Our beautiful and delightful covenant path

I was invited to share some thoughts in our stake conference today, but I was sick and did not get to speak. I sent these thoughts that were used in the review meeting that followed the conference, and I thought that I could share them on my blog. I also shared them with some missionaries who may not specifically be discussing patriarchal blessings with people who are learning about the Gospel, but this might help them in their own covenant path, or helping someone who is a new or returning member as that is a bigger part of missionary service in this time that it was when I was on mission in 1973-4.

While preparing these thoughts, I have reflected on the wonderful rain that we've had and the wonderful flowers that that we were able to enjoy in the last weeks. The Lord delights to bless us. 

I reflected on Adam and Eve who were blessed to be in the Garden of Eden, and then they were given an instruction, while in the Garden of Eden to be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth, subdue it, and to have dominion over it, and then they were sent out into the world to till the earth and to be productive. 

Then Abraham was given a covenant and that covenant included property, posterity, and priesthood. That covenant was repeated to Isaac and Jacob. Jacob blessed his children, each individually. Ephraim and Manasseh were also blessed. These are examples of patriarchal blessings. 

I am sure that before we left our heavenly home, our Father in Heaven, and our Mother in Heaven gave us a farewell greeting and blessing - and I am sure they did, and that they had wonderful wishes for us. Then there was a veil of forgetfulness - but let us not be forgetful. 

We need to seek the Lord's word to us individually and to better see His blessings and His Word to us in the scriptures, His word to all of His children collectively. In order to receive a patriarchal blessing, one needs to be worthy to enter the temple, and the spirit has taught me that it is important 10 or 20 years later to really get the Lord's word to us through our patriarchal blessing, we still need to be worthy to enter the temple. And if we're worthy to enter the temple, we will get more out of studying the scriptures as well. 

We each need to make our covenant. We each need to be first generation covenant makers. Not just the seed of Abraham but personally make and keep covenants. We need to be a strength and a support to others on the covenant path. 

We need to be temple worthy. We need to be temple active. 

About 55 to 60 years ago, my first personal experience with General Conference was sitting in the mission home in Johannesburg, listening on shortwave radio, Voice of America, and hearing General Conference. Video didn't work for the stake conference today, but about 20 minutes into it, during President Herbert's talk, we started to hear the audio, and it was a blessing to be able to hear the conference. The video is lekker but the audio really was what made the difference and we were able to hear. I was impressed that what the speakers said reflects very much the thoughts that I had in my preparation to share this testimony with you. 

I hope and pray that we will all seek to make and keep covenants, and be ready to be actively in the temple when it is here, and to be actively involved in temple and family history work in preparation for when it is here. 

I share this testimony with you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. 

May the Lord bless you on your covenant path, and helping others in whatever part they are on their covenant paths.

Love and blessings from Les and Sally Powrie

The Lord blesses His children through patriarchal blessings

Talk intended for Milnerton ward sacrament meeting 19 Feb 2023, but I gave about a quarter of it due to having about 5 minutes. So here it is for those interested in reading the other 16 minutes or so. The two previous speakers (Daphne van den Berg and Allen Torr) laid a wonderful foundation for the few minutes that I took, so all was good...

Introduction

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Who was born? Which one of us sitting in the chapel was born?

Who had to be fed, dressed, even had stinky nappies changed, or had to be lovingly rocked to sleep as a baby?

Who had a first day of school at about 6 years of age?

Dumb questions, huh? Duh! Who did not? 

Can you remember your birth, or having nappies changed, or being rocked to sleep as a baby, even that first day at school?

Can you remember what you ate for your main meal four days ago, and how it tasted? I presume that you had at least one meal four days ago? What details do you remember?

Can you remember the experience that you had when you, as Eve or Adam, partook of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil – you know – when you learned to distinguish between the opposites of good and evil, light and darkness, bitter and sweet, health and sickness, pleasure and pain? Or are you, as I am, still learning that important spirit of discernment?

I do not have any memories of my birth, nappies and so forth, or even my first day at school, or specifically my main meal four days ago. I do have some memories of some of the things that helped me to distinguish between those opposites. Most of what I remember has to do with the sensations of feeling, tasting, smelling, seeing, or hearing. Those feelings remind me more of, or at least as much as, the information that I learned, the details of the event or journey, or the processes involved.

