9/22/06

E. Babs

What’s the good word? How is the work? I’m just in the process of updating your blog with a picture of you on Travis Street for a tribute on my 13 year anniversary of entering the MTC and starting my mission on September 22, 1993. Wow, that was a long time ago, eh? It looks good. That is a good picture of you anyway. I actually was hanging with Shelli Lyn today. She came to see my offices. As I was taking her from one to the other, we went past Alexander street, so I took her down it and got her picture at the intersection of Alexander and Progress street. She thought that was pretty cool.

I’m listening to one of my all time favorite CDs right now. Foo Fighters “in your honor 2 disc set”. So good. Bet you miss that one just a little bit.

I finished reading Ezra Taft Benson’s “A Witness and a Warning” book and started on Vaughn J. Featherstone’s “The Incomparable Christ”. So far so good. I just read the first 20 pages and the forward last night. So I’m just getting started. But I wanted to throw in my favorite quotes remaining in the Witness and a Warning book like last letter. Did you like those last ones? Here are my favorite quotes from the remainder of the book…

We are meeting the adversary every day. The challenges of this era will rival any of the past, and these challenges will increase both spiritually and temporally. We must be close to Christ, we must daily take His name upon us, always remember Him, and keep His commandments.

And now, my beloved son, notwithstanding their hardness, let us labor diligently; for if we should cease to labor, we should be brought under condemnation; for we have a labor to perform whilst in this tabernacle of clay, that we may conquer the enemy of all righteousness, and rest our souls in the kingdom of God. (Moroni 9:6)

Great Missionary quote to liken to your own work.

The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature. “Human Nature can be changed, here and now,” said President McKay, and then he quoted the following: “You can change human nature. No man who has felt in him the Spirit of Christ even for half a minute can deny this truth… this quote is actually sited in Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” which I just finished reading before this Ezra Taft Benson book. I like the obvious truth in this that the world for some reason is too blind to see.

Yes, Christ changes men, and changed men can change the world. Men changed for Christ will be captained by Christ. Like Paul they will be asking, “Lord, what wilt thou have me do?” (Acts 9:6) Peter stated they will “follow his steps.” (1 Peter 2:21.) John said they will “walk, even as he walked.” (1 Jon 2:6) Finally, men captained by Christ will be consumed in Christ. To paraphrase President Harold B. Lee, they set fire in others because they are on fire. I love the term captained by Christ. Another great quote for missionaries here.

Anyway, there you go. Those are the highlights I got out of that book. It was a good book. I want to pound this Featherstone book so I can move on to another of my 50 church books I haven’t read yet. I have some biggies coming up still.

Get this, I am going to Snowbird all day tomorrow for a Managers Training in the Cliff Ballroom #3. That will be cool hanging up there all day and meandering about on breaks to go say hi to my old peeps. It has snowed like 12 inches in the last couple of days and will be snowing all night tonight. I am tempted to take my board up and do a quick hike. How sweet would that be to get an early ride in for free? Problem is, I’m way too out of shape to hike more than just the center to the cliff without having a freakin’ stroke. AND I don’t want to get my new board all bunged up on rocks and such that I’ll inevitably do without a bigger base.

Sorry it took me so long to get you this talk by Jeffrey R. Holland. But better late than never. I hope you can print this off when you read the e-mail. I’ll print it off myself for a good read and see what all this hubbub is you are making. I’m not going to drop a page break in since it will just get messed up as I send it in the e-mail anyway.

The Grandeur of God

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

In word and in deed Jesus was trying to reveal and make personal to us the true nature of His Father, our Father in Heaven.

Jeffrey R. Holland, “The Grandeur of God,” Ensign, Nov. 2003, 70
Of the many magnificent purposes served in the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, one great aspect of that mission often goes uncelebrated. His followers did not understand it fully at the time, and many in modern Christianity do not grasp it now, but the Savior Himself spoke of it repeatedly and emphatically. It is the grand truth that in all that Jesus came to say and do, including and especially in His atoning suffering and sacrifice, He was showing us who and what God our Eternal Father is like, how completely devoted He is to His children in every age and nation. In word and in deed Jesus was trying to reveal and make personal to us the true nature of His Father, our Father in Heaven.

