Recently I've been thinking a lot about the idea of faith, and particularly the idea of taking a leap of faith, demonstrating faith regarding an unknown, uncertain, intimidating choice by acting. This line of thought has been influenced by some reading I've done and some events in the ward and my own life, and today some things came together.
The theme for the month in our stake is taking the spirit for our guide, and the idea of being led by the spirit was explained well by this week's speakers. And while they were talking, I began thinking about some scriptures.
The first--kind of an obvious one in this context--is 1 Nephi 4:6-7, as Nephi returns to the city to get the records of his family. Nephi, being young and impetuous (and a bit over-confident), didn't really have a plan. But still he acts, as he explains: "And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do. Nevertheless I went forth."
Doing some further reading, I found myself in D&C section 38, which holds several pithy bits of LDS belief. But an especially profound idea caught my eye in verse 33, where we read that the Lord's disciples "shall go forth among all nations, and it shall be told them what they shall do; for I have a great work laid up in store, for Israel shall be saved, and I will lead them whithersoever I will, and no power shall stay my hand."
I'm impressed here with several things. First is the idea of the Lord leading us, which echoes what Nephi says and does nicely. The next ting I notice is the idea of being empowered, and, in fact, several other verses in this section refer directly to the command to build a temple and be endowed with power from on high. With that endowment, we are given the great promise that the work we are involved in cannot be thwarted.
Finally, the work that the Lord lays out in this verse is powerful: "Israel shall be saved." There are obviously a number of important interpretations of this idea, from the literal gathering of Israel to the restoration of the keys given to Joseph Smith in the Kirtland temple.
But for me, this promise is all about what we have been asked to focus on as a ward and a stake, to rescue those who have gone astray. I use these two verbs--"save" and "rescue"--interchangeably, and given that we are, as members of the church, a covenant people and part of the House of Israel, then those who have lost sight of the gospel, who are not enduring to the end and keeping those covenants, truly need to be saved.
Seen this way, the promise of this verse is precisely what we need. As we receive power from God in the temple--and by extension through keeping those temple covenants, particularly to sacrifice our time and efforts--we are guided by the spirit. This leads us then to save God's children, both members of the church who have lost faith and hope, and those who have not yet made the saving covenants of the gospel.
1 comment:
This gets to a fundamental conflict within Mormonism. The gospel makes the exact requirements that your citing. Ideally we reach out to save souls. The church makes it feel like a numbers game.
This conflict itself is one of the off putting reasons people leave the church. It perpetuates a perception that its not people that the Church cares about but numbers. And for some this is true (think of your zone leaders), but it is by and large not.
It is a similar conflict as to the point I was trying to make with my Mormon Guilt talk. People only hear "Thou shall not," and fail to hear "You shall and we have and because of this Christ atoned for all of us". Instead with the obvious self-righteous sinlessness of the majority the sinner feels alienated and leaves. Likewise in numbers people don't hear "how are your hometeaching families doing how can we help them bear their burdens?" Instead they hear "only 25% that's just sad".
What a difference if we 1. accepted that we're all sinful and so we should remember the church is about grace and repentence and 2. that the grace we've experienced is the same that we should show to those around us in helping them carry their burdens.
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