The typical response to affliction is to assume that it occurs as a punishment from God. Such is the logic of the question asked of the Savior, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? (Jn 9:2). Yet, this view of the world is very near-sighted. Can it be fairly stated that every time life doesn’t go as we expect, that the Lord is punishing us? The scriptures teach otherwise. There are times when the wicked are not punished immediately, how long shall the wicked triumph? (Ps 94:3), and there are times when the righteous suffer affliction without warranting it. The Lord will try and chasten his people even when they are righteous, For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth (Heb12:6). This is the case with Alma’s people. They had been faithful to their new leader, they had made a covenant by being baptized, and yet they are about to be put into bondage.
Neal A. Maxwell
“Faith … includes faith in God’s developmental purposes, for ’the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith.’ (Mosiah 23:21.) Still, some of us have trouble when God’s tutoring is applied to us! We plead for exemption more than we do for sanctification.” (Ensign, May 1991, p. 90.)
Neal A. Maxwell
"The following wintry verse instructs and reminds us of one of the most central and regular challenges for the men and women of Christ:
’Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith’ (Mosiah 23:21).
"Such declarations of divine purpose ought to keep us on spiritual alert as to life’s purposeful adversities, especially as we seek to become more saintly. Disciples will escape neither adversity nor the irony forming the hard crust on the bread of adversity.
"Irony tries both our faith and our patience. Irony can be a particularly bitter form of chastening because it involves disturbing incongruity; it involves outcomes in violation of our expectations, including what we feel we ’deserved.’ Sometimes it lays waste our good-intentioned and best-laid plans.
"On occasion we even set up our own ironies by being too declarative and too certain. Such was the case with Peter, who said he would never deny Jesus. Peter was quickly reminded by the Savior that soon, before the rooster crowed, Peter would deny Him three times. (See Matthew 26:31-35.) In like manner today our rigidities and deficiencies sometimes may actually invite tutoring…
"With its inverting of the anticipated consequences, irony becomes the frequent cause of an individual’s being offended. The larger and the more untamed a person’s ego, the greater the likelihood of his being offended, especially when tasting his portion of vinegar and gall. Words may issue: ’Why me?‘ ’Why this?‘ ’Why now?’ It is hoped such words will give way to subsequent spiritual composure; but when such words precede bitter inconsolability, then it is a surprisingly short distance to bitterness. Amid life’s varied ironies we may begin to wonder: ‘Didn’t God notice this torturous turn of events? And if He noticed, why did He permit it? Am I not valued? Didn’t I deserve better?’ Our planning usually assumes that our destiny is largely in our own hands. Then come intruding events, first elbowing aside, then evicting, what we had anticipated and even earned. Hence we can be offended by events as well as by people.
“Irony may involve not only unexpected suffering but also undeserved suffering. We feel we deserved better, and yet we fared worse. We had other plans-even commendable plans; did they not count? For example, a physician who trained laboriously to help the sick cannot do so now because of his own illness. For a period, because of constraining circumstances, a diligent prophet of the Lord was an ‘idle witness’ (Mormon 3:16). Frustrating conditions keep more than a few of us from making our appointed rounds. Customized challenges are thus added to that affliction and temptation that Paul described as ‘common to man’ (1 Corinthians 10:13).” (Men and Women of Christ, pp. 61-3)
Howard W. Hunter
“Mormon surely knew that no pain we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God.” (Ensign, Nov. 1987, p. 60 as taken from Latter-day Commentary on the Book of Mormon compiled by K. Douglas Bassett, p. 316)