Two Latter-day Saint youth speakers attempted to answer a question frequently posed by their audiences: “Why don’t angels come and visit me? Why don’t the heavens open and pour out glorious manifestations?”
Another institute teacher expressed his answer to their question this way: “If you want a Joseph Smith sized testimony, you’re going to have Joseph Smith sized trials.” Yes, the heavens opened for him on many occasions, and he saw God. There is opposition in all things, and he had trials as great as his blessings. False accusations, unjust imprisonment, stillborn babies or children dying in infancy, persecution of his friends while he was helpless in prison, a stubborn and deaf world that would not believe him, and even believing friends who were not ready to hear everything he wanted to share but could not, were a few of the hardships that hounded Joseph Smith throughout his life.
It is my testimony that miracles still happen today, on a regular basis. Most of the time, those who experience them are prompted by the Spirit not to share them, except in private circumstances with particular individuals. Strangely, this is for the benefit of those who are not yet ready to hear them.
Know It Vs. Do It
For those who cannot upgrade their behavior to match their knowledge, witnessing miracles and visions would heap condemnation on their heads. Rarely does witnessing a miracle, by itself, produce lasting good behavior.
Think of Laman and Lemuel, witnessing miracles and even hearing the voice of God and seeing angels. The last we ever hear of them in the Book of Mormon is that they are plotting to murder their prophet-brother Nephi again. The entire tribe of Israel is brought to the foot of Mount Sinai by a series of unforgettable miracles, and when they are invited to come up the mountain and meet Jehovah face to face, they decline the offer, and insist that Moses go up as their representative to get the good word for them. While he is gone up the mountain, they build a golden calf to worship, and begin breaking all ten of the commandments they just heard God utter.
The correlation between knowledge and behavior is not that strong in people. Today we do all sorts of things that are bad for us, but we do them anyway. With spiritual things, the greater the knowledge, the greater the potential for condemnation: “And now, how much more cursed is he that knoweth the will of God and doeth it not, than he that only believeth, or only hath cause to believe, and falleth into transgression?” (Alma 32:19).
One interesting thing about angelic visitations is that the messenger, even when it’s Jesus appearing (look at 3 Nephi, or the First Vision), spends almost all His time quoting scripture. If we want to know what an angel would say to us, we need look no further than the scriptures (unless we are ready to learn something beyond the scriptures or in need of something not written therein).
I think miracles happen when we are doing the Lord’s work, after we have exhausted all our options in accomplishing what He has commanded. Then we are fit to see His hand, His power, reversing the typical arrangements of nature. This is a safer order of events; first let us demonstrate faith through conversion and good works, and then show us miracles. If we are already committed to doing the Lord’s will, we are less likely to fall away after witnessing miracles.
A Greater Miracle
It is easy to get sucked into the mentality of, “What can God do for me?” I have met people who really approached the gospel and membership in the Church with that mindset. They wanted greater convenience and ease in life because of their adherence (and they often expected a down payment from the Lord before they started obeying and observing fully). Bargaining with God is a bad idea, mainly because we are the only thing we have that He wants. He wants His children back, cleansed from sin, and that’s all we have to offer, ultimately. He owns all our money, houses, bodies, and all the rest of it already. Everything obeys Him (except us; our obedience is patchy and inconsistent at best). Yet it is so easy to feel like we are doing the Lord a favor when we fulfill callings in the Church, or pay tithing, or obey in any other way. We feel the Lord “owes” us afterward.
The irony of operating on this emotional and spiritual level is that the Lord has gotten everything from us except what He has asked for—our whole hearts. Laman and Lemuel eventually obeyed every commandment they were given. They left Jerusalem like Nephi; they went back for the plates with Nephi; they invited Ishmael’s family and brought them into the wilderness like Nephi; they helped to build a boat like Nephi; they sailed to the promised land like Nephi. The net result was that their bodies and DNA ended up in the Americas, just like Nephi. They made all the deposits that were required of them (at the point of a gun, figuratively speaking, but they made them). The one thing they never gave to the Lord permanently, successfully, was “the heart and a willing mind” (D&C 64:34). They therefore received all the Lord’s blessings except the intangible ones, the fruits of the Spirit.
Think of how insulting and hurtful it must have been for the Lord—after all He had shown them, they barely even trusted Him.
Swimming and Trusting
There must be a first time for everything. I witnessed a first in the life of a child once. A little girl at a swimming pool was learning the rudiments of swimming. She started out in the hot tub, learning how to float on her back. The water was shallow enough that she could stand up in it. Her father invited her to float in his arms the same way in the deep end of the cold pool, and she balked. He offered to hold her while she floated on her back, but for some reason this arrangement was to frightening to her. He was over 6’ 2”, and so he was tall enough to support her, more than adequately. It was not an issue of the insurmountable nature of the pool; it was a matter of a lack of faith, trust, and courage on her part. I ached for her, but I felt even worse for her father. He loved her greatly, she loved him, and he obviously would have ensured that nothing untoward would have happened to her, but her fear of the water overcame her trust in her Dad. I pitied both of them; one filled with unrequited love, in spite of all his promising and encouragement, the other filled with dread that separated her from her father standing in the deep end of the pool (all five feet of it). Since Daddy plus deep water equals no danger, she was literally afraid of nothing. How often is our relationship with God just like this?
