My family and I recently visited Palmyra, New York and Kirtland, Ohio—sites of the early church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I found a replica of the first book of hymns, compiled by Emma Smith. It is a small brown book with gold leafing, about 3 in x 4 in x 1/2 in thick. There are only words, no musical notes; people knew many melodies and sometimes switched which tune went with each song.

The first is “Know then that every soul is free, to choose his life and what he’ll be…”

The last is “The Spirit of God”

Here’s hymn #3;

1 “What fair one is this, from the wilderness traveling,
Looking for Christ, the beloved of her heart?
O, this is the church, the fair bride of the Savior,
Which with every idol is willing to part.
While men in contention, are constantly howling.
And Babylon’s bells are continually tolling,
As though all the craft of her merchants was failing,
And Jesus was coming to reign on the earth.

2 There is a sweet sound in the gospel of heaven,
And people are joyful when they understand
The saints on their way home to glory are even Determined by goodness, to reach the blest land.
Old formal professors are crying “delusion,”
And high-minded hypocrites say “’tis confusion,
While grace is poured out in a blessed effusion
And saints are rejoicing to see priestcraft fall.

3 A blessing, a blessing, the Savior is coming,
As prophets and pilgrims of old have declared;
And Israel, the favored of God, is beginning
To come to the feast for the righteous prepared.
In the desert are fountains continually springing,
The heavenly music of Zion is ringing;
The saints all their tithes and their offerings are bringing;
They thus prove the Lord and his blessing receive.

4 The name of Jehovah is worthy of praising,
And so is the Savior an excellent theme;
The elders of Israel a standard are raising,
And call on all nations to come to the same:
These elders go forth and the gospel are preaching,
And all that will hear them, they freely are teaching,
And thus is the vision of Daniel fulfilling:
The stone of the mountain will soon fill the earth.”

I’m grateful for this heritage.

These themes resonate: of gathering to build a people who are thoroughly trying to follow Jesus, of finding a feast prepared for the righteous, like a fountain the the desert.  The themes of worldly selfishness and falsehood being uprooted and overcome, to prepare the world for an era of peace when our Savior will lead personally on the earth…

…these can help us just as they fired the souls of the early saints.

I took the kids camping, and Geneveive got up early to take me exploring. We found the opening of an old mine shaft, which are so common in the Colorado mountains. Old miners would find a vein of gold and silver and dig down to follow it as far as they could or until it ran out.

I’ve been reflecting: each of us has a personal deposit of kindness shown to us by our Father – experiences and blessings that are like a vein of gold. If we sit and reflect on what He’s done for us and how He’s shown His love for us, it is like mining on that vein of gold. We will realize there’s a lot more there than we see. He has given it to us personally.  And it’s a vein that runs deep. We won’t exhaust it or find the end of it.

The feelings of gratitude that we pull up out of that vein will fuel our next step, and help us know we are loved. 

There is a Japanese word for a concept that has perhaps no equivalent in English.  Amae means relying full on the good will and generousity of another. It has a connotation of taking love for granted, assuming it will always be there, as a child of a doting parent.

As a child, did you ever visit a friend’s house and felt like they had unlimited access to video games and the snack pantry? …with only occassional and distant check-in from mom or dad, who drops in to bring freshly-baked cookies? I remember part of me said to myself “Oh man, they have so much freedom!”

Of course in time we learn that love without expectations isn’t really love…  the one who set boundaries or conditions on free access to their goods actually does it for our good.

But when we hear the truths of eternity, and when the requirements of repentance are set forth for us, I notice in myself at times a vector of resistance. 

“God wouldn’t require me to do that, would he?”

We feel a spiritual Amae, and we might reason “We are children of God so He’s got our back, so whatever we do, things will all work out.”

Some truths in that statement sooth our cognitive discomfort about the one lie in it: the “Whatever we do” part, the need to repent.

Truly God does want us to trust Him, rely on Him fully. To feel fully safe in His arms.

It’s just that we have some work to do to choose His arms.

If we are dishonest,

if we seek riches more than Him,

if we don’t care for others in need,

if we trust our own knowledge more than His,

if we are unwilling to humble ourselves to His authority to define right and wrong,

if we seek sexual pleasure or social relief more than obedience to His laws,

then we cheat our own souls.

“O, my beloved brethren, remember the awfulness in transgressing against that Holy God, and also the awfulness of yielding to the enticings of that cunning one. Remember, to be carnally-minded is death, and to be spiritually-minded is life eternal.” 2 Nephi 9:39

The moment we turn His direction the lifelines of His grace can help us move toward safety.  Tethered to Him we can feel safe enough to make our honest mistakes, to be sincerely open about our struggles. The safety net of the Atonement of Jesus Christ works marvelously well, but only as we maintain active coverage in His insurance plan: to make covenants with Him and strive to keep them.

We can feel a sense of Amae; knowing we will make some mistakes and still be loved, still safe in His household.

But let us be cautious of the false hope of a universal Amae without requirements, without covenants and repentance.

Over time that would cause us to lose our divine heritage and character as children of God.

God loves us too much to grant that.

The Prophet Joseph said that the process of becoming more like our Heavenly Father will bring clearer views and greater enjoyments, until we overcome the evils of this world, and lose every desire for sin, until we arrive like the ancients, at that point of faith where we are wrapped in the power and glory of our Maker and caught up to dwell with Him. “But we consider that this is a station to which no man ever arrived in a moment” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 51). (Source)

“It all takes time. The work of eternity is not done in a moment, but, rather, in “process of time.” And according to the desires of our hearts, said Apostle Neil A. Maxwell.

“A loving God will work with us, but the initiating particle of desire which ignites the spark of resolve must be our own!”

