“O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?… How long shall they suffer these wrongs and unlawful oppressions, before thine heart shall be softened toward them, and thy bowels be moved with compassion toward them?” (DC 121:1, 3).

This wasn’t how it was supposed to turn out. They believed God would protect his saints and help them build Zion. The saints did what God asked at so much sacrifice. How could God let this happen?

The point of this post isn’t to cast doubt on God or revelation, but only to point out my observation I noted in the previous post that personal revelation can be a tricky thing. Even Joseph Smith had confusing times. My point in this post, is that the feeling that a spiritual message has gone unfulfilled can be pretty concerning and confusing.

Richard Bushman quotes John Corrill’s statement about losing faith in the Mormon leaders’ (especially Smith’s) promises in Missouri. “I can see nothing that convinces me that God has been our leader; calculation after calculation has failed, plan after plan has been overthrown, and our prophet seemed not to know the event till too late.” “Everything Corrill said was true,” Bushman adds. “The great work had met with defeat after defeat” (Rough Stone Rolling, 379).

I argue that some of the worst pain of the Liberty Jail experience was the devastating feeling of not only that God allowed it, but the nagging worry of the possibility that the revelations might be problematic (I do think such things can get a little messier than we like).

While not usually the major reason people give for losing their faith in Mormonism, I have seen “failed spiritual promptings” sometimes mentioned (see minute 14 to 18 for Alyssa Grenfell discussing her experiences). Grenfell also expresses frustration with other members’ attempts to give interpretations to those disillusioning experiences. I really empathize with those who hurt over this issue. I don’t have any kind of absolute answer.

I mentioned in my last post often not feeling a lot of sympathy from other members when having those kinds of unfulfilled experiences. I once brought up this topic in an eq lesion many years ago and gave some examples I was aware of: a couple feeling so spiritually sure of getting a hoped-for job out of state that they sold all their furniture (didn’t get it), another feeling so sure of a baby’s gender that they bought clothes for the gender but got it wrong.

I do think there were some smirks among quorum members, and as I mentioned in my previous post, we probably all know of people who followed some claimed spiritual promptings in concerning ways.

But here I simply want to acknowledge that having what one views as an unfulfilled spiritual experience can feel quite painful and disillusioning.

The lyricist for my favorite band, Rush, sometimes talks about the complexity of religious issues including doubt. In their very last album, their song The Wreckers seems to address the issue of this kind of spiritual disillusionment. A couple of lines of in the chorus state: “All I know is that sometimes you have to be wary of a miracle too good to be true.” And if that isn’t hard enough, the next line declares, “All I know is that sometimes the truth is contrary, everything in life you thought you knew.”

I’ve always really appreciated that song for conveying what religious struggle can feel like to me (many different kinds). I’ve come back to the song again and again, but it that seems overly bleak (I do think such experiences can be really hard), I also love the last song on the album, The Garden, about the kind of care we should give each other to help with life’s difficulties (a good thing to do).

DaveW’s commented on my previous post that we often don’t like ambiguity or unresolved endings in in our church lessons. Years ago as a gospel doctrine teacher, I attempted to share Bushman’s point about Corrill’s view of his time with the church in Missouri in an attempt to discuss the theme of this post: how do we deal with such disappointments? My attempt went poorly.

As I replied to DaveW, I do get that we tend to want greater certainty and happy endings in our church talks and lessons. But I’ve also experienced many times wishing for greater certainty and resolution, and those feeling very far away. If nothing else, such experiences can help us fulfill our baptismal covenant of morning with those who morn.