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M&G posted a very touching experience where she received a blessing that something very important would come to pass, and then, it didn’t. Interesting M&G, I had two similar experiences, although not as intense as yours. One was a sacrament meeting about fasting, coupled with priesthood blessings. Every single speaker stood up and told a story about how they fasted for something to happen, coupled with receiving a blessing. Each story ended with the thing they were desiring NOT coming to pass, even though it was in the priesthood blessing it would come to pass!
I left that sacrament meeting a little bit bewildered and definitely not uplifted.
I did some research and found a talk by DHO where he said priesthood blessings only come to pass to the extent the blessing is in harmony with the will of the Lord. So, I wondered, if a priesthood blessing is simply a guessing game where you hope what you say is the same as God’s will, what’s the point? Shouldn’t this endowment of power and authority allow us to effect things that otherwise would not come to pass if the blessing was
notgiven? And should we not have the power to change events from what God originally intended if we truly have power and authority? Otherwise, isn’t the priesthood blessing just a rubber stamp, or a guessing game? Those were my thoughts at the time….and one of my close friends said he didn’t even think people NEED blessings since it’s all God’s will anyway!! Brian helped me see the efficacy in blessings as a source of comfort for people when I started losing my enthusiasm about them a year ago. I gave one last night to someone who had an operation, and if it were not for the inherent benefits of a blessing to the receiver — the comfort of having someone come to your house, listen to you, show they care, lay their hands on your head, say kind words and express love from God, speak faithful thoughts and give hope (if the blessings says this) for a brighter future — I’m not sure I would have been able to give the blessing. I did try to open my mind up and let inspiration come, but I wasn’t sure if what I said was inspired or not, but in any event, in that situation, I think the man got some comfort. So, the time and effort was well-spent.
The second experience was where my wife insisted we adopt a child after several years of childlessness. I fought the idea on its own merits, and then I prayed about it and FINALLY, changed my heart as I had a pretty strong and sweet witness I should do it that I felt was from God.
Getting to this point was really hard as I never pictured myself being outside the textbook get-married-and-have-your-own-kids-model. So, through prayer and a lot of meditation I changed my heart and willingly decided to adopt a child (a real exercise in overcoming my natural wishes and inclinations). I was truly filled with love for this child that would grow up in a home with conscientious full parents in the gospel, and now WANTED to do it, feeling I had aligned myself with God’s will as Abraham did.
And then we went through the adoption process, the Church agency rejected us for the most terrible reasons and in a very harsh manner at the last step.
I felt similar feelings of bewilderment, almost as if God had fooled me into putting myself out there only to be knocked down in the cruelest way. However, the lasting feeling of angst was torward the Church with all its claims as a divinely directed and inspired organization, and not toward God, for some reason.
So, M&G, how did you move past the jarring realization the priesthood blessing didn’t come to pass, as well as the implications that flooded your mind and heart for a while afterwards?
I would say this topic is the very heart of my faith crisis 3 years ago. I guess I move past it by recognizing that spiritual guidance doesn’t have to come to pass. I have to let go of that NEED to have the spiritual guidance. I can only reason that if the Lord feels its not important in my life (because I can figure things out on my own, or needto figure things out on my own, or just that I’ll be OK without spiritual guidance coming to pass) then there must be other important things to experience in this life. Its not that spiritual guidance doesn’t
everhappen, just that it doesn’t always have tohappen. I think I really needed to be humbled, because my prior faith really was making me feel like I could control the universe around me because I held the Priesthood. That is not God’s will.
It was this realization when I came up with my statement Roy uses in his signature line
Quote:“I struggle now with establishing my faith that God may always be there, but may not always need to intervene” Heber13
The trick is, how do I now re-engage my faith, and how far do I let my hopes and beliefs in things like priesthood blessings to work in my life while balanced with realization from experience that they won’t always be fulfilled, even when spiritual people I trust have full faith in it?
For me, Buddhism helps. Living in the now. Letting go of the past or expectations of the future, and be at peace that whatever happens will happen, and now I feel peace. Its a more humble approach, and I let God run the universe, and I stop trying to control things around me.
Most of the time I feel like Alex in Job: A Comedy of Justice (yes I have read it). I pray for this..get something completely different. Or I pray for something and get exactly what I prayed for only to find out it was totally wrong. As for Priesthood blessings..I don’t even remember the last one I had, it’s been probably over 20 years ago. Even though I have asked on several occasions I am always told to contact my home teachers…which I’d do, if I knew who they were. And yes I have asked, and am going on 3 bishops now, who my home teachers are repeatedly. Meh I figure those blessings are for other people. Sorry to be such a downer but after years of trying and being in the midst of a health scare right now and having no one (even though I have asked) to step up and offer a blessing leaves me a bit blase to the whole Priesthood blessing thing. I look at it as if I can go 40 plus years with less than a hand full of blessing, why start now. Obviously I’m not supposed to have them for some reason.
