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Require Not Miracles

by Autumn Dickson

The Doctrine and Covenants differs from other books of scripture in the sense that the Lord is often responding to individual people. This can lead to some of the sections seeming disjointed as the Lord covers multiple feelings and circumstances that any given individual may be experiencing. In other books of scriptures, we get stories or sermons that were all meant to go together. In the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord is simply talking to the people receiving the revelation (most often through the prophet Joseph Smith), and it’s like a letter. He’s going to respond to many different circumstances.

In Doctrine and Covenants 24, the Lord is talking to various men about earthly responsibilities and testifying of the gospel. Here is one of the things the Lord decides to include as He is talking to His children.

Doctrine and Covenants 24:13-14

13 Require not miracles, except I shall command you, except casting out devils, healing the sick, and against poisonous serpents, and against deadly poisons;

14 And these things ye shall not do, except it be required of you by them who desire it, that the scriptures might be fulfilled; for ye shall do according to that which is written.

I want to tie a couple phrases together in order to more directly teach what I want to talk about today.

“Require not miracles except I shall command you….except it be required of you by them who desire it…”

So if the Lord is directly speaking to His children, what can we imply from what He chose to say in these particular verses? I can’t know for sure, but I imagine that some of these new members had wanted to perform miracles like the ones they read about in the bible. They believed that they had just found the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Wouldn’t that mean the same miracles should follow? Perhaps some attempted these miracles, or perhaps it was just something that had been pondered. Either way, the Lord teaches them that they shouldn’t just go around trying to perform miracles. They can perform those miracles if they’ve been commanded by the Lord or if it has been sought by those who need the miracle.

This is an interesting concept when you combine it with the fact that the Lord didn’t go about broadcasting His miraculous abilities. He often solicited the healed to stay quiet about what had occurred. Perhaps there were appropriate times in which He offered to intervene, but if I’m not mistaken, all the very direct miracles that we read about in the New Testament were brought about because someone came to the Lord to ask Him for the miracle.

Why does the Lord work after this manner and why does He ask His disciples to work this way? They are commanded to perform miracles when commanded by God or when asked by the people who need it. Performing a miracle because God asked you to do it is fairly straightforward, and so I want to focus on the fact that the Lord asked them to only perform miracles when they’ve been asked.

Though I’m sure there are many reasons, there is one main reason that I’d like to cover today.

Alma and preaching the gospel

This idea of running around and advertising miracles reminds me of another passage of scripture in The Book of Mormon. I want to talk about this passage, and then I want to bring it back around to the idea of advertising and performing miracles everywhere.

In Alma 29, Alma is wishing that he could preach the gospel to every corner of the earth. He wishes he could be an angel and shake the earth with his testimony regarding the Savior. His desire was to preach across the world in a way that enabled everyone to hear it. I remember thinking that this was a pretty good wish. To me, it seems like a good reflection on his heart.

But, later on in the chapter, Alma says he is sinning in his wish. Why?

Sin is anything that’s going to bring us further from eternal life. Even when we have good intentions and pure hearts, there are certain things that can take eternal life away from us. Alma is correct in trusting the Lord with the calling the Lord chooses to give him in life. Even with good hearts and intentions, obedience and trust in the Lord is essential. There are appropriate times to solicit the Lord for more responsibilities, blessings, or other things, but it’s important to trust what He chooses to give.

Now let’s take that a step further and explore Alma’s desire to preach the gospel. Why might this take people farther away from eternal life rather than closer? When we really ponder Alma’s desire a little further, we can see the wisdom of the Lord in not expanding Alma’s calling to earth-shattering, angelic missionary that reaches across the earth.

Simply put, eternal life doesn’t really work like that.

If Alma were to receive his wish, it would have foiled the Plan of Salvation. The gospel may have been preached to every creature, and many might have even accepted it. But WHY would they have chosen to accept it? Because the WHY is key. Choosing to follow the tenants of the gospel is not the same as reaping the rewards of the gospel. I would know. I chose to follow the gospel for a long time before actually reaping the rewards.

The true reward of living the gospel is eternal life, and what is eternal life? What is it really? Eternal life is living like God. It’s choosing to be good because you have changed to be innately good. God doesn’t choose to be righteous and perfect because He wants to avoid some eternal punishment. He chooses to be righteous and perfect because He is love.

