You paved the way to glories untold
With drops of blood and hallowed tears,
Gifting me life beyond these mortal years.
The bread of life, the living water,
Flowing into my heart from yours;
With parched lips I approach
So I will thirst never more.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: The Water That I Shall Give by Eva Koleva Timothy)
“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
In all that President Kimball said here, the test of strength, development of character and growth of power is the most significant.
A few years
ago I wrote a post on the social media extolling the virtues of Christ’s grace
and His power to save us, but not only in regards to our overall salvation, but
in every aspect of our lives. I basically attacked the often repeated phrase of
our day, “you are enough”. I said we are never enough without Him. My comments highly aggravated one reader who
commented to me that I was wrong to be making people believe in and rely on a
person they couldn’t even see. She said when she needed something to happen in
her life, she gathered up all her strength and she went ahead and did it, not
relying on anyone else. I thought at the time that this was her way of denying
the existence and power of Christ. I replied that I don't have the power to make anyone do anything, it is up to the individual what they believe and do.
I have
learnt since then there is some truth in this. I had come to the point where my
faith in God became the only thing I
relied on, to the denial of my own power. I have learnt of late that sometimes
we rely on God far too much to do things for us, to rescue us from situations
we don’t like, to heal our cracks, to make every situation better….and when He
doesn’t we question His goodness, His mercy and even, in the end, His existence.
Imagine if
God did everything for us. We would remain like toddlers for eternity, relying
on a parent for our very existence. Sometimes we forget that we are here to
rise to the status of a god. Some years ago I received an understanding that we
are here to learn to harness the power of faith, without which we cannot become
gods…..but not just any faith. The faith that we are to have in our control is
manifesting faith. This is the power of the individual.
This is
manifesting faith…. It is speaking the Word and creation comes into being (John
1:1-3); it is sending forth the winds, the rains and the floods from your mouth
and controlling the elements according to your will (Ether 2:24); it is cursing
the fig tree and watching it wither as you speak (Matthew 21:19,20); it is
speaking to the tempest waves of the sea and watch it become still (Mark 4:39).
It is seeing the end result in your mind and bringing it into being.
Brother of
Jared learnt this lesson well when he presented 16 stones to the Lord and saw
His finger light them up (Ether 3: 4-6) and when he ‘said unto the mountain
Zerin, “remove” – it was removed.’ (Ether 12: 30). If God exercised His power
in our behalf constantly, we would never come to learn of the strength of our
own power. Yes, there are things that are beyond us at times, when we can do
something ourselves and when we have to rely on the Lord. The trick is knowing
the difference. If we combined faith in ourselves and faith in God, we would be
unstoppable.
Think about
it…..Christ couldn’t walk FOR Peter on the sea of Galilee….He could only say: “Come”
(Matthew 14:29)
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: Come by David Bowman)
I lift, I lift,
Above the world below.
I reach and find Your
hand
To guide me where I am
meant to go.
You are my guiding light,
You are my all,
You are my inner compass
That will bring me home.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: Guiding Light by Ivan Guaderrama)
We are
tempest tossed on this sea of humanity. Some of us are lost, scared, alienated,
and most of us are suffering from some negative effect of mortal life, but
there is one collective way in which we all suffer.
I have been
through trials before but have always had good health. The trial of bad health
I am going through now has been incredibly hard for me because none of my
trials before have tested me to this extent. It began to frighten me of late
that I might be losing what I considered to be the most important part of me…..my
faith. I was slipping into bad depression one day thinking if my faith in God
was taken away from me, there would be nothing of me left because my faith was
my make-up.
Upon
further reflection I realized what I feared in reality was not losing my faith
but my connection to God that I had developed in fifty years of my Church
membership. I had come to the point where I was hearing the voice of God in my
life in different ways and my testimony of His existence was iron clad. To lose
that would be the devastation like I had never known before. I could not
comprehend how lost I would feel in this vast universe. This is fear of
nothingness for me.
For many
years now I have tried to understand the true meaning of earthly suffering. I
have been given different gospel perspectives to this question which I agree
with but nothing had really stood out to me in such a personal way as what I
learnt through physical suffering. If its not the explanation for all, it is
for me. On many days of intense pain I have felt alienated from God, abandoned
and all alone. Pain seems to do that. Physical suffering teaches us what it
would feel like to be spiritually cut off from God’s presence forever. Once you
understand it, it becomes a deterrent to sinning.
Just being
taken out of God’s presence in which we lived for eons and placed in another
sphere of existence has an effect on all of us, even if we don’t realize it. A
French philosopher and Jesuit priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said something
profound once: “We are spiritual beings having a human experience and not
humans having a spiritual experience”. Because of this truth, we are all
hungering and seeking that spiritual connection we once had with God, even if
we don’t realise it. Some of us who do not find it in the right place, seek
devastating counterfeits which lead them to self-destruction. The truth
remains, we are all seeking God.
