A Heart Filled with Thanksgiving

This year, as we approach another national day of Thanksgiving in America, we have two LDS missionaries from our family who are currently serving. Our eldest grandson, Izach, is serving in the Iowa Des Moines Mission, and our youngest daughter, Merilee, is serving in the Washington D.C. South Mission. Their service, like that of all their counterparts around the world, represents a free gift of love as they share the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. As their families who remain behind at home, we feel the blessings as they give of themselves.

I share my latest thoughts with both of them here:

Dear Elder Izach:
Dear Sister Merilee:

Happy Thanksgiving! It’s my favorite holiday, I think, since Christmas now more than ever is overrunning any and all considerations in the USA. I couldn’t believe the Christmas decorations and displays in all the retail outlets that began appearing this year earlier than ever – before Halloween!

We sometimes forget to remember to be grateful. Now more than ever I recognize how blessed I am, and how thankful I am for all I have. Chief among those blessings are our children, their spouses and grandchildren. There is no greater gift from God than a righteous posterity in whom we have received so much joy.

The knowledge of the gospel and what it is and how we implement it into our lives individually each day through faith on the Lord Jesus Christ unto repentance, making it possible to lay aside our sins and walk in a newness of life in the Spirit day by day is the very essence of our existence. Imagine life without that precious knowledge!

Faith, giving rise to hope of eternal life, producing the pure love of Christ in our lives is powerful doctrine. I have truly become a simpleton as I grow older – I am constrained to acknowledge that when we distill life into its purest essence it is not difficult or complicated or complex at all – it is simple!

We are all God’s spirit children having a brief mortal probation clothed in bodies of flesh and blood, He loves us, we must learn to love each other, then we return to live in the Spirit eternally. If we qualify through our faithfulness we live Eternal’s life, since Eternal is one of the names we apply to our Father in Heaven.

I know when we were all together in the spirit world before we came to live here, we enthusiastically supported the proposed plan of salvation – there was no wavering on our parts, because we wanted mortality. I know we all shouted for joy at the prospects of coming here, that we embraced our Elder Brother as the Firstborn Son, the Only Begotten Son in the flesh, when we raised our arms to the square and sustained Him in the role of Redeemer, Savior and Messiah.

We knew the Gods personally – God the Creator, God the Redeemer, and God the Testator – even the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost. We walked with them, we were taught all that we needed to know, then we came to earth. We began life just as little Emma did (she was with us overnight this weekend, along with Andrew and Jessica) did not long ago. As infants pure and innocent, sent straight to earth from the Father of us all to inhabit a mortal body of flesh and bone and blood, they come trailing clouds of glory.

In our mortal bodies are sown the seeds of corruption from the beginning of our existence. Entropy (the tendency of all things to decay and die) took root in us as it does in everything the temporal eye can see.

Satan sought us out from the very moment of our births. We became subject to his temptations, his wiles, his lies, and his deceptions. He sought to destroy our innocence. He succeeded. Until we were eight these things mattered little to us, since we were not accountable before God for our wrong choices, but then we turned eight.

We were baptized, and we took upon ourselves the sacred covenants of baptism and membership in the kingdom of God here upon the earth. The promise of the gift of the Holy Ghost was held out to us, indeed we were commanded to “receive the Holy Ghost.” Only our willingness to submit our lives as true disciples enabled us to fulfill the commandment.

Only when we truly come unto Christ through our faith on Him can we truly be saved and sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost and His sanctifying power to purify our hearts. In and of ourselves we have no power. We do not set a goal to be good, then strive for its accomplishment on our own. There is nothing about us in our fallen condition that is good, virtuous, lovely, praiseworthy or righteous. On our own we are a miserable wreck of carnality and depravity. Without the grace and mercy and love of a God incarnate in the form of Christ, we would be lost forever in our sins.

If there is anything good in us, it is only because of the Spirit of the Holy Ghost that has come to dwell in us. We are only pure vessels as a worthy habitation for His presence when we have repented, truly repented, of our sins.

Knowing of our tendency toward entropy and backsliding, the saving ordinance of the sacrament was introduced by a loving Savior the night before His agonizing crucifixion outside the city walls of Jerusalem on Golgotha’s hill.

