ANGUISH

 

Hope Deferred by Chris Brazelton

My soul is rent with anguish

In this vale of sorrow and tears;

I dim, I dim like a candle,

hoping the wind will set me free.

My pleas ascend to Thee,

Seeking Thy mercy to rescue me.

 

-     CATHRYNE ALLEN

THE INNER PRESENCE

Advocate With the Father by LDS Bookstore

PSALM 139:1-7:  O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether…such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

We are told in our ‘me, myself and I’ world that the greatest thing we can do is to know ourselves. Most of us are not aware that there is someone who knows us much better than we can ever know ourselves. I had a very unusual experience once which proved this truth to me. As I was reflecting on my joyless life one day, I found myself in my mind in front of the great Judge, God the Father. He asked me three questions: How did you enjoy your mortal probation? What do you think you learnt from it? How do you think you did overall?

An understanding like no other flooded my being that there was nothing I could hide or tell half-truths about because He knew the very essence of my being: my innermost thoughts and intents, my sins, my rebellious moments in response to my sufferings, the times I had questioned Him and His goodness, my dislikes and likes, my conduct, my earthly indignities, my ingratitude, everything that made me tick….there was nothing, absolutely nothing about me or in me that He did not know. Every time I opened my mouth, nothing would come out. I knew with every fibre of my being that He knew the answer to every question before I could form it in my mind.

I felt like I was transparent before Him. He was not watching me but looking into the very depths of my soul. It was as if He was the inner presence inside me. I understood clearly as I understand that day follows night because I can see it, that God is so inter-connected with His children that it defies our mortal understanding. We, here and now, do not know and cannot fathom our spiritual origin or the Father’s connection with His children. God is beyond our understanding.

Then hope flooded my being. I had nothing to say and would not need to. There was someone else who saw into the very depths of my soul during the greatest moment of suffering known to man. He who absorbed the totality of my life could and would answer all the questions the Father would have of my conduct on Judgment Day: my intentions, my achievements, my failings. He, the Advocate who suffered for my soul would with His strength make up for my frailty (D&C 45:4-5). And He would do it with mercy.

Elder Merrill J. Bateman taught that the Atonement was an intimate, personal experience through which Jesus Christ came to know us individually and perfectly:

“For many years I thought of the Saviour’s experience in the garden and on the cross as places where a large mass of sin was heaped upon Him. Through the words of Alma, Abinadi, Isaiah and other prophets, however, my view has changed. Instead of an impersonal mass of sin, there was a long line of people, as Jesus felt ‘our infirmities’ (Hebrews 4:15), our griefs…carried our sorrows…and was bruised for our iniquities’ (Isaiah 53:4-5).

“The Pearl of Great Price teaches that Moses was shown all the inhabitants of the earth, which were ‘numberless as the sand upon the sea shore’ (Moses 1:28). If Moses beheld every soul, then it seems reasonable that the Creator of the universe has the power to become intimately acquainted with each of us. He learned about your weaknesses and mine. He experienced your pains and sufferings. He experienced mine. I testify that He knows us. He understands the way in which we deal with temptations. He knows our weaknesses. But more than that, more than just knowing us, He knows how to help us if we come to Him in faith” (A Pattern For All, Ensign or Liahona, Nov 2005, 75-76).

We will come to know fully the meaning of grace and mercy when we are face to face with the justice of the Father. We will know then who the Saviour truly is…a sacrifice that none of us could give, a hope of salvation, another God we are yet to comprehend.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

A GIFT

 

It Is Finished by Mindi Oaten

Thy infinite mercy

Thy limitless goodness

Thy bountiful compassion,

A gift to those who loveth Thee;

Trailing from the cross of Calvary,

Sealed with Your hour of agony.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

MERCY 2

 

In God's Care by Greg Collins

“We need mercy. Whether it is because of our “weakness and liability to sin” or for the trials we are called to pass through, we need the tempering mercy of God to sustain us. Both our weaknesses and our trials bring suffering, which are ameliorated by the compassion of God himself.

“A 1986 Guideposts magazine contains the story of a woman who discovered what she called “the nevertheless principle”. She had been facing a difficult experience with her husband’s having a malignant brain tumor. She said that in the midst of the experience, at a moment of her greatest pleading, God granted her a word in a moment of inspiration. This single word was nevertheless:

“I knew it had to be a special word, though I didn’t yet know it would become a life-style. I was sure only that it was a kind of promise. It was even a powerful little phrase: never the less.

