INHERITANCE

 

“Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.”  (3 Nephi 12:5)

“As things are now constituted, the meek do not inherit the earth; even He who said of himself, “I am meek and lowly in heart” (Matt 11:29) had in fact no place of his own to lay his head. This world’s goods were of little moment to him, and he had neither gold nor silver nor houses nor lands, nor kingdoms……The meek – those who are the God-fearing and the righteous – seldom hold title to much of that which appertains to this present world.

“But there will be a day when the Lord shall come to make up his jewels; there will be a day when Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the faithful of ancient Israel shall dwell again in old Canaan; and there will be also an eventual celestial day when ‘the poor and the meek of the earth shall inherit it.” (D&C 88:17)

There are some of us, if not many of us who do not own a house and therefore not an inch of this earth is ours. As much as some of us try to cling to our earthly abode and our possessions, we are all, regardless of our possessions, just passing through. We are like the people of Enoch’s city who felt like strangers and pilgrims on this earth (D&C 45:11-13). Jacob described the early Nephites as ‘a lonesome and a solemn people, wanderers, cast out from Jerusalem and born in tribulation and wilderness (Jacob 7:26), and Paul described the faithful ancients who ‘died in faith, not having received the promises…and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth’ (Hebrews 11:13).

This is not our true home but there will come a day when all that will change. In the Millenial reign for one, there will be no poor among us and we will all own something of this earth. But that is just the beginning, when the Millenium ends, this earth will be sanctified and celestialized and ‘crowned with glory, even with the presence of God the Father….that bodies who are of the celestial kingdom may possess it forever….(D&C 88:18-20). I want to own a parcel of that earth.

I have not owned a home for the past 30 years. Some years ago when I was drowning in self-pity trying to figure out where I could live next, I remembered the Saviour and His lustre-lack earthly life. It gave me so much comfort to know that I was not less because I had no home of my own. I wrote the following poem in gratitude of His loving care of me for He has provided for me better than I could ever have done on my own. Until I kneel at His feet on the celestialized earth, I will wander….

 

You send me wherever You want me to go;

Over plains, seas and roughest roads.

I am dismayed I have

To wander in search of my bed;

Then I remember foxes had holes

And the birds of the air had nests

But You had nowhere to lay down Your head.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art by Joseph Brickey)