HE SEES ALL

 

A lesson came to me this morning as I revisited the story of Alma and Amulek’s coming together as missionary companions. At first an understanding came to me that the Lord provided Amulek as the second witness of Alma’s message to the spiritually depraved people of Ammonihah (Alma 8:29) and as a merciful provision of comfort to Alma who sorrowed greatly for the wickedness of the people (Alma 8:14). What piqued my interest the most, however, was this: when Amulek recounted the story of their association, he said the angel that appeared to him told him to abort his journey to his nearest kin and return to his house because he will ‘feed a prophet of the Lord’ who had fasted for many days (Alma 10:7). It is astonishing to me that the angel didn’t say, ‘Amulek, receive this man into your home because you have been chosen to be his companion in his missionary labours’. Instead of the call to serve, the angel revealed the Lord’s most pressing concern:  Alma was hungry and he needs to be fed. Until now I have always focused on Saviour’s redeeming attributes but have missed his Fatherly ones. And to me feeding Alma was a fatherly concern. We know that the Saviour becomes our spiritually begotten Father upon baptism but I feel we seldom think of Him as such.

The scriptures are very big on lessons in prayer. Alma himself admonished the people of Gideon to pray for whatsoever they stand in need of, both spiritual and temporal (Alma 7:23). Paul told the Philippians not to be afflicted in anything but in ‘everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving’ let their requests be made known to God (Philippians 4:6).

Knowing that God’s primary concern is our eternal welfare has stopped me many times asking Him for temporal blessings thinking they are not as important. I have overlooked, however, the Father in Him who would do anything to sustain us in this life and the next. I don’t know if Alma was fed as an answer to a prayer but I do know that the Saviour has said the very hairs of our heads are all numbered (Luke 12:7). And none of us know that fact. He sees all, He knows all, and He cares about all.

As the sun bursts through the morning light

It reveals You in the depths of my heart.

Gratitude overwhelms me

For Thy enduring patience

Of my inconsistent delight;

My erratic trust,

My feeble faith in Thy might.

I marvel You wait

In the shadow of my stubborn heart

And reach out to me in forgiveness

To fulfil Thy part.

 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

ART: "Nurtured by the Word" by Greg Olsen

SERVANTS OF CHRIST

 

When we think of Job, we think of suffering and endurance and a test of faith, all of which is true. What is worthy of mention is the magnitude of his trials. According to God, Job was righteous, upright and perfect in every way (Job 1:8), so not just any little trial would do for a man of such stature, it had to be something big and big it was.

 

How did Job endure all his suffering? In my mind there is one answer to that. In all his ‘uprightness’ Job became Christlike and could not be moved when the suffering came upon him, even as the Saviour could not be when His came upon Him.  Besides his obedience to God, the Bible attributes  the following accomplishments to Job:

 

He strengthened weak hands (4:3)

He supported those who were falling (4:4)

He strengthened the feeble knees (4:4)

He delivered the poor (29:12)

He cared for the orphans (29:12)

He helped those whom no one else would help (29:12)

He gave the widow cause to sing with joy (29:13)

He was eyes to the blind (29:15)

He was feet to the lame (29:15)

He was father to the poor (29:16)

He searched for people in need of his assistance (29:16)

He never found joy in the suffering of his enemies (31:29)

He never wished evil on his enemies (31:30)

He opened his home to strangers (31:32)

 

In short, Job’s life was a life of selfless service. There is not a more sure way of becoming Christlike than the path of service. But not just any service, true service means allowing a measure of Christ’s regard and love for others to reach them through you. It is being servants of Christ. It is acting in His stead. It is being the means of salvation by proxy. It is loving the Saviour to the point where you would desire to bring souls unto Him. It is following Him to the point where you are endowed with His love, the pure love of Christ. 

 

When we are baptised we become the children of Christ. When we live His teachings, we take the saying ‘you are just like your father’ to another level.

Your footsteps, so big and so deep

Swallow my feeble feet;

I try to keep up

To tend Your vulnerable sheep;

To gather the lost,

To clothe, to feed;

So many for my poorly 

Devised shelter to keep.

Illuminate my steps dear Saviour

With Your glorious light;

Grant me Thy mercy and Thy power

To feed them from Thy godly heart.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

ART: Yongsung Kim

WALK WITH ME

 

If there is anyone who is a better example of God’s power in their life, it is Enoch. I am enthralled by him. He became what he alone could never become. A stammering man of speech, he became a spiritual giant of words in whose presence people trembled when he spoke (Moses 6:47; 7:13), as already mentioned. He became this person accepting the most sublime invitation ever uttered by God: “Walk with me” (Moses 6:34). And walk with God Enoch did, and ‘was continually before His face’, for 365 years, making him 430 when he was translated with his city (D&C 107:49; Moses 6:39). This walk revealed God to him and earned him the visions of all the hosts of heaven and of eternity (Moses 7:3,4)

 

What enthralls me about Enoch is this: by walking with God, he became like God. Moses records this in the most endearing way as he recounts the way that Enoch became a man of sorrow who wept with God over the people (Moses 7:41,44); over the earth (vs 49,58); and over the heavens and its host, with such intensity that all eternity shook (v 41). Can you imagine anguish such as this? 

