As God is, Man may be.....

Lorenzo Snow, a latter-day prophet stated:

"... and the Lord revealed to me, just as plainly as the sun at noon-day, this principle, which I put in a couplet:  As man now is, God once was.  As God now is, man may be."

I've pondered this statement this week.  I was attending the LDS temple and I decided while I was learning I'd look at things from a different perspective.  Instead of looking at life from my own perspective, I imagined, "what if I were God.. how would I go about "bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of man?"  How would I help my children grow and progress?  How would I help them return to me?

It is interesting how things that you'd never consider enter your mind and heart when you look at things from another's perspective.  Although, I view myself in my own carnal state, "even less than dust of the earth" compared to my Heavenly Father, I've still been given the precious gift of creating another earthly life, and am an earthly Father.  I can relate somewhat, and I have an incredible amount of love for my children and want to live with them forever.

I'm not going to relate all that I learned as I've pondered these questions as if I was a  Heavenly Father, but I'd encourage you go through the same exercise.  You'll probably learn new and different things than what I learned.  It may prompt you to ask and ponder on different questions.  A wise man once gave me an unexpected answer when asking him what I thought was a very deep question.  He said, "You're asking the wrong question."

Why do we bless our food?

The other night I got in a discussion with the young men and leaders about why we bless our food.  We had ordered pizza for food at our activity.  When someone says in a prayer: "please bless the food that it will nourish and strengthen our bodies," is pizza really going to nourish and strengthen our bodies?  What if it was doughnuts and ice cream.  Where did the blessing of food come from.  One of the leaders mentioned that maybe it came from the pioneers coming across the plains.  They had to bless buffalo chips to bring nourishment to their bodies when they had no other food to eat.  Well, interesting enough I came across a real story of a pioneer woman while reading a talk by Elder Marcus B. Nash of the Seventy.

The life of Ann Rowley, a pioneer woman in the early days of the Church, demonstrates how exercising faith impacts our lives for good. A widow from England, Sister Rowley exercised her faith to answer the prophet’s call to gather to Zion. She was a member of the Willie handcart company, which encountered deep snowdrifts along the trail in the fall of 1856. They had reached a point in the trek where her seven children were literally starving. She wrote: “It hurt me to see my children go hungry. … Night was coming and there was no food for the evening meal. I asked God’s help as I always did. I got on my knees, remembering two hard sea biscuits that … had been left over from the sea voyage. They were not large, and were so hard they couldn’t be broken. Surely, that was not enough to feed 8 people, but 5 loaves and 2 fishes were not enough to feed 5,000 people either, but through a miracle, Jesus had done it. So, with God’s help, nothing is impossible. I found the biscuits and put them in a dutch oven and covered them with water and asked for God’s blessing. Then I put the lid on the pan and set it on the coals. When I took off the lid a little later, I found the pan filled with food. I kneeled with my family and thanked God for his goodness. That night my family had sufficient food.”

What a great story of faith.  In Mosiah we read:

“Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend."

President Monson once stated:

"The future is as bright as your faith"

I just came another great pioneer story about blessing food.  This is a journal entr y from a rescuer of the Martin and Willie handcart company.  I read this from Elder Bednar's called: "The Atonement and the Journey of Mortality"


Examples of the enabling power are not found only in the scriptures. Daniel W. Jones was born in 1830 in Missouri, and he joined the Church in California in 1851. In 1856 he participated in the rescue of handcart companies that were stranded in Wyoming by severe snowstorms. After the rescue party had found the suffering Saints, provided what immediate comfort they could, and made arrangements for the sick and the feeble to be transported to Salt Lake City, Daniel and several other young men volunteered to remain with and safeguard the company’s possessions. The food and supplies left with Daniel and his colleagues were meager and rapidly expended. The following quote from Daniel Jones’s personal journal describes the events that followed.
“Game soon became so scarce that we could kill nothing. We ate all the poor meat; one would get hungry eating it. Finally that was all gone, nothing now but hides were left. We made a trial of them. A lot was cooked and eaten without any seasoning and it made the whole company sick. … “Things looked dark, for nothing remained but the poor raw hides taken from starved cattle. We asked the Lord to direct us what to do. The brethren did not murmur, but felt to trust in God. … Finally I was impressed how to fix the stuff and gave the company advice, telling them how to cook it; for them to scorch and scrape the hair off; this had a tendency to kill and purify the bad taste that scalding gave it. After scraping, boil one hour in plenty of water, throwing the water away which had extracted all the glue, then wash and scrape the hide thoroughly, washing in cold water, then boil to a jelly and let it get cold, and then eat with a little sugar sprinkled on it. This was considerable trouble, but we had little else to do and it was better than starving. “We asked the Lord to bless our stomachs and adapt them to this food. … On eating now all seemed to relish the feast. We were three days without eating before this second attempt was made. We enjoyed this sumptuous fare for about six weeks.”

Mr. Perfect

I had the wonderful opportunity to take my family to Disneyland a few weeks ago.  On the way down we stopped off at a Disney outlet store.  I found a great T-shirt there for $3.  On the front of the shirt it read, "Mr. Perfect.  Life is good when you're me"

I had to buy it and wear it with pride.  If fact, I'm wearing it right now as I type this thought.  The problem I've had with this T-shirt, is that the days that I wear it, I seem to have experiences that really show just how far from perfect I really am.  Tonight happend to be a not so shining moment for a father who lost his temper with his oldest daughter.  Of course, I'm sure I'm the only parent that has struggled in being the perfect parent.  For a brief time I felt me telling myself, "I can't do this?  I need help, I'm ready to throw in the towel."  At this point you start to disengage.  I found myself in my office pondering and praying.  I sat in my office chair staring at my bookshelf.  I decided to pull off a book called "Pathways to Perfection" by Thomas S. Monson.