One of my earliest memories is feeling – I recognised the feeling of the Spirit and that it was the same as the feeling of love in my family. I would guess that I was a little child at the time. I remember playing with the window-winder in the family car as we turned a corner near to our home and thinking that I was feeling a warm fuzzy feeling, and that warm fuzzy feeling was the same feeling that I had when the Spirit was with me and when I was feeling the love in my family. It was a comfortable, good, pleasant, sweet, healthy, brilliant feeling. That is one of my special memories – such a small and simple thing.

Eternal relationships

I recently shared something in my WhatsApp status. A meme – I think that is what it is called – that shows an elderly man lovingly kissing his elderly wife who is evidently frail, with the quote ‘Relationships don't last because they were destined to last. Relationships last long because two people made a choice to keep it, fight for it, and make it work.’ 

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I often refer to a wonderful scene in Fiddler on the Roof. Tevye and Golde had been married for about 20 years. They have three daughters and are planning on arranging marriages for their daughters just as their own marriage had been planned by their parents, probably about 20 years before. But their daughter appeals to not be married to an older rich man that would be a very favourable match for Tevye’s poor family. She would rather marry a simple tailor. He is not wealthy, but she loves him. This is when Tevye and Golde asked the questions ‘Do you love me? Do I love you?’ And they discover the answer – each loves the other. Their love was the outcome of being faithful to each other, being committed to each other. How often do people in our communities marry, or form a bond with each other, because they think that they love each other, but what they are feeling might be lust rather than love, or it might be love, and then, if both are not faithful to each other, they fall out of love. Don’t we witness that all too often?

The ultimate demonstration of love is ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son.’ https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/nt/john/3?lang=eng&id=p16#p16

I remember a young man, a member of our ward, ridiculing my faith and religion because he said that it is immoral for one man to have to suffer to atone for the wrongs of others. And so he denied the faith that he had previously professed. I know that he had felt the Spirit because I had heard him express such feelings. But he was choosing to not remember what he had felt.

I was fascinated during some of my tour guide studies this last week, learning more about our history. I was struck by hearing that a significant reason for the Great Trek was because that group of Calvinists in South Africa believed that they were God’s ancient covenant or chosen people, and that they had a work to do. I investigated that and concluded that the Dutch Reformed people would probably be those referred to. I considered what we believe – that we are the children of Abraham, and so we inherit the Abrahamic covenant. That is brought to us in our patriarchal blessings as our lineage in the house of Israel is declared – the birthright inheritance of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, God’s ancient covenant people.

That Abrahamic covenant is special. Our individual covenant is special. Our Heavenly Father delights to bless His children. He said ‘Hearken and hear, O ye my people, saith the Lord and your God, ye whom I delight to bless with the greatest of all blessings, ye that hear me;’ https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/41?lang=eng&id=p1#p1

What we do with our blessings

How often has our Heavenly Father blessed you with something like a harvest of peas? He delights to pour out a blessing such as rain to water crops. And we harvest a bag full of something like peas. Don’t they taste so delightful? Sweet, juicy, round. I love them! It is a long time since I shelled a pea and ate the little peas. It makes my mouth water to think of the taste, the sensation, the delight. We then have the choice to enjoy that delightful bag of peas! Or we can choose to multiply that bag to produce even a hundred or more bags of peas.

The Lord asked a really good question in the third chapter of Malachi, eighth verse. ‘Will a man rob God?’

And then He comments on it. ‘Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.

‘Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.

‘Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

‘And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.

‘And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts.’ https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/mal/3?lang=eng&id=p8-p12#p8

He has opened the windows of Heaven and poured out rain that enabled you and me to produce a harvest. He has given the sunlight, the oxygen the nutrients, the seed itself that made the harvest possible. He has always been faithful in blessing His children because He loves each one of us. Whether our harvest is peas, beans, wheat, maize, wool, meat, artwork, music, beautiful clothes, engineering wonders, technological devices, wages, health, beauty, love, natural beauties and resources, or whatever we are able to produce, what could we have produced if it had not been for the food that we had eaten? The very source of what makes up any of our produce is primary production – plants that we or someone grew –  on which each of us relies entirely, simply for survival. He delights to bless us and is faithful in blessing us – we were born; we had our nappies changed because of loving parents or carers; we are what we are because He is faithful to us.

