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Question: How can one reconcile unfulfilled promises in patriarchal blessings?
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Question: How can one reconcile unfulfilled promises in patriarchal blessings?
Introduction to Question
Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe in the power of prophecy: a form of predicting the future. One office among the ranks of church government is that of Patriarch. A Patriarch gives what are known as patriarchal blessings to members of the Church. During a patriarchal blessing, Patriarchs will, among other things, promise blessings to those who live worthy of them. These promises can come in the form of prophecy.
There are times when the promises given in patriarchal blessings appear to go unfulfilled. How would prophecy like that given in a patriarchal blessing go unfulfilled?
This article seeks to answer this question.
Response to Question
There are several ways one may view the lack of fulfillment of patriarchal blessings.
1. The blessings will come in the next life.
Eldred G. Smith explained:
Now some people say, “So and so was given such and such in his blessing and he died before it was ever fulfilled .” Well, so what? That isn’t the end of this life or the end of what can be accomplished as the result of mortality. The purpose of mortality or what we can accomplish here is between birth and the Resurrection. So many things which we should accomplish in this life and don’t get the opportunity to accomplish may be accompanied after death, but before the Resurrection.[1]
2. The blessings are being misinterpreted.
It may be that the blessings are being misinterpreted. In the author’s own experience with their patriarchal blessing, sometimes the blessings are best realized in retrospect rather than in the current moment. We should be patient on the Lord to have those blessings realized (1 Nephi 21:23, 25).
3. The blessings are conditioned upon faithfulness.
Most patriarchal blessings will condition the fulfillment of blessings on our faithfulness. William Mortimer wrote in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism that “[i]t is continually taught in the Church that the fulfillment of patriarchal blessings, as of all divine promises, is conditioned on the faith and works of the individual. Typically, blessings close with such a statement as, ‘I pronounce these blessings upon your head according to your faith and your diligence in keeping the commandments of the Lord.’”[2]
Karl G. Maeser called patriarchal blessings “paragraphs from the book of one's possibilities."[3]
It may be difficult, but this may be an occasion where he humbly submit to the possibility that we have not been sufficiently faithful to receive our promised blessings.
4. The blessings are withheld to test your faithfulness.
The Lord revealed to the Brigham Young at Winter Quarters Nebraska that
- 31 My people must be tried in all things, that they may be prepared to receive the glory that I have for them, even the glory of Zion; and he that will not bear chastisement is not worthy of my kingdom.[4]
If we’re supposed to be tried in “all” things, this will logically include remaining faithful even when blessings don’t come or don’t come in the way we want them to.
5. The blessings will yet come in the future.
The blessings that we get in our patriarchal blessing may yet come in the future. The Lord encourages us many times in scripture to exercise patience (Doctrine and Covenants 4:6).
6. The blessings may be brought to your descendants.
Eldred G. Smith, a patriarch of the Church at one point, said the following about us fulfilling the promises of patriarchal blessings:
Some of the interpretations of our patriarchal blessings may be fulfilled by our descendants. We are now in large part fulfilling some of the outstanding blessings given to the children of Israel by their father. We may not realize all of the blessings in our lifetime. They may be fulfilled after our death or by our descendants…[some of our blessings] will be realized in different ways from what we expect. But as long as we live worthy of our blessings, we have an anchor upon the promise of the Lord that they will be fulfilled.[5]
As an example, Alonzo L. Gaskill tells of an experience in the life of President James E. Faust:
President James E. Faust spoke of a promise made to his father (George A. Faust) in his patriarchal blessing. This promise was not fulfilled directly through George nor through Elder Faust and his four brothers. Rather, it was fulfilled through George’s posterity, starting with his grandchildren. Certainly, George Faust’s life choices made it possible for his grandchildren to fulfill the promise; and, had he made other choices, he could have prevented his grandchildren from fulfilling what God had foretold. Nevertheless, Brother Faust was faithful, and the promises made to him came to fruition in the lives of his posterity. Such may be the case for some of us, and the blessings the Lord has promised us in our individual patriarchal blessings.[6]
7. The blessing is using accommodated language to express a divine idea and you are misinterpreting the blessing
We've talked elsewhere on the wiki about the idea of accommodation: the idea that God accommodates his revelations to the understanding of the individual receiving them. For example, in the Battle of Gideon in the tenth chapter of the Book of Joshua, Joshua asks God to stop the sun so that the day was lengthened and Israelites won the battle. Read literally, this story implies that the sun was moving and God made it stop moving. Today, we know that the earth orbits around the sun rather than the other way around. So what's going on? God is accommodating the Israelites geocentric view of our solar system to communicate a divine message/miracle. This is important: culture indeed is embedded into all revelation; but it does not fundamentally override the divine origin of that revelation nor the ability that revelation has to communicate accurate truths about God and the world around us.
A final example might be how Scripture consistently uses the word "man" to refer to "male and female"— typical of ordinary conversation then and now. This has understandably drawn some discomfort from female readers of the scriptures—feeling that this might be an example of soft sexism in Scripture. Of course, the scriptures do mean to include both males and females in their messages when saying "man" or "mankind", but typical linguistic conventions were used to communicate that divine message.
The Doctrine and Covenants itself announces that:
Behold, I am God and have spoken it; these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding.DC 1꞉24
Patriarchs are under much spiritual labor during patriarchal blessings. They are trying to discern the Lord's word for a person's life. It seems possible that they may say something that doesn't necessarily come from revelation and is mistaken but that didn't need to be corrected given the fact that it didn't affect the overall importance of the message nor general accuracy of it for your life.
An example of this comes from the author's own patriarchal blessing. In it, it is said that the author should commit to memory the 10 verses of the oath and covenant of the priesthood. The problem is that there are only 7 verses. Why didn't God correct that? The question asked in response is: Why does it matter? It doesn't affect the overall truthfulness and importance of the admonition to commit those verses to memory.
Conclusion
As we can see, there are many faithful ways to view the lack of fulfillment of patriarchal blessings without abandoning belief in the validity of revelation. Ultimately, the best answer to this question is to trust that, in one way or another, the Lord “has power unto the fulfilling of all his words” (1 Nephi 9:6).
Notes
- ↑ Eldred G. Smith, “Patriarchal Blessings,” address given at the Salt Lake Institute of Religion, January 17, 1964, 5.
- ↑ William James Mortimer, “Patriarchal Blessings,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow, 5 vols. (New York: MacMillan, 1992; 2007), 3:1066.
- ↑ Alma P. Burton, Karl G. Maeser: Mormon Educator (Salt Lake City: 1953), 82. Cited in ibid.
- ↑ Doctrine and Covenants 136:31.
- ↑ Eldred G. Smith, “What Is a Patriarchal Blessing?” The Instructor 97, no. 2 (February 1963): 43.
- ↑ Alonzo L. Gaskill, 65 Questions and Answers about your Patriarchal Blessing (Springville, UT: Cedar Fort Publishing, 2018), 30–31.