“Never the less with God, no matter what. Always the most….Though doctors pronounced Jerry incurable, nevertheless, he would be gloriously healed. Perhaps not here on earth as we had all prayed. If Jerry’s physical body should die, nevertheless, he would go on living in another, greater dimension. (Marion Bond West, “One Simple Word from God”, p 12).

“The woman began researching this word in her Bible, finding it 90 times. Her story, simple but intriguing, has potential to lead any of us to the scriptures to find the “nevertheless” verses…..”nevertheless” verses in the scriptures quite often direct our attention to God’s mercy, such as:

“For I the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance: Nevertheless, he that repents and does the commandments of the Lord shall be forgiven (D&C 1:31-32)

“If the Lord could not look upon sin with the least degree of allowance, ‘period’ or ‘exclamation point’, then all of us would be lost. But since that scripture uses a semicolon, along with that merciful word nevertheless, you and I have hope, born of God’s mercy.”  (Jerry A. Wilson, The Great Plan of Happiness-Insights from the lectures on Faith, p 39-40)

I had a memory from my pre-earth life some years ago. I was sitting with the Saviour and He was saying to me: “I will save you and I will make up for everything.”

I think what He meant by the ‘making-up process’ is this: You will go through some tough spots and you will have to endure them but when you are alone, I will send you people who care; when you need understanding to help you cope, I will send you the Holy Ghost to teach you; when you need somewhere to lay down your head, I will provide a shelter for you. You will be hurting, you will be impoverished, you will be sick, nevertheless I will always be there…..this is mercy.

I can testify that this has come true for me. Over the years of my difficult life, I have lacked for nothing: I have been provided with friends that became my family, a network of help from the Church, anything I have lacked has come to me from different sources…..furniture, car, utilities, homes….never the less, always the most…..

There is none like Thee,

My Saviour and my King,

Showing mercy and kindness

To someone insignificant like me.

Who can compare and who can equal Thee

In Thy merciful care of me?

Let me worship Thee

With my lips and my heart

And help me be steadfast

From Thy favour never to part.

- Cathryne Allen 

MERCY 1

 

The Promise of Dawn by Dan Gerhartz

Mercy has been one of the Saviour’s attributes I thought I understood well. Not until recently did I realise I only understood it partially.

I have for a while now been praying for mercy regarding my illness. I have wanted a healing. There have been days when I felt the absence of it acutely and I am ashamed to admit with that absence came disbelief of God’s love. I could simply not understand it. I thought I qualified even just for a fraction of the ample mercy we are told is ever at the Saviour’s disposal to give.

As I reflected on this phenomenon recently I thought there must be something I was missing and there certainly was. It was given to me to see clearly that mercy cannot be given on demand, otherwise it is not mercy. Mercy comes from one who is merciful to give. It cannot be manipulated, demanded, expected, or even earned. It comes from the Saviour’s merciful heart and therefore it comes on His terms. Saviour’s mercy is a gift that should be trusted in but when and how it is offered is up to Him.  

Our part in receiving mercy is trust. Because mercy is usually given as a form of relief but if that relief was given us prematurely, it could jeopardize our growth and learning. Consider the multi-faceted answers to our prayers and you will see how complex deliverance of mercy can be:

”If all the sick for whom we pray were healed, if all the righteous were protected and the wicked destroyed, the whole program of the Father would be annulled and the basic principle of the gospel, free agency, would be ended. No man would have to live by faith.

“If joy and peace and rewards were instantaneously given the doer of good, there would be no evil – all would do good but not because of the rightness of doing good. There would be no test of strength, no development of character, no growth of powers, no free agency, only satanic controls. Should all prayers be immediately answered according to our desires and our limited understanding, then there would be little or no suffering, sorrow, disappointment, or even death, and if these were not, there would also be no joy, success, resurrection, nor eternal life and godhood.” (President Spencer W. Kimball, Faith Precedes the Miracle, p 97).

