* Dad made another trip to Gillette
* We had the Missionaries over for dinner and for FHE
* Ben went to a youth activity in the other stake with Ashley and Aaron
* The Mackowiaks came for the night
* Scout Pack Meeting
* Mom worked on the talk she was asked to give in Sacrament Meeting
* Easter shopping for new dresses and ties (Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Carlson!)
* Dad became very ill! High fever and lots of vomiting. He was in bed for 2 days (Saturday and Sunday). Ben also wasn't feeling well on Sunday morning so the two of them stayed home (hence no cute Easter pictures of Ben!)
* Easter! The Bunny found us early on Saturday morning and then that left Sunday to focus on Christ! Mom also did a little photoshoot after church of the kids in the backyard in their new Easter clothes :)
Seth Spotlight...
* Got transferred to Matagalpa (about 5 hours from Leon) and his new companion is Elder Quinonas from Guatemala
* Before he left Leon, he and Sanchez were able to Baptize a little 8 year old girl
* The Mission shut down the Leon area that he was in - so they had to go around and tell the members that no more Missionaries would be coming in for a bit (he said that was really sad to do)
* Had to go into Managua for the day (to get some ID papers done) and while there he was able to see Elder Price for a bit
Spiritually Speaking...
A tender mercy happened this week to Ben. We can't get him into the eye doctor for a new prescription (and new glasses since Wiley chewed up his last pair again) for 2 more weeks, so he has been going without seeing real clearly for about 6 days... he was downstairs and said he got the feeling/thought that his backup pair of glasses were in a specific bucket. He immediately went to the bucket and reached his hand in only to pull out the spare pare of glasses!! What a blessing! He remembered to say and prayer and thank Heavenly Father for inspiring him on where to find them.
Also, today in Sacrament Meeting, I (mom) gave a 20 minute talk on the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Apparently I had 40 minutes of material because I had to skip over half of it to stay within the allotted time! It went really well and I felt I said the words that Heavenly Father wanted me too. At the very beginning of my talk, I shared 2 analogies that I have used to teach our own family about the Atonement. I wanted to include the first part of my talk here so that I can reference in years to come and also for my own posterity...
*********************************************
Happy Easter everyone!
What a wonderful time of year we have dedicated to our Savior and the role he played in helping us realize our ultimate goal of Eternal Life!
One can guess that my words this morning will reflect on the Savior - and I wanted to focus on the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
A couple of years ago, I was trying to teach my own children about the Atonement and came across 2 different analogies (that made so much sense to me (and to my kids!) and I wanted to start off by sharing those because I think that it can sometimes be difficult to clearly explain the law of justice and the law of mercy, and how the atonement fits into this. It’s kind of deeper doctrine that can seem a little abstract. Anyway, I found this really neat object lesson and it was a great way to help visualize these concepts and make the principles more concrete.
I started out by holding up a balloon and telling them that God abides by the law of justice. This is His law. The law of justice is like the law of gravity or any other law of physics. When you walk off a diving board, there’s a natural consequence. When you put a pin through a balloon, it pops (and I then proceeded to pop the balloon so they could visually see it). You can’t avoid the consequence- it’s inevitable. Likewise, if we sin, there is a punishment: separation from God’s presence, because as it says in 1 Nephi 10:21 “no unclean thing can enter into the presence of God.”
Let’s suppose for a minute that there were no atonement. If you made a mistake, even once, in your life, you would be banished from Heavenly Father’s presence forever. You blew it- no second chances. That’s how the law of justice works.
Thankfully, there is an atonement. We all have sinned, but because of the atonement, there is a second chance. The law of mercy can balance out the law of justice.
I then showed my kids a second balloon and Put a piece of masking tape on the balloon and asked one of them to stick the pin through the balloon where the tape is. Of course they all wanted to try it and so we did this several times with multiple balloons and as you might imagine the balloon did not pop!