He did this at least in part because then and now all of us need to know God more fully in order to love Him more deeply and obey Him more completely. As both Old and New Testaments declare, “The first of all the commandments is … thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first [and great] commandment.” 1

Little wonder then that the Prophet Joseph Smith taught: “It is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God.” “I want you all to know Him,” he said, “and to be familiar with Him.” 2 We must have “a correct idea of his … perfections, and attributes,” an admiration for “the excellency of [His] character.” 3 Thus the first phrase we utter in the declaration of our faith is, “We believe in God, the Eternal Father.” 4 So, emphatically, did Jesus. Even as He acknowledged His own singular role in the divine plan, the Savior nevertheless insisted on this prayerful preamble: “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God.” 5

After generations of prophets had tried to teach the family of man the will and the way of the Father, usually with little success, God in His ultimate effort to have us know Him, sent to earth His Only Begotten and perfect Son, created in His very likeness and image, to live and serve among mortals in the everyday rigors of life.

To come to earth with such a responsibility, to stand in place of Elohim—speaking as He would speak, judging and serving, loving and warning, forbearing and forgiving as He would do—this is a duty of such staggering proportions that you and I cannot comprehend such a thing. But in the loyalty and determination that would be characteristic of a divine child, Jesus could comprehend it and He did it. Then, when the praise and honor began to come, He humbly directed all adulation to the Father.

“The Father … doeth the works,” He said in earnest. “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever [the Father] doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.” 6 On another occasion He said: “I speak that which I have seen with my Father.” “I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me.” “I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.” 7

I make my own heartfelt declaration of God our Eternal Father this morning because some in the contemporary world suffer from a distressing misconception of Him. Among these there is a tendency to feel distant from the Father, even estranged from Him, if they believe in Him at all. And if they do believe, many moderns say they might feel comfortable in the arms of Jesus, but they are uneasy contemplating the stern encounter of God. 8 Through a misreading (and surely, in some cases, a mistranslation) of the Bible, these see God the Father and Jesus Christ His Son as operating very differently, this in spite of the fact that in both the Old Testament and the New, the Son of God is one and the same, acting as He always does under the direction of the Father, who is Himself the same “yesterday, today, and forever.” 9

In reflecting on these misconceptions we realize that one of the remarkable contributions of the Book of Mormon is its seamless, perfectly consistent view of divinity throughout that majestic book. Here there is no Malachi-to-Matthew gap, no pause while we shift theological gears, no misreading the God who is urgently, lovingly, faithfully at work on every page of that record from its Old Testament beginning to its New Testament end. Yes, in an effort to give the world back its Bible and a correct view of Deity with it, what we have in the Book of Mormon is a uniform view of God in all His glory and goodness, all His richness and complexity—including and especially as again demonstrated through a personal appearance of His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

How grateful we are for all the scriptures, especially the scriptures of the Restoration, that teach us the majesty of each member of the Godhead. How we would thrill, for example, if all the world would receive and embrace the view of the Father so movingly described in the Pearl of Great Price.

There, in the midst of a grand vision of humankind which heaven opened to his view, Enoch, observing both the blessings and challenges of mortality, turns his gaze toward the Father and is stunned to see Him weeping. He says in wonder and amazement to this most powerful Being in the universe: “How is it that thou canst weep? … Thou art just [and] merciful and kind forever; … Peace … is the habitation of thy throne; and mercy shall go before thy face and have no end; how is it thou canst weep?”

