Heavenly Father will more than match our faithful efforts with an outpouring of His power.
My heart sank during a recent meeting with wonderful Latter-day Saints. The question was asked, “Who desires to live with Heavenly Father again?” Every hand went up. The next question was “Who has confidence you’ll succeed?” Sadly and surprisingly, most hands went down.
When we recognize that the Atonement was designed to bring us back to God we will know that any gap can be closed if we turn to Christ.
Our youngest grandson illustrates the first principle. After learning to crawl and then stand, he was ready to try walking. During his first few attempts, he fell, cried, and gave a look that said, “I will never—ever—try that again! I’m simply going to keep crawling.”
When he stumbled and fell, his loving parents did not feel that he was hopeless or that he would never walk. Instead they held out their arms while calling to him, and with his eyes on them, he tried again to move toward their loving embrace.
… Our loving Heavenly Father rejoices in each and every faithful step, and if we fall, He rejoices in each effort to get back up and try again.
The Lord more than matches our willingness to act in faith. Our willingness to take a step is not just met; it is exceeded by the Lord’s promised blessings.
Heavenly Father and our Savior are eager to bless us. After all, They ask only for one-tenth of what They bless us with and then promise that the windows of heaven will open!
Spiritual gifts are promised not only to those who love God and keep all of His commandments but also, gratefully, to those of us who “[seek] so to do.” Strength is given to those who keep seeking and trying.
Two essential weekly signposts that mark our journey back to our Father in Heaven are the perpetual covenant of the ordinance of the sacrament and our Sabbath day observance. President Russell M. Nelson taught us last general conference that the Sabbath is the Lord’s gift to us. Our devoted weekly observance of the Sabbath is our sign to the Lord that we love Him.
If we consistently and earnestly observe the Sabbath w are almost assured of returning to Heavenly Father. It’s not that sabbath observance is “the one great commandment” (although it is an indicator of the first commandant) – it’s that if we aren’t seeking to keep other commandant’s our sabbath day observance will inevitably slip and if our sabbath day observance is consistent we will naturally be inclined to do better at other commandments.
We must counter the natural man’s tendency to procrastinate, to put off, or to give up.
As we progress along the covenant path, we will make mistakes, some multiple times. Some of us struggle with behaviors or addictions we feel powerless to overcome. But faith in Heavenly Father and in Jesus Christ is a principle of action and power. If we are willing to act, we will be blessed with the strength to repent and with the strength to change.
We fail only if we fail to take another faithful step forward. We will not, we cannot, fail if we are faithfully yoked to the Savior—He who has never failed and will never fail us!
- Guidance will come as we pray to our Heavenly Father, rely on our Savior and follow Him, and listen to the Holy Spirit.
- Strength will come because of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
- Healing and forgiveness will come because of God’s grace.
- Wisdom and patience will come by trusting in the Lord’s timing for us.
- Protection will come by following God’s living prophet.
Leave a Reply