FOR SUCH A TIME 1

 

In years past I have routinely skipped the four chapters of highly detailed instructions given to Moses regarding the building of the tabernacle and priestly robes during Israel’s journeying. Quite simply, I found it difficult to relate to either the materials or methods used for such an undertaking. I was, however, always amazed at the workmanship required of ancient Israel and wondered how they would know how to accomplish it without highly skilled labour. After all, they were just slaves.

This is what happens when you skim the scriptures…..you miss something important. One year I decided to look at these four chapters of explicit instructions more closely. What I discovered was Jehovah telling Moses the names of the men and what tribe they are in Israel’s congregation that can do the work needed. He then tells him that HE has ‘filled’ them with wisdom and knowledge and understanding ‘in all manner of workmanship……that they may make all that I have commanded thee’ (Exodus 31:2-6). I don’t know how or when, but somehow these men were inspired some time, somewhere, to have an interest in specific skills that were needed for an important work they would one day do.

In one of my previous blogs I wrote about individual plans God had for each of us that was best suited to who we are and what we can accomplish. I shared a quote that best explains this and I share it here again for those who missed it: “When we say God has a plan, he truly has a plan – not simply a grand scale, but for each of us as individuals, allocating some special talent to this dispensation and some to another. I regard God as the perfect personnel manager, even though He must work with and through all of us who are so imperfect. I assume, gladly, that in the allocation to America of remarkable leaders like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln, the Lord was just as careful. After all, if you’ve got only one Abraham Lincoln, you’d better put him in that part of history when he’s most needed….” (Neal A. Maxwell, “Deposition of a Disciple”, p 46)

We are about to study the book of Esther this week in our Church “Come Follow Me” programme. Esther is an amazing example of being in the right place at the right time on this earth. A Jewish girl who became the queen of Persia at the time that her people needed saving shows us what power we as individuals have and how we are to use it for God’s purposes and for humanity.

When Esther’s adopted father, Mordecai, discovered the plot to kill the Jews at the same time that the King of Persia was looking for a new queen, he told Esther she could save her people from extinction because “who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14).

Like the ancient men of Israel’s camp, we have been imbued with wisdom, understanding and knowledge to achieve what is expected of us and like Esther, He has placed us here at the right time to do so. In God’s great wisdom He has reserved the most valiant, the strongest, the most dependable servants for ‘such a time as this’ when evil abounds upon the earth in unequalled measure. We are the ones who can withstand the onslaught and who have covenanted long before this earth began that we would uphold the ensign of truth and proclaim to the earth that the God of our fathers is with us still.

I would have never been a good fit for Babylon or any other time and place of this earth but here and now where technology has given me a voice and God knew this……it’s my saving grace.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Queen Esther by Unknown Artist)

TRUST

 

I viewed my life as hopeless pieces

And shame consumed my fragile heart.

I questioned every move and every choice;

I berated, I gave no value to any part.

Not until my trust consumed me

And my will to heavens flew

Did solace nestle in my soul

And such freedom as I never knew.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art by David Beraru)

LIFE

 

“’Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect’ (Matt 5:48). Now, that is an attainable goal. We will not be exalted, we shall not reach our destination, unless we are perfect, and now is the best time in the world to start toward that perfection. I have little patience with people who say, ‘Oh, nobody is perfect’, the implication being: ‘so why try? Of course no one is wholly perfect, but we find some who are a long way up the ladder.”

-          President Spencer W. Kimball, “Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball” p 165

I have been very introspective on this the last leg of my earthly journey. I think illness has a great way of forcing us to confront our mortality. Recognizing that life is a sum of one’s choices, I have been re-hashing my life to discover if there is something I should have done better: did I follow all the teachings of the Gospel as I should, did I rely on God enough to follow my life’s plan, did I allow my fears to control me, did  my decisions make my life better or worse, did I suffer more than I should have, did I try hard enough to be Christ-like?

So much of what comes upon us is self-inflicted. Even Job admitted that what he feared had come upon him (Job 3:25).  I discovered a person can easily run the risk of spending their entire old age beating themselves up over the past. Seeing clearly you are not perfect can be a terrible blow to the ego….

I have looked back on the lessons I have learnt during my life and have reasoned they are wasted if they are not acted upon but some things cannot be re-visited. Somehow I think nothing gained here was ever meant to be wasted. There is another life to be lived….a better life….the real life….the never ending life…..because the spirit of man lives on and ‘becoming’ is a process.

One day we will see the beauty in all our earthly experiences and all our learning as we kneel before the King of Kings and acknowledge His priceless part in our eternal journey. One day I know, when I am sanctified, He will consecrate ‘the sum of me’.

