WHY WE TEND TO MISS PROPHECY WHEN IT HAPPENS

I snatched this from a FB post.

Thanks Rhonda for help, helpin out the Wood Zone.....:

There has been a lot of prophecy fulfilled in my lifetime. It's a little easier to see what's past, but not always. One thing that has been a surprise is how often the fulfillment looks nothing like I imagined.
George Q. Cannon knew about this problem; he said:

"The Latter-day Saints are in many respects like other people who are not Latter-day Saints. We are apt to entertain views which are not very correct, and which may be the result of our traditions and preconceived ideas. This is a peculiarity that pertains to mankind generally, that whenever they deal with the things of God, or speak about them, or contemplate them, and especially when they read the predictions made by the servants of God concerning future events, or events that may transpire right before their eyes, they are apt to get... exaggerated ideas, in relation to them.

"... Are we not all inclined to look forward to many events which have been predicted by the servants of God as being of so great and wonderful, and I may say so supernatural a character, that when they shall be fulfilled they will even startle us, who believe they are coming, and will compel the unbelieving inhabitants of the earth to accept them as evidences of the truth?
"In our thoughts this seems to be the natural tendency. I notice it in myself; I notice it in others. When we read respecting the great events which are to take place in connection with this work, as predicted in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, are we not inclined to think that, surely, when these things shall come to pass all the earth, as well as ourselves, will be constrained to acknowledge this to be the work of God, and these events to be indeed those which have been predicted by the prophets?
"Now I would not, for the world, say one word to lessen in the minds of my brethren and sisters the importance of these events; I would not say one word to weaken your proper expectations; but my experience has taught me that the Lord works in the midst of this people by natural means, and that the greatest events that have been spoken of by the holy prophets will come along so naturally as the consequence of certain causes, that unless our eyes are enlightened by the Spirit of God, and the spirit of revelation rests us, we will fail to see that these are the events predicted by the holy prophets."

http://scriptures.byu.edu/…