The worldwide devotional for young adults was held today and I loved every second of it! If you haven't watched it, definitely take your time to do so! So much wisdom was shared. This event paired with the BYU devotional with President Nelson and our upcoming general conference on the first weekend of October is exciting and so overwhelming (in the best way). I'm grateful for the influx of inspired messages that the world needs to hear today. I just don't know how I'll ever keep up! The devotional today held a lot of wonderful truths, some of which I wanted to take some time to dive into.
Families are so important. They are the units within which we will spend most of our time learning about Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, the nature of mortality, the commandments, temptation, gifts, anger, love, and so much more. Who we choose as our eternal companion is important. Obviously, we want to choose to walk this life with someone who has the same eternal goals and dedication to keeping sacred covenants as we do. Our dedication to the gospel is made manifest in many ways. I loved when Elder Christensen spoke of his wife. He recalled his wedding night when they both knelt down to pray, and how her prayer made him think that he'd have to sprint to catch up to where she was spiritually. He made mention of how during scripture study, she'd often have a lot of inspired input to add only three words in! Elder Christensen was different than his wife in regards to spiritual practice. However, he made an effort to excel and become the priesthood holder she needed him to be.
Elder Soares spoke of how when he and his wife got married, they both knew that they had eternity in their sight, but were very different people. They'd lived different lifestyles and came from different backgrounds. They practiced communication and compromise in order to find balance in their home.
What I learned from both of these stories is that healthy, eternal companionships run on love! Whether we compromise out of love or strive to better ourselves to meet not only our own goals but the needs of our partner, we are acting in love. This is exactly what Christ has asked us to do! The purpose of eternal marriage isn't just to have one person by your side forever who grows to know you better than anyone else. It's to learn and practice being Christlike. The things we learn within our homes can be applied to all other aspects of our lives. It is this pattern of learning, practice, and application that strengthens our spirits and prepares us to inherit the celestial kingdom. How beautiful and important is it to know that we learn through love?
Another topic that was touched on was doubt. It is no secret that many people nowadays are turning their backs on the church due to doubt and searching outside of the church for answers rather than turning to God or growing tired of waiting for an answer. When I was an ex-member, this made sense to me! I thought, of course, you're going to look outside of the church for answers, right? External sources on church history were still accurate, weren't they? Other people's experiences were still legitimate, right? As an outsider, I believed that encouraging members to only search gospel-based answers to gospel questions was controlling and manipulative. Up until this day, I'd still felt uncomfortable with the concept. Wouldn't the spirit testify of truths regardless of where we looked?
One thing the spirit taught me tonight as I listened to this devotional was, of course, non-gospel-based sources weren't going to teach of the Lord! 1 Corinthians 1: 17-21 states, "For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with awisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the apreaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the bpower of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the aunderstanding of the bprudent. Where is the wise? where is the ascribe? where is the bdisputer of this cworld? hath not God made foolish the dwisdom of this eworld? For after that in the wisdom of God the world aby wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of bpreaching to save them that believe."
What we learn from that passage is that the "wisdom" of the world doesn't have the ability to inform the spirit of eternal truths. It is only with the spirit that we can recognize spiritual lessons. An example I had of this recently happened while I was reading The Epic of Gilgamesh. The final installment covers Gilgamesh's journey to seek eternal life after his best friend passes away. Along his journey, he meets the character who is his equivalent to the Noah of the Old Testament and is told at least three times that the Gods did not invent man to have eternal life. In the end, Gilgamesh returns home and eventually passes away, himself. The end of the passage reads,
"The King has laid himself down and will not rise again. The Lord of Kullab will not rise again; He overcame evil, he will not come again; Though he was strong of arm he will not rise again; He had wisdom and a comely face, he will not come again; He is gone into the mountain, he will not come again; On the bed of fate he lies, he will not rise again; From the couch of many colors he will not come again."