The lessons of my life flowed like a river

Winding through days, months and years;

I rescued a few but missed so many

From the currents as I saw them passing;

They drowned in a daze of my ignorance,

Unwanted and ignored but yet abiding.

I fish them now from the pool of my memory

And give them life everlasting.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: Jesus Prince of Peace by Danny Hahlbohm)

THE VASTNESS OF US

 

I shed many tears yesterday as I came to the end of a particularly difficult week with my physical suffering. I expected some sort of comfort from above but I did not expect what I was given.

Surprisingly, my mind opened and I was given to comprehend through my tears, as much as I could comprehend, my significance in the Plan of Salvation and at the same time my significance as a single entity outside of  the vast overall picture of the process of that Plan.

I came to understand that there is something so much bigger than me and my experience no matter how painful it might be but at the same time, that pain was not without its importance to God.

The comprehension of the Plan which enlarges the Father’s glory through the salvation of us, eternal intelligences flooded my soul to the point that I could not verbalise it. I find it difficult even now to find the words. I understood the Saviour’s frustration in trying to describe to our limited mortal minds the kingdoms in existence beyond the planet we are for the time confined to when He said: “Unto what shall I liken these kingdoms, that ye may understand????” (D&C 88:46)

This lack of perfect comprehension made me see how important is our faith and our trust. One day we will plainly see how our lives, our sufferings and our sacrifices were a part of something significant with eternal consequences that is now beyond us to even imagine. We will understand our role in this universe and beyond. Intelligences we might be but the eternal in us is withheld for now from our grasp by the physical realm we are confined to.

This experience did not really bring me comfort but it surprised me that God can teach us something so vast in our most dire moments if we always have our hearts open with a willingness to receive answers greater than we can ourselves supply.

In all that I received yesterday, my dire moment presented to me the unfairness of the Saviour’s life and His unfathomable sacrifice for others. The scope of that sacrifice is also beyond my understanding as is the resultant splendour of His glory He now has.

My point is this. There is something far, far bigger than what we can for now see, feel and touch. We might not see it but the spirit in us has the ability to believe it. We are both ants on this planet and also entities so big no space can contain us. It all depends on the perspective of the moment. One day we, the gods in embryo, will understand and rejoice in our being.

How small and insignificant I am 

Among the countless children

Of this earth’s dust and fleeting pace

But of what importance

to my Saviour’s eternal grace!

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Artist Unknown)

 

THE ENIGMA OF LIFE

 

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, God’s work in your life is bigger than the story you’d like that life to tell. His life is bigger than your plans, goals or fears. To save your life, you’ll have to lay down your stories and, minute by minute, day by day, give your life back to him.”   (Adam S. Miller, “Letters to a Young Mormon” (2014), p 17-18)

Following my divorce 30 years ago, I felt like my life was a pile of ashes. I was more than certain that the marriage I went into was appointed by God and yet there I was eleven years later, a single mother with two children, carrying an enormous feeling of failure on my back.

I had joined the Church to have the Mormon ideal…an eternal family. I followed all the rules and acted on what I felt was spiritual guidance. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I should marry the person I had chosen. In fact, I felt driven to do it. Consequently, I went through excruciating pain of betrayal by God. If He knew what I was going to suffer, why did He lead me that situation?

I confided my feelings of doom to my Bishop soon after the divorce and he offered to give me a blessing the following Sunday. That blessing told me something I did not expect. I was told that God did not expect of me any more than I had given in my marriage and then this……that my life was planned for me before I was born and that I agreed to that plan because of my great faith in Jesus Christ.

Thirty years later questions still arise in my mind in regards to my divorce experience. I don’t dwell on it but I have a reflective mind and often assess the events of my life. Just recently I had a revelation during such reflection where I was told again that my life was planned in my pre-mortal life by the Father and the Saviour. This time I was told that the Father’s part was the plan and the Saviour’s was the atoning part for all my pain.

I stand amazed at the personal God that we worship. There are so many of us yet the Father and the Son are invested in each of us as if we are the only ones that exist and that matter. Often we think the Atonement was performed for the entire humanity en masse. This is clearly not true:

“Since the Saviour, as a God, has the capacity to simultaneously entertain multiple thoughts, perhaps it was not impossible for the mortal Jesus to contemplate each of our names and transgressions in concomitant fashion as the Atonement progressed, without ever sacrificing personal attention for any of us. His suffering need never lose its personal nature. While such suffering had both macro and micro dimensions, the Atonement was ultimately offered for each one of us.” (Elder Tad R. Callister, “Infinite Atonement”, p 147-8)

Elder Callister cites Moses’ experience on Mt Sinai where he was shown all the inhabitants of the earth and there was not one of us he did not see, ‘because he discerned us by the spirit of God’ (Moses 2: 28). This is how the Father sees us, individually, personally, lovingly….