 

So powerful did Enoch become that his whole city followed him in walking with God, becoming Zion, the pure in heart, a city that was  taken from this earth (Moses 7:69), but the Lord promised him that he will return and here is hope of all hope, for us: “…great tribulations shall be among the children of men, but my people will I preserve” (v 61). We can only surmise that His people are those who walk with Him.

 

Walking with God is a personal journey of seeking after righteousness and being filled with the light of truth. It means that others can ‘see’ God in you and desire to walk with Him too. Besides Enoch, the scriptures state that Noah and his sons walked with God (Moses 8:27), as did Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 48:15) and even Moses’ brother Levi (Malachi 2:4-6), because ‘the law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips’ (v6).

 

We can walk many paths in life. The roads are endless, but there is only one road where the Saviour beckons: “Walk with me”.

 

You flowed like a river through my heart

Showing me the wonder of You;

You lifted my eyes higher to see the majestic view.

You parted the heavens for me

And helped me see what I alone could never see;

You gave me the hope and the might

To be what I alone could never be. 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

UNDERSTANDING LIFE

 

For years I struggled to understand my life. I was grateful for the difficulties I have experienced because they brought me to ‘know’ God but I think that understanding was more intellectual and gratitude only skin deep. When your mind understands something that your heart doesn’t, it’s always a struggle. I remained in this struggle for many, many years handling feelings of failure because my attempts to rise above my situation seemed fruitless.

 

In his farewell address, King Benjamin spoke a lot about humility and taught me an important lesson one morning. He said if we humble ourselves ‘in the depths of humility’ we will be: filled with the love of God; retain a remission of our sins; and grow in the knowledge of the glory of Him (Mosiah 4:11,12).  For years my desire has been twofold: to come to know what I now understand to be the glory of God and not just knowledge of Him,  and to never become lost. I realised as I studied King Benjamin’s comments on humility that my humble little life has had me on this path all along. Every difficulty, every teaching  moment from above brought me to the foot of His throne and brought me closer to Him. I could see that over the years, I became more and more teachable and felt His love more and more. This closeness strengthened me to the point where I was  consecrating myself and my life to Him each and every day. The morning I studied Mosiah 4, my vision embraced this truth and gratitude overflowed my heart as I accepted my life and was glad it had not been otherwise. I never thought I would come to the point where I would be grateful for all my earthly lack, inadequacy and unfulfillment. 

 

I give all glory to Him who is without beginning and without end; whose wisdom surpasses all; whose work is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man….who can lift me to the heights of His throne.

 

If you are in the same struggle as I have been for many, many years, may God grant you the wider view and show you the wonder of you…..

 

 

You stood in the vista of my heart

Granting me the wider view

My eyes were opened

And I understood the meaning of You.

You came to this plane of sorrow

Your footsteps to pave the trail;

I follow, I follow

Gathering drops of You that feed me

Like manna in the wilderness

And life giving morning dew.

 

 - CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: Calming the Sea by Danny Hahlbohm)

ELUSIVE DREAMS

 

Is your heart filled with broken dreams and unfulfilled desires and more questions than you have answers for? Are you languishing in ‘the waiting room’ wondering what purpose your life is serving? There is someone who waited a long time for the fulfilment of not only his desire, but God’s promise. He waited on the Lord until it seemed there was little chance that he would ever have the desire of his heart. The promise was made and not fulfilled for 37 years. But Abraham, ‘the friend of God’, still believed. By the time the promise was fulfilled, Abraham’s wife Sarah, was not only infertile but well past the child bearing age, so divine intervention was needed. 

 

Sarah languished for 37 years in ‘the waiting room’ so that a greater purpose can be fulfilled for she was required to pave the path of belief. Because of her miraculous conception, she made it possible for many to also believe in the conception of a virgin who brought forth the Son of God.  So the birth of Isaac became a similitude of the birth of Him who would fulfill the promise to Abraham that in his posterity all nations of the earth would be blessed. Did Sarah and Abraham understand this at the time? No doubt they had to live by faith like everyone else.

 

One of the covenants we make in the temple is a covenant of sacrifice. We basically promise we will give our all. When we stood in the grand council in pre-mortal life, we covenanted that we will be a part of the great work of the plan of salvation (D&C 138:55,56), that in the sacrifice of ‘all’, we would include our own desires for the greater good.  This meant that we would trust the reasons ‘why’ to make the plan of salvation work for all. If you can do this, you are walking in Saviour’s footsteps. The Saviour had nothing of earthly value. I rather suspect that He had some desires and expectations of His own when He was here but He surpassed them all with His commitment to us. This was His purpose.