Will we be faithful to Him?

Our patriarchal blessing

I like a quote that I read in LDS Living – learn to see a patriarchal blessing not as a destination but a doorway to more revelation.

Where does my patriarchal blessing start? Does it start when it addresses LESLIE WARD POWRIE? Where does it end? Does it end ‘by virtue of the priesthood I hold and in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen’? Or did His communication with me start long before I was born, or had my nappies changed, or had that warm fuzzy feeling, or started school, or ate that meal four days ago, and will it end long after I breathe my last breath of mortality and my body is laid to rest?

I shared an invitation to listen to this talk in my WhatsApp Status. Some of you might have seen it. Some who saw it might have had the thought go through their mind that ‘patriarchal blessing’ reminds them of Abraham and the repeated promise made to him – in Genesis 12 ‘in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.’ https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/gen/12?lang=eng&id=3#p3

In Genesis 18 ‘Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?’ https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/gen/18?lang=eng&id=18#p18

In Genesis 22 ‘And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.’ https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/gen/22?lang=eng&id=18#p18

I am fascinated to consider how we are – how I am – part of the seed of Abraham through whom all of the families and nations of the earth shall be blessed. Are we – am I – living up to that charge?

He delights to bless us

Last week we sang hymn 96 in which we sang ‘Dearest children, God is near you, Watching o’er you day and night, And delights to own and bless you, If you strive to do what’s right. He will bless you, He will bless you, If you put your trust in him.’ He does truly delight to bless us. He sent us to school in this mortal experience with the hope that we will choose to follow Him. He wants us to choose to follow Him – the ultimate exercise of our agency is to want to choose to follow Him; to desire to choose to follow Him; to be determined to choose to follow Him. He hopes that we will choose Him – the Spirit has made it clear to me that he has no desire that any one of His children will choose to not follow Him.

My father described our patriarchal blessings somewhat as what we might have been told as we left heaven as we came down to Earth to be born – that time when we were having nappies changed and being fed, kicking and crying in frustration as we were learning to fit our fully developed spirits into those tiny little bodies. We are still learning about our divine potential and relationship. Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother would have been sad to see us leave and have our memories of life with Them lost, and now we are learning to navigate the challenges of mortality as we walk by faith and not by sight. But they believe in us. They know who we are!

We are given some specific information about patriarchal blessings in the guidelines for patriarchs.

A patriarchal blessing should also include inspired and prophetic statements about the life possibilities of the recipient. As the Spirit directs, the patriarch identifies for the recipient accomplishments to be realized, challenges to be overcome, and blessings to be received. The patriarch also includes such promises, admonitions, and warnings as he may be prompted to give. In these ways a patriarchal blessing can help the recipient define his or her responsibilities and goals.

In each blessing the patriarch should make clear that the realization of the promises is contingent on the faithfulness of the recipient and the will of the Lord.

A patriarchal blessing should encourage the person to keep the commandments and to qualify for eternal life. . . .

The declaration of lineage is not determined by a person’s race or nationality. Because of the scattering of Israel among all nations of the earth, the lineage of Israel is found in people of most races and nationalities. . . .  

On the subject of declaring lineage, Elder Dallin H. Oaks said: “A declaration of lineage is not a scientific pronouncement or an identification of genetic inheritance. A declaration of lineage is representative of larger and more important things. . . . This declaration concerns the government of the kingdom of God, not the nature of the blood or the composition of the genes of the person being blessed” (“Patriarchal Blessings,” Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting: The Patriarch, Jan. 8, 2005, 8).

Regardless of lineage, all who gain a testimony of Jesus Christ and accept baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost from the Lord’s authorized servants are accounted as Abraham’s “seed” as promised in the Abrahamic covenant (see Abraham 2:10; Galatians 3:14; Ephesians 3:6). Therefore, the fulness of the Lord’s blessings will come to all who obey the laws and ordinances of the gospel. . . .

Spencer W Kimball said that “Patriarchal blessings are revelations to the recipients . . . to protect, inspire, motivate toward activity and righteousness.

“An inspired patriarchal blessing could light the way and lead the recipient on a path to fulfillment. It could lead [him or her] to become a new [person] and to have . . . a new heart” (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, ed. Edward L. Kimball [1982], 505).