Enduring something difficult when a promise of mercy has been given but is not forthcoming is not for faint hearted. Trusting someone we do not see or something we have no proof of is a hard doctrine. We live by sight in this world and we often fail in our faith. I have often wondered how the Saviour can be so restrained and so tolerant of us when we lack in our faith in Him and then I came across this scripture which helped me to understand:

“I am Jehovah, and I know the end from the beginning, therefore my hand shall be over thee” (Abraham 2:8)

Notice how He did not say, “I know all things from beginning to the end”. Instead He said it the other way around. He said, “I know THE END”. In other words, I know how this is going to end up. I know the end product of YOU. I can be tolerant with you and what you are going through because I know the end.

The Saviour is not so concerned about where we have been but He focuses on the direction we are facing and where that direction will help us end up. For that good He reserves His mercy for the times and events in our lives that will be profitable for that end. His main concern is our eternal well-being and what we will become. This concern overrides the comfort and ease we expect in this life. He is ever driven by the work He shares with the Father to “bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39)

- CATHRYNE ALLEN  

THE MEDIATOR

 

Advocate With the Father by LDS Bookstore

“Each of us lives on a kind of spiritual credit. One day the account will be closed, a settlement demanded. However casually we may view it now, when that day comes and the foreclosure is imminent, we will look around in restless agony for someone, anyone, to help us….

“Unless there is a mediator, unless we have a friend, the full weight of justice untampered, unsympathetic, must, positively must, fall on us. The full recompense for every transgression, however minor or however deep, will be exacted from us to the uttermost farthing.

“But know this: Truth, glorious trust, proclaims there is such a Mediator. ‘For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus’  (1 Timothy 2:5). Through Him mercy can be fully extended to each of us without offending the eternal law of justice. This truth is the very root of Christian doctrine.”

-          Boyd K. Packer, “The Mediator”  General Conference April 1977

 

Like a bird in flight

My sins ascend to Thee;

Rising from the ashes of mortality,

They seek Thy love to set them free.

- Cathryne Allen 

A JUST GOD

 

Forgiven by Thomas Blackshear

On Judgment Day, the balance between justice and mercy will be so perfect that we will not be able to question it. This is the greatest lesson I learnt from David of the Old Testament.

I can think of no one who would have wept more when David forfeited his exaltation than the Saviour himself. To lose someone with so much promise and faithfulness would have been agonizing to Him. As a youth, he was said to be a man after the Lord’s “own heart” (1 Sam 13:14) and as a man, he spoke by the Spirit and had many revelations (see Guide to the Scriptures: David)

If there was anyone the Saviour could have been excessively merciful to, it would have been David but where would that have left Uriah, a man of principle and loyalty, and his innocent blood that was spilt? The man who had no say….whose wife was taken from him, who suffered an unjust death???  One truth remains….mercy cannot rob justice (Alma 42:25).

I saw the perfect nature of the God that we worship and trust through this story.  He knows all: our hearts, our capabilities, our intents, our weaknesses, our pains, our desires, our sufferings…. everything that could induce mercy….but yet He obeys all the laws that He himself is governed by. Because He is the giver of law and the sustainer of law, it is impossible for Him to violate law, including the law of justice (see Discourses of Brigham Young p1, Mormon Doctrine p 432-3, Mediation and Atonement p 168).

So  a king who was destined for exaltation fell from God’s grace and became an example of the perfect balance of justice and mercy. The justice was the loss of exaltation but the mercy was the gift of resurrection to all the human family including those who commit murder and inherit a much lesser kingdom of glory which, nevertheless, surpasses all understanding (D&C 132:38,39; D&C 76:89). David’s repentance and godly sorrow led to his gratefulness that the Saviour will not leave his soul in hell (Psalms 16:10; Acts 2:27; Acts 2:25-28; 13:22-37; Isaiah 55:3). This hope of resurrection of the unjust is known as ‘the sure mercies of David’ (see Bruce R. McConkie, The Promised Messiah, p 272).

The Psalms of David, who ‘foresaw the Lord always before his face’, are heart wrenching evidence of his unfailing love and praise of Jehovah (Acts 2:25). Even though he committed a grievous sin, he never turned away from the God of Israel. May we follow suit when sin finds us and turn to Him who can forgive and yet rescue our souls from everlasting misery and may we harbour in our heart David’s testimony forever: “The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my strength, in whom I will trust, my buckler, and the horn (strength, power) of my salvation….” (Psalms 18:2).

