Purpose of Life - to understand God's role and become little children again

My friend and I were talking about how being a kid means you don't have any worries or responsibility and that all of our responsibility is what wears on us many times. I agreed with this whole-heartedly.

An interesting question though is why? Why do kids have such an easy life? Will we have an easy life at some point like they do? In the post-mortal world, I believe our lives will be very similar to our kids' lives now, although we will still have responsibilities.

Consider this verse about the spirit world in Alma 40:

12And then shall it come to pass, that the spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of ^ahappiness, which is called^bparadise, a state of rest, a state of ^cpeace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow.

Now we also know that when we die there is a lot of work for us to still do. When Jesus died, he went and organized his missionary work in the spirit world so that missionaries (members of the church when they were alive) could teach the gospel to those who did not accept it while alive. See D.C. 138 and also Pres. Eyring's talk in April 2005. So, we're still going to have responsibility and work after we die. So why will it be a state of rest and peace?

I think it's because we'll be much closer to heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Just like my kids are not worried about things in part because they don't know any better but in part because they have an implicit trust in their parents, when we are closer to God and Jesus Christ and know all the things they are doing to help us and take care of us, we will no longer worry about things like we do. In that way, once we see our parents again, we will become like little children. Interestingly, this life seems to be a time where God gives us the opportunity to be as much like him as we can: we have responsibility, it's hard for us to see exactly how involved he is, etc. Then, if we pass this life well, we'll get to go back to him, but this time having a great respect for all he does since we've tried doing it ourselves. This will likely make us act like little children again in the sense that we are very trusting in our heavenly Father (and Jesus) and his ability to take care of things. The difference between our acting as children in the pre-mortal vs. the post-mortal life is that in the post-mortal life we'll have a much greater understanding of how hard a job heavenly Father has after we have tried to be autonomous in this life. He's given us a perfect environment to learn to be like him and also to come to respect him.

In this context, consider the following verses from Matthew 11:

28¶^aCome unto me, all ye that ^blabour and are heavy laden, and I will give you ^crest.

29Take my ^ayoke upon you, and ^blearn of me; for I am ^cmeek and^dlowly in ^eheart: and ye shall find ^frest unto your souls.

It is clear that when we try to come under the watchful care of Jesus in this life, he will also comfort and sustain us. It's not that our pressures and responsibilities will go away; instead, it will be that we completely trust that Jesus will take care of us. We will still have work to do in the post-mortal life, but we'll trust that heavenly Father and Jesus will always be there to take care of things and make sure all will turn out well in the end. We will once again become like little children.

Have a great day.