Conclusion

We may not remember our birth or infancy, or even many things from the past as we progressed towards becoming those who do the guiding and nurturing of infants. Parents may not even have clear memories of the births of their children, feeding and nursing them, or changing their nappies. But those were real parts of our lives – as babies, and in due course as parents. Similarly, we do not remember every detail of our experience, growth and progress along our eternal paths towards becoming like our Heavenly Parents. They want us to grow and become like Them – They want us to want to choose to become like Them and then to pursue that objective in our eternal journeys towards become – may I call it – Divine Adults? We pray ‘Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.’ As we reflect on the prayer that the Lord taught His disciples to pray in the sermon on the mount that we are studying in Come, Follow Me at present, may we strive to become perfect, merciful and holy as He is? Our patriarchal blessings are part of the personal guidance that each of us can receive on that straight and narrow way towards our divine destiny.

May we ponder seriously on how we can live as the Saviour invited His disciples to live in the Sermon on the Mount. May we press forward faithfully, striving to live up to our privileges, living up to His expectations, living up to our divine potential. I humbly pray that we will invite the Spirit to help us to receive the personal revelation that we need to have in order to prosper in the midst of the challenges of mortality – that we may each blossom as a rose in our individual desert of life. May we be committed to our relationship with Him. May we remember that He delights to bless us. May we live in such a way that He can welcome us with those wonderful words in Matt 25 ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou has been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord’. That we may walk in the Abrahamic covenant and be seen sitting in the bosom of Abraham our father, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Me - help to make the desert blossom as a rose?

I am always amazed at God's dealings with His covenant people - And we can extrapolate from that how He will work with you and me. 

Sally and I have driven through many barren areas like this that have become fruitful because of the enterprising efforts and determination of the seed of Abraham.

These pictures of Utah, Sally and me at Bingham Copper mine in 1981 and Ken Powrie in 1971

His Promised Land was a barren area with occasional fertile spots, but He helped His children in Israel and Utah to cause the desert to blossom as a rose. It took courage, work, determination, endurance, sacrifice, but look at the results. Truly remarkable. 

I appreciate an insight shared by Jared Halverson that God gives His chosen people such arid lands that are dependant on rain rather than rivers because He will provide rain as we remain faithful. That adds insight to the promise in Malachi 3:8-12, repeated by the Lord Himself in 3 Nephi 24. It is unlikely that one will have a blessed land in and arid area, but the Lord can make it blessed. Hosanna to the Lord, the most high God; for He is God over all the earth, yea, even above all.

He gave a barren woman to each of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and promised each innumerable posterity. From those barren women have come innumerable posterity, those very people who have made those deserts to blossom as a rose. As they sacrifice themselves, their time, their talent, and everything with which the Lord has and does bless them, with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, they are used by the Lord as instruments - as leaven in the loaf; a light to the world; or as preserving salt - to make barren families, communities, and nations blossom in remarkable and wonderful ways. He provides the rain that is so essential in the otherwise barren situations.

I hope that I can offer Him a broken heart and a contrite spirit, saying 'not my will, but Thy will be done' and then help Him to let my family, community and maybe even in some way my nation, to be better than it would be without my small (preferably behind-the-scenes 😉) leavening, light and salt 🤔😊

What can you help Him to do in your family, community and nation 😉?

Lessons learned from driving some Cape mountains and passes

Sally and I recently travelled to the Garden Route for a short while in order for us to enjoy some of the wonders that are available there. In the process of traveling about 3100km from Cape Town to Jeffreys Bay and Cape St. Francis and then back to Cape Town, we traveled on about 60 mountain passes (detailed below if you want to read them all), and saw many impressive mountain ranges.

21 August: Original Du Toits Kloof Pass, [Goreeshoogte, Malherbeshoogte], Remhoogte Pass, Bakoondshoogte Pass, Leeuriviershoogte Pass to get onto the N2 at Swellendam to reach Vleesbaai and then Riversdale.

23: Goukou Pass (N2), Soetmelksrivier Pass (N2), Gouritz River Pass (N2), [we did not go on the Mossel Bay Pass this trip although we have often travelled on it], Southern Cross Pass (N2), Hoogte Pass (N2), Maalgate River Pass (N2) to get to George Airport.

