Why Latter-day Saints Should Stop Saying, “Don’t Pray For Patience.”

I recently sat in Sunday School and I heard the oft-repeated saying, “don’t pray for patience! If you do, the floodgates will open up on you!” The teacher went on to explain that he prayed for patience once as a missionary and all of a sudden they had so many trials he could barely endure. He taught that it was a mistake to pray for patience because, “when you pray for patience, all it is doing is asking for trials.”

Many times in my life I have heard teachers give their versions of, “Don’t pray for patience.” When I was younger I would agree with my teachers and think, “You are right, I don’t want any more trials. I won’t ever pray for patience.” But this time it hit me differently, how else are we to develop an attribute of God without petitioning heaven’s aid through prayer? How else are we to learn, grow, and cultivate a relationship with our Heavenly Father without these tests and trials of faith? The teacher was wrong, I was wrong, we must learn to pray for patience.

Patience is like any other Christlike attribute, we strive to develop it yes, but at the end of the day, we cannot expect to become more Christlike without Christ. In Moroni chapter seven Mormon teaches us to “Pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart” to develop Christlike attributes like charity and patience. (Moroni 7:48). Patience is not simply waiting, patience is enduring well, it is remaining faithful when the Lord sees fit to test us.

Trials Forge The Attributes Of Deity.

What we often forget is that God uses trials to help us develop Christlike attributes. Our loving Father in Heaven teaches us through trials. Not just hardships, but trials carefully crafted and calculated to forge the attributes of deity within us. Satan would love to convince us that trials are a punishment when actually they are a schoolroom. God teaches you how to be like Christ by experiences.

When you pray for charity, God is not just going to give you magical chocolate that will make you more charitable, He is going to give you someone who will be hard to love. This teaches you how He loves you unconditionally, even when you are hard to love.

If you pray for diligence He will give you something that feels impossible, to teach you that you can do anything God commands you to do. When you pray for faith God is going to teach you a hard principle or truth to see if you will be true to your testimony.

If you pray for knowledge God will show you how little you know about the Gospel and the History of the church to see if you will be faithful without a sure understanding, then once you are tested he will provide the knowledge. And when you pray for patience, God will place you into a situation so hard to endure you will have no other option but to rely on Christ.

Without prayer, how would you become like Christ?

Prayer is our access to God, how can we expect to receive blessings if we do not ask for them? Not only is prayer our access to God, it is also our access to the atonement of Jesus Christ, which is designed to help perfect men. Trying to developing Christlike attributes without accessing the atonement through prayer would be like trying to quench thirst without liquid! Let us follow the example of Alma, when he prayed for strength and patience on the mission to the Zoramites in Alma 30:31, he knew there would be trials so he prayed for strength and patience to endure them well.

To think that if we don’t pray for patience God won’t allow trials in our life is naive. Trials will always come, that is a lot of mortality, so we might as well learn patience from them now, rather than experience additional trials later! When we pray in faith for the opportunity to become more like Christ, He will provide both the trial to test us, and the Spirit to tutor us. To paraphrase my Elders Quorum President, Pray for patience, but understand what you are praying for.

Therefore What?

To fulfill our potential and become like God we must focus not only on doing “good things” but on becoming good people. We can only do that with the help of God; which help we access through prayer. Laman and Lemuel went back to get the plates, get Ishmael’s family, and built a boat; but their actions were hollow and without discipleship! The trials they endured profited them nothing, but Nephi put his trust and faith in Jesus Christ, made and kept covenants; and for that has been blessed with eternal life.

To think that we can become Christlike through our own works—without Christ—is not only naive but prideful. The Bible and the Book of Mormon are filled with accounts of the Prophets telling us that we need to develop Christlike attributes, and the same scriptures explain how to do so. Never once do you read in the scriptures “Just keep trying to be more patient. One day you will develop patience without His help.” We do read that we need to “come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness” (Moro. 10:32).  We do this by having faith unto repentance, making and keeping covenants, and praying for help in developing Christlike attributes.

For more about trials and how we misunderstand them see: The Most Important Reason For Trials That Latter-day Saints often Forget.