Have you ever heard prophetic advice that felt hard to hear or felt at odds with your personal life circumstances?
Author, teacher, and scriptorian Camille Fronk Olson and host Laurel Day had an insightful discussion about this exact topic on this week’s Magnify podcast.
Both women shared times when a prophet’s counsel didn’t align with their life circumstances or was hard to hear. In Laurel’s words, thinking that “if [the prophet] was just talking to me right now and knew my life circumstances, he wouldn't have said that. …
“[We might think], ‘If he was talking to me and my family, if he knew the situation with my child, if he knew what was going on in our home, if he knew about me as a single woman trying to navigate this family-oriented church, he would have said that differently,’” she continued. “What do we do then? When it’s … clearly prophetic counsel, and it causes pain or hurt?”
In response, Camille brought up one of her favorite examples from scripture of a similar scenario: when Lehi’s wife, Sariah, wanted to follow prophetic counsel but found this desire at odds with her emotions and circumstances.
For years, perhaps even decades, Sariah had been comfortable following the counsel of her husband, the prophet. She had agreed to do hard things like leave their home and live in the wilderness. But her breaking point came when her sons didn’t return home from getting the brass plates. She thought she’d lost them and complained against Lehi for being a visionary man.
Camille shared her interpretation of this story, explaining:
“[Sariah] is an example where God just keeps pushing because—this is the way I interpret it—He wasn’t happy with her just being comfortable doing whatever Lehi told her because he’s the prophet and he’s got all the revelations.
”And I think, maybe for the first time, it wasn’t enough for Sariah to get confirmation from her prophet husband that they’re going to be okay. … [I think] she was praying in a way she had never prayed before, and she developed a relationship with her Father in Heaven that she had never had before. And when those boys return, it all comes together. We hear her voice, and she says, ‘Now I know of a surety that God has brought us here.’
”I think Nephi puts that story in because it wasn’t enough for a family that’s going to be the foundation for establishing a record, that would be the major instrument in bringing people to Christ in the latter days. It wasn’t enough to have a prophet, husband, or even an heir apparent. That family needed a matriarch who knew the truth and had a witness for herself, and that her witness is going to be the one going forward that’s going to make a difference.”
► You may also like: Sariah shows us how to answer the delicate question: What if I don’t ‘know’?
Laurel responded with her own modern-day take:
“I love thinking about the story of Sariah and the modern-day. And the possibility that some of the hard things that we hear, or policies, or application of truths, is actually an opportunity for greater revelation that wouldn’t come any other way unless she was driven to her knees to say, ‘Okay, Lord, I hear this. I see this in my home, in my life, in my family. What would you have me do? What would you have me learn? What would you have me understand? Because this over here doesn’t match.’
“And all of us, like Sariah at that moment, would never learn that any other way if there wasn’t that wrestle, if there wasn’t that tension that literally got us to our knees to say, ‘What I’m hearing is hard. What I’m hearing feels incongruent [with] what I think is right. How does this apply to me and my children and my family?’
“It was one thing to be dutiful, obedient, [and say yes] to the prophet, and quite another for her to say, ‘Hey, wait a minute.’
“And it doesn’t negate the truth of what Lehi was doing or saying, but it gave Sariah an opportunity—and perhaps it gives all of us an opportunity—to see how that truth can actually come into our lives in a very personal way.”
As a woman and a mother, I love the idea of this need for spiritual conviction in the matriarch of this scriptural powerhouse family. It speaks volumes about the power of women within the home, within their families, and within the Church.
Like President Spencer W. Kimball said 45 years ago, in a conference address fittingly delivered by his wife, Camilla:
“Much of the major growth that is coming to the Church in the last days will come because many of the good women of the world … will be drawn to the Church in large numbers. This will happen to the degree that the women of the Church reflect righteousness and articulateness in their lives and to the degree that the women of the Church are seen as distinct and different—in happy ways—from the women of the world.”
I also believe the distinct and different ways we live our lives can show up in our wards and Relief Society rooms. It takes prayer, effort, and lots of personal revelation. Still, our individual wrestle with prophetic counsel—and how to apply it—can be the thing that strengthens us, helps us build a deeper, more committed relationship with God, and cements our desire to follow the prophet.
You can listen to the entire discussion from the Magnify podcast in the player below.
Seek and Expect Miracles
Come be inspired to act on President Russell M. Nelson’s invitation to seek and expect miracles—the miracles of joy, peace, faith, and hope that we can find in Christ.
