A PERSONAL GOD

 

I came across a comment recently on YouTube by a well-meaning Catholic man who admonished us to repent and to ask “our Lady of Fatima to pray for us and give our hearts to her as an offering to the Lord”.

I asked this person who this lady is and why we should pray to her. He gave a short description of her but never said why we should pray to her. I concluded that he himself didn’t know, only that his religion has taught him to do it, and I sorrowed that this man might never come to know God in this life.  

I have over the years expressed many times my gratitude to God for the truth that I have in my life. This truth has come to me by way of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ which has taught me to have a personal relationship with God.

Until the recent years, the Saviour was in the forefront of my mind. He was all that I could see. Now who I see first and foremost is the Father. This has always meant to be so. The Church brings us to Christ and Christ brings us to the Father. Revealing the Father and making Him personal to us was one of the main purposes of the Saviour’s ministry among men (see Jeffrey R. Holland, “The Grandeur of God”, October 2003 GC)

Now when I pray to the Father I feel such closeness to Him that I yearn for His presence. This I believe is the culmination of years and years of yielding my heart to His Son. I also believe that yearning for the Father’s presence is the true and higher purpose of prayer.

This yearning was so strong in me one day as I prayed that immense fear gripped me that I might not ever enjoy being in His presence again. This opened the visual vista of being lost and living eternally with loneliness and unfulfilled longing. But then hope came to me so forcefully because what followed that fear was the deepest understanding I have ever received of the Atonement of Jesus Christ which filled me with inexpressible joy.

This time my understanding of this crucial Gospel principle was not educational, theological or intellectual but something so personal that it made God more real to me than ever before. I felt rescued and saved from eternal damnation. I understood what Jesus had done for me. That moment in my life was the beginning to my ever-growing desire to please the Father and be a source of joy and delight to Him.

It should sear our hearts when we read of Him weeping over His disobedient children (Moses 7:28,29). On Judgement Day, those who refused the redemption of Christ will know the deepest sorrow known to man. They will long for the Father they once knew and loved. Imagine the sorrow the Father too will know in that moment. It should be the quest of our lives to never allow Him to experience this…..but so live that we will make up for His loss.

When my days on earth are done

I will lift above the world below

And I will seek the gilded gate

To welcome me to my eternal home.

 

I will approach the foot of His throne,

I will kneel and I will weep

When in hope I give Him joy

For eternity to keep.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: Father and Son by Danny Hahlbohm)

EVERLASTING HAPPINESS

 

In my reading of the BOM this morning I came across an interesting scripture where Mormon reiterates that Jesus has brought to pass the redemption of the world which can bring us into the presence of God to enjoy ‘everlasting happiness’ (Mormon 7:7). I have always believed we would have everlasting happiness in the Kingdom of God but have at times wondered how that can be for those who become gods and continue to have children forever, knowing the mental anguish and sorrow children can cause.  

 

We know that even in pre-existence we, as children, caused the Father anguish and sorrow because one of His children of great promise, who was in authority in the presence of God, who was called ‘son of the morning’, rebelled against Him and caused a third of His children to become the sons of perdition (D&C 76:25-27). So great was he that the heavens wept over him. I cannot imagine the anguish and sorrow of our heavenly parents to lose such a child of promise, let alone a third of their children, knowing they will live forever in outer darkness.  When Enoch had his encounter with God, he witnessed Him weeping over His creations because of their wickedness (Moses 7:28). So we know that God experiences sadness and anguish as well as happiness in his godly state. 

 

There is hope though……In Doctrine & Covenants 18:15, we are told if we bring even one soul to Christ, that great shall be our joy in the kingdom of the Father. If our joy will be great, imagine the Father’s joy to see the return of many of His children. Losing a third of your children is devastating but retaining two thirds means hope of great joy. I hope we,  who have accepted His plan of salvation and who are now experiencing our second estate,  can make up for those who have rejected Him by honouring the trust and hope He has in us. May we have the desire in our hearts to bring Him joy and be a delight in His hand. I am certain that He who was and is a perfect Son of all His sons, who was ‘in His bosom’ from the beginning (D&C 76:25) makes up double fold for the son He has lost. May we follow in His footsteps to do the will of the Father in all things that His joy in us might be magnified and in some measure make up for the sorrow for those who are lost.

Grant me the hope Father

In this darkness

That I will one day see Your light;

And spare me Father the afflictions

Of my lonely heart.

Bear me up as on eagles’ wings

And carry me into

Thy benevolent embrace

That we might never again part

But instead bask in the union

Of our celestial hearts. 

 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: Joy by Yongsung Kim)