He is the one and only giver of mercy, forgiveness and salvation and there is none else….not in heaven above, or earth beneath…..nothing, nobody, nowhere…..(Deuteronomy 4:35,39;5:8 ;Isaiah 43:10-11; 45:5,6,14,18,22; 46:9; D&C 76:1; 2 Nephi 25:20; 31:21; Moses 6:52)

 

Will You come and carry me

When all my strength is gone?

Will Your mercy spill from You

When I can walk no more?

 

Will Your mercy lift me higher

To glimpse my eternal home?

Will I see my soul there

Before Your gilded throne?

 

When the sum of my life is done

Will You bring me home to keep?

I’ll want to kneel and honour You

Before Your Mercy Seat.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

A SACRED HOPE

 

As I reflected on my life recently I had a surreal experience where I saw myself before the Father who was asking me questions about my mortal experience. As I stood before Him I could not answer one question such as: How did you enjoy your mortal probation, what do you think you learnt from it, how do you think you did overall? Every time I opened my mouth, I could say nothing.

I understood there and then that there was nothing I could hide or tell half-truths about because He knew the very essence of my being: my innermost thoughts and intents, my sins, my rebellious moments in response to my sufferings, the times I had questioned Him and His goodness, my dislikes and likes, my conduct, my earthly indignities, my ingratitude, everything that made me tick….there was nothing, absolutely nothing about me or in me that He did not know.

I felt He was not watching me but looking into the very depths of my soul. It was as if He was inside me. I understood clearly as I understand that day follows night because I can see it, that God is so inter-connected with His children that it defies our mortal understanding. We, here and now, do not know and cannot fathom our spiritual origin or the Father’s connection with His children. God is beyond our understanding.

Then hope flooded my being. I had nothing to say and would not need to. There was someone who would absorb the totality of my life to answer all the questions the Father would have of my conduct, my intentions, my achievements, my failings. It would all be absorbed in the atoning blood of The Advocate who suffered for my soul. He would with His strength make up for my fragility.

This is grace, the ultimate all-encompassing gift, second only to eternal life. This grace too is beyond our understanding. We will fully come to know it when we are face to face with justice of the Father. We will know then who the Saviour truly is…a sacrifice that none of us could give, a hope of salvation, another God we are yet to comprehend.

When those who accept the gospel stand before the judgment bar of God, the Lion of Judah, the protector, will step forward in all His majesty and might as the guardian of our redemption. He will then ask the Father to judge His righteousness instead, to appease justice, saying:

“Father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, in whom thou wast well pleased; behold the blood of thy Son which was shed, the blood of him whom thou gavest that thyself might be glorified; Wherefore, Father, spare these my brethren that believe on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life.” (D&C 45:4,5)

 

I marvel that you could perceive

every thought of my heart,

Long before you gifted one to me;

That you trusted my will to obey

With You so dim in my memory.

I stand amazed at Your sufferance

Of the struggling sinner like me,

And the steadfast flow of help you bestow

From the merciful heart that is in Thee.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Strength and Fragility by Greg Collins)

KNOWING HIM

 

When Moses ascended Mt Sinai for the second time, Jehovah descended in a cloud before him and passing by him, He proclaimed:

“ The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth; Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.”  (Exodus 34:6,7)

This is so significant. This was not someone stroking his ego by listing His amazing qualities. This is a proclamation of someone who knows who He is and what His purpose is. Take notice of the attributes and qualities the Saviour listed: mercy, grace, longsuffering, goodness, truth, forgiveness….these are all qualities that benefit the human family. The proclamation was and still is: “I am your God and I am here to save you.”

But make no mistake, He is also a judge, as he indicates at the end of His statement, and He seeks accountability for the sins we commit and pass on to our children for generations to come. In other words, He is also a God of power, truth and justice. There is no fault in Him, only balance.

Moses wrote down how Jehovah described himself and no doubt He shared that description with the Hebrews he presided over because it was imperative that they knew who the source of their salvation was and what He was like.

“We live in a day of restoration when we know that God exists. However, the knowledge of his existence is only preliminary to our knowing his characteristics and attributes. When the challenges and traumas of life arise – and they are a natural part of this mortal experience – though we know there is a God, the issue will depend more critically on what He is like.