There was a comment made by one of the class members about how this proved to them that Christianity was false because even this far back in time people "understood" that we weren't meant to be immortal in any way. I, on the other hand, had a much different reaction to the text. To me, it only further confirmed to me that the gospel was true and that Heavenly Father has a divine, eternal plan for all of His children. I remembered that we'd had evidence of Judaism that predated the first Akkadian (the Mesopotamic empire from which Gilgamesh descends) text by at least a thousand years. Furthermore, The Epic of Gilgamesh had more references to the old testament than I could keep up with! This confirmed the significance of the old testament (more specifically, Genesis) to the forming of their society. The presence of specific Goddesses who'd been associated with Lucifer and other elements that seemed to be trying to convince readers that Christ would not be resurrected or come again made me feel as though the original people this story came from were fighting an uphill battle. These things carried weight with me as I felt the spirit testify to me that Christ was resurrected and he will come again.
Furthermore, Gilgamesh's desire of being an immortal being touched my heart. I'd never been very concerned with what happens after we die when I had left the church. I was definitely curious! And I definitely wanted to make sure I was milking every bit out of these years on this earth. Gilgamesh, on the other hand, was desperate to live eternally, despite knowing that his best friend had died and so would everyone else. Again, I felt the spirit confirm to me that we are all eternal beings and that we can all be united as an eternal family as we follow Christ, honor our covenants, and do all that we can to learn in this life.
I know that the spirit was speaking loudly to me during that class session because I needed him to. I'd been praying all morning, keeping up on my scripture study, and I was heading into a class filled with people that were anti-religion as a whole (unbeknownst to me). How often have we unknowingly waltzed into territory where we weren't just the minority but were surrounded by militant opposers? It is through doing all that I could do and earnestly learning of Christ from the source, every day without agenda, that prepared me for the presence of opposition. I know that-personally-if I hadn't been actively been putting on the whole armor of God, I would have become curious. I'd have trusted that there had been some sort of eternal wisdom being expressed from the minds of the creators of this story, and questioned the existence of Christ and our purpose on earth. It is my active effort that afforded me preservation.
For any questions we have about God, the church, and the gospel, we must rely on God to teach us. We do this by preparing for the questions by living righteously, filling our minds and spirits with sacred knowledge, and trusting in the Lord in all things. When questions come up, we should pray, seek out the teachings of the prophets (modern and ancient), talk with our ecclesiastical leadership, and most importantly, wait and trust.
The most important lesson learned tonight was that God loves us. Those who have a testimony of this are incredibly fortunate. How beautiful would this world be if each and every one of us knew what God thought of us? What would the world be like if we could all see ourselves and our neighbors with the potential that God sees us with?
God truly loves us all. He knows all of us. He loves us enough to design this plan, allowing us to gain experience and return to reside with him for all eternity. He is with us every single step of the way. Christ, our Savior, is always ready and willing to share our burdens with us. The godhead is constantly striving to help us learn, recover, heal, progress, and find comfort. For whatever strife we meet in this life, Heavenly Father anxiously waits to award us eternal glory by his side. What could be more glorious?
I know that our Heavenly Father loves us. It's been said how amazing it is that in all of his superior knowledge and glory, in the role he plays in the lives of all of his imperfect children, of all the names he asks us to call him, he chooses, "father". This is truly profound. He meets our heartache with comfort. He meets our imperfection with mercy. His ways are higher than ours, and he's preparing us all to comprehend them throughout our eternal existence. I am so grateful to have a Heavenly Father who loves me so much. I'm grateful to have a savior willing to go to bat for me, defend, comfort, and teach me, and die for my sake. I'm grateful for the spirit which testifies of these truths to me and helps me to teach my brothers and sisters of these things. I am grateful to have the restored gospel and leadership which help to turn my heart to Christ, as well as the hearts of the rest of the world. These things are all so divine and integral to our eternal progress. It's beautiful to me to know that in this modern-day, we can all learn of God's love and plan for us. It's my prayer for us all that we stay close to the savior, humbly learning at his feet.
I really recommend watching this video! It's so sweet and relays the most important message in such a clear way!
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