Sign up for Meridian’s Free Newsletter, please CLICK HERE

The following is excerpted from Third Hour. To read the full article, CLICK HERE

We live in a fallen world. Millions of people are hungry. Depression is real. Cancer kills. Tragedy strikes. Life throws curve balls. That’s the way things are. More often than not, our goal is to overcome the adversity that challenges us. We want to triumph over pain and suffering. We don’t like it, and we’re not meant to. But while Christ’s atonement one day promises us the final victory in this war, our entire lives will still be spent doing the fighting. But hey, keep reading for the good news.

Adversity isn’t going anywhere

Each of us falls somewhere on the spectrum of adversity. Some face more than others, but none are exempt. We face adversity a million times a day in a million different ways. Despite our efforts, nowhere in the Plan of Salvation is it written that we can wholly defeat adversity in this life. It’s not going to happen. When we overcome one obstacle, there will always be another one down the road.

Those that hope to earn an adversity-free life are sure to be profoundly disappointed. But knowing that fact helps to highlight what we can and are meant to achieve. Beating the opposition isn’t the point. Finding happiness despite the opposition is.

That’s a hard pill to swallow. Nobody likes to be told their life is going to be full of suffering, but that’s what we’re up against. The final step in the gospel is “endure to the end,” not, “relax on a white-sand beach to the end.”

To read the full article, CLICK HERE