“The questions in those difficult times will center on whether I can depend on and trust in Him implicitly. Does He, for instance, have knowledge and power sufficient to save me? And for that matter, does he have the mercy and desire to do so?” (Jerry A. Wilson, “The Great Plan of Happiness – Insights From The Lectures on Faith” p 27)

Some years ago I determined that I would get to know what the Saviour is like through the Book of Mormon. I noted all His attributes and qualities I could see in the margins of my book. Mercy was the most prevalent attribute and it was just about on every page. I don’t know where I would be today if I didn’t know that He would be merciful towards my blunders, my imperfections and my humanity.

 

Aside from the scriptures, our convictions of who the Saviour is and what He is like, born from personal interactions with the spirit would have to be our greatest knowledge. Consider this tender image President Heber C. Kimball had of God:

 

“I am perfectly satisfied that my Father and my God is a cheerful, pleasant, lively, and good-natured Being. Why? Because I am cheerful, pleasant, lively and good-natured when I have His Spirit. That is one reason why I know and another is – the Lord said, through Joseph Smith, “I delight in a glad heart and a cheerful countenance.” That arises from the perfection of His attributes. He is a jovial, lively person, and a beautiful man. (“Journal of Discourses” 4:222)

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Jesus Loves Me by Chris Brazelton)

 

THE LONG SUFFERING OF OUR GOD

 

There was a great patriarch who stood next in line to Adam in the Priesthood, to whom was given ‘the dominion’ and who was made the father of all living in this day. This man was Noah who was also another noble and great one by the name of ‘Gabriel’, ‘in the beginning’. (“Teachings of Joseph Smith”, p 157).

Noah was born in the year 2,944 B.C. which was four years after the City of Enoch was translated. His greatness is attested by the fact that he was ordained to the priesthood at the unprecedented age of ten (D&C 107:52).

By the time Noah was called by God, at the age of 480,  to preach the message of “repent or perish”, “the society of his dispensation was worse than anything before or since – worse than Babylon where they offered human sacrifices, worse than Greece where they subjected young children to degenerate orgies, worse than Sodom, worse than Gomorah. (W. Cleon Skousen, “The First Two Thousand Years”, p 200)

It was a day when the power of Satan was upon all the face of the earth. So successful was Satan that the scripture says the earth seemed veiled with a terrible chain of darkness and Lucifer ‘looked up and laughed, and his angels rejoiced’.  (Moses 7:24,26)

And so Noah preached for 120 years as a testimony of Jehovah’s mercy until the floods came  (Genesis 5:3; Moses 8:17). But the mercy didn’t end there. During the three days post resurrection, the Saviour went to the spirit world and there organised the preaching of the gospel to those who had lived in the days of Noah and perished in the flood. Peter called this ‘the long-suffering’ of God (1 Peter 3:18-20).

“…..though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isaiah 1:18). This is the mercy and the long suffering of our God.

And here is the ultimate mercy of the deluge of the Flood which destroyed all the wicked upon the earth save one family:  The people of Noah’s day were so wicked that they ‘transmitted their unrighteous natures and desires to their children and brought them up to indulge in their own wicked practices’. Had they been allowed to live, the generations they were raising would eventually have had no ability to exercise their moral agency because they lived in evil continually and knew no good (see John Taylor, in “Journal of Discourses” 19:158-59). Therefore, The Flood became an act of mercy for generations of spirits yet to come to earth.

Mormon testified that the Saviour would not withhold the power of the Holy Ghost from the earth as long as there is ONE person who could be saved (Moroni 7:36). Abraham tested the Lord on this by trying to save Sodom’s population. He started asking Him if He would spare the Sodomites if there were fifty righteous souls there and the Lord kept re-assuring him that he would not destroy them even for ten’s sake but there were not even ten to be found (Genesis 18:23-33). Such was the case in Noah’s day.

His desire to save is there, the mercy ever extended, the long suffering infinitely present. We just need to want it.

Thy infinite mercy

Thy bountiful long suffering,

Trailing from the cross of Calvary,

Sealed with Your hour of agony.