Each week in sacrament meeting we are put in remembrance of His body which was slain and His precious blood which was spilt for each of us. In His agonizing death and burial, then subsequent glorious resurrection on the first Sabbath morning of the third day, we find hope for ourselves to be elevated from our fallen mortal condition to a resurrection of glory comparable to Eternal’s resurrection.

We aspire as saints and disciples of Christ living in the last days to become as Eternal is in His realm – to become joint-heirs with our Elder Brother, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ – possessing (no longer merely hoping) to have all that the Father hath. We aspire to be Eternal Parents, to live in the Eternal’s family forever, to be one with Him, with Christ, and with all our progenitors who so qualified for Eternal’s life.

All of it is possible only because of Jesus Christ, the only true Prototype of Eternal’s life. It is only through and in Christ that the plan of Eternal’s salvation is possible.

Now how do we come to know such a plan? All of it was lost in dark ages of sin and depravity for centuries. Down the corridors of time humanity trudged alone and without hope until the dawning of a new day in the last days.

A boy, only fourteen years old, went into a grove of trees in upstate New York to pray. He was confused by the cacophony of voices everywhere he turned. He sought truth. He determined no one knew what he longed to know. He asked God the Father in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Ghost to reveal the truth about the various religious sects of his day. He was answered. Alone in the grove, a glorious pillar of light descended upon him until he was enveloped (even transfigured) in the light. Without that transforming, transfiguring power transferred to him by the very glorifying presence of the Father and Son, Joseph would have been literally consumed and annihilated as a mere mortal man.

But he survived the light, and from that day forward remained a pure and enlightened vessel, though he continued to struggle in the flesh. He beheld and spoke directly to the Father and the Son that brilliant spring day in 1820. The heavens were opened anew. The Restoration began. Of that fact I am a witness.

After that initial encounter with Deity, there came a stream of visitors from the other side of the veil to instruct and teach. Hundreds of ancient prophets appeared and taught the boy prophet. Finally, in 1827, on the morning of September 22, he was ready. He was led to the plates compiled by the ancient worthies Mormon and Moroni.

How convenient that he was living only a short distance from the hill where the sacred record had lain buried for centuries.

How convenient that the veil of darkness was burst by the very Moroni who had hid them up as his last act in mortality.

How convenient that this mere boy without any formal education was thought to be so clever as to have concocted such a tall tale.

How convenient that when it was brought forth out of the ground that the voice from the dust has withstood all the tests of authenticity without fail all these many years since.

How convenient that we have the record at our fingertips and can examine its contents for ourselves, and not have to rely upon first the words of three witnesses, then later eleven, who saw and handled those plates of such rare quality and saw and heard the angelic ministrant, Moroni, bear record of their truths.

How convenient, yes, but more than convenient – the word is more accurately “how true.”

Imagine the sacrifice, the blood, the sweat and the tears, the human extremity necessary to have produced those plates we now have! Imagine the faith, the painstaking faith, required to have preserved and left for a latter-day boy prophet the task to bring the record forth from the ground to publish it to the world as the saving document, the tangible evidence of the mercy and love of the Father and the Son for all the spirit children of Eternal’s family unit.

Then think about all the billions of Eternal’s children who never had the blessing of learning the truths of the fullness of the gospel while they lived in mortality! Think of the mercy, the justice, to make available to all of them without exception the ordinances of Eternal’s life – to have the same opportunity as those who had actually lived and received the glorious truths of the gospel while they lived in the flesh.

What provision, what foresight, what fairness, what love! I truly can scarcely take it all in.

Wilford Woodruff and John Taylor both testified that there would few IF ANY who, when presented with the gospel message in the spirit world, would reject it. They will be judged the same as us – they will qualify for Eternal’s life too.

For us it remains to improve upon the days of our probation by learning two invaluable lessons – to repent and to forgive – and by so doing put into implementation in our lives the saving power of the gospel so it can truly save us.

When we first embrace the gospel we go through a gate. That gate is baptism. Baptism leads to a path. That path is the strait and narrow path. “Strait” literally means narrow though it sometimes winds hither and thither during our mortal journey. That path leads upward, through mists of darkness, through temptations of all kinds imaginable. We are buffeted, mocked by others, tested and tried in all things.

Along side that path is an iron rod. The imagery is of something tangible, solid, easily within reach, yet it symbolizes something totally spiritual, elusive and often difficult to discern. The word of God is Spirit essence at its best, only to be understood by those who seek it with all their hearts, minds, strength and souls. The promise is that we will have a companion on that journey up the strait and narrow path.

