"And now my son, Shiblon, I would that ye should remember, that as much as ye shall put your trust in God even so much ye shall be delivered out of your trials, and your troubles, and your afflictions, and ye shall be lifted up at the last day."
The phrases that stuck out to me were "as much" as you put your trust in the Lord, and "so much" you'll be delivered from your trials. As I read this, the image that popped into my mind was this written as a math equation on a chalkboard: As much faith as you have=How much deliverance you get.
But that can't be correct, because even the most faithful of people, like President Kimball, who suffered from serious health challenges during his life, don't have their troubles taken magically away. But it sounded that way from the words right there on the page that I decided to study this one scripture, break it down and try to understand what the Lord is really telling us. So I went onto lds.org and opened up their online Study Notebook to see what insights I could find. It's the first time I ever used it and I loved it! It was kind of nice to be able to see the cross-referenced scriptures pop up right there next to the scripture you're reading so you can see them at the same time. There are three footnotes to this scripture, for the words "trust", "delivered", and "troubles". In those footnotes, I discovered what the Lord is really saying.
For "trust", Psalms 50:15 and D&C 100:17 talk about calling upon the name of the Lord in our troubles. Trust here means praying to Him-with faith- and asking for His help.
"Delivered" is cross-referenced to Matthew 11: 28-30:
"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
" Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest to your souls.
"For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
Christ says we can become yoked to Him to make our burdens light. Now, yokes are custom made specially for the cattle who are going to be wearing them. Each cattles' neck and head are different, and if it isn't made to exact specifications, it will be painful and uncomfortable-even crippling-to the one wearing it. When we allow Christ to share our burden, to become yoked to Him, He individualizes our care to lighten our load. None of this necessarily means that our burdens are going to be taken away. They may still be there, but be easier to endure.
I find it interesting that Christ says 'my burden is light." You don't think of Christ having burdens or problems, because He's the perfect and saving one. He helps and saves all of us, the people with all the burdens! But surely He did suffer ALL burdens. He may have done it in a garden 2,000 years ago, but He did. And he remembers every single one.
So with Him our burdens become easier, lighter, and that's what we all desire isn't it? I know it's what I want. Some days I will have reached my limit and just want all the bad stuff to be completely removed, eradicated from my life. Other days I can be content with just a little reprieve. I don't know what "rest" to my soul will come exactly, but I'm much happier when I have hope in the Savior that it will come.
Even if we have our troubles till the day we die, we will be much happier if we call upon and ask the Lord for His help, yoke ourselves to Him and accept the blessings he has for us, trusting that whatever deliverance He has planned can be enough for us to, even in this life, find rest to our souls.
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