24: Gwaing River Pass (N2), Kaaimans River Pass (N2), Heights Road, Silver River Pass (7 Passes Road), Kaaimansgat Pass (7 Passes Road), Swartrivier Pass (7 Passes Road) back to George Airport.

25: Victoria Bay Pass, Gwaing River Pass (N2) again, Groot Brak Hoogte (R102)

26: Outeniqua Pass, Beveraas Kloof Pass, Perdeskoen Draai Pass to get to Oudtshoorn.

27: Brakpoort Pass, Attakwaskloofpas, Robinson Pass, Brandwaghoogte, Groot Brak Hoogte to go Oudtshoorn to Mossel Bay and George and Montagu Pass (gravel), Paardepoort (P1646 (gravel)) back to Oudtshoorn.

28: Schoemanspoort Pass, Swartberg Pass (gravel), Witkranspoort (R407) to reach Prince Albert.

29: Kredouw Pass, Meiringspoort, Rooikranspoort (R341) Uniondale Heights, Uniondale Poort, Prince Alfred Pass (gravel) to Knysna.

30: Brenton Pass in Knysna vicinity.

31: Keyters Nek, Phantom Pass (7 Passes Road) in Knysna vicinity.

1 September: Plettenberg Bay (missed Plettenberg Bay pass), Sedgefield Mountain Road.

2: Keurboomsrivier Hoogte, Stormsriver Pass to Jeffreys Bay.

3: Cape St. Francis.

4: Stormsriver Pass, Grootrivier Pass (R102), Keurboomsrivier Hoogte (N2), Keytersnek Pass (N2), Goukamma Pass (N2), Swartvleihoogte (N2), Kaaimans River Pass (N2), Gwaing River Pass (N2) , Maalgate River Pass (N2), Hoogte Pass (N2), Southern Cross Pass (N2), to Mossel Bay

5: Gouritz River Pass (N2), Soetmelksrivier Pass (N2), Goukou Pass (N2), Houw Hoek Pass (N2), Coles Pass (N2), Sir Lowry’s Pass (N2) to home

What might be of interest to you as parents, teachers, or friends is the slow process of making mountains... To take the Swartberg Mountains as an example, they are sandstone made up chiefly of sand-sized particles with some smaller cementing particles that sedimented below water some thousands of years ago, then after time, and chemical interacting processes doing their work, this extensive series of rocks of hundreds of kilometers long and tens of kilometers wide, and about 8 km thick was lifted from the floor of a rift valley to being above the surrounding landscape and massive portions of the rock were folded (hence the name Cape Fold Mountains) forming an impressive barrier to travellers wanting to get from one valley to another. 

A panoramic view at the high point of the Swartbergpas.

Just as the rocks were formed by individual grains of sand or other sediment, then took some time to settle, then experiencing serious upheaval, so our life experiences are established one small experience, one converting incident, one trial, one insight, one peaceful moment, one difficulty, one challenge, one any individual process at a time. Eventually we stand firm so that others might be impressed to sing as my mind did 'Firm as the mountains around us' as we drove through these stalwart and brave mountains to reach the Karoo town of Prince Albert.

It is amazing to see the folds in Table Mountain Sandstone.

It is fascinating to see the track that is made on the slope of the mountain, with many hairpin bends and supports built to make it possible to travel over the mountains.

We need to help those that we teach or influence to have these small experiences that will build their testimonies and enable them to cope with the challenges, upheavals, folds, choices, temptations that will work at crumbling them. But, with the support of the Holy Ghost they can stand firm, strong, bold and choose the good when presented with a choice between good and evil. Daily studying and pondering and praying about what they are learning, and upheavals to 'lift them above the waters' is important in becoming that solid rock that will form their testimony.

Another important lesson is that someone came along and saw those terrible barriers and they charted a course, and established a mountain pass that would enable themselves and thousands of other travelers to pass over the barriers. We, as the seed of Abraham, have a challenge to be those innovators, those engineers that see opportunities and not just challenges. Our challenge as the seed of Abraham, and as the seed of Isaac, is to be a blessing to the nations - bringing temporal blessings as we overcome temporal challenges and pave the way for thousands to follow us over those barriers.

