“… the names “brother” and “sister” are not just friendly greetings or terms of endearment for us. They are an expression of an eternal truth: God is the literal Father of all mankind; we are each part of His eternal family. Because He loves us with the love of a perfect Father, He wants us to progress and advance and become like Him. He ordained a plan by which we would come to earth, in families, and have experiences that would prepare us to return to Him and live as He lives.
The central element of this plan was the promise that Jesus Christ would offer Himself as a sacrifice, to rescue us from sin and death. Our task in that plan is to accept the Savior’s sacrifice by obeying the laws and ordinances of the gospel. You and I accepted this plan. In fact, we rejoiced in it, even though it would mean that we would leave the presence of our Father and forget what we had experienced there with Him.
But we were not sent here completely in the dark. Each of us was given a portion of God’s light, called the “Light of Christ,” to help us distinguish between good and evil, right and wrong. This is why even those who live with little or no knowledge of the Father’s plan can still sense, in their hearts, that certain actions are just and moral while others are not.
Our sense of right and wrong seems especially keen when we are raising our children. Innate in almost every parent is the desire to teach his or her children moral virtues. This is part of the miracle of Heavenly Father’s plan. He wants His children to come to earth, following the eternal pattern of families that exists in heaven. Families are the basic organizational unit of the eternal realms, and so He intends for them also to be the basic unit on earth. Though earthly families are far from perfect, they give God’s children the best chance to be welcomed to the world with the only love on earth that comes close to what we felt in heaven—parental love. Families are also the best way to preserve and pass on moral virtues and true principles that are most likely to lead us back to God’s presence.”~ Elder Henry B. Eyring of the First Presidency, from a conference address Saturday morning April 1, 2017. (For complete talk see… “Gathering the Family of God”)
It’s all part of the plan that we should have challenges, suffer heartache–even excruciatingly so. Part of learning, growing then becoming closer to Heavenly Father and more appreciative of His Son’s atonement, suffering can happen when we tend to feel abandoned or unfairly treated by our God. That is the time to go to our knees… often, earnestly, even fasting. Abandoning Him because we might feel abandoned by Him misses the very opportunities that might otherwise bring us to a new and better relationship with Him. Anything God deems we should go through can, in the end, be for our eternal blessing to self and others. Handled as God would have us do so embraces/sustains His purposes for which we are here. Am I vulnerable to any and all such change? kdm