As we cling to the word of God, as we implement its entreaties in our daily living, as we seek to purify our lives week by week at the sacrament table, making spiritual realities grow out of our physical acts of partaking of the bread and water – then and only then do we receive token down payments along our way of what our state and station in Eternal’s realms of glory. These are the glorious principles of truth we teach.

I have summarized here the essence of what I have said in many, many Sunday lessons, sermons and writings over the years. Missionaries like you often attended those meetings with their investigators. I think of you with your investigators each time I attend Sunday meetings and the temple, as we did last Thursday night with our stake. I always wonder what goes through the hearts of the missionaries and the investigators as they sit in those meetings. When I teach, I am only interested in answering the prayers of those missionaries that the speaker won’t blow it for their investigators. I have always tried to deliver the message the Spirit gives me. I always bear pure testimony. I keep it simple. No matter what the topic of the meeting where we are asked to speak, I try to lay out for investigators my witness of the precious truths they are studying with the missionaries.

For all these things and more I am eternally grateful to my Eternal Father and my Savior Jesus Christ. Imagine life without what we know! Can you even imagine it? It’s no wonder these truths, once embraced, truly change lives with transforming power and cleansing sanctifying effect. That you are engaged in the very essence of bringing these truths to the human family where you labor fills me with gratitude and thanksgiving unlike anything I’ve ever experienced to this point in my life.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Love,

Dad

Family Foreordination

Yesterday we had the blessing of witnessing the baptism of yet another grandchild. Recently, it was Molly and Spencer. These choice young spirits who have been sent to our family in the third generation continue to amaze and humble me. Present by invitation at yesterday’s baptism was Alex’s best friend, not a member of the Church. At age eight he is already a missionary. Even before that he gifted his kindergarten teacher with a Book of Mormon.

There is little doubt in my mind these spirits who are coming to earth in these last days are uniquely prepared for the days that lie ahead. Alex carries his scriptures with him in a special carrying case with the image of a basketball imprinted on it. Our grandchildren are all exceptional (you may discount these words if you choose, because it’s a grandfather talking about his grandchildren) but I fear no contradiction for those who know them well.

Alex

In a note to Alex I observed the new layer of snow on the ground (I know, April 30th, still snowing in Utah), and how the covering of white symbolized the purity of one who is baptized. Certainly, Alex will make mistakes, he will sin, but in the sacrament each week and in repentance the gospel offers purity going forward from one's baptismal day. 

Prompted by events, e-mails and questions lately, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to this matter of parentage, foreordination and family life. How soon did we know about families? Where did we learn our first lessons about families? How were we organized before we came into this mortal world? We are organized into families here, we know we will be organized into families hereafter if we remain faithful, so how does that knowledge inform us about how we were organized before? How much agency was at work in our choices about which families we would come to?

These are some of the questions that arise. I doubt there is a single influence that permeates our existence more than the families into which we are born. The age-old debate about nature versus nurture will perhaps never be fully resolved to our satisfaction, but who we are, what we become and how our character is shaped is certainly the pre-eminent result of the laboratory of home and family. Regardless of how we start, it is how we finish that is important. Improvement is the goal, and we are free to choose outcomes. Nothing is pre-determined that will not yield to faith and perseverance.

There may be no more important facet of the doctrine of foreordination than how it plays out in the families to which we come. Is that ultimate designation made by assignment, by agency and freedom of choice, or by merit or by divine randomness? Without knowledge of the plan of salvation, most would conclude our family situation is merely a matter of the randomness of the universe.

Elder Bruce R. McConkie

It would be hard for a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to conclude anything less than the family unit being central to God's designs. With Scott Strong, I have written extensively about this topic in the past. Elder Bruce R. McConkie wrote, ". . .the Lord operates through families. He himself lives in the family unit; it is his eternal system of government in heaven and on earth, and he always offers as much of his own system to men as they are willing to receive." (A New Witness for the Articles of Faith [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1985], 35).

In addition to foreordination to lineage, there is evidence to indicate that there is, at least in certain cases, foreordination to favored families. President Harold B. Lee affirmed that, generally, we come to certain families as a reward or blessing for our premortal lives.

