The Pattern… the Purpose

In the highs and lows of life, the unhappiness and happiness, despair and hope, there is much to make us search ourselves, and much to make us search outside ourselves. We read history; we see its cycles; we see men who seemingly have done much to move the world, and men who scarcely seem to make a ripple on the surface. And sometimes we may wonder about the pattern, the purpose. We see a little; we understand a little; we have some insights, but the great immensity of space, the infinity of all there is to know, the wonder of it all, are overwhelming, yet reassuring, as we search and hope and pray⎯and learn and do and endure⎯and we come to an awareness that all people have problems, discouragements, yet reasons for faith. Even the Savior of mankind was little understood, seldom thanked, yet showed patience and compassion, and with all His divine power yet submitted himself to die, and redeemed us from death. And in all our wondering and searching there is this assurance: that the world wasn’t created by chance, nor was life. There is purpose. There is reason: reason for faith, for truth and decency; for meeting obligations; for living in goodness, for living by law; for keeping commandments; reason for faithfulness in family love and loyalty. And, as Robert Louis Stevenson pleaded, as each “. . . day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating concerns and duties, help us to play the man, help us to perform . . . Give us to go . . . on our business all this day, bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undishonored, and grant us in the end the gift of sleep.”¹ Help us to be patient, to find hope, faith, understanding; to know that there are deeper purposes than all the scuffs and ripples of the surface. God bless all people with problems, which, indeed, is all of us.