Standing In The Furnace Of Affliction

I have come to realize that everyone I meet has personal challenges
and concerns. While no one is exempt from them, we may all overcome
them by the Savior and his teachings. I have spent time thinking about
trials: what are they, and why do we have them? I had an epiphany
which I wrote down, on March 10th of last year. This is what I have
learned for myself.

Trials, sometimes called adversity, is merely change. They are changes that affect the "natural man" negatively. They are opportunities that The Lord gives us to show Him that we trust him, and that we do not rely solely upon the things around us. When we do not have an eternal perspective, one that extends beyond this life, and we are weak in our spirituality, that is when trials make us collapse. This is because they change things in this life that were temporary anyway, and if our foundation is built upon temporary things and not the bedrock of Christ, we fall. Even if we build our foundations of the gospel, what we build will be tried too. Paul explained it to the Corinthians this way:
"For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it,
because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.
If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall
receive a reward.
If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire." (1 Corinthians 3:11-15)

We will all be tried in the refiner's fire. (Zechariah 13:9, Malachi 3:2-3, 1 Peter 4:12-13) However, this is to refine us. (Ether 12:27, Isaiah 48:10) Just as trials are changes that break down the natural
man, they are an opportunity to repent and build up the spiritual man through change, and through the atonement. Mosiah 3:19 says:
"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."


Through these trials, we become tempered. Temperance is patiently enduring the short and long term consequences that come from the actions of yourself and others, and doing it with a good attitude. We learn, as did Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, that when we stand in the furnace of affliction, we stand shoulder to shoulder with the Son of God. (Isaiah 53:3-5, 1 Nephi 19:9, Alma 7:11-13) We shift from a worldly perspective to an eternal one, making stumbling blocks become stepping stones. We develop love for others as Christ had, and we fear no mortal consequences.