it should be given primary weight, others one of many influences that vary in weight depending on the circumstances).

My position is revelation/inspiration is best when used to help begin an exploration of choices….it’s useful to help us not ignore good choices, especially if we are frozen because of being overloaded.

I am less certain it should be the final, most important variable as I think reason and knowledge and experience and especially conscience should be major factors in our decisions.

Edited March 2 by Calm

[Rain]

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

That’s just it though. If there is no timetable, it really makes the believability that something comes from God rather suspect. God answers prayers, but sometimes he gives us the wrong answer on purpose. Sometimes his answer is silence. Sometimes we get what we need but other times the answer is no which of course is God helping us grow. No matter what happens, it’s interpreted as a divine answer to prayer. And when everything that happens is a divine answer, nothing is. 

I deeply believe in God and that He loves us. Because of what you have said here, even with that belief, I've just had to decide to trust that whatever is happening, if I put my trust in him and do what I think he wants me to do things will be ok.  It also means I have to trust that he also loves those who don't believe he is there and things will be ok.

I'm not saying this to bear testimony to you. Just that because of the things you have said it has made me have to work differently with how I believe.  I have to trust my feelings and not what others might say. 

[Calm]

3 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

sometimes he gives us the wrong answer on purpose.

I have been thinking about this and the wrong road article.

This suggests to me if the long term result was the best for the person then God could inspire someone to leave the Restored Church, could inspire them to join another faith or no faith at all.

 If we believe that God inspired Brother Holland and his dad to go down the wrong road to ultimately show them the right road, then surely we should be open to other similar possibilities?

[Calm]

This version by Pres Holland really bothers me because he says we should not retreat, but proceed with certainty in our inspiration…..but his example was about retreating after learning their certainty was wrong.  If they had kept following the same path, they would have been lost.

Quote

I asked my son to pray about which road to take, and he felt strongly that we should go to the right, and I did as well, and we went to the right and it was a dead end. We went four or five or six hundred yards and it was an absolute dead-end, clearly the wrong road. We turned around, came back out, took the other road and clearly the road to the left was the correct road. Somewhere along the way Matt said, ""Dad, why did we feel, after praying about it, that the right road was the proper one to take, the correct one to take, and it wasn't?"" And I said, ""I think that the Lord, His wish for us there, and his answer to our prayer was to get us on the right road as quickly as possible with some reassurance, with some understanding, that we were on the right road and we didn't have to worry about it, and in this case, the easiest way to do that was to let us go 400 yards or 500 yards on the wrong road, and very quickly know, without a doubt, that it was the wrong road, and therefore with equal certainty with equal conviction that the other one was the right road."" I have absolute certain knowledge, perfect knowledge, that God loves us. He is good, He is our Father, and He expects us to pray, and trust, and be believing, and not give up, and not panic, and not retreat, and not jump ship, when something doesn't seem to be going just right. We stay in, we keep working, we keep believing, keep trusting, following that same path and we will live to fall in His arms and feel His embrace and hear Him say, ""I told you that it'd be okay, I told you it would be all right.""
 

This version says the left road was clearly the correct one once they were on it, but doesn’t say why (because it was the only other option or because it quickly got better defined, busier or something else?), implying to me that it’s appearance confirmed the rightness, but in the article by the son, more uncertainty is there, he only knows it’s right because they took the other road first:
 

Quote

 I was able to travel along its many unfamiliar twists and turnoffs perfectly confident I was headed in the right direction.

“If we had started on the right road, we might have driven for 30 minutes or so, become uneasy with the unfamiliar surroundings, and been tempted to turn back. If we had done that, we would have discovered the dead-end so late that it would have been too dark to find our way back in totally unfamiliar territory.”

Using this story as a parable makes more sense the way the son tells it than the father….though it’s the father’s words he is quoting, so I am wondering if Pres Holland changed how he perceived the experience as he got older and his needs and POV of life changed.  It seems to me maybe there is a habit of certainty here in the top version (Pres. Holland) of teaching about/language for inspiration that has a hard time of dealing with ambiguity, so that the contradictions of what he was saying was missed.  Maybe Matthew Holland is more open to ambiguity than his dad or rather his dad was once more open to using ambiguity because Matthew is quoting his dad….or maybe the same contradictions would be there if his article went longer and talked about the path, etc.  I would like to find other versions and see how things were framed.

https://video.byui.edu/media/t/1_3oyh3uuh

I would have loved to ask Pres. Holland how he got don’t retreat and stay on the path when his example was the good of retreating and changing one’s path when faced with reality.  The purpose or destination is always the same of course.