Looking out on the events of almost any day, God replies: “Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands. … I gave unto them … [a] commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood. … Wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer?” 10

That single, riveting scene does more to teach the true nature of God than any theological treatise could ever convey. It also helps us understand much more emphatically that vivid moment in the Book of Mormon allegory of the olive tree, when after digging and dunging, watering and weeding, trimming, pruning, transplanting, and grafting, the great Lord of the vineyard throws down his spade and his pruning shears and weeps, crying out to any who would listen, “What could I have done more for my vineyard?” 11

What an indelible image of God’s engagement in our lives! What anguish in a parent when His children do not choose Him nor “the gospel of God” He sent! 12 How easy to love someone who so singularly loves us!

Of course the centuries-long drift away from belief in such a perfect and caring Father hasn’t been helped any by the man-made creeds of erring generations which describe God variously as unknown and unknowable—formless, passionless, elusive, ethereal, simultaneously everywhere and nowhere at all. Certainly that does not describe the Being we behold through the eyes of these prophets. Nor does it match the living, breathing, embodied Jesus of Nazareth who was and is in “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his [Father].” 13

In that sense Jesus did not come to improve God’s view of man nearly so much as He came to improve man’s view of God and to plead with them to love their Heavenly Father as He has always and will always love them. The plan of God, the power of God, the holiness of God, yes, even the anger and the judgment of God they had occasion to understand. But the love of God, the profound depth of His devotion to His children, they still did not fully know—until Christ came.

So feeding the hungry, healing the sick, rebuking hypocrisy, pleading for faith—this was Christ showing us the way of the Father, He who is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, long-suffering and full of goodness.” 14 In His life and especially in His death, Christ was declaring, “This is God’s compassion I am showing you, as well as that of my own.” In the perfect Son’s manifestation of the perfect Father’s care, in Their mutual suffering and shared sorrow for the sins and heartaches of the rest of us, we see ultimate meaning in the declaration: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” 15

I bear personal witness this day of a personal, living God, who knows our names, hears and answers prayers, and cherishes us eternally as children of His spirit. I testify that amidst the wondrously complex tasks inherent in the universe, He seeks our individual happiness and safety above all other godly concerns. We are created in His very image and likeness, 16 and Jesus of Nazareth, His Only Begotten Son in the flesh, came to earth as the perfect mortal manifestation of His grandeur. In addition to the witness of the ancients we also have the modern miracle of Palmyra, the appearance of God the Father and His Beloved Son, the Savior of the world, to the boy prophet Joseph Smith. I testify of that appearance, and in the words of that prophet I, too, declare: “Our heavenly Father is more liberal in His views, and boundless in His mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive. … God does not look on sin with [the least degree of] allowance, but … the nearer we get to our heavenly Father, the more we are disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls; we feel that we want to take them upon our shoulders, and cast their sins behind our backs.” 17

I bear witness of a God who has such shoulders. And in the spirit of the holy apostleship, I say as did one who held this office anciently: “Herein [then] is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another” 18—and to love Him forever, I pray. In the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Gospel topics: God the Father, Jesus Christ, love, morality

Notes

1. Mark 12:29–30; see also Matt. 22:37–38; Deut. 6:5.

2. History of the Church, 6:305.

3. Lectures on Faith (1985), 38, 42.

4. A of F 1:1.

5. John 17:3.

6. John 14:10; John 5:19.

7. John 8:38, 28; John 6:38.

8. See William Barclay, The Mind of Jesus (1961), especially the chapter “Looking at the Cross” for a discussion of this modern tendency.

9. For example, 1 Ne. 10:18; 2 Ne. 27:23; Moro. 10:19; D&C 20:12.

10. Moses 7:29–33, 37.

11. Jacob 5:41; see also Jacob 5:47, 49.

12. Rom. 1:1.

13. Heb. 1:3; see also 2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15.

14. Lectures on Faith, 42.

15. John 3:16–17.

16. See Gen. 1:26–27; Moses 2:26–27.

17. Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith (1976), 257, 240–41.

18. 1 Jn. 4:10–11.