Other forms of Spiritual Guidance always comes to me in forms at weird times. Last August when my house was broken into, the spirit told me to go in and secure my back door differntly…I was thinking well locked the locks what does that mean. The thought came into my head to secure it differntly in a different form and I countered myself again thinking the locks are locked. And the teenage boys that broke in actaully popped the locks from the outside ruining the frame completely. Had I listened at that time and did what I was thinking or was told they couldn’t have done that, and it was such an odd solution I know I never could have just randomly thought of it. I was totally inactive at the time and was not in tune with the spirit.
I’ve had a couple of other things happen too, but mostly its the Alex in the book stuff. I think sometimes I must be the court jester.
Strangely enough I find buhhdism and it’s teachings help me a great deal too.
SilentDawning wrote:So, M&G, how did you move past the jarring realization the priesthood blessing didn’t come to pass, as well as the implications that flooded your mind and heart for a while afterwards?
Because I’d had powerful and undeniable spiritual experiences prior to the miscarriage, I couldn’t just walk away. I was angry with God but I knew He was there. We weren’t on speaking terms for a bit because I needed time to digest everthing and think it through. Even after the hurt subsided, years passed before I could adequately explain how I feel about the priesthood. Some days, I still struggle with it.
Basically, I’ve come to believe that we misuse the priesthood by turning our men and boys into on-demand miracle makers. Healings and such were really only a secondary purpose of the piesthood and seeking signs like these was the mark of an adulterous generation. Christ succinctly explained the real purpose of the priesthood and that is to bring reconciliation through forgiveness – or lead others to the atonement. Remember when He asked
For which is greater? To forgive sins or to say Take up thy bed and walk?Even Pharoah’s wise men could imitate Moses’ miracles but only a divine act can make priests of men and Gods of mere mortals.
Sometimes, we receive a healing or perceive some divine intervention in our lives and sometimes we don’t but God is always granting the real miracle which culminates, not just in returning to His presence, but in becoming like Him.
I struggle with it too. I don’t know how you would feel about this, but the most uncomfortable experience I had was when a man in my quorum called me because his wife’s mother was dying. I found her stretched out on a bed in a contortion and she looked like she’d already died. She was unresponsive and hadn’t eaten for 3 days. They asked me to give her a blessing. I was really conflicted. In my view, she was at death’s door, 90 years old, and all these family members were looking at me with hope. I felt REALLY uncomfortable and just said whatever I thought I should say. She did eventually die, but it’s unclear whether the blessing I gave was fulfilled or not.
Bottom line, I do feel a bit like an on-demand miracle worker and the pressure can be very uncomfortable and perhaps even unfair. But I’ve also had experiences where I gave blessings, felt the spirit wash over me, and said things that came to pass, and that were counter to the prevailing beliefs of doctors and such. And felt totally swept out in inside afterwards, as if my spirit had been cleansed through the act of using the priesthood.
This is another one of those things I put on the shelf. But I keep giving blessings because of Brian’s observation that whether we are actually tapping into divine power or not, we certainly give comfort to people by visiting them, nurturing their faith. With your own children, it provides another medium or way of expressing love and also affirming their worth and alsok, giving counsel and instruction. Also, we often find ourselves in situations where there is nothing we can do to the help the person. They own the problem and no one can do anything to help them. But, we can give a blessing, and this tends to leave the problem squarely in their hands, with God.
Some might call it unethical. Since my experiences are as positive as they are ambiguous, I think I’ll keep giving them as I feel worthy to do so.
I have come to accept that I only can say what comes into my mind and hope it is helpful in some way. I always go into a blessing hoping and praying to be a conduit for God’s voice, since I have had a handful of such experiences that were undeniable, but that is out of literally hundreds of blessings I’ve given in my life. It probably works out to less than 1% as undeniable voice of God experiences, 1-4% as probably my own mistaken thoughts and 95% as not sure of the source but good words of comfort that helped in some way. I’m ok with that, and I’m willing to muddle through hundreds of comforting encouragements to experience the very few unmistakable revelatory experiences that have been spaced a decade or so apart.
SD, I think that often we seek blessings to subvert the actual purposes of mortality. Most of my growth has come by going through experiences rather than around them. In other words, often our appeals to God are so that He will align His will to ours rather than the other way around. If His will is the determining factor in the efficacy of priesthood blessings, prayers, and petitions, then the miracle we should be seeking is to align our will to His.
