Not long ago I made a comment on Facebook about opposition in all things. A friend of mine took issue with my comment and gave me some intriguing feedback. This spurred me on a journey to better understand what opposition in all things really means and how it is related to agency.
Agency is a beautiful thing. It's profoundly simple, it's meaningful, it's pure, and yet it's our greatest fear and we all have it no matter what.
Agency is a beautiful thing. It's profoundly simple, it's meaningful, it's pure, and yet it's our greatest fear and we all have it no matter what.
Before this life we lived with God as spirits. (Note, you may have a different set of religious beliefs than me, so if I state a doctrine like this and you disagree with it, pass it over. I'm not here to convince you of my religious beliefs, I am only using some of them as a backdrop for my understanding of the principles at hand.) There was a war in heaven during that time (Rev. 12:3-9) in which we were able to choose to fight on God's side or Satan's side. Actually, it says "a third part," which means maybe another choice was to sit on the sidelines, I'm not sure. At any rate, we had agency there.
Point: agency extends beyond just this mortal sphere.
But how did we have agency? What enabled the choice? "The Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other." (2 Ne. 2:16) Could there have been any choice to make in Heaven if there was only God to choose from? Quite simply, there could not, and a third part chose to follow Satan.
Point: for our agency to take on any semblance of meaning, there had to be options -- there had to be a choice!
Point: for our agency to take on any semblance of meaning, there had to be options -- there had to be a choice!
"For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so. . .righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad." (2 Ne. 2:11) "And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not there is no God. And if there is no God we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things." (2 Ne 2:13)
So there were opposing options first, which granted us agency. But that's not the beginning of it either! We don't know much here, but it seems we had choice even prior to that. "And the Lord said: Whom shall I send? And one answered like unto the Son of Man: Here am I, send me. And another answered and said: Here am I, send me. And the Lord said: I will send the first." It sounds as though any of us could have made the choice to volunteer ourselves.
Satan had the choice to do so at any rate. It seems he chose to create another plan and present it, "saying--Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor. But, behold, my Beloved Son, which was my Beloved and Chosen from the beginning, said unto me--Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever." (Moses 4:1-2) And so there were options - to volunteer or not volunteer; to choose God's plan or present another of our own.
Point: inasmuch as there is agency, there is opposition in all things; inasmuch as agency is an eternal principle, opposition in all things is an eternal principle.
But wait, if opposition in all things is eternal, does this mean we have to continually face difficulty through the eternities? Isn't the promise of heaven that we can rest from such?! I do not believe eternal difficulties await us, and I hope to illustrate why both may coincide by the end of this post.
We live in a world today that is full of opposing choices. No matter what situation we are in, we are at choice at least to some degree. Victor Frankl said "Everything can be taken from man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms--to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." (Man's Search for Meaning)
Men and environment may conspire to limit, alter, or remove our options of choice, be it through abuse, disaster, injury, death, misunderstanding, illness, etc. These trials, as we call them, are our circumstances. For every such circumstance and experience there is also an opposite possibility: love, comfortable weather, miraculous protection, birth, understanding, health, etc. We generally call these circumstances blessings, I think because we like them.
Now here's what intrigues me about this whole thing. I do not see anything that says we have to experience one side to partake of the other. I don't believe that this is what opposition in all things means.
For example, do we have to experience a tornado to experience a sunny day? No. Do we have to experience illness to experience health? Of course not. Now, we do rightly have to experience birth before we can experience death, that's part of life's process. That said, we do not have to experience a painful death of a loved one to thus be able to experience the joy of a child's birth.
Point: opposition in all things is not about experience, it's about choice.
It seems to me that 2 Nephi 2:23 supports this. It reads (emphasis added) "wherefore [Adam and Eve] would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin." These verb choices intrigue me.
Christ "went about doing good" (Acts 10:38) and yet He never sinned. Did He know sin? Of course! He saw it all around Him! And beyond that, Satan tempted Him! (Matthew 4:3-10) Jesus was given the chance to "[be] enticed by the one or the other," and He chose righteousness.
Point: opposition in all things explains that there are different circumstances we may experience, but it does not imply that we must experience opposing circumstances.
This all leads me to an intriguing question: Do you think Christ ever labelled any of His life experiences as bad? There were evil men conspiring against Him continually, there were many who claimed to be His friends who turned away from Him, and on and on. From my perspective, it seems He had many trying experiences... but did anything bad happen to Him? (Please note that I am distinguishing bad from evil.) Perhaps the most evil act in all of mankind was His cruciferous (is that the right word?) martyrdom, but it seems to me that Christ did not look upon it as a bad experience for himself. Undesirable, unpleasant, horrible, painful, excruciating, rooted in evil, vile, unjust... yes! All of those and more! And yet it was a necessary part of His work and our salvation.
