Semana 31

Dear Elder Lutze,

I continue to pray for you and your area! Life here consists of work at work and work at home. I’m actually writing my life history using my journals. It’s fun to see what an 11 year old mind thinks is important. Also preparing for our Israel trip and Europe…  lots still to do but getting there. Everyone’s just busy with their stuff 

Rachael’s studying for the CCRN and working on CRNA apps.

Hannah and Foster are busy with the boys.  Foster’s buried in shadowing working and studying for the MCAT.

Natalie is almost done with her Bachelors and working two jobs. We’ve seen her more recently and she actually seems to want to be here with us. It’s a nice change. I continue to pray and fast for her and put her name on the temple prayer roll. 

We miss you but also know you are where you should be at this time in your life. I know the Lord loves you and your effort! He is a tender tutor! I love this word for our Savior. It implies a one on one teaching relationship!

Love

 Mom

Thoughts this week…

Luke 18:1-14 Parable of the Unjust Judge

This is one very clear lesson we can draw from the parable. No matter how difficult our challenges or trials, the Lord fully expects us to continue in prayer, even if there seems to be no answer forthcoming. Why? Because we are not trying to change God’s heart; God is trying to change our hearts! Because our Father knows us intimately and loves us infinitely, there are times when He may be saying to us, “This is an opportunity for you to grow in faith, in trust, in spirituality, and in experience. Because I love you, I will not take away such opportunities from you.” 

“We need strength beyond ourselves to keep the commandments in whatever circumstance life brings to us. The combination of trials and their duration are as varied as are the children of our Heavenly Father. No two are alike. But what is being tested is the same, at all times in our lives and for every person: will we do whatsoever the Lord our God will command us?” —Henry B. Eyring

The process of self-examination and subsequent change is so important to our spiritual growth and spiritual self-reliance that sometimes the Lord deliberately holds back because we would miss a growth opportunity if He answered us right away. Why would He intervene and terminate the process before the lessons are learned, before the desired maturing has occurred? To use a very inadequate analogy, it would be like an Olympic track and field coach lowering the hurdles because so many runners are bashing their knees against them and crashing onto the track. On the contrary, once runners push themselves to clear every hurdle with ease, what does the coach do? He raises the hurdles.

Elder Neal A. Maxwell coined a phrase that captures the essence of the lesson of the parable of the unjust judge: “In no dimension of the divine personality of Jesus Christ do we see His love any more fully expressed than in the divine tutorials given especially to His friends—those who believe in and who strive to follow Him, leaders and followers alike, rich and poor alike, men and women alike, for He is ‘no respecter of persons.’ He would not deny these enriching but stretching divine tutorials to any who follow Him, especially those who have already done much to prove their friendship for Him and are thus ready for further lessons.”4

Tutorial is an interesting choice of words. Tutoring is distinguished from other kinds of teaching, not so much in what is taught but in how it is taught and the nature of the teacher. The standard definition of a tutor is that he or she is a highly qualified, private teacher who teaches a single student or a small group of students. And typically this takes place over a long period of time. The word tutor has its etymological roots in the Latin tutorem, a “guardian, or watcher.”

“Let us trust the Lord and take the next steps in our individual lives. He has promised us that he will be our tender tutor, measuring what we are ready for.”

—Spencer W. Kimball

In God we have the perfect tutor, and though He serves all of His children, each of His tutorials is intensely personal and highly individualized. If we will accept Him, He is in our lives for the long haul, not to work quick fixes or undertake minor adjustments. Elder Maxwell went on to say: “Perhaps these divine tutorials carry such a high priority because the more we are fully developed here, the more chores and opportunities we can be given in the world to come—chores and opportunities that, without growth through tutoring, simply could not be entrusted to us.”

We can ask ourselves over and over why the Lord doesn’t intervene when we are enduring some heart-wrenching trial in our lives. It is tempting to raise a fist to heaven and cry out: “Why aren’t you answering me?” Many times, we may be delaying those answers because of things we are doing or things we should be doing. But there are times when the answer is something else entirely. Elder Maxwell called such times “divine tutorials.” Others have referred to them as “trials of our faith,” “being tested so we can prove ourselves worthy,” or the “inevitable tragedies of life.”

Why isn’t God answering me?

If we listen carefully, we may hear this simple response: “Because I love you.”

Why Isn’t God Answering Me? Lund