So, I pray we may be patient with ourselves, with others, and stoke the flames of our best desires, and trust the process of covenant discipleship.

It is working. It will fully work!

Jesus Christ described His mission:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”

Luke 4:18–19

How has Jesus’s mission impacted me? 

He has opened the eyes of the blind, when that blind man was me. 

He’s helped my heart see and believe that we are all children of God, that there is abundant hope for each of us.

He has freed the captive by helping me overcome temptations and dependencies.

He is healing me from pride and fault-finding with others. 

He is warming my heart to care more about people. 

He is strengthening me to believe I can hold on when I feel too tired or hungry. 

He sometimes lifts me to get up and get to work when I would rather not. 

He is trying to straighten out my tendency to overdo it, and help me to lighten up, and see the big picture.

He is cleaning me out to become fully frankly sincere.

He and I have a long work to do to get these things right.

But the work is underway, so there is hope, and peace now.

I thank God for the gift of His Son, for the gift of tiny incremental changes, that are miracles!

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/nt/luke/4?id=p18-p19&lang=eng#p18

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”

Leo Buscaglia

“During His life, Jesus Christ often challenged people’s long-held traditions and beliefs.” Come Follow Me

Even his closest friends and followers found themselves regulary baffled by Jesus’s methods, priorities, and corrections.

Peter was told “Get thee behind me, satan, for thou savorest not the things of God,” when he tried to tell Jesus he shouldn’t have to suffer and give his life.

James and John were told “You know not of what spirit you are” when they wanted punishment on thr people of Samaria who rejected them.

And “you know not what you ask” when they requested a special place of honor in the future Kingdom.

And thankfully, “Don’t tell the children to go away, let them come to me.”

The gospels (written by the disciples themselves) show the disciples bumbling along, making mistakes at almost every turn.

On a larger scale, much of the house of Israel, missed the boat on the Messiah who came to save them.

Paul said it was “because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day.” Acts 13:27  Paul himself had been that way.

If they had known the scriptures, they would have known that the God of the Old Testament was prophesied of, that He would come to flip the tables, to humble the proud, to lift up the poor and oppressed, to change everything.

In our own lives, if we hope to walk the right path, we must expect some life up-ending surprises and regular correction.

We might feel like we are bumbling along, making mistakes at almost every turn.

We will need to expect to make big changes, often gradually. Still, these will be “caterpillar to butterfly” or “tadpole to frog” or “aquatic nymph to mayfly” -type total changes.

We can expect and hope that He will give us time and strength enough to navigate the needed changes. Best to start right away.

The surprises won’t all be unpleasant. We hope He will tip the scales in our favor. He already has, by sending His Son.

We are pouring some concrete in the front yard for a front porch.

The team of builders needed to remove with a jackhammer,  concrete orginal to the house. It was 62 year old and so solid! We hope our new concrete porch step will last even longer.

It made me think how valuable construction materials can be set in place and then under pressure and time, stay solid. You can rely on them because they stay put.

Life’s daily crucible can dissolve good decisions, unless you construct in your mind with the right materials. You can put a cap over your choices by sending a message to yourself: “this is what I truly want.”

In blue sky moments, you can decide ahead of time, when it is clear and understandable. For example, if you’ve decided that “I won’t try smoking,” Then when you find yourself in a time or place where it seems almost reasonable and desirable to “come-on just try this once,” the decision is actually easy: you already made it, and you knew then that it was a good decision. You put a cap of “I won’t need to change this” over it, so you don’t engage in overthinking it when the decision-dissolving forces are at play.

What decisions do you need to make more clear to yourself?

So many choices in life become easier if you are clear to yourself when the best thinking is, and remove your thinking from the pressures that could muddy or dissolve it.

You can shape your M.O.– the way you operate, the way you roll– then just live from it.

It is a happy way to live.

Peter once asked Jesus an honest question: How many times should I forgive someone who trespasses against me? He knew to expect the unexpected from Jesus, and since the Rabbis of his time taught that you should forgive 3 times then stop, Peter estimated that the perfect number might be 7 times. That still feels like a lot!

Jesus said, “No, not 7 times. But 7 times 70” …. essentially infinity! Then He explained with the story of a merciful master and a servant who had a debt of 10,000 talents. (1 talent = about 6,000 working days, so x 10k is about about 60 million days of work). The normal approach would be to recoup what he could by liquidating the debt by selling all that the man had, including his family, or to debtors prison. The man begged for mercy, and the master was moved with compassion and completely obsolved him from the debt. But then the man went out and would not be patient with another who owed him 100 pence (about 100 days of work), and by doing that he lost his forgiven status before his Master.

Jesus said basically, your forgiveness and patience will help those you give it to, yes, but the reason I command you to give it again and again is about preserving your standing before your Father in Heaven, who continues to offer you that kind of patience.
To forgive is to repeatedly release yourself from bondage to destructive feelings about past offenses. It’s an act of self-definition that keeps us free.

Learning and growing to be more like our Father takes a lot of time, a lot of repeated efforts, and even a lot of mistakes. The “not keeping tally of past mistakes” plan that God offers us is a much better deal for us. We can choose that plan by forgiving.

“Jesus entered into a synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand.
And he said unto him Stand forth.
And he said unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.”
Mark 3:1–5

Like so many of His miracles, here Jesus asked the man to do the action while Jesus’s power did the work behind the scenes.
The healing was so complete that we might be tempted to wonder if that hand had ever been withered.

Jesus holds the power to restore the parts of us – our lives, our habits, our hearts, our relationships, that are withered or not yet what we hope they would be.

To receive a healing miracle, we must focus our faith on Jesus Christ, and do what He asks to stretch.

And after we change, may we always remember how He healed us, when we were not whole.