Personal Life

I was reading recently about a trip to the Mesa Temple in 2002. We were doing sealings and some people from Tucson were there. If fact their daughter knew some of our sons. I was thinking about a couple that was married in Nottingham, England in 1620. Here we were almost 400 years later in the temple specifically for them. I recorded the following about that time"

"The thing that struck home and impressed me is the very personal nature of our relationship with Father and with His Son. Everything is done for us as individuals. Everyone in the temple receives the knowledge and the tokens individually. We are instructed individually. We are tested individually. And we are admitted into the presence of God individually. We receive covenants of baptism as individuals, whether in life or though vicarious ordinances. When Moses says that he comprehended the earth, every bit of the earth, all the sands of the seas, so it is with God and us. We stand before Him, with all the potental that He has. He has blessed us with agency, individual talents and gifts, with individual testimony and witnesses. He sees us as his individual children. And so we need to seek out His children, whether living or dead, as individuals. We help individuals come unto Christ, and to be perfected in Him. We don’t bring programs or even congregations."

I think about the personal nature of the ways I have been instructed. I was given a very personal testimony of the Book of Mormon, one that I cannot deny. When I read that Book for the first time, I felt that time was standing still, and that I was enclosed in a pillar of spiritual instruction. I absolutley knew, nothing doubting, that the Book was from God. I knew that Joseph did, in reality, see the Father and the Son, and that they called him to be the Prophet of the Restoration. That instruction then gave me a responsibility to live my life in accordance with that instruction.

Over the years I have been taught. I have learned through experience, and Father has helped me to see the principles He was teaching through those experiences. A few months ago some of the leaders in the ward wanted me to rebuke some of the women for the way they were acting and dressing. I thought and pondered the responsibilty of the Bishop and of the Leaders relating to making decisions for members. Rather than rebuking the members, we need to teach correct principles, and let the members govern themselves, according to those principles. That is what Father does with us. He teaches, He loves, He corrects, gently at first and then not so gently when we won't listen. But He teaches me personnally and holds me responsibly for what He has taught ME, not necessarily what He as taught others. I just need to do better at learning what He is teaching.

Patterns of Life

And so passes on, life into life.
A daughter today, tomorrow a wife.
The fatherly sage once learned as a boy -
The trials and sorrows have turned into joy.
The example my father once gave to me
Of patience, of work and responsibility.
Passed on from his life into my own.
I hope that to my sons, the same I have shown.

Parents give life and love to their child.
They nurture and teach, then each passing mile.
The children assume a little bit more
Of care for themselves, while learning the lore.
Of how they should act when they are grown.
The pattern is set, and then they have flown.
To act for themselves. To live their own life.
A son or a daughter, soon husband or wife.
And so passes on, circling ‘round
Life into life, the pattern lives on.

And so passes on, forward we trod.
A man or a woman, tomorrow with God.
Children we are, mistakes to be made;
Our Father is teaching, the pathway is laid.
From son to a Father, from seedling to oak –
Guiding with patience while bearing the yoke.
Eternal the pattern, from life into life.
From trials and sorrows into glory rife.
Mother and daughter, Father and son.
Eternal the pathway though long e’re were done.
Into exaltation without toil or strife.
And so passes on, from life into life.

By Gerald Bishop Copyright 1993