SEEKING HIS FACE

 

Arms of Faith by Yongsung Kim

Some days, Father, I cannot bear,

The absence of Your touch.

I cannot wait for Your embrace

That I have missed so very much.

 

In this abyss of worldly darkness

I stumble but I fall into the arms of Him

Who lifts me higher than I can go.

 

I fly to You, Father, on my wings of faith,

I sail through stormy skies,

Seeking for Thy face.

Look Father, no hands!

Only trust in these strong arms

Of my Saviour’s loving grace.

-      CATHRYNE ALLEN 

HOPE

 

I have been actively in pursuit of perfection since I joined the Church in my youth. I thought that’s what the Church was all about and I latched onto such an endeavour because I am a perfectionist.

I have always maintained that by the time you reach the last leg of your journey, you should pretty much be extremely close to perfection. I thought by the time I get to the age I am now, I would have myself all together. Imagine my surprise when I arrived here to discover that is not the case.

On a positive note, I have noticed greater strides in improvement from where I was 20 years ago. The lessons have been amazing; my patience has improved and my expectations are getting more realistic as my kindness toward myself grows.

Over the years I have come to understand that opposition in all things, the impact of others on our lives, and life circumstances make us fall short of excellence over and over and so our awareness that perfection is an unattainable ideal in this life becomes our reality. At this point some of us start to battle with yet another challenge called discouragement.

We are constantly living in the gap between the ideal and the real in just about every stage of our lives. Consider raising a young family. Before you marry you have visions of the ideal but after children are littering your home, you realise how very naïve you were.

Elder Hafen painted a good picture of this: “Somehow it has not been altogether natural for our children to glide reverently into their places all at once and all on time, prepared to ponder thoughtfully the wonders of eternity. More than likely, especially when they were young, they seemed to come swinging into the family room on the chandeliers like Tarzan on the vines, then would stand on their heads or flip themselves over the back of the couch during most of the lesson” (Bruce C. Hafen, “The Broken Heart” p 178).

Then you think, my life will be perfect when the children are grown and have lives of their own and I have myself back. To my surprise, that hasn’t worked out for me either.  It would seem the motivation levels in retirement take a nose dive. It keeps getting harder and harder to keep up with the pace that my idealistic level of achievement requires.

The truth is, this life is far too messy to be perfect. Perfection is an eternal incremental process and the path has to be laced with hope to make it lasting. That hope becomes viable when it is coupled with realism of the expected perfection. President Spencer W. Kimball has said that being perfect means to triumph over sin. Perfection in that respect is an achievable goal (see Miracle of Forgiveness, p 208). Perhaps our focus should be righteousness. Perhaps this is what the Saviour meant after all when He commanded us to be perfect (Matthew 5:48; 3 Nephi 12:48) because this is the greatest realism there is:

The only way we can reach perfection is through the atoning grace of Christ, after all we can do on our own (2 Nephi 25:23). This will happen long after we leave this mortal existence, become resurrected and made complete in Him who has the power of perfection.

Until then He is our hope: “For I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up.” (D&C 84:88)

You enliven my spirit;

You bring me to life;

You enrich my impoverished heart.

You are the God of power and might;

You make of me what I alone could never be,

You light my way into eternity.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: The Light by Land of Dreams)

THE MIRROR

 

“The Saviour desires to save us from our inadequacies as well as our sins. Inadequacy is not the same as being sinful – we have far more control over the choice to sin than we may have over our innate capacity. We sometimes say that the Lord will not save us IN our sins, but FROM them. However, it is quite possible that He will save us IN our inadequacies as well as FROM them.

“A sense of falling short or falling down is not only natural but essential to the mortal experience. Still, after all we can do, the Atonement can fill that which is empty, straighten our bent parts, and make strong that which is weak.

“The Saviour’s victory can compensate not only for our sins but also for our inadequacies; not only for our deliberate mistakes but also for our sins committed in ignorance, our errors of judgment, and our unavoidable imperfections. Our ultimate aspiration is more than being forgiven of sin – we seek to become holy, endowed affirmatively with Christlike attributes, at one with Him, like Him. Divine grace is the only source that can finally fulfill that aspiration, after all we can do.

“The truth is not that WE must make it on OUR own, but that HE will make us HIS own.”

-        Elder Bruce C. Hafen, “The Broken Heart”, p 19-20

This, among many other reasons, is why I love Paul the Apostle, a missionary to the Gentiles for 35 years, a servant of Jesus Christ, scourged, beaten, persecuted, stoned, shipwrecked and martyred: he had a ‘thorn in the flesh’ (2 Cor 12:5-10)…..an imperfection, a weakness, an inadequacy….

Paul is the perfect scriptural example of what Elder Hafen spoke of. Paul gives us two explanations for the ‘thorn’ in his flesh. This is the first: “And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh…..” (v 7). He could see plainly that his calling in life which brought him to spiritual greatness could also bring him to the altar of pride. The thorn served a great purpose to keep him grounded in his humanity and mortality.

The second is this. After repeated pleadings that the Lord remove the thorn, Paul was told ‘no’. Hence the lesson in grace. Perhaps the Lord preferred a humble Paul to a prideful one but Paul understood something more significant: “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (v 9)…..in other words, I would rather have a weakness that would bring me in the end to Christ than not…..

Paul, who sacrificed all for Christ, and who endured much suffering for His name’s sake was torn between his eagerness to ‘depart and be with Him’ and his desire to stay and serve Him (1 Philippians 1:23-26). He remained faithful to the end despite his ‘thorn in the flesh’…….

I looked in the mirror today

And didn’t like what I did see

Then I remembered that one day

Dear Saviour, I will be like Thee.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Gentle Saviour by Jay Bryant Ward)