For the girl, a miracle—the ability to walk on water, for instance—would have been the solution to her problem. For her father, the solution would have been different because he saw a worse problem; for him, the problem was that her fear was stronger than her love, trust, and faith in him. He was eager for her to learn how to swim, to build her confidence and skills. He could manage her safety just fine, no problem, whether she was an expert swimmer or a novice. Her goal was safety, which was a piece of cake for him; his goal was to have a daughter that trusted him beyond her fear, which seemed impossible at that moment.
Instead of thinking of our problems in terms of the obstacles that separate us from our convenience and comfort, we can attempt imagine how things look through the eyes of our Heavenly Parent. This yields a much different perspective. Our attitudes are the real problem; the rest of the things we worry about will be solved in the resurrection. This life is not a time for us to see if the Lord is reliable; it is the other way around, a time to see if we are reliable, and if we will rely on Him. (The Lord is not afraid of scrutiny; “prove me,” He says (Mal. 3:10). It’s after He’s proven Himself that we run into real trouble through fear and disobedience.)
Do we have the love, courage, and faith necessary to lie back in His arms and trust that he will not let us sink? That is nearer to the heart of the matter, the test of life we are taking. Yes, miracles do come, but usually to those who would be able to endure their absence in faith, if the Lord said “no” to their urgent requests.
Exercising that kind of faith requires work. It IS work: “Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent” (John 6:29). It is more than suspending disbelief; it is trust in action, overcoming fear. Does anyone trust Him that much?
The Work of Abraham
Obedient, trusting children with limitless love are much harder to come by than instances of walking on water. Jesus was God’s only perfectly obedient child out of billions; all others rebel, or at least mess up at some point. Jesus was the only one who did not deserve to be miserable, yet He went deeper into misery than any of us—He experienced all the misery we have actually earned, and He did it out of obedience and love of God, and love for us.
He did not balk, or turn His face away from His Father through His entire ordeal. We know His half of Their conversation; it is recorded in scripture. He asked for deliverance, His miracle, but He was the miracle instead. When Abraham was taking his dear son Isaac (his name means “laughter”—Abraham and Sarah had waited decades for this child to be born to them, and a miracle made it possible) up the mountain with the intent to sacrifice him (because God had asked it), the duo talked:
“…My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”
“And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering…” (Genesis 22:7-8. This prophecy was fulfilled by a ram in the thicket on that mountain, and again when Jesus offered Himself). Abraham then took Isaac, and bound him with cords to sacrifice him. According to tradition, Isaac was 25 years old at the time, and Abraham was 125 years old, so it likely was a willing submission on Isaac’s part. The moment Abraham raised the knife, an angel appeared (and one tradition suggests it was Metatron, another name for Enoch after he and his city were translated) and halted the sacrifice.
The net result was that Abraham didn’t actually DO anything. Isaac stayed alive. They were spared by an angel, a miracle. But we are all commanded to do what Abraham did: “…they must needs be chastened and tried, even as Abraham, who was commanded to offer up his only son. For all those who will not endure chastening, but deny me, cannot be sanctified” (D&C 101:4-5). We are commanded, “Go ye, therefore, and do the works of Abraham…” D&C 132:32. The greatest work Abraham did in this pivotal moment in his life (and world history) was in his heart; he offered his most precious possession, Isaac, to God. God owned Abraham’s heart because Abraham had given it freely; he had offered “a broken heart and a contrite spirit” (3Ne. 9:20) in a way unforgettable to any who read his story in Genesis 22. There is nothing miraculous about his outward actions; he loads up a donkey, journeys a few days, ties up his son on a slab of rock, and nearly stabs him. No laws of physics violated here. But his willingness to obey God, his exceeding love for God, his humility and faith, those are miraculous. Walking on water, healing the sick, or raising the dead seem far less difficult.
After Abraham demonstrates such faith, an angel appears. Abraham would not withhold anything from his God, and so nothing was withheld from Him.
We tend to keep our Father in heaven at arm’s length unless things are miserable for us, and so He will often make things miserable for us just to get a sincere acknowledgement every now and then. Abraham did not just sit around waiting for the Lord to smite him into submission; he followed where the Spirit led, and went all the way. Even though his tangible sacrifice was arrested, the internal sacrifice was off the charts, so to speak. How can you even measure that kind of faith, love, and complete trust?
And we must have that kind of trust, and demonstrate it, to be fit to receive miracles, or to enter the presence of God in a permanent fashion.
Miracles come when they are needed, and deserved. They are not to be had cheaply.
Before we start to feel left out because our questions are not answered by open visions or immediate revelations, or our problems are not solved instantly, we can remember that most instances when angels appear or miracles arrive involve people living on the edge of their abilities, trying to discover and do the Lord’s will. The greatest miracle is not to see angels, but for us to submit our will to God, and become like angels through His power as a result of that offering.
