Non Sequiturs

For those who may not know what a non sequitur is, it is something that does not follow logically from what preceded it. Here's an example. As we were eating breakfast today, we were talking about what we had to do today and events that we have coming up, when Rene suddenly said, "You know what people never have enough of when there's an emergency and no electricity?" I was just sitting there staring at him because that thought apparently came out of nowhere. The answer, by the way, is candles. When I knew what the answer was, I could follow his train of thought--there is a candlabra thing on the table with 5 candles on it and he was sitting there looking at it while he ate.

Sometimes in life, as we go about living the gospel and developing faith in Christ, we come across things that appear to be non sequiturs in the religious sense. Our friends Jim and Mary have had a hard year in some respects. Eleven months ago, Jim lost his job and in the intervening time, he has had hardly a nibble as far as a new job goes. On top of that, Mary lost her job two weeks ago and now Jim's dad is ill and struggling with his health. Jim and Mary are both converts to the church who married in the temple, served faithfully in callings, keep the commandments and are raising their kids to do what is right. To our human eyes, it doesn't follow that all these hard things would happen to them. Or what about our friends Pam and Ray? About a year ago, they lost their young adult son when he had a two week old son and his life was just beginning to turn around.

Of course, the opposite situation is true, too. There are many in the world today who feel that they have done such horrible things or have lived such bad lives that there is no hope for them, that the Lord could never love them. Many are struggling with addictions and cannot believe that the Lord's grace and mercy are available to help them. To them, it doesn't seem logical that the Lord does love them.

Part of our problem as humans is that we cannot "see" the Lord's thought processes. When I realized that Rene was eating his breakfast looking at candles, I could understand why he said what he did. But generally, we can't do that with the Lord. In Isaiah, we are taught that the Lord's thoughts are not our thoughts, nor his ways our ways. We have to rely on our faith to help us understand and that's hard. I don't think I'm especially good at it and I know there are many out there who aren't good at it either.

In August of 2008, President Monson was asked what members of the church could give him for his birthday, he responded, "Go and find someone who is having a hard time, ....and do something for them." It seems the least we can do in this month when we ponder our many blessings and thank the Lord for them.