But there is more - the wonderful biodiversity, the beauty that we saw with thousands of species of flowers, birds, insects, reptiles, mammals, fungi, lichens, amphibians and other kinds of organisms as they work together to form a wondrous web of life. I made the following observation in my scripture study notes about a year ago as I pondered verses 13 and 14 in 2 Nephi 30:

2 Nephi 30 2 Nephi 30

'Plants are able to produce food through the process of photosynthesis. Animals depend on what the plants did, being consumers. In the web of life each producer and consumer will become decomposed and will provide food for some other consumer, but only plants are able to produce something from 'nothing'. With light, carbon dioxide, and water, they produce oxygen and carbohydrates, fats and proteins, all of which we need.

Naturally, the Lion depends on animals as their food, requiring many more hectares per Lion than the hectares required per secondary consumer buck or prey.

We are now dependent on death to balance birth so that populations do not increase. If there is no death, aging, decay, then what input would we require in terms of food or sustenance? Would we require oxygen, water, protein, fats, carbohydrate, etc?

I love the details of the web of life, so wonderfully laid out by our loving creator.'

May the Lord bless you as you help others to build a strong mountainous testimony, 'Firm as the mountains around us'.

Would I be privileged to be welcomed into the most special marriage feast of all history?

I was thinking as I prayed tonight. I pondered the parable in Matthew 25

Why would Jesus Christ use a marriage feast as an object lesson? What is special about a marriage feast, and an invitation to one?

Would I receive an invitation?

How would I know that I had received an invitation? So many Jews, even the leaders of the Jews, the Sanhedrin, rejected the very Messiah when He came in their midst – would I recognise an invitation to the most significant marriage feast in all of history?

Who would deliver such an invitation? Who would be on the list if invited guests? Would I be among those who would be invited?

If there were to be an invitation given, how would one come, other than through a living prophet? After all, Amos said ‘Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.’ Amos 3:7 Does this apply here? Would the Lord arrive unannounced, or would he have a prophet deliver invitations to the feast?

If I were to be one of the fortunate ten virgins who would receive an invitation to this feast, would I have sufficient oil in my lamp when the cry comes ‘The bridegroom cometh’ and I tried to trim my lamp at the crucial moment when it is most needed?

I bear my testimony that the Lord does indeed have a living prophet. The invitation will not go randomly to all the world, just as an invitation to the wedding feast would not go to all in the town, but to special friends of the bridegroom, and not all of those special friends will have sufficient oil in their lamps to enable them to be prepared and welcomed in to the figurative ‘hall’ where the feast will be held. I hope and pray that I may at least receive an invitation, and hopefully have sufficient oil in my lamp. I know that the Lord lives now – still as He said to His disciples ‘Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.’ Luke 24:39

I know that He still lives, that he still has that body of flesh and bones that his disciples saw and felt. He will come again. All we need to do is to be ready to be welcomed into the marriage feast. I reckon that a Temple Recommend will be a basic requirement, and then living worthy of that, enduring in faith to the end. And then, being alert and attentive to the still small voice as it whispers in the right place at the right time to become aware of the cry that 'the bridegroom cometh'.

I hope that I will be welcomed in and hear those glorious words 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.' Matt 25:21,23. I hope that all of my loved ones will be among those wise virgins who are welcomed in to the marriage feast.

Compost, braai ashes, flames!

I have a special appreciation for compost because my mother taught me from young about its value.

I spent some time in 1980 to 1981 working under the lofty title of Horticultural Chemist. Part of that involved visiting a place where pine bark compost was made. They had large mounds covered with plastic sheets that would increase the buildup of heat in the mound and prevent excessive evaporation.

Compost is lovely. It is wonderful to dig a hole and put my hand into the hole. It is dirty (clean dirt), but it is hot, even without a plastic sheet over the heap. That heat is generated by earthworms, lice, bacteria and other decomposers that are working away at breaking down the organic material in the heap, releasing nutrient rich, light textured, dark brown material that is wonderful to add to soil for improving the quality of what is grown in the enriched soil. It gives a wonderful water holding, nutrient rich, aerated and well draining substrate that improves the growth of most plants. Some plants cope well without compost, some are better off without compost, but those are rare exceptions.

Sometimes I'll go to the compost heap that I have in my garden and pour on large amounts of cold water. That is not to dampen the spirit in a successful decomposer party, but that cold water is very quickly absorbed by the organic pile and the moisture improves the ability of the decomposers to do what they do best!

