I am a Child of God

 

Given while I served as Bishop of the Heritage Ward

I am a child of God

Primary has learned this all year.  Next week they will present to us what they have learned.  I hope I don’t detract at all from what they will teach us but this is an important subject to understand.

Lets review some of the doctrine that is central to our faith.  Before this world was we all existed in a premortal state; spirit children of our Heavenly Father.

Heavenly Father had prepared a plan for us.  He would create an earth, send his children to this earth to gain a body and have experiences.  We would be given agency so we could decide for ourselves the path we would follow.  If we exercised out agency in following the commandments, God would provide a Savior for us so we could return to Him.  Satan opposed the plan.  Jesus Christ embraced the plan and led the righteous in a fight against Satan and his followers.  Christ and his followers triumphed, and Satan and his followers were cast out.

Under the direction of heavenly father Jesus created this earth for us.  He then created a physical body for our spirits to inhabit.  After adam and eve transgressed the commandment they had been given they were cast out of Gods presence but it opened the way for them to have children and for all of us to be able to come to earth and participate in the plan.  We are now all fully engaged in Heavenly Fathers plan.

So what does this mean to us?  We have the privilege of calling upon the atonement of Jesus Christ in our lives.  The atonement is provided for us to help us return to our Heavenly Father’s presence.  We can return to his presence both in this life and in the next.  As we develop of gifts and talents, as we are obedient, and we minister to those who are around us, we grow closer to our Heavenly Father and are entitled to feel of his presence.  In the next life, we will literally be allowed to be in his presence.

I think there are a couple of important truths in this plan that I would like to emphasize today.  The first is that the plan was designed so we could succeed.  No one can say I am not good enough or I can’t do all that is required.  That leads to the second important truth and that is that we are children of our Heavenly Father.  We are literally his spirit children.  We each have within us the divine nature of our Heavenly Father.  And because of this we can succeed and return to His presence.  He loves us and wants us to return.  He will do all that he can to help us return.

Just because we CAN do it doesn’t mean it is easy.  We know from our earthly experience that really wonderful results require a tremendous amount of effort.  Lanta has talked about some of the challenges that we will face as we go through life.  As I look at our youth as an example, I can see this truth.  You don’t learn to dance like Mallory or Diana with lots of practice.  You don’t excel in cross country and track like Michael and Nicholai without lots of practice.  You don’t learn to act or perform like Savannah without lots of practice.  You don’t excel in academics like many of our youth with applying effort to your school work.  This names just a few and we can look to the adult in our ward for other examples of performing well in different aspects of life and it has taken a great amount of effort.

Succeeding at the plan of our Heavenly Father will also take a great amount of effort.  We become better bit by bit as we practice and perform those things we have practiced.  It is something we will work on our whole lives.

But I think the key is to always keep the plan in mind.  Everything we do influences our success with the plan.  As we consider the decisions we make we need to also look at them through the lens of the plan.  Big decisions like education and career decisions will require you to looks at things such as will it use the strengths I have, will it allow me to support a family, will it be conducive to family life or other things that are important.  But also we need to consider how it will impact our success with the plan.  Can you grow closer to Heavenly Father while pursuing this goal?  The small decisions in life are the same.  There are always lots of things to consider but also include the plan in your decision.  When you do, you will see Heavenly Father guiding you and helping you in making the best decisions that will have the best long-term results which ultimately is living in the presence of our Heavenly Father.

Now sometimes these decisions aren’t really obvious and may actually seem at odds to the plan but if we are patient and endure to the end, we will see the bigger picture someday.

Some examples if time permits.