Doesn’t Obedience Lead to Blessings?

For much of my life, I believed if I was obedient to God’s commandments, I was entitled to any and all blessings that I asked for. Imagine my bewilderment when, after trying to live a life of obedience for my nearly 30 years, I watched addiction and a cancer diagnosis devastate my family; my father lose his job at the outbreak of a pandemic; my sister contract a debilitating terminal illness; and several other life-changing events I never dreamed I’d experience.

I spent a lot of time in fervent prayer, trying to figure out why these things were happening. I felt I had earned blessings. Why did it appear that people who made no efforts to be obedient had amazing lives without the kinds of trials I had faced? From my finite perspective, my circumstances felt confusing, frustrating, and unjust.

Understanding the Lord’s Ways

It can be hard to have a broad perspective amid trials, but looking back, I can see that the Lord’s ways truly are not our ways (see Isaiah 55:8). As finite beings in this mortal sphere, some of us like to be instantly gratified, effortlessly happy, and constantly comfortable.

But Heavenly Father wants better for us. In His infinite wisdom, He understands what each of His children needs to obtain eternal joy, lasting happiness, and divine comfort.

Consequently, we are not always given the blessings we ask for because they are not for our everlasting benefit. Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught: “Some misunderstand the promises of God to mean that obedience to Him yields specific outcomes on a fixed schedule. They might think, ‘If I diligently serve a full-time mission, God will bless me with a happy marriage and children,’ or ‘If I refrain from doing schoolwork on the Sabbath, God will bless me with good grades.’ … If life doesn’t fall out precisely this way or according to an expected timetable, they may feel betrayed by God. But things are not so mechanical in the divine economy. We ought not to think of God’s plan as a cosmic vending machine where we (1) select a desired blessing, (2) insert the required sum of good works, and (3) the order is promptly delivered.”1

The Lord said that “inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land” (2 Nephi 4:4). The ultimate prosperity Heavenly Father intends for his children is “immortality and eternal life” (Moses 1:39). And because of His deep love for us, He invites us to use our agency to make choices that will lead to that point. But nowhere in the scriptures does it say that He will give us exactly what we want. He knows far better than we do what is best for us. So whether we receive the blessings we are hoping for or not, we are asked to trust that it is for our good (see Doctrine and Covenants 122:7).

The personal revelation to serve a mission was one of the clearest answers to prayer I’ve ever received. Admittedly, I was not thrilled about the prospect of leaving my family for 18 months, but I could not deny the answer I received. So, I obediently heeded the call.

There were wonderful parts of my mission, but I also experienced a lot of challenges that tested my faith and caused me to wonder why I was even prompted to serve a mission! However, as I look back now, I can honestly say that the difficult experiences on my mission strengthened me in many ways, and they prepared me to receive blessings later on.

Sometimes our obedience leads us into a refiner’s fire (see Malachi 3:2), and that is never a comfortable experience. But if we allow that fire to change us, from the resultant ashes comes new growth and beauty (see Isaiah 61:3).

Accepting God’s Will

True conversion to Christ includes having complete trust that both He and Heavenly Father want us to have only what is best for us in the eternal scheme. When we wholeheartedly believe that, we can genuinely end all our prayers with “Thy will be done, O Lord, and not ours” (Doctrine and Covenants 109:44). With this commitment to do as President Russell M. Nelson instructed and “let God prevail in our lives,”2 we understand that we will not get all the things we want or think we deserve. We will be content and happy with the blessings that have come to us through obedience to God’s commandments without comparing ourselves with how we perceive other people are living and how God is blessing them.

A beautiful example of this true conversion is the prophet Abraham. The Lord told him to “look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be” (Genesis 15:5). So it must have been shocking to Abraham when, in his old age, the Lord commanded him to kill Isaac, the son God had indicated He would use to establish His covenant (see Genesis 17:19). Abraham must have wondered why God would ask him to give up the son who was to follow him in the covenant line. But Abraham never questioned the Lord, recognizing that the Lord knows the end from the beginning and trusting that His promise would be fulfilled.

At the very moment Abraham was about to slay his son, an angel stopped him and commended his willingness to be obedient (See Genesis 22:11–12). Later the angel quoted the Lord, saying: “I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore” (Genesis 22:17). Abraham had faith that somehow the Lord would bless him, even if it wasn’t in the manner he had originally thought.

A powerful reminder from this account is that we can choose how we perceive the workings of the Lord; we can choose to have faith. Abraham could have looked at the Lord’s command to kill his son as profoundly unfair and merciless. Yet Abraham chose to see it differently—he chose to focus on the Lord’s power, reliability, and goodness.

Changing Perspective

Developing a perspective like Abraham’s isn’t easy—it takes time and practice. At times I have been resistant to developing the humility required for submitting my will and trusting in the Lord. I have thrown spiritual temper tantrums, upset that I’m not getting what I want and feeling bitter that I continue to experience hardships. In these instances, I have failed to see that “to get [us] from where [we] are to where [the Lord] wants [us] to be requires a lot of stretching, and that generally entails discomfort and pain.”3

This does not mean that the Lord wants us to be miserable—just the opposite. The Lord intends that we “might have joy” (see 2 Nephi 2:25). But the word “might” implies that our joy depends on our agency. If we want true, everlasting joy, we choose to see blessings in whatever form and time they come. We choose to remain obedient, even when it doesn’t yield immediate results, because we love and trust Heavenly Father. And we work to understand that the richest blessings are in the lessons we choose to learn from our trials, for those are what draw us closer to Christ.

And isn’t drawing closer to the Savior and becoming like Him the whole point of this life?

I have spent a lot of time focusing on the negative aspects of trials and the disappointment of not getting what I think I want. I still have moments of questioning why my life often seems harder than many other people’s. And I sometimes wonder why, despite my diligent obedience, desired blessings seem to be missing. But I am learning to see that the Lord is constantly blessing me when I am obedient to His commandments (see Doctrine and Covenants 82:10; 130:20–21), even if those blessings do not always come in the timing or manner I may hope for.

Whenever a blessing is not granted in the manner or timing we expect, we have the opportunity to carefully evaluate the ways we have seen Heavenly Father and our Savior show up in our lives, because They always do. When we truly understand this truth, we will have the perspective and courage to humbly proclaim, “Thy will be done.”

Notes

1. D. Todd Christofferson, “Our Relationship with God,” Liahona, May 2022, 78.
2. Russell M. Nelson, “Let God Prevail,” Liahona, Nov. 2020, 95.
3. Richard G. Scott, “Trust in the Lord,” Ensign, Nov. 1995, 16–17.