I still have so much to tell you and I’m already at 6 pages with that talk and my yammering. I need to go to bed though. It’s after 9:00 PM and I am having Breakfast at the Forklift at 7:30 AM with Marnie and Jayme before I head up to the Cliff. I think John and I are going to go for a freeze out fishing trip on Strawberry this Saturday after all the snow has fallen up there. AHhhhh Yeah. We’ll be the only hard core fishermen on the lake and with the cold temps, the fish will all be up high. Easy catches all day. Just not too fun to get that mother back on the trailer at the end of the day, thigh high in freezing cold water.

Smallville starts it’s new season in a week from today. I just watched the end of the season finale tonight. Remember how the VCR jacked up the recording somehow and we were so mad? Maybe you got it from a friend and never told me. Anyway, it was GOOD! I can’t wait for this next season to start. You are going to have to get the two seasons you miss on DVD when you get home to get all caught up.

Oh, here is your random scripture for this issue. I still have yet to get one from you. Get crackin’ on that. You should be able to come up with these way easier than I can.

2 Nephi 24:23 - I will also make it a ^apossession for the bittern, and pools of water; and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of Hosts.

I like the phrase “sweep it with the BESOM (BEE-zum) of destruction. That would be a good fantasy football team name. the BESOMS of Destruction.

Well, it looks like I’m going to pull off a squeeker in this week’s games. I’m about to knock off one of the 3 unbeaten teams. John is one of the three and he’s going to lose to the 3^rd unbeaten. So there is only one unbeaten after this week. We’ll see how it plays out after MNF tomorrow though. Hip Waders who I’m about to beat, is done tonight and I’ll probably beat him by a point or two, but I still have Alge Crumpler playing in MNF tomorrow and he’s done. So either way, even if I went into it a few points in the hole, I’d probably be just fine. I’d rather just win it tonight though, rather than stress about it for one more day. I left Portis on the bench today and he went off for 27 pts. That’s always my luck!

Yesterday I went fishing at the Berry with Johnny and caught 2 big cutthroats and 2 decent sized Rainbows. John of course continued his tradition of being skunked. He just doesn’t have good luck fishing. I don’t know why he comes back to it over and over again after being rejected the way he is. Wait, am I talking about girls or fish? Doesn’t matter with John I guess. I could have kept 3 out of the 4 I caught. The first cut was a big 23-24 inch bounder. Bigger than the gap, so I could have kept him. Then the two rainbows are keepers by default. The other cut was in the gap, but I released all 4 anyway cuz that’s just how I roll. John wanted to keep any of them because he wants to try a new recipe he has for trout and cook ‘em up. Oh well. I have two trout in my freezer that I can give him. It was so great the first half of the day. Warm, sunny, we could see about 10 -13 feet deep in the water, so I watched trout actually chasing my tube jig up to the boat on a couple of occasions. It was cool. The second half of the day clouds rolled in, the wind shifted, and it got dark and an arctic blast from the North hit us and froze us out. The water darkened and the fish quit biting. So it wasn’t any fun that second half of the day.

Well, I won my game outright before going in to MNF. So I’m pretty happy about that. I’m 2-1 now. I’ll send you the record sheet when it starts getting a little more important to have that record. Right now we are just jockeying and feeling each other’s teams out. There is a new iTunes now. It’s way sweet. Better format and nicer to look at. New iPod software that I downloaded and updated the iPod with too. I’m sure there will be 20 updates of both of those by the time you get home. It’s weird how often technology updates. Well boyeee, it’s late on a Sunday night and I have to get up early for payroll and such tomorrow. I’ll get this sent off so you get this early on Monday morning. Keep bustin’ butt out there. Don’t give in to discouragement, and never give up. There are too many people who need to hear what you know and the enemy would have you get discouraged and slack off. It’s the same concept as football or any sport. When you are not practicing, working out, or in this case, just working, your opponent is. Don’t ever let that enemy get the upper hand. When you are tired and at the end of your day, always knock one more door. It’s amazing what that “one to grow on” door will do for you. I testify of that from personal experience. Dig deep Young One! Do us all proud!

Love ya and miss ya.

Trav