Edited March 2 by Calm

[The Nehor]

What if they had exercised faith that this was the right road despite all indications to the contrary?

 

Maybe with faith you can drive on water?

[gopher]

22 hours ago, Rain said:

Are you being honest here or snotty?  My first assumption was snotty, but I'm trying to be better about not assuming thingsvof people.

yikes!  snotty??  My interactions with Nehor over the years have all been positive and respectful.  I find his experiences interesting because even though he has become a critic of not only the church, but also of how God interacts with us, he still clings to what's left of his faith and testimony.  For now.  My questions and comments were only directed to him, so maybe they can appear snotty to someone who has already left?  Since I first started visiting here, I've seen more people abandon their faith than rediscover their faith and testimony, but I've been witness to some pretty cool stuff outside of this website.  My questions and comments are based on my own observations and conclusions which are different than yours.  I find these types of conversations interesting, but they are often difficult with many people.  I appreciate Nehor's willingness to be open and honest with me in our conversations.

 

 

[gopher]

12 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I am not sure which outcome I am rooting for.

You can do whatever you want. That is the joy of agency. God might not honor it but that is kind of His problem.

If the Spirit that made the promise was unreliable then I am not inclined to trust any other promises from the same source.

Most promises are subjective and/or they await the next life for their fulfillment. In either case they are not particularly testable. And yes, you can find scores of people from every Abrahamic monotheistic faith that will talk about getting promised blessings.

You can also find legions of people that have left their faith over what they felt were broken promises or insufficient blessings or lack of evidence the faith works or whatever. I am not an exception. I am just being more blatant about it than most.

Thanks, I was curious to get your opinions on what I felt were pretty basic assumptions about how God interacts with us.  I admit I don't understand why communication between God and some of His children is so clear and precise, but the opposite for others.

[Rain]

1 hour ago, gopher said:

yikes!  snotty??  My interactions with Nehor over the years have all been positive and respectful.  I find his experiences interesting because even though he has become a critic of not only the church, but also of how God interacts with us, he still clings to what's left of his faith and testimony.

Thanks for answering. 😀

1 hour ago, gopher said:

  For now.  My questions and comments were only directed to him, so maybe they can appear snotty to someone who has already left? 

I don't think so.  I haven't fundamentally changed.  There are things I notice now that I didn't before, but overall I am the same person.  

What did it for me was saying something about the only person when even as a teenager I knew people in the church who had similar concerns of God and his answers. Nehor is unique, but his trying to be faithful while he struggles with God and God's answers are not, so the only person line came across as not sincere to me. Thanks for clearing that up.

1 hour ago, gopher said:

Since I first started visiting here, I've seen more people abandon their faith than rediscover their faith and testimony, but I've been witness to some pretty cool stuff outside of this website.  My questions and comments are based on my own observations and conclusions which are different than yours.  I find these types of conversations interesting, but they are often difficult with many people.  I appreciate Nehor's willingness to be open and honest with me in our conversations.

 

 

 

Edited March 2 by Rain

[Tony uk]

I think, as we get older, our outlook takes different angles and perspectives. This, I feel is our knowledge taking shape through life experiences, and our interactions with other people. People may drift from one position, but come back at a later date, with their perspective tuned from their own individual experience. As for myself, I came to this Dialogue, from my own standpoint. Completely out of my own comfort zone, to help me progress as an individual, hopefully for the better. I believe we all raised questions, or look for answers in different places. Possibly, some of the more commited members of this Dialogue, are looking for their own answers. 

[Calm]

3 hours ago, gopher said:

My questions and comments were only directed to him, so maybe they can appear snotty to someone who has already left? 

I haven’t left and see myself as quite devout and my first reaction was you were being snotty.  Since you used a “ yikes” I am assuming you are a bit concerned at least at coming across that way, perhaps even more than a bit, so I am going to bold the words that caused me to think that was the tone to begin with (though by the end I could see it as possibly sincere with a few poor words choices) because you might want to be more careful in how you phrased things in the future…I encourage you to stop and read your own words thinking ‘how would someone who was struggling view what I just said?’ or some other appropriate concern.

1) “I didn't realize we can put a timetable on when God fulfills His promises.”  This comes as very snotty to me, insulting as it can be easily interpreted as sarcasm implying that Nehor was arrogant enough to create a deadline for God because we in the Church and often out of it emphasize God’s sovereignty in choosing how he fulfills our blessings promised and when.