President Harold B. Lee

Said he at the last General Conference where he presided,

Now then, to make a summary of what I have just read, may I ask each of you again the question, “Who are you?” You are all the sons and daughters of God. Your spirits were created and lived as organized intelligences before the world was. You have been blessed to have a physical body because of your obedience to certain commandments in that premortal state. You are now born into a family to which you have come, into the nations through which you have come, as a reward for the kind of lives you lived before you came here and at a time in the world’s history, as the apostle Paul taught the men of Athens and as the Lord revealed to Moses, determined by the faithfulness of each of those who lived before this world was created. (“Understanding Who We Are Brings Self-Respect," Ensign, January 1974, 7).

It was his view there had been a premortal assignment to specific families based upon our faithfulness in the pre-existence.

President Brigham Young

Joseph Smith appeared in vision to Brigham Young at Council Bluffs, Iowa, on February 17, 1847. The full account is longer, but here's the partial quote that applies to this topic:

Our Father in Heaven organized the human family, but they are all disorganized and in great confusion.

Joseph then showed me the pattern, how they were in the beginning.

This I cannot describe, but I saw it, and saw where the Priesthood had been taken from the earth and how it must be joined together, so that there would be a perfect chain from Father Adam to his latest posterity.

Joseph again said, “Tell the people to be sure to keep the Spirit of the Lord and follow it, and it will lead them just right." (Journal History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, February 23, 1847, LDS Church Archives).

I’ll lay out a few more statements, then draw a conclusion. There can be little doubt of the noble heritage of our prophets from Joseph Smith to Thomas S. Monson. They were certainly among the “noble and great ones” in the pre-existence. (Abraham 3:22). Brigham Young described it this way, pertaining to the foreordination of Joseph Smith:

It was decreed in the counsels of eternity, long before the foundations of the earth were laid, that [Joseph Smith] should be the man, in the last dispensation of this world, to bring forth the word of God to the people, and receive the fulness of the keys and power of the Priesthood of the Son of God. The Lord had his eye upon him, and upon his father, and upon his father's father, and upon their progenitors clear back to Abraham, and from Abraham to the flood, from the flood to Enoch, and from Enoch to Adam. He has watched that family and that blood as it has circulated from its fountain to the birth of that man. (JD, 7:289-290).

President Spencer W. Kimball

When President Spencer W. Kimball was sustained as President of the Church, Elder Bruce R. McConkie made this statement:

May I take President Spencer W. Kimball as an illustration and pattern of one who was prepared, foreordained, and called to leadership among the Lord's people. He was, it is true, born in the household of faith. . .

But more than mortal birth. . . [is] involved. He was born in the household of faith for a reason. . . The fact is, he is a spirit son of God who was called and chosen and foreordained before the foundations of the earth were laid, and he is now fulfilling the destiny designed for him from the pre-existence. ("God Foreordains His Prophets and His People," Ensign, May 1974, 72).

If this assignment of spirits based upon pre-existent spirit faithfulness can be applied to prophets who come to faithful families, it can certainly be applied to others who are not among the “pre-eminent” families who govern the Church. It is also important to point out that the details have not been fully revealed. Let’s be careful, therefore, in making broad generalizations.

President John Taylor

Elder John Taylor published an article entitled "The Origin and Destiny of Woman" in the August 29, 1857 edition of The Mormon. He hinted, "You also chose a kindred spirit whom you loved in the spirit world (and who had permission to come to this planet and take a tabernacle), to be your head, stay, husband and protector on the earth and to exalt you in eternal worlds. All these were arranged, likewise the spirits that should tabernacle through your lineage." (Cited in N. B. Lundwall, compiler, The Vision [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, n.d.], 145-148).

Was he giving a specific answer to one woman here, or did he intend a wider interpretation?

Two prophets at a much later date seemed to suggest the former. President Joseph Fielding Smith taught there is "no scriptural justification. . . for the belief that we had the privilege of choosing our parents and our life companions in the spirit world." (The Way to Perfection [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1972], 44).

In 1966, Elder Harold B. Lee stated, "we have no revealed word" on the extent to which premortal choices of family members were made. He then cautioned we should not accept or teach ideas that cannot be firmly established in the standard works or by inspired utterances of the living prophets. 

First Presidency, 1971

In 1971, while serving in The First Presidency, both men once again declared, "We have no revealed word to the effect that when we were in the preexistent state we chose our parents and our husbands and wives." (The First Presidency, 1971, cited by Steve F. Gilliland in, "I Have a Question," Ensign, June 1977, 40).