Christ's eternal life is the ultimate example of the principle that problems manifest solutions that work to our advantage. Or in the words of God Himself, "know thou, my son, that all these things shall give the experience, and shall be for thy good. The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?" (D&C 122:7,8)
Point: our experiences work for our gain. They may be heartrendingly painful or rejoice-fully blissful, but believing that all our experiences are for our good gives strength and perspective to not just endure, but endure well our trials.
I recently heard this amusing anecdote: "we call them trials because they're hard -- there's a reason we don't call it a happy!" I laughed, and then I started thinking about it. After some thought and research, I have come to believe that the two are not mutually exclusive.
Using Google, it seems the etymology of trial comes from triet or to try, i.e. the act or process of testing. Tests do not have happiness abolition as a requirement. I have taken some very fun tests! Indeed, in sports, a test that is your equal or slightly better is the most enjoyable to engage!
President Thomas S. Monson said "To live greatly, we must develop the capacity to face trouble with courage, disappointment with cheerfulness, and triumph with humility."
Point: Happiness and trials are not mutually exclusive; we can find and maintain happiness even in the midst of them.
Also, to say there is no sadness in trial is folly. Tears of sorrow are common and even welcome. I believe crying is a God-given gift to express feeling and console the soul. However, it is worth noting that sadness is not the opposite of happiness! A sense of sorrow and joy can co-exist such as when we feel the loss of a loved one who passes while also feeling the joy that s/he is rejoicing with loved ones beyond, or when a mother sees off her missionary son and feels sad to see him go, yet is overjoyed with his righteous choice. This is what mixed emotions is all about. (Mosiah 25:8-11) The opposite of happiness, then, is misery (2 Nephi 2:13). Thanks to Christ, even in the darkness of immense trial, we can learn to embrace sorrow, happiness, and other emotions while putting away the depressant misery.
Were it not for Christ, I believe misery would be unavoidable. It is only through Him that happiness, joy, hope, and peace are afforded, through Him that this "milk and honey" are available to us "without money and without price." (2 Ne. 26:25)
Point: Happiness and sadness are emotional blessings and not mutually exclusive. We can experience both simultaneously and, when in the midst of trial, we can seek these over misery. Overcoming misery requires Christ and through Him we may have peace.
Conclusion
Finally, I love the following quote by Haruki Murakami:
"And once the storm is over, you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about."
Opposition in all things is not referring to our circumstances but to our choices and their consequences. There are options to choose from by which we may be enticed and these options have their differing consequences. Those consequences lead to opposing circumstances, and thus opposition in all things has a relationship with circumstance, but only consequentially.
No matter our circumstance, whether our circumstances be difficult or delightful, we are at choice and we can find happiness. If we choose to view all experiences as for our good, we will have no use for the "this is a horrible experience" victim mentality. We may recognize a circumstance as horrible, yet we find no value in focusing on that. We may feel sorrow, but we can dismiss misery through Christ. What opposition in all things represents is that in a given moment, we are at choice, and our choice will determine who we become.
Satan had the choice to do so at any rate. It seems he chose to create another plan and present it, "saying--Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor. But, behold, my Beloved Son, which was my Beloved and Chosen from the beginning, said unto me--Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever." (Moses 4:1-2) And so there were options - to volunteer or not volunteer; to choose God's plan or present another of our own.
Point: inasmuch as there is agency, there is opposition in all things; inasmuch as agency is an eternal principle, opposition in all things is an eternal principle.
But wait, if opposition in all things is eternal, does this mean we have to continually face difficulty through the eternities? Isn't the promise of heaven that we can rest from such?! I do not believe eternal difficulties await us, and I hope to illustrate why both may coincide by the end of this post.
We live in a world today that is full of opposing choices. No matter what situation we are in, we are at choice at least to some degree. Victor Frankl said "Everything can be taken from man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms--to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." (Man's Search for Meaning)
Men and environment may conspire to limit, alter, or remove our options of choice, be it through abuse, disaster, injury, death, misunderstanding, illness, etc. These trials, as we call them, are our circumstances. For every such circumstance and experience there is also an opposite possibility: love, comfortable weather, miraculous protection, birth, understanding, health, etc. We generally call these circumstances blessings, I think because we like them.
Now here's what intrigues me about this whole thing. I do not see anything that says we have to experience one side to partake of the other. I don't believe that this is what opposition in all things means.
For example, do we have to experience a tornado to experience a sunny day? No. Do we have to experience illness to experience health? Of course not. Now, we do rightly have to experience birth before we can experience death, that's part of life's process. That said, we do not have to experience a painful death of a loved one to thus be able to experience the joy of a child's birth.