2) “But it seems fair to abandon your faith and belief in God if you go your entire life without any promises from God kept. That seems like a much better reason than giving up because of historical accounts or social pressures.”  The most significant problem here is the use of the term “abandon”, which usually has very negative connotations as in “abandoning your child”, “abandoning your spouse”, “abandon your post” given its definition can be “desert”.  “Giving up” is potentially a problem because “giving up” is often seen as a result of weakness, not wisdom as in giving up on exercise, giving up on getting a college degree.  “Giving up” might have come across as neutral without the “abandon”, but I am not certain of that.  For me at least, given my background with a father who told us we could do anything if we were just committed enough (he was very capable, very healthy for most of his life, and very, very clueless about how much others interrupted their own lives and needs to help him out when he wanted something because he was a great, good, kind person), “giving up” is shaming language.  I recognize it might not be for others.

3) “There sure are a lot of people in and out of the church that are convinced God has answered prayers and delivered promised blessings though.  I wonder why you are an exception.”  Viewing oneself as the exception to the rule is usually interpreted in my experience as being self-centered and making excuses because one doesn’t want to do the work others are willing to do.  It probably would have not leaned sarcastic if the other bold parts weren’t there, but given the teachings of the Church that the Spirit will be with us always if we are worthy of it—usually interpreted in my experience as we will get answers to our prayers, at least God’s peace—it still would have been easy to infer you thought Nehor may not have been worthy, it was really not him being an exception, but him not being faithful enough.

 

Edited March 2 by Calm

[Calm]

4 hours ago, gopher said:

I admit I don't understand why communication between God and some of His children is so clear and precise, but the opposite for others

I think biology has a significant role in this.  I took medication that cut off my internal experience of the Spirit, not just muffled it, for a couple of years.  The drug had the effect of numbing me.  It was meant to help with dopamine levels in the brain (I wasn’t able to sleep longer than 30 minutes at a time due to severe RLS without medication), who knows what it actually did (RLS experts have warn against the use of the drug since almost its introduction, but other doctors weren’t listening very well at that time as the disorder wasn’t well known and they weren’t familiar with other options that were known to the experts but not officially approved for the disorder and the drugs helped enough for at least a short time before they backfired, they weren’t questioning the use of them yet).  

Since I experienced and experience the numbing sensation for much shorter periods at times in my life for no apparent reason*** beyond a seasonal increase (dark winter months and too hot summer months), it seems part of natural, if dysfunctional brain processes and so it’s logical to me that there are others who likely also experience these spiritual blackout periods due to natural brain states they also have little to no control over….and possibly there are some who have never felt the Spirit because of such brain chemical dysfunction.

Even a minimal dose of estrogen sends me into major numbed state and even full out depression at times (almost caused our divorce early on before we figured out the cause, it was if an off switch had been thrown and I couldn’t understand why I thought I wanted to be married to my new husband as I just didn’t care for him that much…or so it seemed at the time) though I noticed mostly sleep disturbances and migraines with the natural cycle.

These meds that caused issues weren’t me trying to take the easy way out, to escape reality, but to be a better mother and wife, a better friend and more able to contribute to my communities.

My daughter has type 1 diabetes along with fibromyalgia and several other factors and her ability to think is often messed up when sugars are high or low, which can happen for no apparent reason.  She is agnostic these days in part I think because she recognizes how influenced her thoughts and feelings are by biology she has little control over much of the time.

I highly doubt my daughter and I are exceptional in our reactions, so I suspect much of the difference in reception and experience of the Spirit is due to biology and sensitivity levels to one’s environment where at best it’s hard to predict and harder to control and trying to do the right thing may even end up backfiring.

***my parents taught me very good health habits and were great examples when it came to faith as well; as far as I can tell I was and am doing what I am supposed to…eating healthy, living healthy, trying to be spiritual and loving and constantly studying my faith

Edited March 2 by Calm

[gopher]

On 3/2/2026 at 12:06 PM, Calm said:

I haven’t left and see myself as quite devout and my first reaction was you were being snotty.  Since you used a “ yikes” I am assuming you are a bit concerned at least at coming across that way, perhaps even more than a bit, so I am going to bold the words that caused me to think that was the tone to begin with (though by the end I could see it as possibly sincere with a few poor words choices) because you might want to be more careful in how you phrased things in the future…I encourage you to stop and read your own words thinking ‘how would someone who was struggling view what I just said?’ or some other appropriate concern.

1) “I didn't realize we can put a timetable on when God fulfills His promises.”  This comes as very snotty to me, insulting as it can be easily interpreted as sarcasm implying that Nehor was arrogant enough to create a deadline for God because we in the Church and often out of it emphasize God’s sovereignty in choosing how he fulfills our blessings promised and when.

