1st John 5:14-15
In the early parts of 2014, one of the strongest desires of my life began to swell within me. Although I was only 21 years of age and single, a yearning to be a father one day took root in my heart and mind. Even though I cannot pinpoint the initiation of this desire to a specific event, I am quite confident that it was the cumulative effect of multiple heaven-designed experiences: seeing the light in the eyes of young children, learning of God's commandment to multiply and replenish the earth, and the Holy Ghost prompting me towards a more complete understanding of my duties in life. While it certainly did not occur overnight, I gradually came to desire the opportunity to raise children.
After about two years, I was privileged to find and marry my beautiful wife Bethany in the early months of 2016, bringing my hope for being a father much closer towards reality. Knowing that all people are children of God, I knew from the beginning that if I so desired to raise children I needed to petition my Heavenly Father. Beginning almost immediately, my personal prayers and those said with my wife included a plea for having children. And yet, despite our continual efforts, month after month passed by without any evidence of future parenthood.
Eventually, March 2018 came and passed, marking the two year anniversary of my wife and I. Still with no signatures of children coming, I began to grow very sorrowful in mind and heart. Due to various circumstances, most of which were beyond our understanding, I looked into the future and viewed the possibility of my hope for fatherhood remaining unfulfilled for the rest of life as a potential reality. As many people know, such a feeling of deepest desires possibly not getting fulfilled can very easily cause heartache, especially when those desires are rooted in truths or commandments declared by God. Fortunately, I had learned through previous difficult experiences that in such circumstances it is better to ask, "What does God want me to learn through this?" rather than questioning, "Why?". Furthermore, I knew that the answers to such sincere questions can almost always be found within the scriptures.
Within only a month, in April 2018, I found myself studying the book Teach Ye Diligently by Boyd K. Packer, having heard from multiple sources of its great counsel about teaching effectively. In one of the initial chapters he addresses people who desire to obtain the gift of teaching, and references countless verses in the scriptures that give the promise of "ask, and ye shall receive". For me at this specific time, however, I was not necessarily looking to obtain the gift of teaching; rather, I was desiring to obtain the privilege of raising children. As I read through each and every verse referenced, I came across one that caught my attention above many others:
While the overall promise of this scripture was very much the same as all of the others, the eye-catching phrase that made it unique was its clarification of the need to ask "according to [God's] will". And, as I had learned many times earlier in life, God's will is quite often unpredictable; even when our desire seems to coincide well with scriptural counsel, the 'how' of that desire's fulfillment is likely to differ between our predictions and God's personalized plan in terms of timing and/or procession. In my case, perhaps there were circumstances that only God's omniscience could behold. Or perhaps there were lessons that God saw the necessity to teach us prior to parenthood. Either way, I decided to exercise faith and move forward without requiring to know every detail of the Lord's plan.
My pleas for one day having children did not get eliminated from our prayers though. Rather, I added in the simple phrase, "if it be thy will". I turned it completely over to the Lord, trusting that his timing was better than mine. And, as we continually put forth as much effort that we could, within less than a month my wife and I found out that we were expecting our first child.
As promised in the scriptures, the Lord heard and answered our prayers. But, at least from my perspective, the answer came only when I exercised enough humility to fully accept the Lord's will rather than my own. While there are likely many reasons that the Lord saw the necessity to delay the fulfillment of my deepest wish for fatherhood beyond my initially-hoped timing, most of them are still hidden to my mortal view. But thanks to divinely inspired scripture, I learned that when we ask anything of God that is according to his will, he hears and answers us with his loving mercy.
After about two years, I was privileged to find and marry my beautiful wife Bethany in the early months of 2016, bringing my hope for being a father much closer towards reality. Knowing that all people are children of God, I knew from the beginning that if I so desired to raise children I needed to petition my Heavenly Father. Beginning almost immediately, my personal prayers and those said with my wife included a plea for having children. And yet, despite our continual efforts, month after month passed by without any evidence of future parenthood.
Eventually, March 2018 came and passed, marking the two year anniversary of my wife and I. Still with no signatures of children coming, I began to grow very sorrowful in mind and heart. Due to various circumstances, most of which were beyond our understanding, I looked into the future and viewed the possibility of my hope for fatherhood remaining unfulfilled for the rest of life as a potential reality. As many people know, such a feeling of deepest desires possibly not getting fulfilled can very easily cause heartache, especially when those desires are rooted in truths or commandments declared by God. Fortunately, I had learned through previous difficult experiences that in such circumstances it is better to ask, "What does God want me to learn through this?" rather than questioning, "Why?". Furthermore, I knew that the answers to such sincere questions can almost always be found within the scriptures.
Within only a month, in April 2018, I found myself studying the book Teach Ye Diligently by Boyd K. Packer, having heard from multiple sources of its great counsel about teaching effectively. In one of the initial chapters he addresses people who desire to obtain the gift of teaching, and references countless verses in the scriptures that give the promise of "ask, and ye shall receive". For me at this specific time, however, I was not necessarily looking to obtain the gift of teaching; rather, I was desiring to obtain the privilege of raising children. As I read through each and every verse referenced, I came across one that caught my attention above many others:
"And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him."
While the overall promise of this scripture was very much the same as all of the others, the eye-catching phrase that made it unique was its clarification of the need to ask "according to [God's] will". And, as I had learned many times earlier in life, God's will is quite often unpredictable; even when our desire seems to coincide well with scriptural counsel, the 'how' of that desire's fulfillment is likely to differ between our predictions and God's personalized plan in terms of timing and/or procession. In my case, perhaps there were circumstances that only God's omniscience could behold. Or perhaps there were lessons that God saw the necessity to teach us prior to parenthood. Either way, I decided to exercise faith and move forward without requiring to know every detail of the Lord's plan.
My pleas for one day having children did not get eliminated from our prayers though. Rather, I added in the simple phrase, "if it be thy will". I turned it completely over to the Lord, trusting that his timing was better than mine. And, as we continually put forth as much effort that we could, within less than a month my wife and I found out that we were expecting our first child.As promised in the scriptures, the Lord heard and answered our prayers. But, at least from my perspective, the answer came only when I exercised enough humility to fully accept the Lord's will rather than my own. While there are likely many reasons that the Lord saw the necessity to delay the fulfillment of my deepest wish for fatherhood beyond my initially-hoped timing, most of them are still hidden to my mortal view. But thanks to divinely inspired scripture, I learned that when we ask anything of God that is according to his will, he hears and answers us with his loving mercy.
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