I explained that the tape represents the atonement of Christ and that is what protects the balloon from being “exposed to the whole demands of the law of justice,” just as Jesus Christ, through his atonement, stands between us and justice, if we will take advantage of his atonement.
We finished up our lesson by emphasizing that–even though Christ atoned for our sins– if we don’t repent and take the steps required to access God’s mercy, it’s as if there were no atonement made. Not repenting of our sins is like having the masking tape right in front of us, but not applying it to our balloon. It is then exposed to the whole law of justice because there is no safety net. The atonement takes absolutely no effect in our lives if we neglect to do our part.
This is emphasized in Alma 34:16 “And thus mercy can satisfy the demands of justice, and encircles them in the arms of safety, while he that exercises no faith unto repentance is exposed to the whole law of the demands of justice; therefore only unto him that has faith unto repentance is brought about the great and eternal plan of redemption.”
This was a very effective way (at least that I found) that even my youngest kids could grasp and understand and it completely opened up my eyes as well as how the Atonement works in our lives!
Now every so often I like to revisit the Atonement of Christ just to make sure that my children are remembering it and to maybe go a little deeper into the doctrine... and so it was time to do another lesson on it (but I didn’t want to do the same one - even though it truly is an amazing and effective one!) so back to the internet I went and this time I came across a talk by Brad Wilcox focusing more on Grace.
Now let’s pause for just a moment and let’s talk about “Grace” - what exactly is it? We see it written in the scriptures and we hear other Christians using the word - so what exactly does it mean??
Well In the Bible Dictionary we learn that the word grace frequently is used in the scriptures to mean the “Enabling power of the Atonement of Christ”
It occurs frequently in the New Testament, especially in the writings of Paul. The main idea of the word is basically “Divine means of help or strength, given through the bounteous mercy and love of Jesus Christ.”
And finally Grace can be described as the Divine assistance or heavenly help each of us desperately needs to qualify for the celestial kingdom. Thus, the enabling power of the Atonement strengthens us to do and be good and to serve beyond our own individual desire and natural capacity.
Alright so back to the analogy that was shared: He said that
- Christ’s arrangement with us is similar to a mom providing music lessons for her child.
- Mom pays the piano teacher.
- Because Mom pays the debt in full, she can turn to her child and ask for something. What is it? Practice!
- Does the child’s practice pay the piano teacher? No.
- Does the child’s practice repay Mom for paying the piano teacher? No.
- Practicing is how the child shows appreciation for Mom’s incredible gift. It is how he takes advantage of the amazing opportunity Mom is giving him to live his life at a higher level. Mom’s joy is found not in getting repaid but in seeing her gift used—seeing her child improve. And so she continues to call for practice, practice, practice.
If the child sees Mom’s requirement of practice as being too overbearing (“Gosh, Mom, why do I need to practice? None of the other kids have to practice! I’m just going to be a professional baseball player anyway!”), perhaps it is because he doesn’t yet see with mom’s eyes. He doesn’t see how much better his life could be if he would choose to live on a higher plane.
In the same way, because Jesus has paid justice, He can now turn to us and say, “Follow me” (Matthew 4:19), “Keep my commandments” (John 14:15).
- If we see His requirements as being way too much to ask (“Gosh! None of the other Christians have to pay tithing! None of the other Christians have to go on missions, serve in callings, and do temple work!”), maybe it is because we do not yet see through Christ’s eyes. We have not yet comprehended what He is trying to make of us.
- Elder Bruce C. Hafen has written, “The great Mediator asks for our repentance not because we must ‘repay’ him in exchange for his paying our debt to justice, but because repentance initiates a developmental process that, with the Savior’s help, leads us along the path to a saintly character”
- President Spencer W. Kimball’s explanation, “The repenting sinner must suffer for his sins, but this suffering has a different purpose than punishment or payment. Its purpose is change” (The Lord’s Way [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1991], 223; emphasis in original).