 

Some of us are strangers and wanderers on this earth (Hebrews 11:11-13; D&C 45:11-13) who have very little and whose dreams elude them. We wonder what purpose this could possibly serve but there is a purpose in everything, if we are faithful. God's purpose will be done through you and for you and will be in the end revealed to you. You might be a Sarah or Abraham and you might not even know it.

 

You go with me

Wherever You send 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 Catrin Welz-Stein)

REMEMBERING

 

Have you noticed how often ‘remembrance’ is used in the scriptures? Remembering the history of ‘the fathers’ seemed to have been an ancient method of motivating people to obedience. Nephites were often prompted to remember not only the children of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt but also of Lehi’s journey to the promised land. Both of these events are depicted in the account of King Benjamin’s farewell speech where the people ‘sat in their tents’ during the renewal of their covenants to help them remember Israelites’ living in tents for 40 years and Lehi’s 8 years of tent living in the wilderness. Remembering was anciently the key factor in covenant renewal. King Benjamin speaks of ‘remembering’ 15 times in his speech to his sons and to the people gathered to hear him (Mosiah 1:3,4,6,7,17; 2:40 twice, 41 twice; 4:11,28,30; 5:11,12; 6:3).

 

When I was growing up in the Catholic community of Croatia, I was stirred into remembrance of Christ constantly as every home, including my own, had pictures of Him in every room. I am not exaggerating here. I now paste pictures of Him in my journal and my planner constantly. I have done this for years. I think I have subconsciously wanted to continue that habit of visual remembrance. There are of course many ways we can remember the covenants we have made here. 

 

There is something that King Benjamin said that stood out to me this morning as I studied his speech again. He said we are made of dust but the dust belongs to Him who created us, therefore, we are not our own (Mosiah 2:25). It made me reflect on Paul who took this fact to another level when he said: “….Ye are bought with a price…” (1 Cor 6:20), the Atonement being that price. Christ could not buy us without our consent, the consent which we gave before we were born, when we voted and sustained Him to work out our salvation and uphold the Father’s plan to exalt His children. This is the covenant worth remembering. Some of us think, “it’s my body and my life, I can do whatever I want with it”, but it’s not really, is it? I think we gave up that right long ago. 

 

I pledged my life into thy hands

When by example you showed me how;

I promised my trials to endure

When I was with You and even now.

You dried my tears when I barely coped

And carried me when I could walk no more;

You fed me truths I needed to know

And nurtured my flight into the unknown.

I found you at every turn

In the shadow of my heart;

With eager haste I approach Thy throne

And offer my meagre part.

 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art by Randy Friemel)

THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED

 

I am amazed how opposition in this life serves a noble purpose, a purpose to lift us out of the comfort zone so we can become greater than what we are. I have been through a situation in my life that has repeated itself over and over seeking my attention to walk the higher road in life, a road I know will propel me to climb another rung on the ladder of my personal growth. Sometimes things have to get really uncomfortable before we recognize this is what is happening. We tend to see adverse situations in our lives as unwelcome adversity that is meant to give us experience of sorrow and grief so that we will know happiness when it comes along. This is true of mortality, and this knowledge most of the time seems to  satisfy us,  however, the higher road is paved with recognition that the adverse situation is offering a learning moment needed to affect change. As Robert Frost said: I took the road less travelled and that has made all the difference…..

 

It is easy to wallow in the comfort zone, even if it is not the ideal situation for us. To reach higher and change things can be overwhelming, especially when we have placed limitations on ourselves. However, faith in God should have no limitations because God is not a god of limits. The universe is His for the giving. 

 

If God’s work and His glory is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man (Moses 1:39), how can He possibly have limits on what He can do with us? His part is to raise us up and our part is to elevate ourselves on the wings of faith to qualify for the rising. That means faith without works is dead. Becoming one of the greats is a partnership. 

 

God will very seldom give us blessings that we do not have to earn through our works and our faith. If He did, we would not require stretching and would become gods solely on His efforts. Can you imagine gods devoid of self-discipline, power, endurance, wisdom, knowledge, experience? All these things are ours for the taking in this life, if we will embrace the power of opposition in mortality to elevate us to higher ground.  Acceptance is everything.

 

A river of peace floods my mortal being;

I struggle to contain such a merciful gift.

With grace You enlarge 

the sparse capacity of my heart

And righteousness moves within me 

as the waves of the sea.

I love You more dearly;

I serve you more freely;

I become what I alone could never be.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: Danny Hahlbohm)