Usually its well-known people who are quoted... but this came from a sacrament meeting talk a few weeks ago.
"As long as we are doing the right thing, the wrong thing will never happen to us. Good and bad things will, but never the wrong thing."
Isn't that just beautiful?
I've always had a bit of an issue with the sentiment that "everything happens for a reason." It is said as though it is an excuse for our own bad decisions. I think it negates our agency. Everything happens because someone made a decision which lead to that consequence. We have all had wrong things happen to us. But, as we obey the commandments of the Lord these bad things can be the right things for us. They become right by the way we react to them and grow from them. The rightness comes not necessarily from the offense but from the way we learn from it. If you choose to react negatively or make a series of bad decisions then whatever "reason" or "rightness" there may have been disappears.
**I hadn't thought that much about it until I typed that. I'm not sure exactly what I mean; I just know that I love that quote.**
I totally know what you mean about "everything happens for a reason" but at the same time, there are so many instances in my life that were more than coincidence in timing. God definitely played a role in it for the outcome so me not getting a certain job, happened for a reason. And it isn't something you can really see in the moment, but in hindsight becomes perfectly clear.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. I think those things that at the time seem like "wrong" things (breaking up, being fired, Etc) become the right things because of what we choose to get from it... making it "right" for us. There isn't really anything wrong with the phrase... I just don't really agree with the way it is often interpreted, as an excuse... or a reason to simply accept what happens without acting on it.
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