2) “But it seems fair to abandon your faith and belief in God if you go your entire life without any promises from God kept. That seems like a much better reason than giving up because of historical accounts or social pressures.”  The most significant problem here is the use of the term “abandon”, which usually has very negative connotations as in “abandoning your child”, “abandoning your spouse”, “abandon your post” given its definition can be “desert”.  “Giving up” is potentially a problem because “giving up” is often seen as a result of weakness, not wisdom as in giving up on exercise, giving up on getting a college degree.  “Giving up” might have come across as neutral without the “abandon”, but I am not certain of that.  For me at least, given my background with a father who told us we could do anything if we were just committed enough (he was very capable, very healthy for most of his life, and very, very clueless about how much others interrupted their own lives and needs to help him out when he wanted something because he was a great, good, kind person), “giving up” is shaming language.  I recognize it might not be for others.

3) “There sure are a lot of people in and out of the church that are convinced God has answered prayers and delivered promised blessings though.  I wonder why you are an exception.”  Viewing oneself as the exception to the rule is usually interpreted in my experience as being self-centered and making excuses because one doesn’t want to do the work others are willing to do.  It probably would have not leaned sarcastic if the other bold parts weren’t there, but given the teachings of the Church that the Spirit will be with us always if we are worthy of it—usually interpreted in my experience as we will get answers to our prayers, at least God’s peace—it still would have been easy to infer you thought Nehor may not have been worthy, it was really not him being an exception, but him not being faithful enough.

 

Since my comments were only directed to Nehor and no one else, I will wait for him to let me know if he found the tone troublesome.  My comments do not apply to the situations of anyone else here so I would caution anyone to not believe otherwise.  Plus my response was to his earlier comments in this thread that had already run its course and I figured no one was following anymore.  Nehor is also clearly not from Utah based on the language he uses so I felt comfortable speaking freely, bluntly, and directly with a hint of snarkiness like we do here outside the bubble.  I had no problem with his responses, in fact, I appreciated his graciousness in responding to me.  But, thanks, I'll consider myself sufficiently scolded.

[bluebell]

On 3/2/2026 at 3:26 AM, The Nehor said:

What if they had exercised faith that this was the right road despite all indications to the contrary?

 

Maybe with faith you can drive on water?

Someone in a general conference quite a few years ago said that we can’t use faith to cause an outcome that is against the will of the person (Christ) we have faith in.  Only he said it much more eloquently and I don’t remember the direct quote.

That was a good reminder to me at the time because I’m pretty sure I had had lessons growing up in the church or heard talks that implied (at least to my younger mind) that we could use faith to create any righteous outcome if we just believed hard enough.  There is definitely the tendency in the church to believe and teach that if something good isn’t happening to you then your faith just isn’t strong enough.  

[The Nehor]

On 3/4/2026 at 8:51 AM, gopher said:

Since my comments were only directed to Nehor and no one else, I will wait for him to let me know if he found the tone troublesome.  My comments do not apply to the situations of anyone else here so I would caution anyone to not believe otherwise.  Plus my response was to his earlier comments in this thread that had already run its course and I figured no one was following anymore.  Nehor is also clearly not from Utah based on the language he uses so I felt comfortable speaking freely, bluntly, and directly with a hint of snarkiness like we do here outside the bubble.  I had no problem with his responses, in fact, I appreciated his graciousness in responding to me.  But, thanks, I'll consider myself sufficiently scolded.

I figured there was a bit of snark but it would be kind of ironic for me to complain about someone else being snarky.

[The Nehor]

On 3/4/2026 at 9:27 AM, bluebell said:

Someone in a general conference quite a few years ago said that we can’t use faith to cause an outcome that is against the will of the person (Christ) we have faith in.  Only he said it much more eloquently and I don’t remember the direct quote.

Yeah, I am not sure exactly how this is mentally supposed to work. On one hand we are told to expect miracles but on the other expect nothing except what God wants and we have no idea what that is so what does it mean to have faith that things will somehow work out. Maybe God doesn’t want this situation to work out.

On 3/4/2026 at 9:27 AM, bluebell said:

That was a good reminder to me at the time because I’m pretty sure I had had lessons growing up in the church or heard talks that implied (at least to my younger mind) that we could use faith to create any righteous outcome if we just believed hard enough.  There is definitely the tendency in the church to believe and teach that if something good isn’t happening to you then your faith just isn’t strong enough.  