 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: Our Father Who Art in Heaven by Greg Collins) 

 

IN WHOM WE TRUST

 

I had an advantageous experience this morning I would like to share. In search of something, I opened YouTube and the first thing I saw was an advertisement for AI that went like this: If you spend your first 10 minutes upon waking each day with AI, you won’t recognise yourself in a month.

I was so taken aback with it that I didn’t listen to more. I don’t know much about AI so I don’t know what claim to advantages AI can make but I know the warnings that we have been given by our leaders and so I am following that. I have no interest in AI, especially since I am no longer in the workforce and cannot see the need for it in my life.

I know who I would rather spend my first 10 moments with upon awakening and here is how I know. Almost immediately as I closed YouTube I received one of the greatest revelations I have had in the past year I have suffered from bad physical health.

All my life I have had a strong sense of justice to the point that it robbed me to a great degree of mercy. I recognised this in myself years ago and always thought it was mercy towards others that I lacked but this morning I was shown different.

This morning I recognised that it was needful for me to experience my greatest weakness through bad health to see that I lacked mercy towards myself. I have been hard on myself my whole life and have always felt not good enough. It has a lot to do with my upbringing but I won’t go into that.

This morning I could see so plainly that my greatest need for mercy was for my humanity. And you cannot experience that a better way than through physical senses because having a body is what makes us human. As this revelation came upon me, the tears flowed and then another realisation.

This revelation could not have come from any external source but only from the spiritual connection I have with the Saviour as one of His disciples. Only from Him…..because He is the one that received a glimpse into my human experience and my soul so that He would know how to ‘succor me according to my infirmities’ (Alma 7:12).

This morning gave me the greatest 10 minutes of my life. All honour, glory and praise be to my Saviour who has given me a portion of His mercy that I might know myself and through it show love to the person who right now needs it the most, me. In a month, I won’t know myself….

You have fed me from the banquet of your love;

Your arms have cradled me

in the eye of the heaviest storm;

You have led me to reach the heights of faith

to me unknown.

You are my Sovereign,

My wings of protection from the cold,

My eagle in flight

To pilot me home.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: In Solemn Prayer by Greg Collins)

CONDITIONAL LOVE

 

There is a dangerous philosophy that we often hear in the Church and that is that God’s love is unconditional. The danger of the word ‘unconditional’ gives us a mistaken belief that we can do whatever we want and we will still be loved and accepted by God hence no need for restrictions and commandments as repeated offences against God will be excused. (see President Russell M. Nelson’s “Divine Love” Ensign, Feb 2003, and Elder D. Todd Christofferson, “Abide In My Love” GC Oct 2016)

This is where the philosophy of ‘unconditional love’ began: “During the last several decades, a heresy regarding God’s love has surfaced. The heresy states that God’s love is unconditional. The heresy first started with humanist psychologists who invented the term. Unconditional love, they taught, is the love parents ought to have for their children.  Eventually, the term was adopted into Christian dialogue to describe God’s love. This is a classic example of mingling the philosophies of men with scripture. This has been true even within the dialogue of the Church. And this is why President Nelson wrote his article.” (Bruce Satterfield, Gospel Doctrine Lesson 44: God Is Love, Nov 2, 2015)

I recently came to understand this philosophy on a deeper level and it is this: there is an important component of God’s love that makes ‘unconditional love’ an impossibility and that is mercy.

I know of someone in the Church who believes that all of God’s children will in the end live with Him again because of His mercy. And this is the problem…. When we believe that God’s love is unconditional, we not only think we can get away with anything, we also believe because He loves us, He will be merciful when the time comes.

If God’s love encompasses mercy and if His love was unconditional then mercy would have to be extended to the unrepentant on Judgment Day and that can never be because of three reasons: 1. Mercy cannot rob justice (Alma 42:25); 2. No unclean thing can enter the Kingdom of Heaven (3 Nephi 27:19); and 3. We cannot be saved in our sins (Alma 11:37).

The third reason seems the most important because it has to do with the Plan of Salvation. If God saved us in our sins, we would not be prepared for eternal life and exaltation. We would not have developed godly attributes that come only through repentance. If God showed mercy to the unrepentant and saved them in their sins, this would negate the purpose of the Plan of Salvation and ultimately His love which put that Plan into effect.

