Hank Smith: 00:02 Hello, my friends. Welcome to another followHIM Favorites. My name is Hank Smith. I’m here with the wonderful John Bytheway. Welcome, John.

John Bytheway: 00:09 Thanks, Hank.

Hank Smith: 00:10 John, you know how this works. We’re going to take on a single question from this week’s lesson. We are in 2 Corinthians this week, the first half of the letter, chapters 1 through 7. Right out of the Come, Follow Me manual, there’s a statement that says, “My trials can be a blessing.” And I thought that is a crazy statement. So, John, can you help me understand how my trials can be blessings?

John Bytheway: 00:33 Yeah. I remember once someone saying, “Why do I have so many trials?” And before I thought about it too long, this just poured out of my mouth because God loves you too much to let your life be easy. After he hit me… No, I’m just kidding. But it’s the kind of thing where they can make us what we are if we let God help us in wonderful ways. Another word for trial is test. Another word for test is prove. I will prove you. God even asks us to prove him. “Test me and see if I’ll open you the windows of heaven.” So life without trials, as I think Sheri Dew said, would be like a test without questions.

Hank Smith: 01:18 I like it.

John Bytheway: 01:19 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 01:20 I like it. If you just look at the story of so many people in the scriptures over and over and over, it’s these difficult, difficult-

John Bytheway: 01:27 Really difficult.

Hank Smith: 01:29 … problems and hardships that they face. As you watch the story play out, it often turns into something wonderful, something so good that wouldn’t have happened had they not gone through that thing. I remember President Uchtdorf talking about riding his bicycle when he was a kid, and hating the bicycle, and then finding out later, the bicycle actually saved his life. So something he hated at the time actually became something he’s so grateful for later in life.

John Bytheway: 01:58 Yeah, I remember Emily Watts telling a story at Time Out for Women about a little girl who was walking across the plains and a guy pulled up in a wagon and said, “You want to ride?” And she said, “Yes.” And he grabbed her hand and then said, “Giddy up.” I don’t think it was giddy up. The horse was probably trotting, but she was running with everything she had, and she thought, “This is possibly the meanest man I have ever seen in my life.”

Hank Smith: 02:22 That’s just awful.

John Bytheway: 02:22 She’s running. She’s out of breath. Then finally, when she’s just about done, he grabs her, lifts her up, sits him next to him, scoops her up, wraps her in a blanket, and she said, “It took me a while to realize that he had just saved my feet.” Because she was so cold, this got the blood circulating and everything. Then he grabbed her and wrapped her in a blanket. I thought, “Wow. That’s a-“

Hank Smith: 02:46 Had he grabbed her before, the blood wouldn’t have been circulating. I’m reminded, John, of a story where the Provo Tabernacle, this building that had been around for over a century, had done so much good as a building, as much good as a building can do for the church. In December of 2010, it burns so heavily that it basically guts the building. I’ve often thought, if that building had thoughts and feelings, it might say something like,-

John Bytheway: 03:14 Why are you doing this?

Hank Smith: 03:16 “Why me? There are other buildings on this street that deserve this. I’ve tried my hardest to be a good building.”

John Bytheway: 03:24 Building.

Hank Smith: 03:26 “Why would you do this to me?” And then over the course of the next few years, the building is transformed into what we know is the Provo City Center Temple. And how would the Lord answer that prayer of, “Why would you do this to me? I don’t deserve this. I’ve tried so hard to be good.” And he might be saying something like, “I see your future. I see what’s coming, so hold on, hold on. This is actually going to end up being the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to you. You’re going to become even more holy and you’re going to become even more venerated by people.” I try to keep that in mind when going through difficult things.

John Bytheway: 04:05 I mean, great story that he can take a trial and make it something better. He can take the lost Book of Lehi in the Book of Mormon and say, “Well, actually, I arranged that Nephi to keep a separate record and it has greater views.” And so the Book of Mormon becomes greater even though that Book of Lehi was lost

Hank Smith: 04:24 With God, a mess can become a message I’ve found. 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 with Dr. Larry Nelson this week and he does some wonderful things with these chapters we think you’re going to love. And then come back next week and we’ll do another followHIM Favorites.