THE IMPERFECT ME

 

The Clay by Ron DiCianni

You assure me

As your potter hands keep moulding me

Of who I will one day be,

But I see the kiln burning

And the heat of it is frightening me.

 

The fire of exacting faith

Is asking too much of me

I tremble at the grand design of life

And all that is asked of me.

 

I want to be spared,

I want to believe In Your faith in me,

But I am so weak in this doom of humanity

I want to escape the fires awaiting me.

 

You tell me You endured

The hell fires of suffering;

The clay in me begins to burn and harden,

I am sacrificed as Your holy offering.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

PSALMS OF THE HEART 5

 

Second Coming by Ron DiCianni

Book Five (Psalms 107-150): Celebrates restoration, features the Songs of Ascent, and ends in massive praise.

“O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.” (107:1)

“Christ has, on occasion, been rightfully angry with backsliding Israel, but that has always been brief and temporary – “a small moment”. Compassion and mercy always return and prevail in a most reassuring way. The mountains and the hills may disappear. The water of the great seas may dry up. The least likely things in the world may happen, but the Lord’s kindness and peace will never be taken from his covenant people. He has sworn with a heavenly oath that he will not be wroth with them forever.” (Jeffrey R. Holland, Christ and the New Covenant [1997], 290)

The final chapters of the book of Psalms gives a clear understanding to the reader that Judah had learnt well about sorrow in its’ captivity: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion” (137:1).

 These chapters are grounded in God’s mercy and hope of the nation’s restoration: “Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities” (130:7,8). In remembering past deliverance from their enemies and bondage, the reliance on the Lord’s mercy became foremost in their minds. Psalm 136 is so heavy on gratitude that every one of 26 verses ends in “for his mercy endureth for ever”.

Judah was delivered from the Babylonian and Persian captivity in two colonies between 515 B.C. and 458 B.C. The temple was rebuilt and Jerusalem’s restoration began and became what it is today. Not all the Jews chose to return to their land, however, and so began a voluntary world-wide dispersion referred to as diaspora which endures to this day.

“The Lord never intended for Israel and Judah to remain scattered. Isaiah prophesied that “the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people…and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth” (Isaiah 11:11-12). Psalm 147:2 reads: “The Lord doth build up Jerusalem: he gathereth together the outcasts [diasporai] of Israel.” Nephi added this significant idea to the teachings of the restoration of the Jews: “After [the Jews] have been scattered…even down from generation to generation….they shall be persuaded to believe in Christ, the Son of God, and the atonement” (2 Nephi 25:16).

“Elder Wilford Woodruff, issued an epistle to the world on 22 February 1879 and, in part, addressed himself to the dispersed of Judah: “For the fulness of the Gentiles has come in, and the Lord has decreed that the Jews should be gathered from all the Gentile nations where they have been driven, into their own land, in fulfilment of the words of Moses their lawgiver. And this is the will of your great Eloheim, O House of Judah, and whenever you shall be called upon to perform this work, the God of Israel will help you. You have a great future and destiny before you and you cannot avoid fulfilling it; you are the royal chosen seed, and the God of your father’s house has kept you distinct as a nation for eighteen hundred years, under all the oppression of the whole Gentile world. You may not wait until you believe on Jesus of Nazareth, but when you meet with Shiloh your king, you will know him, your destiny is marked out, you cannot avoid it.” (Old Testament Student Manual Enrichment: The Persian Empire, the Return of the Jews, and the Diaspora; In Matthias F. Cowley, Wilford Woodruff, pp 509-10)

The Messiah will come. He will descend on the Mount of Olives with the nail prints in His hands and His feet and the Kingdom of Judah will come to know that there is no Saviour beside Him;  none else in heaven above, or earth beneath, or waters beneath the earth, nothing, nobody, nowhere, there is none other name given under heaven save it be this Jesus Christ whereby man can be saved (Isaiah 43:10-11; 45,5,6,14,18,22; 46:9; Deut 4:35,39; 5:8; 1 kings 8:60, 2 Nephi 2:8; 25:20; 31:21; Moses 6:52; D&C 76:1)

Then they will say:

We are Israel, Thy chosen seed

Who in times past disregarded Thee

But now through Thy infinite love

We are gathered to Thee.

In Thine mercy Thou has sought to gather us

In Thine heart Thou hast chosen to cherish us;

In Thee is deliverance from our barren years

In Thee is mercy for our penitent tears.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

WILLING TO GIVE

 

In the Wilderness by Ron DiCianni

All that is unspoken

And all that is unseen

All that I feel

In the depths of my soul

I long to give to Thee.

 

And all that You ask of me

And all that I am

I will place

On the altar of sacrifice

for Thee.

 

I give You my all

Like You gave Your all

Because hearts

Can give no more.

 

-       CATHRYNE ALLEN 

PSALMS OF THE HEART 4

 

Mercy's Embrace by Annie Henrie Nader

Book Four (Psalms 90-106): Shifts focus to God’s eternal reign and comfort during hard times.

For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations (100:5)

The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy (103:8)

For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him (103:11)

But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him…(103:17)

I have noticed that the scriptures focus a lot on Christ’s greatest attribute, that of mercy. I have also noticed that the medium the prophets have used for this is the tradition of ‘remembering’. Even Psalms bring this to light. They remind Israel to remember the Abrahamic covenant (105:9; 42) and their deliverance from Egypt’s captivity (106:7,21).