 I opened it up and began reading a talk called, "Finishers Wanted".  Was this coincidence?  No way.  This was an answer to a prayer from a son to his Father in Heaven who was struggling to be a father of his own.  President Monson tells of story of how he was out window shopping and came across a sign that said "Finshers Wanted".  He told of examples from the scriptures of those who failed to finish and endure the race.  He also shared of examples of those who "fought a good fight" and "finished the course."  I read phrases like "run with patience".  It was just what I needed tonight.  Jesus says in 3 Nephi 12:48, "Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect."  So "life is good when you're me" and you are applying the Atonement of Jesus Christ in your life.  He feels in the large gaps that we have in our imperfect state, and carries us so we can be "Mr. Perfect" even as He and the Father.  We just need to endure, keep the commandments, rely on Him and "finish the course."  Let us be look unto Jesus, the Savior and be finishers, Hebrews 12:2:

2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Let us remember though that we cannot be a finisher without our Savior, Jesus Christ.  He is the "finisher" in us.  Moroni 6:4:

"... relying alone upon the merits of Christ, who was the author and the finisher of their faith."

My testimony of the Atonement

How have you gained a testimony of the Atonement?

I can still recall the sweet cleansing feeling that burned within my soul as I knelt near a grove of trees near my home one evening as I completed the repentance process.  I knelt and prayed in gratitude to my loving Heavenly Father.  I felt the cleansing power, it allowed me to move on to what the Savior and my Heavenly Father wanted, needed me to do.  The repentance process is a continuous process that I've had to apply in my life.  It is a perfect process that works, it lifts, it completes, and makes one whole.

It does not matter at what level you are in your life, whether you've strayed so far off the straight and narrow path, or if you are slightly distracted, or taken a few steps off the path, or you are right on the right path headed in the right direction - the repentance process applies, and the Atonement can lift and carry us to our eternal destination of peace and happiness.

Have you applied the Atonement in you life today? If not, why not?  Have you looked to your Savior and asked him to apply the wonderful gift of Love given to you today? Why not?
"Come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price."

I know I can do the will of the Father because of this precious gift. "He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.  Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:  But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles;  they shall run, and not be weary;  and they shall walk, and not faint."

Never!

I was touched by a talk I read by President Monson this morning.  I testify that President Monson is indeed a prophet of God.  He starts out by sharing an experience of being in an art gallery and comes across the picture by Frank Bramely.  I've posted this picture.  It is a wife who weeps in the lap of her mother-in-law after losing her husband at sea.

President Monson then gives a wonderful sermon on how our Savior has conquered death.  I was deeply touched in the talk about a letter from a father who lost his son whose faith in Jesus was so strong.


Last summer, not long after Jason’s 15th birthday, he was once again admitted to the hospital. On one of his visits to see Jason, his father found him with his eyes closed. Not knowing whether Jason was asleep or awake, he began talking softly to him. “Jason,” he said, “I know you have been through a lot in your short life and that your current condition is difficult. Even though you have a giant battle ahead, I don’t ever want you to lose your faith in Jesus Christ.” He said he was startled as Jason immediately opened his eyes and said, “Never!” in a clear, resolute voice.  Jason then closed his eyes and said no more.
His father wrote: “In this simple declaration, Jason expressed one of the most powerful, pure testimonies of Jesus Christ that I have ever heard. …As his declaration of ‘Never!’ became imprinted on my soul that day, my heart filled with joy that my Heavenly Father had blessed me to be the father of such a tremendous and noble boy. … [It] was the last time I heard him declare his testimony of Christ.”

May we have this same faith and "Never" lose faith in our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Full of patience?

So, it's been a long few weeks. I've started a new job and my days have been pretty full.  Today was another one.  It was late, I was practicing the violin with my oldest daughter to get ready for a recital.  I don't usually get this kind of time.  My wife calls for me to take a break.  "Did we really sound that bad?"....  yes, thus the practice.  Needless to say, I was tired, not ready to take a break.  I made my way into the family room and grabbed the scriptures to read with the kids.  The kids were not willingly participating, I was cranky and not in the best mood.  So while I'm reading I snap at one of my kids, then continue to read.  The very next words popped out and hit me: "...full of patience".  It was a verse I was reading that talked about the Savior.  Other attributes mentioned in the verse were: long suffering,  quick to hear the cries of his people, full of grace, mercy, truth and equity.  My wife smiled at me, I smiled back, "Looks like I need some more patience and long suffering"

The power of mastering the Spirit over the body.

There is a scripture in Romans 8:6 that states:

"For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."

Our bodies have been given to us to help our Spirits become even stronger.  We need to learn how to control our natural carnal behaviors and allow our Spirit to lead the way.  I believe this is why it is so important to do the small spiritual things such as prayer, pondering, scripture study, etc... to feed our Spirits.  I read a great quote by Melvin Ballard, member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostoles:

“The body that has been given to us was for the purpose of allowing the spirit to exalt itself to a nobler condition. The lightning that is seen flashing from cloud to cloud, from mountain top to mountain top, is an electrical force that may tear down buildings, set fire to property, and destroy life. Conduct electricity through the dynamo wire, and motor, and behold its wonderful results working for the service of man, accomplishing something under the control of a physical instrument, it thus becomes a power for good. So with steam, if allowed to evaporate freely it does little good, but restrain it in the boiler, send it through the engine, and under its power you may travel across the continent or sail from shore to shore. And so, too, with this highest, most potent of all spiritual forces, the intelligence that is in man; enshrine it in a spiritual body, that it may have the experiences of spiritual life; and then give it a physical body, that it may enter into and obtain the joy and experiences of physical life, and you have enlarged its powers immeasurably” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1912, 107)."