Countless Second Chances

Until Seventy Times Seven

By Elder Lynn G. Robbins

Of the Presidency of the Seventy

April 2018 Conference

We may wonder—if both Nephi and Moses were on the Lord’s errand, why didn’t the Lord intervene and help them achieve success on their first try? Why did He allow them—and why does He allow us—to flounder and fail in our attempts to succeed? Among many important answers to that question, here are a few:

• First, the Lord knows that “these things shall give [us] experience, and shall be for [our] good.”4
• Second, to allow us to “taste the bitter, that [we] may know to prize the good.”5
• Third, to prove that “the battle is the Lord’s,”6 and it is only by His grace that we can accomplish His work and become like Him.7
• Fourth, to help us develop and hone scores of Christlike attributes that cannot be refined except through opposition8 and “in the furnace of affliction.”

No one is more on our side than the Savior. He allows us to take and keep retaking His exams. To become like Him will require countless second chances in our day-to-day struggles with the natural man, such as controlling appetites, learning patience and forgiveness, overcoming slothfulness, and avoiding sins of omission, just to name a few. If to err is human nature, how many failures will it take us until our nature is no longer human but divine? Thousands? More likely a million....

Only with time-lapse photography or growth charts can we discern our physical growth. Likewise, our spiritual growth is usually imperceptible except through the rearview lens of time. It would be wise to regularly take an introspective look through that lens to recognize our progress and inspire us to “press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope.”