Live by Faith

In an effort to understand why things are happening to people I love I turned to Job.  I'm sure I've read Job before in seminary studies, but I've never read it before with questions in direct need of answers.

After reading some of Job, I still felt like I needed greater understanding and turned to the Institute Old Testament manual for more insight where I found this quote by Spencer W. Kimball.

"Who is responsible for man’s troubles? Was it the Lord who directed the plane into the mountainside? Did God cause the highway collision? Was it He who prompted the young child to toddle into the canal or the man to suffer the heart attack? Responding to these questions, President Kimball said:

“Answer, if you can. I cannot, for though I know God has a major role in our lives, I do not know how much he causes to happen and how much he merely permits. Whatever the answer to this question, there is another I feel sure about.

“Could the Lord have prevented these tragedies? The answer is, Yes. The Lord is omnipotent, with all power to control our lives, save us pain, prevent all accidents, drive all planes and cars, feed us, protect us, save us from labor, effort, sickness, even from death, if he will. But he will not.” (Faith Precedes the Miracle, p. 96.)

Spencer W. Kimball continues in Faith Precedes the Miracle with this thought in Chapter Eight:

"If we looked at mortality as the whole of existence, then pain, sorrow, failure, and short life would be calamity. But if we look upon life as an eternal thing stretching far into the premortal past and on into the eternal post-death future, then all happenings may be put in proper perspective.

Is there not wisdom in his giving us trials that we might rise above them, responsibilities that we might achieve, work to harden our muscles, sorrows to try our souls? Are we not exposed to temptations to test our strength, sickness that we might learn patience, death that we might be immortalized and glorified?

If all the sick for whom we pray were healed, if all the righteous were protected and the wicked destroyed, the whole program of the Father would be annulled and the basic principle of the gospel, free agency, would be ended. No man would have to live by faith.