The Prince of Peace: "Peace I Give unto You" | Robert D. Hales, Jun 1986

When tragedy strikes, turn to God in faith—and to the people He has placed in your life. Through trust, service, and love, you will find lasting peace.
This devotional was given on June 1, 1986.

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To Strengthen Our Faith

President Spencer W. Kimball, in a 1966 talk entitled “Tragedy or Destiny,” said:

I am positive in my mind that the Lord has planned our destiny. We can shorten our lives, but I think we cannot lengthen them very much. Sometime we’ll understand fully, and when we see back from the vantage point of the future, we shall be satisfied with many of the happenings of this life which seemed so difficult for us to comprehend.

We knew before we were born that we were coming to the earth for bodies and experience and that we would have joys and sorrows, pain and comforts, ease and hardships, health and sickness, successes and disappointments; and we knew also that we would die. We accepted all these eventualities with a glad heart eager to accept both the favorable and unfavorable. We were undoubtedly willing to have a mortal body even if it were deformed. We eagerly accepted the chance to come earthward even though it might be for a day, a year, or a century. Perhaps we were not so much concerned whether we should die of disease, of accident, or of senility. We were willing to come and take life as it came and as we might organize and control it, and this without murmur, complaint, or unreasonable demands. We sometimes think we would like to know what is ahead, but sober thought brings us back to accepting life a day at a time, and magnifying and glorifying that day. [Spencer W. Kimball, “Tragedy or Destiny,” Improvement Era, March 1966, pp. 216–17]

Ten years ago I was left alone to ponder this very idea in the stark white, sterile environment of a hospital room. My dear wife, Mary, had just been wheeled away to have an operation. My first response was to pray for her to be returned to me alive and well. My first prayer was almost one of a demand for her return because of the good life she had lived, her husband and children needed her loving care, and because in some way, because of our lives of service, her return to health was a debt owed us. Upon concluding the first prayer a heavy feeling lay upon me. There was not the feeling of peace, comfort, or reassurance I had anticipated. What was wrong? Why hadn’t I been comforted? Why did I still have so much fear?

After a few minutes of apprehension and deliberation, I knelt to pray again for a second time. This time, however, my prayer was one of acknowledging the Lord’s hand in our lives, giving thanks for the many blessings we had received together as companions in over twenty years of marriage, and expressing that I would accept the outcome of the operation to be in God’s hands and that his will would be done. After concluding the prayer, I was ready to accept the will of God as it affected Mary’s life and mine.

At the conclusion of the prayer a sweet, comforting spirit of peace rested upon me—not because I was assured of Mary’s safe return to health, but because of the assurance that I would accept my Heavenly Father’s will and trust in him and in his son Jesus Christ to be given the strength to meet the trials of this mortal probation.

After a few more minutes of reflection, I felt the need of more spiritual strength. I reached for my Bible that was on the bed stand and casually thumbed through it, stopping at the book of Job, and began to read, preoccupied at first and then studying more and more intently because my searching questions were being answered.

The book of Job is a profound poem, yet hard to understand, outlining the challenges of life. Job was a good man, almost perfect. One day Satan appeared before God to tell him of the sinful ways of his children on earth. God said to Satan, “Did you notice my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him—a perfect and an upright man who never sins” (see Job 1:8).

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