Point: opposition in all things is not about experience, it's about choice.
It seems to me that 2 Nephi 2:23 supports this. It reads (emphasis added) "wherefore [Adam and Eve] would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin." These verb choices intrigue me.
Christ "went about doing good" (Acts 10:38) and yet He never sinned. Did He know sin? Of course! He saw it all around Him! And beyond that, Satan tempted Him! (Matthew 4:3-10) Jesus was given the chance to "[be] enticed by the one or the other," and He chose righteousness.
Point: opposition in all things explains that there are different circumstances we may experience, but it does not imply that we must experience opposing circumstances.
This all leads me to an intriguing question: Do you think Christ ever labelled any of His life experiences as bad? There were evil men conspiring against Him continually, there were many who claimed to be His friends who turned away from Him, and on and on. From my perspective, it seems He had many trying experiences... but did anything bad happen to Him? (Please note that I am distinguishing bad from evil.) Perhaps the most evil act in all of mankind was His cruciferous (is that the right word?) martyrdom, but it seems to me that Christ did not look upon it as a bad experience for himself. Undesirable, unpleasant, horrible, painful, excruciating, rooted in evil, vile, unjust... yes! All of those and more! And yet it was a necessary part of His work and our salvation.
Christ's eternal life is the ultimate example of the principle that problems manifest solutions that work to our advantage. Or in the words of God Himself, "know thou, my son, that all these things shall give the experience, and shall be for thy good. The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?" (D&C 122:7,8)
Point: our experiences work for our gain. They may be heartrendingly painful or rejoice-fully blissful, but believing that all our experiences are for our good gives strength and perspective to not just endure, but endure well our trials.
I recently heard this amusing anecdote: "we call them trials because they're hard -- there's a reason we don't call it a happy!" I laughed, and then I started thinking about it. After some thought and research, I have come to believe that the two are not mutually exclusive.
Using Google, it seems the etymology of trial comes from triet or to try, i.e. the act or process of testing. Tests do not have happiness abolition as a requirement. I have taken some very fun tests! Indeed, in sports, a test that is your equal or slightly better is the most enjoyable to engage!
President Thomas S. Monson said "To live greatly, we must develop the capacity to face trouble with courage, disappointment with cheerfulness, and triumph with humility."
Point: Happiness and trials are not mutually exclusive; we can find and maintain happiness even in the midst of them.
In all this, I do not desire to make light of anyone's pain. I don't doubt the difficulty encountered nor the effort and courage mustered to face trials of enormous proportions. Healing can take time. Healing can also take effort. Yet healing does not exclude joy, happiness, or optimism, rather it encourages them from what may be tender and shallow soil.
Also, to say there is no sadness in trial is folly. Tears of sorrow are common and even welcome. I believe crying is a God-given gift to express feeling and console the soul. However, it is worth noting that sadness is not the opposite of happiness! A sense of sorrow and joy can co-exist such as when we feel the loss of a loved one who passes while also feeling the joy that s/he is rejoicing with loved ones beyond, or when a mother sees off her missionary son and feels sad to see him go, yet is overjoyed with his righteous choice. This is what mixed emotions is all about. (Mosiah 25:8-11) The opposite of happiness, then, is misery (2 Nephi 2:13). Thanks to Christ, even in the darkness of immense trial, we can learn to embrace sorrow, happiness, and other emotions while putting away the depressant misery.
Were it not for Christ, I believe misery would be unavoidable. It is only through Him that happiness, joy, hope, and peace are afforded, through Him that this "milk and honey" are available to us "without money and without price." (2 Ne. 26:25)
Point: Happiness and sadness are emotional blessings and not mutually exclusive. We can experience both simultaneously and, when in the midst of trial, we can seek these over misery. Overcoming misery requires Christ and through Him we may have peace.
Conclusion
Finally, I love the following quote by Haruki Murakami:
"And once the storm is over, you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about."
Opposition in all things is not referring to our circumstances but to our choices and their consequences. There are options to choose from by which we may be enticed and these options have their differing consequences. Those consequences lead to opposing circumstances, and thus opposition in all things has a relationship with circumstance, but only consequentially.
No matter our circumstance, whether our circumstances be difficult or delightful, we are at choice and we can find happiness. If we choose to view all experiences as for our good, we will have no use for the "this is a horrible experience" victim mentality. We may recognize a circumstance as horrible, yet we find no value in focusing on that. We may feel sorrow, but we can dismiss misery through Christ. What opposition in all things represents is that in a given moment, we are at choice, and our choice will determine who we become.
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