My take away is that the faith and testimony of so many Mormons is in church leaders and not so much in God or Christ.
The only time I regularly hear about Jesus in church is when people tie in His authority to the authority of church leaders. I hear nothing of Christ's teachings on compassion, forgiveness or in loving our enemies.
At BYU there is, as in church culture as a whole, an emphasis on the modesty of women, the type of acceptable hair cuts and no facial hair whatsoever. Which is odd since Jesus can't live up to this code having long hair and a beard which I find quite telling.
It seems that the main effect of these standards is that they only serve to drive home the blessings of obedience for obedience sake.
In scripture we are warned of the dangers of relying on the arm of the flesh.
"The weak things of the world shall come forth and break down the mighty and strong ones, that man should not counsel his fellow man, neither trust in the arm of flesh." D&C 1:19
For our faith to remain strong it must be founded on a solid and incorruptible foundation-our faith flourishes when founded in Christ and in living His teachings. Our faith will be rewarded. Our faith will never be squandered on The Lord.
Revelations are messages from The Lord and that's why we have prophets. But unless it's a revelation it is not the word of God. That's not to say it isn't inspired, I'm only saying the word of God is different than your basic talk. Our church leaders have the right to give their take on any number of issues but their high calling does not mean that their every utterance is the word of God. Just as Bishops may go off script and misspeak so our GA's may as well.
Our leaders have taught that they are fallible and that's the point I'm trying to bring home. Because many who have placed their faith in leaders have found their faith shaken when those leaders were shown to be fallible. As Joseph Smith or Brigham Young were at times prone to the faults of men.
But if we love and live by Christ's teachings and we place our faith in those teachings and in Him and His example we will not be let down. Only when our faith is based in Christ are we invested in perfection itself, we are invested in the perfection of the human heart.
Righteousness is not based on the length of your hair or the length of your skirt or based on the status of your facial hair. Righteousness is based in the contents of your heart and how you treat others and in how to speak to and about others.
The best moral code and the most honorable code is found in the one commandment Jesus gave us:
"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35
Unconditional love is what can make us like Christ. That is the measure of our Christianity. The proof is in how we live and how we love others.
When we place our faith in Christ, when we place our faith in God we cannot be let down. We may take unexpected turn. We may face obstacles that we may not overcome but Christ will never fail us. This does not mean we will always get what we want but we will get what we need.
Just because one person loses a child and another parents child is spared does not mean that God loves one parent more than the other. But being different people they are on different paths.
But for as often as I go to the ER with my wife I can understand the horror of losing someone so close to you. I face that often. But even in my darkest moments when I fear for the life of my wife I do not feel abandoned by God. And I know that I may lose my wife one day, we've had several close calls, and maybe when that happens I will feel abandoned.
Even if I don't get the miracle I want I know that I have experienced my fair share of them. I'm lucky to even be alive after a suicide attempt. So my view on life is one of luck and appreciation.
Dr.Suess once said "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."
Our faith in God is weak if we only have it when times are good. Job had great faith but even he fault erred under the burden of his tragedies. But he never cursed or abandoned God. Abraham Lincoln's favorite Bible story was the book of Job.
Maybe because Job has helped millions of people over thousands of years cope with the tragedies life all too often brings.
As Americans we have the phrase "In God we trust" on all our money but do we only love God when times are good or is our faith strong enough to bear the weight of the tragedies that so often define us?
The greatest qualities people have is that when times are at their worst we are so often at our best. When we stoke the fires of our faith even in our darkest times the fire of our faith can burn at its brightest and devour that darkness.