The Gospel in Words: 'Fit'

"Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea he trieth their patience and their faith." (Mosiah 23:21)The word "fit" is used in a number of different contexts with a number of different meanings. For our purposes, fit means well-adapted or suited to the conditions or circumstances; something that answers the purpose, is proper or appropriate. Something befitting the person or the circumstance; becoming suitable (Oxford English Dictionary).Fit also means to supply, furnish or provide that which is fit, suitable, convenient or necessary (OED). The sense of the word fit as meaning to be suitable "probably came from the adjective sense of fitting or proper, perhaps influenced by or borrowed from the Middle Dutch word meaning to suit" (Chambers Dictionary of Etymology). "An older meaning of the word fit points to arrange, adjust, or match" (Oxford Dictionary of Etymology).Though the word fit is not frequently used, when it is used it refers either to our being "fit for the kingdom" (Luke 9:36) or to those things that the Lord sees fit to do in order to help us become what we need to become. For example, we need to become more patient and faithful; therefore, the Lord chastens us. As the Apostle Paul points out, "no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby" (Hebrews 12:11).The Lord who knows all of our circumstances understands that chastening is not pleasant, but necessary. "Now the Lord was slow to hear their cry because of their iniquities; nevertheless the Lord did hear their cries, and began to soften the hearts of the Lamanites that they did begin to ease their burdens; yet the Lord did not see fit to deliver them out of bondage" (Mosiah 21:15).Because it is essential then, that we must put off the natural man and become a saint through the Atonement of Christ the Lord, it is necessary for us to be "willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon (us), even as a child doth submit to his father" (Mosiah 3:19).Some have had trouble with the notion that the Lord would inflict things upon us. For me, it has been helpful to think of the Lord as that Divine Surgeon cutting away the diseased parts of our body, of our natural man, that are preventing us from coming to him. As T.S. Eliot wrote:"The wounded surgeon plies the steelThat questions the distempered part;Beneath the bleeding hands we feelThe sharp compassion of the healer's artResolving the enigma of the fever chart." (East Coker)