THE PLAN

 

The Great Creator by Gabriel Heaton

“As Neal A. Maxwell has said, we rightly praise God when requested blessings are received, “but transcending all such praise should be our everlasting praise to God for His plan of happiness – for making us the very center of His work and purposes! (A Wonderful Flood of Light, p 59). Though we are here in mortality, separated from God by the veil, his “work and his glory” are to bring to pass our “immortality and eternal life” (Moses 1:39).

“While many people will live their mortal existence without even knowing of the plan, it is incumbent upon those who are members of the restored Church to have a deep and appropriate understanding of the plan. We cannot live our lives as “perpetual youth” with only a shallow knowledge of the work that God is preparing for us.

“When David O. McKay was only 13 years of age, John Smith, the Patriarch to the Church, stopped at the home of Bishop David McKay to give blessings to the children. The patriarch laid his hands on this young boy’s head and pronounced a powerful blessing, part of which included these words:

“The Lord has a work for thee to do, in which thou shalt see much of the world, assist in gathering scattered Israel, and also labour in the ministry. It shall be thy lot to sit in council with thy brethren and preside among the people and exhort the Saints to faithfulness.”

“After completing the blessing, the patriarch gave David O. a serious look and said, “My boy, you have something to do besides playing marbles.” Later the boy found his mother getting dinner ready and said, “If he thinks I am going to stop laying marbles, he is mistaken.” The mother then took her son aside and told him the meaning of the patriarch’s words. (Inspirational Stories From the Life of President David O. McKay, p 769)

“Each of us must understand theologically that we have more to do than “play marbles”, not only here in mortality but especially in the worlds to come. Each of us must know that our theology is more fundamentally encompassing than just a principle about tea and coffee. We are the children of God. He has a plan of happiness filled with powers, principles, and doctrines that are wonderfully promissory.”

-          Jerry A. Wilson, The Great Plan of Happiness, Insights from the Lectures on Faith,p 4

 

When in the realms of heaven

You created all the worlds that be,

You created with godly care

A divine plan for me.

 

Did you gaze long and hard into eternity

To see the path I would willingly follow

To find Your love waiting for me

In my every tomorrow?

 

Each step I took brought me closer

To where I needed to be,

Each mountain You gave me to climb

Grew easier because You carried me.

 

Your mercy, Your love, Your infinite care,

It all spoke to me that You were always there.

It helped me follow to do my part

And seal You forever in the depths my heart.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

TRUST

 

“We will acknowledge someday, before God and all his children, that life on this earth, that which we longed for as premortal spirits desiring mortality, was the perfect school for our development. Though the curriculum was exacting, the tests were more than adequately supervised by the schoolmaster. Though the homework was extensive, again our teacher was our constant support.” (Jerry A. Wilson, “The Great Plan of Happiness-Insights From the Lectures On Faith, p 75)

In my personal quest for understanding my life, I asked myself recently what would have motivated us the most to desire and undertake an experience with mortality considering it is one of suffering, sorrow and hardship. We are told in the Church that we knew it was going to be hard and yet we still came.

I thought of a couple of worthy replies but what came to me the most is this: trust. We must have trusted God the Father explicitly to accept the Plan of Salvation when it was presented to us and I think this is why:

Firstly, we trusted in His omniscience: “God has knowledge of the beginning to the end. His knowledge is the very reason He is able to save His children…..We do not worship a God who uses expressions like, “Ooops” as an apology for surprising events. He also doesn’t exclaim, “I didn’t know that would happen!” or “That was a shocker”. For him, there is no such thing as an ‘unexpected event”, something coming as a “bolt out of the blue”. He does not miscalculate, nor is he startled over the events of this life or the thought and actions of His children. To our benefit, He has perfect knowledge as an attribute.” (ibid p 30) This is safety.

Secondly, we trusted in His example: the Father was the perfect embodiment of the end product, the ultimate reward promised us. We trusted Him because He had been a mortal man once himself and had been through the experience of obtaining godhood by following the same process as His proposed Plan of Salvation. We could see what could be accomplished and earned. He was proof that the Plan works. This also is safety.