And this is how the Saviour atoned for us….”No one, ‘not a soul’, was forgotten or slighted or neglected in the redeeming process. It was personal, focused, intimate, one-on-one sacrificing and caring for you and me.” (ibid)

I think of all the trials I have been through…..and I know it is because of the Saviour’s willingness to support the Father’s plan for my life, to suffer for all I have been through, to lift me higher than I can ever hope to lift myself…..to one day take me home.

I wish I could tell you

How deep the pain I am asked to bear,

Even though You already know,

Because you cradled me

In your loving arms through

The Garden’s gate and beyond.

Was I heavy to carry up Calvary’s hill

When your strength was all but gone?

I wept for you at the foot of the cross

As you ached for my broken soul

So desperately forsaken and all alone.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: Christ the Redeemer by Greg Collins)

MIGHTY JOB

 

“It Is not the function of religion to answer all questions about God’s moral government of the universe, but to give courage (through faith) to go on in the face of questions a man never finds the answers to in his present status.

“Therefore, take heed of yourselves, and as a wise world thinker once said, “If the time comes when you feel you can no longer hold to your faith, then hold to it anyway. You cannot go into tomorrow’s uncertainty and dangers without faith.”  (Elder Harold B. Lee, Church News, as quoted by Keith H. Meservy, “Job: Yet Will I Trust In Him”, pp 139-53)

After 50 years in the Church, I am still striving to fully understand about suffering. I have had my fair share of it and understand different aspect of it but not in its entirety. I wish there was a different medium through which we can earn eternal life and I wish that the Saviour didn’t have to suffer so.

Every time I re-visit the account of mighty Job, I come to understand a little more of this principle but the lessons from this man’s life are endless. The whole premise of Job’s experience is that God does not spare righteous people from suffering in this life.

It was believed anciently that suffering only comes upon the wicked and that it is God given as punishment. When Jesus healed a man blind from birth, His disciples asked Him: “Master, who did sin, this man or his parents that he was born blind?”  Jesus answered that neither sinned and that the purpose of the man’s blindness was for the ‘works of God to be manifest in him’ (John 9:2,3). So with all of us, there is obviously a purpose for whatever we are afflicted with that is not of our doing.

I rather think that Job had to learn this lesson. His friends accused him of being sinful in some way to have ended up in such extreme suffering. Job defended his integrity (Job 27:6), knowing full well he did not sin but he must have wondered why he, a man who God called ‘perfect’ (Job 1:8) was not spared.

Job’s service to his fellowman was extensive: he strengthened weak hands (4:3); supported those who were falling (4:4); strengthened the feeble knees (4:4); delivered the poor (29:12); cared for the orphans (29:12); helped those whom no one else would help (29:12; gave the widow cause to sing with joy (29:13); was eyes to the blind (29:15); was feet to the lame (29:15); was father to the poor (29:16); searched for people in need of his assistance (29:16); opened his home to strangers (31:32).

 In his extreme suffering Job wished he was never born and disclosed a fear: “For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me” (Job 3:25). Perhaps seeing so much suffering in others, made him fear sin and think that his righteousness would spare him. This made him question if he did really commit some sin so he begged the Lord to reveal it to him so he could repent (Job 13:23).

While Job did not understand why God permitted his affliction, he would not judge the Lord nor lose his faith in Him and could therefore say “let come on me what will” (Job 13:13). Had he distrusted, he would have questioned God’s integrity in whom he believed impeccably. (See the Old Testament Student Manual, Job: “Hast Thou Considered My Servant Job”)

There is one other man who might have wondered why he wasn’t spared….Joseph, the beloved Prophet of the Restoration… and we all know about his suffering…..

Your watchful eye was over all my trials

So carefully crafted

With love and tender care,

The crucible almost too hard to bear;

Yet did I worship Thee

Praising Thy name forever.

 

You stood as sentinel to my yielding heart

Knowing my trust would stand the test of time;

You crushed the enemy of my soul in the final hour,

Your glory, Your might, Your unfathomable power.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Oh God, Where Art Thou? by Paul Marli)

EXALTED ON HIGH

 

This is a personal story. I have viewed this mortal existence with dread my entire life. I have endured many trials and experienced much pain from a young age so my overall assessment of life has not been a very favourable one. So much in fact that I have always looked forward to my departure. It is just now, in my sixties that I am learning the sacred purpose and privilege of my life.

Some months ago I had a very personal revelation, the nature of which I will not fully disclose but I will say something of it that might help anybody who is struggling to understand their life. It was revealed to me that Heavenly Father wanted to exalt ME and that this was the reason He sent me to this earth. Not that he sent His children to mortality because He wanted to exalt them, but ME, personally.

