I testify this morning of God’s limitless love for his children, of his unquenchable desire to help us heal our wounds, individually and collectively. He is our Father, and Wordsworth wrote more than he knew when he said we came to earth “trailing clouds of glory … from God who is our home” (“Ode: Intimations of Immortality”). But in far too many cases we find no modern belief in a Heavenly Father, and when there is a belief, it is too often an erroneous one. God is not dead, and he is not an absentee landlord. God is not uncaring, or capricious, or cantankerous. Above all, he is not some sort of divine referee trying to tag us off third base. Jeffrey R. Holland, October, 1993 When I was younger, I had the image of a God who was the equivalent of a small-town cop. He had a daily ticket quota to write so He was always hiding behind a bush or billboard, just waiting for me to go one mile over the speed limit -- or any limit -- so that He could, proverbially, throw the book at me. If I wasnt breaking the law, that didnt mean I could breathe easily because small town cops sometimes write questionable tickets -- got to meet that quota. And when it came time to settle, there would always be some fine print clause in the ticket that wiped out any and all efforts I had made to fix things, be a better person, do what He asked of me. It took a long time, years that turned to decades, before I finally and fully (I think) discovered the truth of my former BYU presidents comment. God is not s small town cop; Hes my Father. As such, He wants the best for me and is willing to do anything and everything He possibly can, all the while respecting that divine gift of agency, to make that happen. He cant turn a blind eye to my mistakes, not because He wants to throw the book at me but because Hes perfect and cares too much about me to let me be less than what He knows Im capable of achieving. And that means, in turn, that I can trust Him, wholly and unconditionally, even when things dont make sense, prayers seem to go unanswered (at that moment) or the answer is no or not yet. Of all the blessings in my life and reasons why life is great, that is the greatest of all, finally understanding Elder Hollands comment from 21 years ago. :-)
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 13:44:30 +0000
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