When we examine the make-up of some families, isn’t it obvious there are disparities, and that all are not alike? There's an old expression that you can choose your friends, but you don't get to choose your brother. So did we? The ranks of the disaffected former members of the Church are filled with those who were closest to the prophets. One prominent Church family may produce a deviant sex offender whose brother may be a stake president. Even some political observers I've spoken with have asked, observing Mike Lee and Harry Reid, "How can the same Church 'family' produce two such diametrically opposed points of view?" But I digress. I wonder if our Heavenly Father sends some of his most noble and great spirits to the least likely families because he knows his choice spirit sons and daughters may bring spiritual blessings to the rest of the family that might not otherwise be available. We must never judge someone's premortal character or performance based on current parentage or family conditions. Certainly, that applies to the political 'family' of the U.S. Senate, where Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch could befriend one another.

Again, God’s foreknowledge never impedes our ability to freely choose, not in the pre-existence, not here, and certainly not later in the spirit world or into the resurrection. I have come to conclude this about God, largely through my observations of a lifetime. (It's not doctrinal, only an observation). As a parent, wouldn't He want as many of His children as possible to achieve exaltation and eternal life with Him? I'm only beginning to understand that perspective as a grandfather of many in the third generation. I would want each to be with me again someday after this life. Wouldn't God? Wouldn't every father? Wouldn't any father and grandfather reach through the veil to the extent he were permitted to assist in bringing about that eventuality? To as many as will come, He will afford each child at whatever stage in their existence, ample opportunities to “get it right.” Life is a continuum, and this mortal probation is a blink in the eyeball of eternity.

President Boyd K. Packer

Noting the power of our covenants, I believe it is what led President Boyd K. Packer to conclude in an address to our stake, “When we go beyond the veil we will be surprised at how different things are. But we’ll also be surprised at how similar things are. If we don’t get things fixed here we’ll get them fixed there, but don’t give up.”

There is simply too much breakage in our mortal probation to draw hard and fast conclusions about eternal life before we get there. When one is young and idealistic, it is easy to picture oneself as one of the "few" who is chosen. It smacks of the precise number of 144,000 of Jehovah's Witnesses who will be saved.

What do I mean by "breakage?" After writing this post this morning we attended a ward fast and testimony meeting. It was a cascade of witnesses, six in all, who testified of their gratitude for second marriages, a chance to begin anew and to foster hope for their eternal inheritance despite an earlier failure for undisclosed reasons in their first marriages. Each of the sisters wept openly for the privilege of finally having a righteous priesthood holder in her home, a blessing for which many had longed for years.

So in old age, the kind of thinking tending toward unfettered idealism gives way to quiet contemplation and hope for a large dose of mercy administered to those who fall in this life. And not just for those who fall, but perhaps more importantly for those who are innocently affected by the sins of other family members. We certainly have enough information to reach for eternal life here and now, and through the power of the atonement we may yearn for it, hope for it and expect it. The "breakage" can be swept up, the broken things can be mended, and hope can triumph even when it isn't perfect the first time around.

No longer is it a question for me of what we've earned, what we're entitled to by our birthright or our relative righteousness ("I did better than you at keeping the commandments"), but rather what follows perfectionism is a quiet assurance of the majesty of the atonement in all its perfections. Do we really know everything about what constitutes a full opportunity to receive what He referred to as "the greatest of all the gifts of God" yet? (See D&C 6:13). I doubt it. Ask yourselves, would Heavenly Father prefer a small number of exalted beings ("but few are chosen"), or the vast majority of His children to be exalted? As a grandfather, I feel like I am barely coming to understand the answer.

In the meantime while we see through the glass darkly today, all the principles of the gospel still apply here and now – repent early, often and continuously – regardless of who your birth fathers and mothers might be. Live the gospel the best you know how, despite a parent who may have set a poor example and turned away in shame or guilt who hasn't returned yet. In the big eternal picture we are all sons and daughters of God, giving us all the nobility we need to inherit eternal life, if obedient in whatever stage we may find ourselves in our progression.

"If thou wilt do good, yea, and hold out faithful to the end, thou shalt be saved in the kingdom of God, which is the greatest of all the gifts of God; for there is no gift greater than the gift of salvation." (D&C 6:13).