So… I would consider it the first order of business to ascertain the Lord’s will. From what I can tell, miraculous intervention in temporal affairs is rarely consistent with His plan. If He wanted us to skip the adversities, He would have figured out how to create a plan that doesn’t depend on the existence of opposition (2 Ne 2). More often than not, He allows us to endure the mourning so that we can receive the comfort. (Matt 5)
Interesting perspective M&G. I actually find your answer more palatable than the whole concept of a priesthood blessing. In fact, there are times when I have found the whole faith in priesthood blessings thing a bit cruel. We are expected to have faith and believe with certainty, and then, find the blessing doesn’t come to pass. I find that rather harsh from a kind and loving God to raise expectations that way, when such expectations may not otherwise have been raised. I think that’s hard on people really, and it DOES hurt one’s relationship with God, in my view.
SilentDawning wrote:I think that’s hard on people really, and it DOES hurt one’s relationship with God, in my view.
I agree, it certainly can be devastating. I tend to look back on that experience I described in my intro thread as preparatory. Not only did I gain so much insight from the experience itself, but it prepared me for more difficult trials that were still to come.
I think a lot of people go through that devastation. It seems the church teaches such things can happen with faith, and the stories that get told and retold are examples of successful experiences by some. They don’t prepare us for when it doesn’t happen. We are sometimes left to wonder what it means on our own, or it is uncomfortable to talk to others about without sounding less faithful. MNG, what did you come with for telling yourself what it means when the blessing didn’t come to pass? How does your dad view it?
I suppose I’m lucky. Very little in my blessings has been particularly specific, other than “eventually” finding a wife! Wow, this is a loaded topic. My wife has a friend who has often asked me to give her blessings for spiritual guidance. She expects a fortune-telling session that will spell out exactly what will happen and what she should do. My wife sits nearby with a pen and pad, taking dictation. Talk about pressure. There have been times when I felt truly inspired and other time when I knew I was just phoning it in. I finally explained to my wife what a weight it is to have people expecting you to be a prophet at the drop of a hat. She understood and finally told her friend that she needed to go to her bishop and home teachers for blessings. My wife also stopped asking for blessings from me as often as she used to, so maybe I burst her bubble to some degree. Korash
I was at an MTC missionary fireside where Sterling W. Sill (how’s that for an age givaway?) was talking about patriarchal blessings. He asked, “How many of you were told in your patriarchal blessing that you would be one of the two prophets who would be killed in the streets of Jerusalem and be resurrected just before the second coming?” Several hands went up. “Don’t you believe it!” he yelled, “Sometimes patriarchs just get carried away!” Korash
I have a couple of experiences that I use as good mile markers for blessings. The first happened a couple years ago. In a former ward we had a man who was ill for a long time. I believe he was on life-support. The family asked the Bishop to give him a blessing and send him home. As I recall the Bishop prayed all day for guidance. During the blessing he said what came to his mind. He blessed the man with the power to make the decision on his own. Eventually the man lived. I really liked learning that the Bishop did what he felt from his prayers not just a commanded blessing. Which brings me to the second one (but it was really the first). I am a believer in priesthood blessings, but I have also been cautioned repeatedly not to over use the gift. However when I was much younger I had a surgery that wasn’t healing like I wanted. I had had two different blessings promising me that I would be healed. But it wasn’t happening on my time. I really was afraid I was not going to get better. I had an impression to call my Bishop. We talked on the phone he told me I could meet with him the next evening. When I got there he explained that he had fasted all day, and he kept having an impression of a scripture story. He went ahead and told me the story. Already I was sensing I wasn’t getting what I wanted. I was right. In his blessing he blessed me with courage. I was ticked. I was mad at everyone – especially God. Earlier in the day I had told my mom I was sure I would be healed just like the woman who touched Jesus robes. I was convinced that I deserved it, especially after I had been promised in two previous blessings to be healed.
I went to bed mad. A strange thing happened when I slept – I remembered scripture passages I had forgotten from my youth. The next day the passages or the parts of passages kept turning in my head. I decided to sit down and look them up. Each of them were passages of encouragement. As I let them soak in my anger turned. I realized my expectations really were the problem. And that I really did need courage the recovery was meant to be painful. It was a necessary life lesson. Eventually, after much personal effort I did become healed – I needed to be a part of it.
With both of these I was reminded that if I truly believe in God then I need to look for his guidance. Sometimes it comes in blessings, sometimes it comes in strength, sometimes he lets things run for a while because the lessons I will learn will benefit and be a blessing.
Thanks for starting this thread I hadn’t thought of these two events in a long time. Great reminder for me.
Quote:Eventually, after much personal effort I did become healed – I needed to be a part of it.
That is an incredibly profound concept – and it relates to SO much of what we discuss here. We really do need to be part of our own healing.
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