Does the plan of salvation apply to gay people?

God Has a Plan for Your Happiness

God’s plan is perfect, even if our current understanding of His plan is not. Through the Savior Jesus Christ, we can find hope and healing despite life’s many challenges.

God has a plan for our happiness. He sent us to earth to learn from our circumstances. He sent us here to make choices.

We lived with God before we were born. We knew Him, and He knows us. He knows our strengths and weaknesses, our dreams and our fears. Mortal life is our personal journey of getting to know God again. He knows our great potential and who we can become. More than anything, God loves us (see 2 Nephi 2:25).

We may have forgotten the time we spent with God, but He hasn’t forgotten us. He calls prophets to remind us why we’re here and how to become like Him (see Luke 11:49).

We are here for a wise purpose. God sent us to this time and place. He knew the challenges we would face, the choices we would be required to make. God will not force any of His children to obey His laws. He wants us to choose for ourselves, whatever our circumstances, to learn from experience and to become as He is. But God won’t force us to obey Him. (See 2 Nephi 2:16.)

As followers of Jesus Christ, we learn to listen to the Spirit and walk in the Light of Christ. We can discern what is right or wrong despite physical appetites and temptations that are contrary to true principles. And by choosing right, we grow stronger. At times it may seem we are at war with ourselves, but overcoming opposition is part of the plan to make us stronger. Opposition is not comfortable, but it is necessary.

“For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, … righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad” (2 Nephi 2:11).

When we sin—and we all do—we can repent. The process of repentance helps cleanse our souls and allows us to grow closer to God. Repentance is not a punishment. It is a gift, purchased in Gethsemane and on Golgotha by our Savior Jesus Christ.

“But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).

The sacrifice of our Savior—which we call the Atonement of Jesus Christ—is more than payment for our sins. We can turn to the Savior to heal our heart, to strengthen our spirit, to find peace. We can lay our burdens at His feet, and He will take them up. He is our Redeemer. He knows us.

“And he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities” (Alma 7:12).