Truman G. Madsen wrote:
“In the midst of our mortal predicament we have needs, even desperate needs. The first is for a mentor, and exemplar, one who has been over not just a similar road but an even far worse one. A person who can show us what we have it in us to do and to become. One who is able without hypocrisy to say to us: “What manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you even as I am” (3 Nephi 27:27).
Second, we need a person who knows the heights and depths of our frailty, our stupidities, and our failures, no matter how extreme they become. He must be no stranger to our glaring imperfections, immaturity and rebellions. We need one who is acquainted first hand with all these earthly weaknesses. And a physician of mind and body, he must know the antidotes to the poisons we have inherited and imbibed (absorbed, assimilated).
Third, we need a person who acts in our behalf not because of compulsion or grudgingly, but because of genuine care rooted in love—a constant and steady love. Otherwise how can we trust him? How can we be assured that at some point he will not abandon us, go his own way, let us down?
Fourth, when we run afoul of the law and founder in the aftereffects, including guilt and torment, we need, indeed we crave, an even handed and wise judge. But we long for him to also be merciful: one who has the right, the authority, and the ability to deliver us from the threats of bondage and the compounding of our misdeeds. He must be willing, whatever the decrees of others, to use his own resources to absolve us from severe punishment, indeed, to intervene in our behalf, even if that means he himself has to pay the penalty. Most remarkable of all, he must be willing to do the same for those we have injured, mistreated, misled.
Is there any person in the universe who qualifies for such multiple roles? Only one.
~Truman G. Madsen, The Gift of the Atonement (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2002) p.10-11
(Posts with a preamble asterisk * are for a more general audience, and not specific to teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)
