Continuing Elder Eyring’s teachings of finding truth in a chapter titled ‘Going Home’: “Perhaps the most difficult part of the whole process is not to keep going but to begin. That’s true with many projects we face, but this most important project involves an added difficulty. It is that you have a skilled adversary who both lies and urges you to lie.
Of all his falsehoods, perhaps none is so commonly used and so frequently successful as this: “No one knows, so wait to repent.”
It’s not true. First of all, you know. That almost invariably means that the price you must pay to procrastinate repentance is to lie. For instance you may take the sacrament when you know you are unworthy. You may be perfectly content to accept that deception on top of the effects of the sin itself, but you pay a price. . . .
(Lying) is unnatural in a far more than physiological sense. It is contrary to the nature of our spirits. You are a spirit child of God, a God of truth. Whatever stress your body feels from your choosing to lie, your spirit must be torn far more. The relief of that load that comes from confessing and moving forward to full repentance will more than compensate for whatever unpleasant consequences honesty brings upon you.
God knows all we have done. And while He cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance, he looks on us with compassion beyond our capacity to measure. When the scripture speaks of the whole heavens weeping, I think of another picture, given to us by the Prophet Joseph Smith.This is what he said: ” The spirits of the just are. . . .blessed in their departure to the world of spirits. Enveloped in flaming fire, they are not far from us, and know and understand our thoughts, feelings and motions and are often pained therewith.” (History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint, ed. B.H. Roberts, 2d ed. rev., vols. [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1974]6;52)
These words pain me when I think of those I have loved and who loved me who are surely the spirits of the just. The realization that they feel pain for us and that the God of Heaven weeps because of our unrepented sin is surely enough to soften our hearts and move us to action. And it is surely reason enough to avoid even the approaches, the very thought, of committing serious sin. . . .
