TRUST

 

"There is a story told that a company of botanists seeking some special flowers up in the Canadian Rockies, came one day to a very rare flower down on the side of a cliff.  To reach it they would have to retrace their steps and go back ten miles to come up from the valley below.  Someone suggested that if they had a rope they could let a boy down to pick the specimens.  That suggestion was prompted by the fact that a little boy had been following them for about an hour, watching them silently.  They got the rope and said:

 

'Here lad, we'll give you $5 if you will put this rope around you and permit us to let you down to get those flowers'. Without saying a word the lad scampered off.  They thought they had frightened him.  He went to a house nearby and soon came back with a man by his side.  Then the little fellow answered: ‘You may put that rope around me, and I'll get the flower, if you'll let my dad hold the rope'." (President David O. McKay, CR. April 1944)

 

When you study the scriptures you can see so clearly the intimate and close connection the Saviour had with the Father whilst in mortality. He spoke of Him incessantly. Once I counted 163 references that He made to the Father during His visit to the Americas. Fifteen of those referenced His obedience to Him which included the sacrifice He was to offer and save the rest of us (John 10:17-18).

 

The closeness Jesus felt to the Father during His life was such that when He told His disciples that they will scatter and leave Him in the end, He said with assurance: “….yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me” and “He that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please Him (John 8:29; 16:32).

 

This is a clear indication that Jesus felt sure the Father would be with Him during His atoning sacrifice  and so perhaps it was not just sheer obedience but also trust that there will be a rope around Him to the very end. Perhaps this trust played a big part in enabling Him to say, “not mine, but Thy will be done” as He began to submit to His excruciating ordeal (Matthew 26:39).  

Imagine then the shock when He was descending into the bottomless pit of human suffering to discover there was no rope around Him, like in the Garden, and no Father to catch Him….when He uttered that heart breaking question asking why the Father had forsaken Him (Matthew 27:46). There are reasons why it had to be so but the startling point is, the Saviour was utterly and totally alone.

Here again there had to be trust even though the rope was not there. There had to be trust that He could finish His crucible until every soul was atoned for and until He could give His all in the voluntary surrender of His life (John 10:18). There had to be trust until He could say: “It is finished” (John 19:30)

I have been puzzled by the concept of suffering my entire life. I used to think there had to be a better way to exaltation, for the Saviour and for us. Over time I received glimpses here and there about that necessity but none of these intellectual explanations seemed to make a dent into my understanding pertaining to my life. The other day I had a revelation about it so intense and so poignant that it took the explanation of my life to another level.

Through it I learnt something extremely important: the Eternal Father knows me to the depths of my soul and the plan for my life which I agreed to before I was born was so finely crafted that it has the power to prepare me for something much greater. I came away from that experience sobbing and understanding His mercy for the life He had planned for me. All I have to do is trust that there is a rope around my waist like Christ ‘who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross’ (Hebrews 12:2).

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Thy Will Be Done by Jay Bryant Ward)