God’s admonition to ancient Israel to remember their deliverance from ‘the house of bondage’ was so engrained in them that they took it to the new promised land in ancient America. Some notable references to this important part of their history in the Book of Mormon are: 1 Nephi 4:2,3; 17:23-42; Mosiah 7:19; Alma 36:28-29.  Remembering became a legacy amongst God’s people. King Benjamin spoke of ‘remembering’ 15 times in his farewell speech to motivate his people to obedience to God (Mosiah 1:3,4,6,7,17; 2:40 twice, 41 twice; 4:11,28,30; 5:11,12; 6:3).

Remembering God’s mercy in our lives brings us to accept His most notable role, that of being an Advocate before the judgment bar of God: “…for he cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity.” (98:9)

When we come before that judgment bar, we will need mercy more than ever before. This mercy will be offered only to the penitent and is not to be used as excuse for our lack of repentance, as a lot of people tend to do (see Alma 42:24,25; Ether 12:24; D&C 38:14; 50:16; 101:9)

I used to think, through my study of the scriptures, that the Saviour was overly merciful, especially to the House of Israel which He called the ‘backsliding’ ‘rebellious house’ (see Jeremiah 3:6,8,11,12,14,22; Ezekiel 12:2,3,9,25). Then one year I had a great insight into the Saviour’s mercy. I realised He could have never endured the cross if it wasn’t for his abundant mercy towards those lesser than Him. It was that mercy in Him that drove Him through the last leg of His suffering journey.

“I will sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever……” (89:1)

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 

IN THE SHADOW OF HIS WINGS

 

Under His Wings by Ron DiCianni

I long to reside in Your presence;

To never know sadness

Or the wretched heat of my tears.

I know I will be safe there

Where fears cannot find me

And trials cannot scar me.

I know there will be safety

In the shadow of Your wings

My burdens You will lift

And wipe away my sins.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

 

PSALMS OF THE HEART 3

 

Art: By The Rrivers of Babylon by Gebhard Fugel 1920

Book Three (Psalms 73-89): Grapples with crisis, national pain, and the Babylonian exile.

The seizure of Jerusalem by Babylon in 586 B.C. was horrific:

“The siege lasted for eighteen months, during which time the people of Jerusalem were starved to the point of cannibalism (see Lamentations 4:8-10). As the final defences broke down and the Babylonians became victorious, King Zedekiah and his army fled toward the Jordan River but were captured. He was forced to watch as his family was murdered, and then the Babylonians put out his eyes and took him captive to Babylon.

“The city was burned, Solomon’s temple was destroyed, and the kingdom of Judah came to an end. According to Jeremiah, the Babylonians took the remnant of the people captive to Babylon except for some who were left behind under Babylonian rule (see Jeremiah 39:8-10). Thus Nebuchadnezzar was able to control Judah by keeping the leaders in captivity, and some few of the people were allowed to remain behind to harvest the crops. The breakup and displacement of the Jews removed the threat of national revival. (Old Testament Student Manual Book 2: The Lasting Effects of the Fall and Captivity of Judah)

The Book of Psalms lets us experience this painful event in Judah’s history first-hand through the lamentation of Asaph:

“O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; they holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps. How long, Lord? Wilt thou be angry for ever? Shall thy jealousy burn like fire? For they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his dwelling place. O remember not against us former iniquities; let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us; for we are brought very low. Help us, O God of our salvation for the glory of thy name; and deliver us, and purge away our sins, for thy name’s sake. Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved” (Psalm 79:1,5,7,8,9; Psalm 80:7).

I literally cried reading this. There is a great lesson to be learnt in repentance and that is that even forgiveness of our sins cannot wipe away consequences. They serve a mighty purpose, the memory of suffering through them deters a return to former sins:

“The captivity had a profound effect on Judaism. Scholars almost universally agree that the Jews never returned to image worship after the captivity. The fall of Jerusalem was a great turning point in Israel’s religious life. From earliest times the sin of idolatry had existed in Israel, and the prophets of every age had combated it. After the fall, idolatry eased to be a problem for the Jews.

“The captivity seemed to impress upon the minds of the Jewish people that the God of Israel was, indeed, a jealous God. The prophets had been right in their warnings of the doom and destruction that would follow if the people did not repent and follow their God and Him only. The nation, as a whole, accepted the verdict that God’s wrath had been poured down upon them for the sin of image worship. They reached the conclusion that only the God of Israel should be worshipped. Henceforth, Israel became a very zealous nation for its God. This zeal took the form of devotion to Jehovah’s law, which led over the years to the creation of numerous rules of conduct that went beyond the law itself. This has been described as building “a hedge around the Law to render its infringement or modification impossible” (Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, 2 Vols.; Old Testament Student Manual 2: The Lasting Effects of the Fall and Captivity of Judah)

The captivity of Judah was like a cleansing fire that brought the nation to its senses which purged the sin of idolatry from their very being. The Messianic Psalm 89 echoes the mercy, greatness, justice and judgment of the Holy One of Israel and Judah’s vision of the coming of Messiah to restore the throne of David through Christ, God’s Firstborn.  What hope such words must have been to the suffering of the souls of Judah’s nation in the midst of their repentance:

“I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations. For who in the heaven can be compared unto the Lord? Who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the Lord? The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine: as for the world and the fulness thereof, thou hast founded them. Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face. For the Lord is our defence and the Holy One of Israel is our king.” (Psalm 89:1,6,11,14,18)

The scars of sin do not last forever. The sin is purged when sin is discarded and our hearts are turned to Him who can make us whole again. He is our Saviour, our Redeemer, our all…

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

HIS COST

 

Tender Shepherd by LDS Bookstore

The Shepherd of Israel

Who would not see me lost,

Who rescued my soul

Never counting the cost. 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN