I'll preface this post by saying that I have been midly obsessed with D&C 93 for the last few months. As of late, I have really been wrestling with the twin phrases of receiving "grace for grace" and continuing "grace to grace." I feel like last Friday I received "grace for grace."
Last week I was floating whilst my wife was out of town for work. Not exactly the best combination. In the midst of all that, I must have become a little dehydrated because by the time Friday rolled around, I was feeling nauseated and achy and just altogether weak. I sent a text to my ZC and to the teacher I was supposed to work with that night letting them both know that it didn't seem like I was going to have the strength to come in that evening. Shortly after sending out the texts, the young teacher responded that there were a few missionaries in his group (set to leave the MTC in just a few days) that had expressed a desire to go home and that, if it were possible, my help would be much appreciated.
By the time the night shift started, despite taking a nap and resting most of the day, I still wasn't feeling 100% but I collected myself, popped a few Aleve and achily drove to the MTC. Just walking into the building, I felt weak with every step. However, after sitting down in the room with the missionaries and the young teacher, everything began to change.
As I listened to the teacher and the missionaries discuss the Doctrine of Christ, and, sad to say, casually dissect and reduce it down to those interrelated principles and ordinances of the gospel, I was moved by the reality that all of God's children have the potential to become like Him and that, as missionaries, we have an opportunity to see people and love people with that sort of love. That just as God is not content to simply enable us to be "good people" or increase in faith just a bit, we can have that same infinite hope and love for those we teach.
I remember only a few things that I said next to those missionaries, but I very distinctly remember what they said and felt and became over their next few rounds of practices and during their Book of Mormon Reading. Just as Mosiah 5 says, these missionaries were blessed with "great views": of themselves, of their purpose as missionaries and children of God, of those that they teach, and all that lies ahead.
I don't mean to brag, but I truly felt in that evening that I received grace for grace-- that as I strived to help and enable and lift another, God lifted me. I was able to return home that evening and eat an entire meal for the first time in 24 hours and feel a good amount of strength in my old, brittle bones. My testimony is that we all can receive such enabling power from God and from Christ. As we strive to be a divine enabling force in the lives of our missionaries and in fellow teachers and in our fellow man, those are the moments that God is most willing to lift and magnify us.
Last week I was floating whilst my wife was out of town for work. Not exactly the best combination. In the midst of all that, I must have become a little dehydrated because by the time Friday rolled around, I was feeling nauseated and achy and just altogether weak. I sent a text to my ZC and to the teacher I was supposed to work with that night letting them both know that it didn't seem like I was going to have the strength to come in that evening. Shortly after sending out the texts, the young teacher responded that there were a few missionaries in his group (set to leave the MTC in just a few days) that had expressed a desire to go home and that, if it were possible, my help would be much appreciated.
By the time the night shift started, despite taking a nap and resting most of the day, I still wasn't feeling 100% but I collected myself, popped a few Aleve and achily drove to the MTC. Just walking into the building, I felt weak with every step. However, after sitting down in the room with the missionaries and the young teacher, everything began to change.
As I listened to the teacher and the missionaries discuss the Doctrine of Christ, and, sad to say, casually dissect and reduce it down to those interrelated principles and ordinances of the gospel, I was moved by the reality that all of God's children have the potential to become like Him and that, as missionaries, we have an opportunity to see people and love people with that sort of love. That just as God is not content to simply enable us to be "good people" or increase in faith just a bit, we can have that same infinite hope and love for those we teach.
I remember only a few things that I said next to those missionaries, but I very distinctly remember what they said and felt and became over their next few rounds of practices and during their Book of Mormon Reading. Just as Mosiah 5 says, these missionaries were blessed with "great views": of themselves, of their purpose as missionaries and children of God, of those that they teach, and all that lies ahead.
I don't mean to brag, but I truly felt in that evening that I received grace for grace-- that as I strived to help and enable and lift another, God lifted me. I was able to return home that evening and eat an entire meal for the first time in 24 hours and feel a good amount of strength in my old, brittle bones. My testimony is that we all can receive such enabling power from God and from Christ. As we strive to be a divine enabling force in the lives of our missionaries and in fellow teachers and in our fellow man, those are the moments that God is most willing to lift and magnify us.
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