Hank Smith: 00:02 Hello, my friends. Welcome to another followHIM Favorites. My name is Hank Smith. I’m here with the incredible John Bytheway. We are going to take on a question from this week’s lesson, which is going to be in First and Second Peter. John, the question comes right out of the manual. What gives you hope that you can find joy in difficult circumstances? Out of these epistles from Peter, First and Second Peter, John, what would you say answers that question?

John Bytheway: 00:26 This is one of those big picture, eternal perspective-type answers. I love 1 Peter 3:17. It says, “It is better if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing.” And it kind of made me laugh because it’s like, you’re going to suffer either way.

Hank Smith: 00:41 Either way.

John Bytheway: 00:44 You’re in a fallen world, it’s going to be hard. But if it’s well-doing, you know God is there, you know he’s with you. You know you’re going to make it. You know he’s going to help you through it. There’s an old saying that in life, suffering’s mandatory but misery is optional.

Hank Smith: 00:58 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:58 So, “We don’t suffer as those without hope,” as Joseph Smith once said.

Hank Smith: 01:02 Hmm. Beautiful.

John Bytheway: 01:03 “There’s always hope, smiling brightly before us,” and that’s kind of what that verse says to me. Life is going to be suffering. What’s that Princess Bride quote, Hank? “Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something.” It’s going to be hard, but we know why, we know what’s at the end of it, we know there’s a wonderful ending to all of this.

Hank Smith: 01:24 It’s a different type of pain when you’re suffering for your own really dumb decisions you make over and over and over, or when you’re suffering for doing really well, and yet there’s some opposition there. There’s just a difference in that type of difficulty. In 1 Peter 4, Peter says, “You are partakers of Christ’s sufferings.” Verse 14, “If you are reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye.”

John Bytheway: 01:48 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 01:48 That sounds like it’s right out of the Beatitudes, doesn’t it?

John Bytheway: 01:51 In fact, happy and blessed are translated interchangeably in the New Testament. Sometimes the Beatitudes are called the happy attitudes. And speaking of those, aren’t those crazy? “Happy are the poor in spirit.”

Hank Smith: 02:02 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 02:02 The people must’ve been going, “What?”

Hank Smith: 02:04 “Happy are the sad.”

John Bytheway: 02:05 Yeah. Exactly.

Hank Smith: 02:09 It makes me think, if I am going through very difficult, trying circumstances, that so did the Lord.

John Bytheway: 02:16 Mm-hmm.

Hank Smith: 02:16 He went through very difficult, trying circumstances. So there’s something to be said about how that can make me feel, in my difficulty, that I am lining up with Him. That I’m shoulder-to-shoulder with Him. Not in scope, he’s going to go through things that are far more difficult and eternal than I am, but still… What did Elder Holland say? “It’s not easy for us because it was never easy for Him.”

John Bytheway: 02:42 And that means He can help us.

Hank Smith: 02:43 Yep.

John Bytheway: 02:44 He knows what we’re going through. He knows how to succor us, as Alma 7:11 and 12 might say.

Hank Smith: 02:50 Yep. This can give us a way, again, not easy. Still going to excavate our souls in difficulty, in suffering. There’s a purpose to it. We’re moving towards something.

John Bytheway: 03:03 Well put.

Hank Smith: 03:04 We hope you’ll join us on our full podcast. It’s called followHIM. You can get it wherever you get your podcasts. We’re going to be joined by Dr. Andrew Skinner. He’s been the dean of religious education at BYU, and he’s going to take these two epistles of Peter apart for us. He’ll show you things you haven’t seen before. And then come back here next week, we’re going to do another followHIM Favorites.