Today during a special stake conference we heard from our Stake President, who quoted the following verse from 3 Nephi 1:
But there were some who began to say that the time was past for the words to be fulfilled, which were spoken by Samuel, the Lamanite. And they began to rejoice over their brethren, saying: Behold the time is past, and the words of Samuel are not fulfilled; therefore your joy and your faith concerning this thing hath been vain. And it came to pass that they did make a great uproar throughout the land; and the people who believed began to be very sorrowful, lest by any means those things which had been spoken might not come to pass. But behold, they did watch steadfastly for that day an that night an that day which should be as one day as if there were no night, that they might know that their faith had not been vain.
What the people of God hear from the Great and Spacious Building is different variations on the same theme: your faith is in vain. Yet faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is never in vain; instead, it is faith in the only historical inevitability that we mere mortals can know.
Here on earth we have very short vision: we see the past with difficulty, and we can't see the future at all. Only through the prophets and apostles can give us true visions of the future. Consequently, it may appear like all is failing, that the light is falling, and that it may never grow brighter again. Yet we have been called to have faith in Him regardless of whether we prosper or not. We have been called to be witnesses of God in all times, in all places, and in all things.
To paraphrase the Master, consider the lilies of the field. They do not wilt when they consider their short lives, or mourn that they are planted in mud or dry ground. Wherever they can, they gloriously bloom, and in so blooming, make the world a richer place.
So let us, even in times of despair, bloom with the love of God and man, being patient for the Second Coming of our Lord, even when the Great and Spacious Philosophies keep telling us that the time of religious faith is past.