Lastly, we trusted in His Beloved Son. We had before our eyes the very similitude of the Father in His entirety, a perfect Son who would condescend in His stead from His godly realm and would implement the Plan without fail and make it all possible, at all odds. Without Him the Plan would fail. He was the pinnacle of our trust. This is fixed, abiding, unwavering safety.

God is the same yesterday, today and forever (1 Nephi 10:18; Moroni 10:7; 2 Nephi 29:9; Mormon 9:0). He is the same God now as the one we had before our eyes in pre-mortal life. We need to hold onto that in faith. His tutorial of overwhelming and underwhelming experiences of this life is in perfect harmony with His goal to exalt us. Distrust feeds fear and turmoil. Trust gives us freedom…..I know that from experience.

 

I viewed my life as hopeless pieces

And shame consumed my fragile heart.

I questioned every move and every choice;

I berated, I gave no value to any part.

Not until my trust consumed me

And my will to heavens flew

Did solace nestle in my soul

And such freedom as I never knew.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Jesus the Beacon of Hope by Ivan Guaderrama)

THE WORTH OF YOU

 

 

We are told the worth of a soul is great in the eyes of God (D&C 17:10). What does that exactly mean? Does it mean our worth is great simply because we are the offspring of Deity who loves us?

Well, there seems to be more to it than that. God told Enoch that we are the ‘workmanship’ of His hands (Moses 7:32). If ‘workmanship’ insinuates investment of labour and skill, the worth cannot be purely in the birth alone.

To arrive at the estimate of the worth, consider all the ‘work’ that went into the making of YOU: 1. Your spiritual creation which depended on the Father’s rise to Godhood; 2. Your spiritual tutoring for eons of time; 3. The creation of the earth for your mortality; 4. Overseeing of your earthly tutoring; 5. Preparation of kingdoms for your eternal destination; 6. The redemption of your soul through sacrifice of another.

Now think of the scale of guidance, protection, care, overseeing, anguish and sorrow of your Heavenly Parents, the Holy Ghost, your guardian angels, your ancestors, your departed loved ones and all the hosts of heaven who know you….and not just what others have put into you but what you have put into yourself….in this life and before you even came here. Consider the following:

“In the prior life, we developed various capacities and talents. Some developed them in one field and some in another. The most important of all fields was the field of spirituality, the ability, the talent, the capacity to recognise truth” (Bruce R. McConkie, When Thou Art Converted, Strengthen Thy Brethren, A Study Guide for the Priesthood Quorums of the Church, 1974-75, pp 8-9). This spiritual development was not only important for our own salvation but also for the salvation of others.

Obviously, we achieved a lot before we were even born into mortality. What price would you put to all the work that you put into yourself and the investment of others into you??? I know two things:  the price would be higher than we can possibly imagine; and I know who paid it and why.

When Moses encountered God on Mount Sinai, God revealed Himself to him and Moses saw the glory of God and every particle of this earth and all the children of men (Moses 1:8,27) that have ever been created. The vision of God's power was overwhelming to a man who grew up in an Egyptian court believing that Pharoah was god and there was no one greater than him so he exclaimed that now he could see that man is nothing (Moses 1:10).

God, however, didn't want Moses to miss the point so He showed him the same vision again and concluded it with the most important message in the scriptures: "For behold this is my work and my glory - to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" (Moses 1:39). The point that God didn't want Moses to miss is this: amongst all of God's creations, none are greater than man. Why? Because man constitutes God’s glory. All that we are and all that we become matters because it leads to our glory and adds to His.

Surely Christ’s supreme sacrifice for all mankind is the crescendo of all the work invested into each soul ever born on this earth, of every creed, of every colour, of every nation. The Atonement is the crowning glory of the work that has gone into you and me.

All the prior work that had been put into us would be in vain if there was no Atonement, and even more importantly, there would be no future for any of us, and the future is what counts, because it ensures our rightful place in the eternal scheme of things.

It completes the Plan, it ensures the success of the Plan, it validates the ‘workmanship’ and preserves its value. So with all the labour, material, and struggle that has gone into your creation and development, how much do you think your soul is worth?

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Jesus the Creator by SKAI Studios)