TO SEE THE FACE OF GOD

 

Imagine sitting on a family feud for 20 years. Imagine having to face the person who sought to take away your life because of this feud after all the time you were estranged from them. This was the situation Jacob found himself in when God commanded him to return to Canaan. He knew he would come across his brother Esau and dread took possession of him. So much so that he prayed to God for protection.

Consider his humility in approaching God: “I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast showed unto thy servant…deliver me I pray thee from the hand of my brother…..” (Genesis 32:10) Then he evoked God’s promise of the Abrahamic covenant through which he would be blessed with posterity ‘as the sand of the sea which cannot be numbered for multitude’ (vs 11,12)

Imagine Jacob’s joy when Esau “ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him”…..and instead of animosity, hatred and vengeance, they wept….(Genesis 33:4). And this is the reward of forgiveness in Jacob’s words: “I have seen thy face, as though I had seen the face of God….” (v 10)

This reminds me of that famous quote from the finale of Victor Hugo’s novel “Les Miserables”, “To love another person is to see the face of God”, emphasizing that selfless love breaks all the barriers of contention, hatred and discord and represents the highest, divine and sacred experience.  

I could not imagine life without forgiveness. Living in such immense opposition and weakness, we simply could not survive spiritually without it because the imperfection of this life would canker our souls beyond saving. Forgiveness rescued me from the greatest trial of my life. This forgiveness was what made me ‘see the face of God’ because it came as His gift.

Now in this later stage of my life, I am learning more about self-forgiveness of my humanity. I erroneously and arrogantly expected I was going to be perfect in this life…..my weaknesses taught me otherwise. Self-forgiveness, like forgiveness of others, is a freeing tool that makes something wonderful of us. Consider Alma the Younger who suffered the godly sorrow asked of every repentant sinner (Alma36:18). 

Obviously’, the Saviour didn't require more than that of Alma.  He did not require him to live in the past or the future beating himself up for what he did.  What He did require of Alma was for Alma to become a great man.  A man who would be an instrument in His hands to convince others of His great power to save. 

Alma, who once went about with the intent to destroy the Church became Alma who led the Nephite armies in battle, who sat naked with Amulek in dungeons, who was spat upon by the unrepentant, who dumbfounded an anti-Christ, who baptised thousands of souls unto repentance (Alma 4:4,5), who the Lord in the end took up unto himself (Alma 45:19).  Alma certainly did become that great man that the Lord needed…because of forgiveness.

I am in awe of the ‘Man of Sorrows’……of His mercy and His love. The older I get the more I feel the overwhelming reliance I have on His salvation. He has made my earthly life possible and my eternal life a surety because of His forgiveness of my humanity. I am in awe of His ability to liberate the beauty in me.

 

If I had the might to plant Thee in each heart

Of all that breathes,

In pursuit of such a quest I would walk the earth

With apparent ease.

As I can do so little this desire to meet,

I lay my loyal love at Thy holy feet.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Gentle Saviour by Jay Bryant Ward)

A MOTHER OF NATIONS

 

No union of two people had a more romantic beginning. It was the union of Isaac and Rebekah.

Isaac was forty years old and Rebekah was a damsel most likely in her teens (Genesis 25:20). There was a whole generation between them. Isaac’s mother Sarah was the sister of Rebekah’s grandmother Milcah. This would make Rebekah half of Isaac’s age, if not younger.

He was well-established and rich, a man of God and the heir of the priesthood and the covenant which would make him the progenitor of all the faithful. She was a righteous, young beautiful virgin and everything Abraham desired for his son’s wife (Genesis 24:16)…like Sarah….and she was destined to become ‘a mother of nations’…..like Sarah.

The marriage of Isaac and Rebekah was born out of the covenant between Abraham and his eldest servant whom he commissioned to travel back to his family in Mesopotamia to procure a wife of his family’s lineage for his beloved son. The servant had to covenant that he would not allow Isaac to marry a Canaanite. It was a matter of preserving the rights to the priesthood,  something the Canaanites were not privileged to because they were of Cain’s lineage.

I will not recount here how successful the servant was in meeting Rebekah and her family through the obvious spiritually engineered process. The amazing thing is that Rebekah agreed to leave the security of her family and travel to a land she has never been to, to marry a man she has never seen.

Picture a man out in the field at the eventide spotting a caravan of camels approaching. A young girl he has never before seen, wearing a vail across her face, alights and is introduced as his wife. All Genesis records is that Isaac ‘brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, made her his wife and loved her’ (Genesis 24:67). You can just feel the cupid’s bow, can’t you???

I am amazed how men used to master the frontiers of this earth and women carved dynasties by the children they bore.

The heathen land of Canaan that Isaac and Rebekah lived in was not a paradise but it was the promised land for their posterity and they embraced it with trust and faith. Abraham passed on an estate of great wealth to Isaac which gave him a position of influence and prestige in the land but here is the sting… Life is not smooth sailing even for the most noble and chosen……

Like Sarah who waited 38 years for Isaac, Rebekah waited 20 years to become a mother. Genesis records that Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rebekah and 60 years old when she had Jacob and Esau (Genesis 25:20,26). What went through their minds for those 20 years, no doubt knowing the promises, would have tested them to the limit….

We are told that Isaac ‘intreated’ the Lord so that Rebekah could conceive (Genesis 25:21). The dictionary defines this word as: ask earnestly, beseech, implore, BEG….

The faith and trust paid of. Through one of the children Rebekah had were all the promises realized. Jacob’s 12 sons became the Tribes of Israel which roam this earth to this day….through which all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

And the God of Israel? He ALWAYS fulfils His promises. Mormon testified of this throughout the Book of Mormon with phrases such as ‘all this was done that the word of the Lord might be fulfilled’ and ‘God is powerful to the fulfilling of all his words’ (Mosiah 21:4; Alma 37:16; 50:19; Mormon 1:19; Helaman 4:21; Ether 15:3; Words of Mormon 1:4; 3 Nephi 1:13,20).

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Rebekah at the Well by Michael Deas)