Even though it is true that He wanted to exalt ALL His children, this was a uniquely personal message. He wanted to exalt ME because He knew me, loved me, appreciated me and wanted me to have the riches of eternity. Even though I am not the only one He wished this for, the nature of this revelation was a personal message to me so I could start to appreciate my purpose here. It was a stamp on my life I had to have.

Of course, with such a revelation comes a greater understanding of one’s responsibility to rise to one’s potential. The second feeling I have lived with all my life is that I am not good enough and never will be. I have often felt weak and stripped of dignity as I have navigated what I call my ‘earthly indignities’.

I thought I understood the Atonement pretty well as I have gained a personal testimony of its’ effectiveness years ago but a small thing happened after I received the abovementioned revelation that helped me accept my earthly incapacities and has given me hope that I can rise to Heavenly Father’s expectations of me.

I randomly opened my scriptures one day when I was seeking some comfort regarding myself. The page that rested in my view had one short and impactful sentence highlighted. It simply said: “I will be merciful unto you” (D&C 64:4).

Since that day I have obtained a deep understanding of how the Saviour can raise me up in forgiveness of my lack of appreciation for my mortality and give me power to meet my potential in this life.

Imagine if you discovered what God’s expectation of you was and you were left to your own mortal strength to meet that. The feelings of failure would be so strong every day that you would beat yourself up constantly. But this doesn’t have to be so.

My deep gratitude, my overwhelming love and my adoration is double fold….for the Father who wants me back and delights in my being and for the Saviour who deemed me worthy of His suffering and His power to raise me up. Without Him my life would not be possible and my exaltation even less so. Without Him to get me to my final destination, all that I am would be wasted. Without Him, I would not be.

I worshipped You in heaven

As my Saviour and my King,

I knew Your holy suffering

Would pay for everything.

 

I rejoiced in heaven

When I heard Your sweet cry

In the warmth of the stable,

The beginning of Your journey

To the sacrificial table.

 

I awaited anxiously to see

All that you would do,

And I wept bitterly

When the cross claimed You.

 

But when You returned in triumph

With trumps echoing Your fame,

I was amazed at the price You paid

For the value of my name!

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Be Healed by Chris Brazelton)

THE GIFT OF OVERCOMING

 

Have you ever experienced elation after overcoming a bad habit or weakness or sin just from the sheer victory that became yours? The Book of Revelation is a book of promises for those who overcome that takes elation to the next level for those who conquer. When John was commanded to write to the priesthood leaders of the seven churches of Asia Minor he detailed their good works, their intentions and their failings with such accuracy and transparency that it left them no doubt as to who was the originator of such messages. As the messages were given to John, the Saviour identified himself as the one who searches the desires, thoughts and hearts of men and sees all things (Revelation 2:23).

Consider the promises that were made to these seven churches, and ultimately to all of us, and imagine the elation at their fulfilment:

1.  “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life” (2:7) thus eradicating the effects of the Fall and granting eternal life to the faithful.
2. “He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death” (2:11) sparing all eternal separation from the Father except those who refuse to repent. To the faithful He says: “I will give thee a crown of life” (2:10)
3.  “To him who overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna and will give him a white stone and in the stone a new name written” (2:17): He alone is the ‘hidden manna’ and those who symbolically partake of His flesh will receive everlasting life (John 6:47-58) with entrance into celestial kingdom (D&C 130:8-11).
4. “He that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give the morning star” (2:28): Being the firstborn among the host of heaven, the morning star is a symbol of Jesus Christ, the Second Comforter who manifests himself to men in the flesh and teaches them face to face.  (NT Institute Manual; Joseph Smith, History of the Church, 3:381).
5. “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne” (3:21): To sit on His throne, means to receive exaltation in celestial worlds and reign with Him forever in everlasting glory (Bruce R. McConkie, The Purifying Power of Gethsemane, Ensign May 1985)
6. “He that overcometh shall inherit ALL things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son” (21:7)…..is there any explanation needed for this??? Being joint heirs with the Saviour of ALL the Father has defies any mortal imagination.

It must be noted that all the promises are for next life bar one which deals with the Second Comforter manifesting himself to men in this life. Why is that? Because what is to come after this life is of the greatest worth. It's what matters above all. We cannot presently comprehend the glory and the splendor of the blessings herein promised. One thing I do know, we once saw that glory and deemed it worthy of the work of overcoming. And here is proof: Satan lost himself forever in an effort to obtain it. This also I know: the splendor of eternal life for each of us was worth the condescension of a God who exchanged His throne for the stench of a stable. None of the promises could have been made without His Atonement but more so, without His birth. Surely there could not be a greater gift than the gift of that Bethlehem stable for what more could He offer us than Himself?

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Birth by Dan Burr)

 

Art: Birth by Dan Burr