This was a plague in missionary culture when I was out. In hindsight it was really more like a salesman’s zeal and dedication to hitting their bonus numbers dressed up in religious language. And with no actual bonuses.

[morgan.deane]

17 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Yeah, I am not sure exactly how this is mentally supposed to work. On one hand we are told to expect miracles but on the other expect nothing except what God wants and we have no idea what that is so what does it mean to have faith that things will somehow work out. Maybe God doesn’t want this situation to work out.

This was a plague in missionary culture when I was out. In hindsight it was really more like a salesman’s zeal and dedication to hitting their bonus numbers dressed up in religious language. And with no actual bonuses.

This is such a good point. I share a very similar feeling.

My annoyance comes from reading things like the Parable of the Unjust Judge. (Luke 6:1-13). That's a story about a widow that pleads her case to an unjust judge, to the point that he grants it. The point is that even an unjust judge answers the consistent pleas of the righteous. How much more willing is a just and loving God to grant my requests?

I read that, and then I constantly hear this nonsense about how God isn't a vending machine. So I'm told to wait on the Lord for blessings and I'll get them, but I can't expect certain things or God only blesses me with what I need instead of what I want. Or I don't have enough faith, its contrary to God's will, not his timing or whatever. I've heard all the excuses and think they're bunk. I'm not asking for a miracle, (well maybe with my looks and personality it is a miracle), I'm just asking for what every 21 year old has. 

 I've talked about being single on here, so I'm constantly told that after living my whole life watching people that look like kids, talk about how happy they are being married (which happened every semester I taught at BYU-I), but I only get that after I die. That's just the Mormon version of "life sucks and then you die." How about God actually fulfills his promises and people stop excusing or explaining away His inaction?

Edited March 6 by morgan.deane

[Senator]

45 minutes ago, morgan.deane said:

This is such a good point. I share a very similar feeling.

My annoyance comes from reading things like the Parable of the Unjust Judge. (Luke 6:1-13). That's a story about a widow that pleads her case to an unjust judge, to the point that he grants it. The point is that even an unjust judge answers the consistent pleas of the righteous. How much more willing is a just and loving God to grant my requests?

I read that, and then I constantly hear this nonsense about how God isn't a vending machine. So I'm told to wait on the Lord for blessings and I'll get them, but I can't expect certain things or God only blesses me with what I need instead of what I want. Or I don't have enough faith, its contrary to God's will, not his timing or whatever. I've heard all the excuses and think they're bunk. I'm not asking for a miracle, (well maybe with my looks and personality it is a miracle), I'm just asking for what every 21 year old has. 

 I've talked about being single on here, so I'm constantly told that after living my whole life watching people that look like kids, talk about how happy they are being married (which happened every semester I taught at BYU-I), but I only get that after I die. That's just the Mormon version of "life sucks and then you die." How about God actually fulfills his promises and people stop excusing or explaining away His inaction?

I wish you would just tell us how you really feel!

[bluebell]

22 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Yeah, I am not sure exactly how this is mentally supposed to work. On one hand we are told to expect miracles but on the other expect nothing except what God wants and we have no idea what that is so what does it mean to have faith that things will somehow work out. Maybe God doesn’t want this situation to work out.

 

There have been many times in my life when I have had this exact perspective, and then things happened which changed my view.  I don't feel like it's my place to challenge your perspective on things right now, so I won't say anything else, except that it's a very hard place to be in and there can be a lot of hurt.  So (((hugs))).

[bluebell]

5 hours ago, morgan.deane said:

This is such a good point. I share a very similar feeling.

My annoyance comes from reading things like the Parable of the Unjust Judge. (Luke 6:1-13). That's a story about a widow that pleads her case to an unjust judge, to the point that he grants it. The point is that even an unjust judge answers the consistent pleas of the righteous. How much more willing is a just and loving God to grant my requests?

I read that, and then I constantly hear this nonsense about how God isn't a vending machine. So I'm told to wait on the Lord for blessings and I'll get them, but I can't expect certain things or God only blesses me with what I need instead of what I want. Or I don't have enough faith, its contrary to God's will, not his timing or whatever. I've heard all the excuses and think they're bunk. I'm not asking for a miracle, (well maybe with my looks and personality it is a miracle), I'm just asking for what every 21 year old has. 

 I've talked about being single on here, so I'm constantly told that after living my whole life watching people that look like kids, talk about how happy they are being married (which happened every semester I taught at BYU-I), but I only get that after I die. That's just the Mormon version of "life sucks and then you die." How about God actually fulfills his promises and people stop excusing or explaining away His inaction?

Hugs to you too morgan.