Many moons ago I saw connections in many things. I saw how experiences in my life influenced other things that happened later.
The time I’ve spent in darkness and struggling to come out of it dipped that sense. To be honest, it was in the process of being dulled long before that.
There is a danger in assuming that happenings are coincidental. By identifying them as coincidental, we take God out of our lives. We purposely remove Him and His influence from our lives. This is a form of pride.
As President Benson taught,
Pride is essentially competitive in nature. We pit our will against God’s. When we direct our pride toward God, it is in the spirit of ‘my will and not thine be done.’
By refusing to see coincidences as God’s hand in my life, I put my interpretations and will before His.
So the danger: I was already headed down this path, but spending time around the girl I used to date kept me on it. I often identified seeming coincidences as Divine influence. All it took from her was the simple question, “Really?” to make me wonder whether I was accurately attributing things to God.
She didn’t intend it to shake me, but over time it did. Faith needs confirmation. And it needs confirmation from people whose opinions you trust implicitly.
Those things were not coincidences. They simply weren’t. But in starting to question whether they were, my trust in Father decreased.
Friends and those you love have an incredible influence on you. You must build one another toward Father. Ask appropriate questions and think critically, but bear testimony and support them. Supporting each other will do more for you over time than will anything else.
It’s not a coincidence. It’s as Father intended.