- Let’s put that in terms of our analogy: The child must practice the piano, but this practice has a different purpose than punishment or payment. Its purpose is change. To Grow. To Learn
- Now I’m sure the child at some point will say: “don’t you realize how hard it is to practice? I’m just not very good at the piano. I hit a lot of wrong notes. It takes me forever to get it right.” Now wait. Isn’t that all part of the learning process? When a young pianist hits a wrong note, we don’t say he is not worthy to keep practicing. We don’t expect him to be flawless. We just expect him to keep trying. Perfection may be his ultimate goal, but for now we can be content with progress in the right direction. Why is this perspective so easy to see in the context of learning piano but so hard to see in the context of learning heaven?
Aren’t those both great ways of teaching and thinking about how the Atonement truly affects our lives? As I continue on with my talk, I wanted to focus more on this Grace or Enabling Power of Atonement of Christ
Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said, “I suspect that [we] are much more familiar with the nature of the redeeming power of the Atonement than we are with the enabling power of the Atonement.” He suggested that most of us understand that Christ came to earth to die for us, to pay the price for our sins, to make us clean, to redeem us from our fallen state, and to enable every person to be resurrected from the dead.
But, Elder Bednar said, “I frankly do not think many of us ‘get it’ concerning [the] enabling and strengthening aspect of the Atonement, and I wonder if we mistakenly believe we must make the journey from good to better and become a saint all by ourselves through sheer grit, willpower, and discipline, and with our obviously limited capacities.
I think many people today believe that through their own “sheer grit, willpower, and discipline” they can manage just about anything. This simply is not true. Heavenly Father and the Savior can inspire, comfort, and strengthen us in our time of need, if we remember to cast our burdens at Their feet.
On the eve of Jesus Christ’s suffering in Gethsemane, He issued these final words to His disciples: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. … Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27). I recently read a talk by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland who said “[This] may be one of the Savior’s commandments that is, even in the hearts of otherwise faithful Latter-day Saints, almost universally disobeyed; and yet I wonder whether our resistance to this invitation could be any more grievous to the Lord’s merciful heart.”
I found myself as a part of those Latter Day Saints that Elder Holland referred to - letting my heart be trouble and being afraid.
One such time was early on in our marriage. John had just graduated college and been commissioned as a 2LT in the Army and I was 8 months pregnant with our 2nd son, Seth. It was around this same time that we found out where our first duty station would be. We had been anticipating orders to Colorado or Washington or even Italy (which had been submitted as our top picks) so you can imagine our surprise when we found out that we had been assigned to Korea! Oh, and one more detail I need to state - it was to be an unaccompanied 1 year tour. Our little family would be separated. Originally we just thought - no biggie, we’ll apply for a Command Sponsorship so our 2 boys and I could go with him... but that request was denied. My heart was troubled and fearful!
I’m not sure if I was consciously aware at the time that I was casting my burden at the Savior's feet but I threw myself into the scriptures to try and find peace and answers. True to His word, I was comforted and strengthened in my time of need. He brought peace to my heart and assured me that everything was going to be OK! As a little back history of me - I grew up in a military family and had actually lived in Korea for 2 years as a child. With my parents encouragement, we decided that we’d do whatever it took to be together - even if that meant living off post in a Korean Neighborhood and paying for it ourselves. And that’s just what we did! John got over there and found a little Korean Villa for us to live in and then sent for us. The journey over there is another story in itself (which I’ll share sometime if I’m ever asked to speak on Prayer -- and no, that is not an invitation for another speaking assignment!) but I look back on this experience as a time that I truly relied on the Savior and that through the enabling powers of Christ’s Atonement - I was comforted and no longer fearful.
Christ stands ready with outstretched arms as He waits for us to come unto Him and be encircled in the arms of His love (see D&C 6:20). It is here that we can be healed, nourished, loved, enabled, strengthened, and made whole. Although the trial may be hard and the relief may not be immediate, we need to learn to allow God to help carry our burdens. We can do this by turning to Him regularly to seek His enabling power..
No comments:
Post a Comment