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)