The good
news is that there is hope…..for all of us. There is a spiritual umbilical cord
that ties us to the origin of our existence and ensures we do not have to be
lost forever. I cannot think of a greater happiness and joy than being in the
presence of a God of love for all eternity. This was the Saviour’s primary
motivation for His eternal sacrifice…..that we be with the Father forever.
Before He
went to the Garden and the cross, the Saviour was certain that the Father would
be with Him during His suffering. He said as much to his disciples (John 8:29; 16:32).
Imagine His surprise when the Father withdrew and He was left alone. This was
needful for a couple of reasons: 1. where
there is sin, which was upon the Saviour during the Atonement, God’s spirit
withdraws (Mosiah 2:36); and 2. so the
glory would be exclusively His and He could say, “I have trodden the winepress
alone…” (D&C 133:50).
This,
however, is the primary reason why the Father withdrew. It was imperative that
the Saviour understood spiritual death from first-hand experience and what it
would be like for us, sinners, to be cut off from the presence of God forever. For
this He endured the cross until He could say ‘it is finished’ (John 19:30). The
Atonement overcame spiritual death and redeemed us from the Fall.
Considering
the closeness and connection He had with His Father, I cannot imagine the
devastation He felt during this ordeal of alienation but this too He was
willing to suffer for our sake. This is the God we worship, this is the God we
love. All honour and praise be to His name forever.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: Uplift the World by Eva Koleva Timothy)
He
arose and rebuked the roaring winds
and
the raging sea,
He,
who with His word
caused
the earth to be,
Spoke
to the Galilean tempest:
“Peace, be still”.
He
who has all things
under
His command,
Calmed
the troubled sea of dismay
in
the souls of men.
He,
who holds all humanity
in
the palm of His hand,
Caused
the waves of the sea
to
whisper His name.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: Emmanuel by Danny Hahlbohm)
When my mother-in-law lay dying in her hospital bed, she repeatedly told her children and grandchildren to stay on ‘the gospel train’. Just prior to her death one conference talk was centred on this life being like a train journey and we think she connected this in her mind to the gospel. She died a dignified death with her testimony on her lips. I hope to go like that.
In his farewell address, Moses admonished the children of Israel, repeatedly, to worship the one true and living God and that they should have no other gods before Him. This farewell constitutes the entire book of Deuteronomy with strong emphasis on dangers of idol worship. This farewell address was not only instructional but also the legacy of his testimony and faith.
Moses' farewell coincided with the children of Israel's entry into the promised land. Because the inhabitants of Canaan were ripe in iniquity and idol worship (1 Nephi 17:32-35) they presented a very real threat to the covenant people. As the Israelites conquered cities before them, lands were appropriated to them for their settlement. Among the first to receive land were the tribes of Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh. They settled in the land of Gilead which divided them from the rest of Israel by the river Jordan (Numbers 34:14,15; Deuteronomy 3:12,13; Joshua 22:9).
After these three tribes had assisted in further conquest of the land, Joshua sent them back to Gilead to live peacefully in their newly appointed inheritance. Upon their return home, these tribes built an altar by the river Jordan. When the rest of Israel heard of it they were outraged presuming the altar was built for idol worship. They sent Phineas, the son of Eleazor the priest, with the heads of the remaining tribes, to call these two and a half tribes to repentance.
In their defence, these tribes explained that the altar was not made for any worship but was meant to stand as a witness to the rest of Israel, for generations to come, that the tribe of Reuben, Gad and Manasseh were united with the rest of Israel in the worship of one true and living God, that they would not be the downfall of Israel. They said the altar was to be "a witness between us that the Lord is God" (Joshua 22:34). These three tribes recognised that even though they were geographically divided from the rest, they were still a link in the chain. They knew that if they turned to the worship of other gods, the ripple effect would be detrimental to the whole House of Israel.
So it is with us. We of modern Israel are individual links in a great chain which binds the covenant people. How we live our lives and how we worship God has great impact upon not only us personally but upon the body of Christ as a whole because "no one sins in isolation. We cannot say that our actions influence only ourselves for even if we do something sinful that is completely personal, our individual loss of spiritual power means a lessening of power for all mankind and contributes to the withdrawal of the Lord's spirit, and that is damaging to all......". (Old Testament Student Manual Genesis-2 Samuel, p 243).
Today the
chain, being the Church of Jesus Christ, spreads across the globe. It unites me,
who am an Australian, with you who are an American, European or African. It
unites us through our faith in Him who is the Saviour of all, regardless of
nationality, colour or culture. Our faith in Christ and our commitment to that
faith is our commonality. He creates a spiritual umbilical cord that makes us
one and strengthens us even though we are miles apart. I depend on you and you
depend on me to keep the chain unbroken because one day this chain will bring
us together to live with Him forever.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: The Light of the World by Eva Koleva Timothy)
I find You deep within my heart.
You cradle me in Your loving arms
And offer me Your godly cup.
With eager haste I drink my fill,