The more righteous we are, the more love we can receive and ultimately, more mercy. Mercy has to be our over-riding goal, a goal bigger than love because it is mercy that will save us in the end. It is mercy that will sanctify us and lift us out of our probationary state of imperfection to the Saviour’s status of perfectness to be co-heirs with Him in the Kingdom of Heaven. This is what He suffered for, this is what He died for.

This is love. God is not the Father of spoilt children. He is the Father of eternal joy and happiness, not short-term indulgence. If we really want to be loved, we will strive to be the children He intends us to be.

“….whose keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected….” (1 John 2:5)

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: The Lord is Good by Chris Brazelton)

FATHER'S MERCY

 

“I believe that Heavenly Father wants to save every one of his children. I do not think he intends to shut any of us out because of some slight transgression, some slight failure to observe some rule or regulation. There are the great elementals that we must observe, but he is not going to be captious about the lesser things.

“I believe that his juridical concept of his dealings with his children could be expressed in this way: I believe that in his justice and mercy he will give us the maximum reward for our acts, give us all that he can give, and in the reverse, I believe that he will impose upon us the minimum penalty which it is possible for him to impose.”

-          President J. Reuben Clark, In Conference Report, October 1953, p 84

I too believe in Father’s inherent mercy because of His perfect love but I also believe that this mercy was increased in measure through the Atonement of His Beloved Son who is our Mediator and Advocate with the Father.

Father is justice and Christ is mercy (3 Nephi 20:20; 27:17; D&C 101:9; Mosiah 13:14; Moroni 7:27). Together they are the balanced scale we will face on the day of judgment. That day we will be judged so perfectly that we will not be able to question it.

Even though mercy cannot rob justice (Alma 42:25), it is the mercy that we will receive that we will remember forever because it will come from the loving heart of God. We will know then just how much we are loved…..

 

I marvel, Father, that You could perceive

every thought of my heart,

Long before you gifted one to me;

That you trusted my will to obey

With You so dim in my memory.

I stand amazed at Your sufferance

Of the struggling sinner like me,

And the steadfast flow of gifts you bestow

From the merciful heart that is in Thee.

 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: The Father by FluxPro.art)

A SAVING WORD

 

“A 1986 “Guideposts” magazine contains the story of a woman who discovered what she called “the nevertheless principle”. She had been facing a difficult experience with her husband’s having a malignant brain tumour. She said that in the midst of the experience, at a moment of her greatest pleading, God granted her a word in a moment of inspiration. This single word was NEVERTHELESS. She said:

“I knew it had to be a special word, though I didn’t yet know it would become a life-style. I was sure only that it was a kind of promise. It was even a powerful little phrase: never the less.

“Never the less with God, no matter what. Always the most. Though I was alone in this automobile, nevertheless God Himself was right here beside me. Though doctors pronounced Jerry incurable, nevertheless he would be gloriously healed. Perhaps not here on earth as we had prayed. If Jerry’s physical body should die, nevertheless he would go on living in another, greater dimension.” (Marion Bond West, “One Simple Word from God”, p 12)

-       (Jerry A. Wilson, “The Great Plan of Happiness” p 40)”

This woman researched the word ‘nevertheless’ in her Bible and found it 90 times. There is a scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants which uses this word to its biggest potential to teach us of Christ’s character:

“For I the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance; NEVERTHELESS, he that repents and does the commandments of the Lord shall be forgiven” (D&C 1:31-32).

Imagine if that word was not there. Imagine if instead of a semicolon there was a fullstop. Instead this one simple word introduces not only three doctrinal principles but the Saviour’s attribute which makes salvation possible: repentance>obedience>forgiveness…..born out of mercy.

If there was no mercy, we would all be lost. If He was not, we would not be, silence would have wept at Calvary!

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art by Land of Dreams)

AT CALVARY

 

I continue to glean lessons from the Saviour’s suffering during His Atonement, not theological but personal. I was given one such lesson this week.

As I was praying one day, I was given a picture in my mind of the Saviour on the cross. It stunned me to the point that I stopped praying and I just listened to the understanding that kept coming. I will attempt to share with you just one thing that I feel is needful for all of us in this divisive world we live in.

Sometimes we pray for Christ-like qualities we want to have and we imagine that heaven’s wand will be waved over us and we will magically have what we asked for. I happen to have a very strong sense of justice to the point that it has at times robbed me of mercy towards others. I was very aware of this and thought it most unattractive so I have prayed a long time to become merciful. I wanted that wand!

As I saw the Saviour on the cross experiencing everyone’s pain, I understood that because He experienced and knew our suffering personally that He obtained the depth of mercy He might not have had before.

Alma proves my point here: “And He will take upon him death, that He may loose the bands of death which bind His people; and He will take upon Him their infirmities, that His bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor His people according to their infirmities” (Alma 7:12).

This deep sense of mercy the Saviour acquired through His Atonement will also be the defining attribute He will employ to make a righteous judgment and satisfy the demands of justice on judgment day. The balance between justice and mercy will be so perfect that we will not be able to question it.

How did this experience apply to me? I have been suffering physically for over a year now. Of late I have prayed that I will learn the lessons I am meant to learn from it. My above-mentioned experience helped me to understand that I need to view my fellowmen through the lense of mercy because everyone suffers in some way. We don’t know each other’s lives. We only know what we see and what we project to the world. I am hoping that as I am merciful towards others, I will be endowed with the pure love of Christ as Moroni promised (Moroni 7:48). This too is my desire.

I am amazed what we can learn from the life of Christ. His teachings and His mortal life, His example and His pure love and mercy toward us in this fallen world should provide life-long lessons for us, so that we ‘may become the sons of God; that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him….” (Moroni 7:48).

Today as I communed with Thee

You took me all the way to Calvary.

My heart stood still, the lessons came

And taught me what in words

I could not name.

I bow the knee and in thanks

Ascend to Thee

For all I learnt at Calvary.

 - CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Redemption's Burden by Greg Collins)

COUNSELS AND MERCY

 

It is amazing to me how much damage one person can create by discounting God’s counsel. You will gather from this that I am not a fan of Zeniff who led a colony of his followers to a down-right mess by taking them away from Zarahemla and into the clutches of Nephite arch enemy, the Lamanites. In his record, Zeniff recounts that he ‘had knowledge of the land of Nephi, or of the land of their father’s first inheritance’ (Mosiah 9:1) and that he desired to return there to live in peace with the Lamanites. One would have to presume that with this knowledge also came the awareness of the Lord’s counsel to Nephi to depart from that land because of his brothers who sought to kill him; that they and their posterity were cursed so that Nephi and his posterity would not mix with them; and this, the most important part, that the Lamanites would be a scourge unto Nephites to stir them up in remembrance of God and that they would even scourge them unto destruction ( 2 Nephi 5:2,5,14, 21-25)

A question begs to be asked why Zeniff would ignore the Lord’s counsel not to mix with the Lamanites when he himself was a man of God. Zeniff did discover the reason for the Lord’s warning whilst living with the Lamanites and this reason was ‘the traditions of the fathers’ (Mosiah 10:13-18). These traditions were encased in untruth and hatred and passed onto children and their children. The lesson?  Never underestimate the Lord’s foreknowledge and wisdom.

Zeniff’s decision to disregard the Lord’s counsel caused utter mayhem causing his people to live in constant fear which resulted in many wars with the Lamanites and slaughter of many men. One war alone cost the lives of 3,043 of Lamanites and 279 of Zeniff’s people (Mosiah 9:18,19). A record of another battle claims there was such a great slaughter that they did not even number them (Mosiah 10:20). If you think this is bad enough, there is something worse……before Zeniff died he conferred his kingdom upon his worst son, Noah. So he left his people in constant fear of the Lamanites, in the hands of the worst king in the history of The Book of Mormon (Mosiah 11:1).

There is something positive in this sad story. Zeniff points out three times in his short narrative, that he and his people fought the Lamanites ‘in the strength of the Lord’ (Mosiah 9:17,18; 10:10). I see the Saviour and His great mercy in the story of Zeniff for He did hear their cries and did answer their prayers (Mosiah 9:18). It never fails to amaze me how merciful He is to us mortal creatures who disregard His wisdom and counsel and bring upon ourselves misery and destruction. Such stark injustice for His merciful death!

When You stood in Heaven’s Council,

Did you know that we would not heed?

That we would fail to see

You would know our every need?

Yes, You knew, and still….

Long before creation claimed us

You climbed Your way to Calvary.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Whispers of Grace by Ivan Guaderrama)