If the gospel was suddenly preached on a miraculous, earth-shattering loudspeaker, it would very quickly transfer a large portion of people into the category of, “I’m following the gospel because I want to avoid hell.” It would rob them of the opportunity to work through belief, to work on drawing closer to the Lord continually, on turning to Him when you’re worried about being deceived. As we take advantage of questions and worries by turning to the Lord, we reap the benefits of a divine relationship with Him. Those benefits (change, love, trust) are what eternal life feel like.

Avoiding hell is not eternal life. Avoiding hell can only bring so much happiness. If we want to experience the happiness and joy that God has in store, we have to go beyond just trying to avoid hell.

So we’ve explored it. The Lord is incredibly wise when He doesn’t throw away the belief stage, and Alma was wise when he trusted that the Lord knew what He was doing.

Taking it back to miracles

Let’s bring it back to the original command to perform miracles when asked by the person who needs the miracle.

Wanting to go around and perform miracles everywhere likely sprang from a good place. That desire to heal and prevent disaster came from a good heart, but what did we learn from Alma’s example? Even with good hearts and good intentions, there are things that can still take us away from eternal life. It’s important to trust the Lord.

The Lord is wise, and He knows that it’s often important for someone to ask for a miracle before receiving it. Why is it wise to require this?

Simply put, eternal life doesn’t really work like that.

The Lord’s purpose is to help us grow to be like Him. He wants us to change so that we can reap the rewards that He reaps. He wants us to feel what He feels.

If His disciples were to go around performing miracles right and left, what would be the result?

One result is the same result that we explored with Alma wanting to preach the gospel over a loudspeaker. It removes that aspect of faith and belief that drive us towards developing that relationship with Christ and finding the rewards therein. It removes the growth that comes with having to repeatedly turn towards Him.

Another result is that sometimes the Lord chooses not to remove obstacles. Removing every obstacle would completely foil the Plan of Salvation. We came down here to grow. How would that be possible without obstacles?

And the last reason I’d like to cover here is the fact that there is something so powerful in having to ask first. When we look at it from an earthly perspective, requiring someone to ask for what they need before you’re willing to give it seems petty and ridiculous. However, we know the Lord isn’t petty and ridiculous. We know that everything He does is for us, so why does He choose to do it that way?

I think it’s important to note that He doesn’t always do it this way. He often provides miracles and takes care of us without our knowledge. Someday, when we get to the other side, we’re going to realize just how much He interfered on our behalf.

However, sometimes He does require us to ask. So why? Why does He do that?

Part of His goal of helping us reach eternal life is to nurture a relationship with us. When He requires us to ask, He is more fully guaranteeing our ability to recognize His hand in our life. Recognizing Him is pretty crucial to developing a relationship with Him. If our needs were simply just getting fulfilled right and left before we even consciously recognized the need, we would likely never even realize He was behind it.

On an earthly level with my own children, I find it extremely important to teach my children that their clean laundry doesn’t miraculously show up. The food doesn’t just find itself cooked. The money doesn’t just show up in the bank account. They don’t drive themselves to their various activities. I want them to recognize that my husband and I show up for them. And yes, because we’re imperfect people with issues, part of that is because we want validation. But the other part (the part that reflects our Heavenly Parents) is because we know that recognition and gratitude on their part will actually be a blessing in and of itself.

Recognizing that they have parents who show up, feeling gratitude for those parents, and developing that relationship with parents is going to enrich their lives tremendously.

God can’t show up and teach us that directly because once again, it would rob us of that faith and belief factor that’s so crucial to the Plan of Salvation. So rather, He often requires us to ask first so that we can start to recognize that He’s the one answering. There is wisdom in His commandment to wait for someone to ask before giving a miracle.

I believe in a wise and powerful Savior. I believe that everything He does is for us. All of His motivation boils down to His love for us. I believe that it is important to explore things we don’t understand in the gospel through the lens of that love if we want to understand why He does what He does. He is trying to give us so much more than we can comprehend.

 

 

Autumn Dickson was born and raised in a small town in Texas. She served a mission in the Indianapolis Indiana mission. She studied elementary education but has found a particular passion in teaching the gospel. Her desire for her content is to inspire people to feel confident, peaceful, and joyful about their relationship with Jesus Christ and to allow that relationship to touch every aspect of their lives. Autumn was the recipient of FAIR’s 2024 John Taylor Defender of the Faith Award.