A few years ago I had a braai (barbecue) fire on which I cooked some meat on a Saturday afternoon. After the fire cooled I poured the ashes into the compost heap because ash adds valuable nutrients and texture to compost. I was confident that the ash was cold, and I would probably have watered it down with a hose to make sure that it was cold.

The next morning I was startled, to say the lest, to see flames leaping up outside my bedroom window. I rushed outside to hose down the compost heap! Some of the ashes must have got buried as I hosed  them down more than 12 hours before, and as cold as they were, had enough warmth in them that heat built up again with the warmth of the compost heap and then reached a point of combustion. The flames were about 2 metres high!

I was very glad that I was on hand when this excitement occurred and I could immediately douse the flames. A little later and I would have left home to go to Church and then the flames might have been undetected and it is scary to contemplate what damage might have occurred.

This little experience reminds me of the flame of testimony that may seem to be dead, but that can rekindle when enough warmth is added as in the "hot coals" story. It won't happen without warmth, and may not happen with warmth, but if it happens, it can be dramatic! May it happen as much and as often as Heavenly Father wants it to, and may we help to make it happen whenever He wants us to have a part in it.

Do our spiritual muscles also ache when exercised after a long break?

Yesterday I exercised after six weeks of not specifically exercising.

I have spent a wonderful break with family and at the Temple, and I did walk and bend and lift and climb, but I did not do specific exercises that worked the muscles and heart. Then I did my normal 20 to 30 minutes of stretching, bending, running and lifting and today my muscles are letting me know all about it. Not too serious, but definitely aware of these muscles, especially in my legs and back.

This set me wondering as to whether someone who has not been exercising their faith might feel some pain and discomfort when doing some spiritual exercise such as pondering, scripture study, pondering the scriptures, or starting some form of spiritual activity? I suspect that the feeling of remorse about sins of omission or of commission, feelings of guilt or uncleanness, or anything else prompted by our conscience might give us similar discomfort, reminding us of those 'spirit muscles' and we may be tempted to complain and stop exercising. But, just as with physical exercise, it is important to continue exercising, and gradually, but determinedly, increase the pace and frequency of the exercise to get the spiritual heart pumping in a healthy manner and to improve the spiritual muscle tone and decrease the spiritual fat.

If you have been neglecting your spiritual exercise, or are feeling those discomforts from sudden exercise, I encourage you to exercise well and press forward with with a steadfastness in Christ, and persevere. The gain will definitely outweigh the pain.

Imperfection, hypocrisy

When is imperfection acceptable, understandable, justifiable, tolerable?

 Sometimes we see a bug and are not aware of the flaws. Then we look at another perspective and we see that we are looking at a rather unique insect. In this case, instead of six legs that are typical of an insect, this one has only five.

But I suspect that this bug did not choose to have five legs! Our choices are what make us what we are.

I have heard that there are people that refuse to go to hospitals because hospitals are supposed to make people well, but are of no value because they are full of unwell people. The very reason for going to a hospital is to become well, and it is foolish to condemn a hospital for having unwell people in it! If it is helping to improve the state of well-being of patients then it is achieving its purpose. There will be no shortage of people who are unwell, and hospitals will always be occupied by people who are unwell.

Indeed, it is very possible for one patient to infect a fellow patient, health care professional, or an innocent visitor. One can easily go away from a hospital with a bug that he or she did not have when entering the hospital. But I laud the efforts of people who care for unwell people and wish them well in their efforts. On the whole, people leave hospitals better for having been there.

I was told recently about someone who found some imperfection in an individual - a hypocrite - and feels that the entire Church is to be condemned as being imperfect because it has one member who is a hypocrite. 

I have often thought of our perceptions. 

Today we sustained three new Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ. Elders Ronald A. Rasband, Gary E. Stevenson and Dale G. Renlund. I have no hesitation in saying that each of them is imperfect. Two of them inferred it themselves!

So - do we condemn the entire Church because three, or fifteen, or 100, or 500, or 5 million of them, or each and every one of them is imperfect?

In 1973 I received a personal witness from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself declaring that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the only true and living church upon the face of the Earth 'with which I, the Lord, am well pleased, speaking unto the church collectively and not individually—For I the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance;'

I leave that ending with the semi-colon because the reader would benefit from reading the context of the extract from Doctrine and Covenants 1.

