Today is April 6th. Since I wasn't able to hike on the Spring Equinox, today was the best day to make up for it. While never easy to wake up in the middle of night and drive a long distance to a trailhead, reaching a peak in time to see the sunrise is always worth it. A few photos from this morning.
Just read this and thought it was important to share today:
"Expect turbulent waters. But you can still be at peace
because of Him. This is the message that Joseph Smith’s restored gospel is
trying to get across to us: an immediate, accessible, proximate Lord and Savior
who understands and comprehends what you are going through and what you will go
through and has the ability to sucor you in your every need. It doesn’t mean
your burdens are gonna go away. It means your burdens are gonna be made
understandable to you so that what you experience is acceptable and does not
harm your soul. Despite turmoil, you can find peace.
What Christ acquired through His suffering was knowledge and
understanding of everything you have or will ever go through or suffer. He
understands. But He doesn’t understand that in order for you to simply be the
passive recipient of a blessing that He confers as a consequence of what He
went through. He went through it so He can guide you to the same end. There is
no magic fairy dust. You must rise up. You must overcome sin. You must leave
behind you the things that bring about guilt and remorse. He has finished His
preparations. And now the Righteous (who has knowledge of how to bring you
through that) can guide you, can lead you, can succor you in your affliction so
that you too can overcome that portion of the world that you have to contend
with.
He's gonna wipe away every tear, and He's gonna defeat the
grave. But that can't make us individually worthy. The only way that we can
become individually worthy is if we do as He instructs us to do, acknowledge
our own many shortcomings, and then turn around to face God and leave behind us
all the things that are unworthy, unacceptable, disobedient; all of our
jarrings; all of our contentions; all of our pride; all of our efforts to raise
ourselves at the expense of others; all of our ambition, our desire for control
and compulsion and dominion, our desire to be profiting at the expense of
others. In many respects, it requires Zion for us to fully repent, and yet Zion
requires us to be something very different than what we are."
excerpts from the Preface of the Volume 8 - 2022-2023 of the Teaching of DS
5 comments:
I'm grateful you are feeling better and were able to hike. Such stirring, light-filled pictures! Thank you for sharing your experience. Can you share where the end quote on your post is an excerpt from? The preface to a book? A talk? Thank you for being willing to point me in the right direction.
You can find that book here: https://www.amazon.com/Teachings-Denver-Snuffer-Jr-2022-2023/dp/1956909303/
Thank you!
Sobering post, but beautiful.
I want to challenge the notion that "there is no magic fairy dust." The way we perceive God and ourselves has everything to do with our choice. We have been told that "the answer is always yes;" therefore, if we believe (choose) that turbulent waters will hit us, then "Yes," it will be so. But what if we believe that when we focus not on the turmoil, pain, drama, discouragement and "sobering" realities, but on the light and easy yoke that Wisdom gives us, that our visions of good and abundance will be manifested and multiplied? What if we are faithful in believing, and "cheerfully confident" that the Lord does not intend to give us a stone, but the bread we asked for? We get what we "expect" (which means "thoroughly look at."
Is this not a kind of magic? Can a golden glance of what should be show the way? Are these the secret harmonies that ring inside our mind which challenge the gloomy and sober self-fulfilling descriptions of our difficult path (around the grinding mill)? I would consider this golden glance as metanoia, or changing our minds, aka repentance.
The rage that seems to have lasted a thousand years in our minds will soon be done. And yes, this one vision is a kind of magic Fairy dust.
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