Mosiah 23:21

"...the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith."


"Patience is tied very closely to faith in our Heavenly Father. Actually, when we are unduly impatient, we are suggesting that we know what is best--better than does God. Or, at least, we are asserting that our timetable is better than his. Either way we are questioning the reality of God's omniscience, as if, as some seem to believe, God were on some sort of postdoctoral fellowship...

"We read in Mosiah about how the Lord simultaneously tries the patience of his people even as he tries their faith. One is not only to endure--but to endure well and gracefully those things which the Lord 'seeth fit to inflict upon [us],' just as did a group of ancient American Saints who were bearing unusual burdens but submitted 'cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.'

"The Lord has twice said: 'And seek the face of the Lord always, that in patience ye may possess your souls, and ye shall have eternal life.' Could it be that only when our self-control has become total do we come into true possession or our own souls?"

Elder Neal A. Maxwell