I suppose it is reasonable that people would judge a church by its leaders. One prominent church leader criticized his leaders. He boldly declared them to be hypocrites! He also drove people out of the temple! He also spoke judgmental words of his close associates and others. He was strongly criticized for many of his actions, most particularly because he was accused of blasphemy. Jesus Christ is that leader. The Jewish faith was the only true and living faith. He was devout in His faith. But He did criticize the leaders, the Scribes and Pharisees, telling them that they were hypocrites. He did drive people out of the Temple with a whip. He did reprove Peter and others for their lack of faith and other weaknesses. He, who declared that we must love our enemies, do good to them that despitefully use us, He it was who did these things. If a person is looking for faults, I daresay he will very easily interpret these actions as failings and hypocritical!

Peter denied Christ three times before the cock crowed on the morning of the Christ's last day of mortality. He went fishing rather than leading the saints following the crucifixion. His state of conversion was challenged when he was told 'when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren'. Would we refuse to accept that church because Peter was quite apparently a hypocrite?

Judas Iscariot betrayed Christ - now is that not extreme! Do we deny the entire church because it had one of its top leaders who was such an extremely bad person - a hypocrite?

Ananias and his wife Sapphira lied to the apostles about freewill offerings that they had made. Hypocrisy!

Yes - if one is looking for faults, he or she will find them!

But equally, if one is looking for good, there is abundant good to be found. 

My father once said that he was so glad that he did not have to judge someone who had erred, but could leave that to the bishop. He did not have to be burdened with being a Judge in Israel. Sometimes we look at things that people do and assess them in one way without knowing what is in the heart. We may condemn them for gross imperfection - for hypocrisy. And we are probably absolutely right! They probably are imperfect. And so am I. And so is the reader, and every person, especially those who condemn the conduct of anyone else.

The true Church of God is likely to always have less than perfect people in it - it is the hospital for sick souls. It is there to make bad men good, and good men better. It will always have an abundance of spiritually unwell people to help to improve.

But the challenge to the reader is to judge where we can affect some change. I cannot bring about change in anyone else. But I can bring about change in myself. My responsibility is to assess my own performance relative to divinely appointed standards of performance and work to improve myself. I need to strive to be better each day than I was the day before. I can be so busy working on myself that I really do not have time to judge and condemn others because I will be all too conscious of the beam in my eye that is causing me to not see clearly the mote in the other person's eye.

The Lord Jesus Christ did declare that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the only true and living church upon the face of the Earth 'with which I, the Lord, am well pleased, speaking unto the church collectively and not individually—For I the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance;' He made it very clear that He cannot look upon my weaknesses with the least degree of allowance. 

I must clean up my act! My act! Not someone else's imperfections. My act. I have so far to go before I think I'll be worthy of hearing those blessed affirming words 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant'. I am trying! But I know all too well that I am not at that stage as yet. 

Please clean up your own act. But, in the meantime, ask God the Eternal Father, with a sincere heart and real intent if the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints is the only true and living Church on the face of the Earth, and if He is indeed well pleased with it. And if He says that it is, then do something about making and keeping covenants with Him by being baptised by His authorized ministers, and pressing forward toward Temple covenants, then enduring faithfully to the end, even receiving the greatest of all gifts of God, Eternal life.

So, to answer my question. Imperfections are a part of Mortality. They have always been, and will always be. That does not make them alright, acceptable, justifiable. 

The Lord cannot look upon sin with the last degree of allowance. We all have imperfections. But if we choose to act in imperfect ways, then we sin. Ignorance is not sin. Little children are innocent doing things in ignorance. But I suggest that anyone able to read this blog is likely to be able to discern between good and evil. If we choose evil, we sin. That is never acceptable, understandable, tolerable, excusable, justifiable, allowable. We are in Mortality to learn to choose good and to not choose evil. That was what Adam and Eve learned in the Garden of Eden. That is what we learned early in life. We have to continually refine our ability to make right choices. To think as God thinks, choose as He chooses, act as he acts. Then we will be continually refined and redeemed by the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, enabling us to more effectively refine our ways to become more god-like.

I bear my solemn witness that Jesus Christ does live, and has declared this to be His only true and living Church.