3 July, 2017
Happy Monday everyone!
Hope you all had a great week! Sister Taeu and I had a
good week! We got our new Mission President this week - President and Sister
Bingham!
So how did you all go with my two invitations for last
week?
Part one: is to live your life that the Holy Ghost may
always be with you!
Part two: is to L.A,F. - listen, act and feel the
promptings of the spirit!
Doctrine and Covenants 19:15-19
"Therefore, I command you to repent -- repent, lest
I smite you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your
sufferings be sore -- how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea,
how hard to bear you know not.
For behold, I God, have suffered these things for all,
that they might not suffer if they would repent;
But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I:
Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of
all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both
body and spirit - and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink -
Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and
finished my preparations unto the children of men."
This week I want to focus on a specific part of this
scripture - the underlined portion
"that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink -
Nevertheless, glory be to the Father,"
Elder Maxwell said "As we confront our own...trials
and tribulations, we too can plead with the Father, just as Jesus did, that we
'might not shrink'- meaning to retreat or to recoil. Not shrinking is much more
important than surviving! Moreover, partaking of the bitter cup without
becoming bitter is likewise part of the emulation of Jesus"
To retreat or to recoil. How many of us when faced with a
trial, a hard time or put in a situation that we are not happy with retreat or
recoil - how many of us shrink? I have been guilty of shrinking in times when I
have not agreed with a hard time - an opportunity to grow - but we know that
Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Redeemer did not shrink in Gethsemane or on
Golgotha!
Elder Orson F. Whitney said:
"No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience
is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities
as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we
endure, especially when we endure patiently, builds up our characters, purifies
our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more
worthy to be called the children of God ... and is through sorrow and
suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we came here
to acquire."
Not shrinking and allowing our individual will to be
swallowed up in the will of the Father is something that we all are faced
with. Not shrinking and allowing our
individual will to be swallowed up in the will of the Father is a CHOICE that
we must all make.
When we go through a trial, a challenge, a hard time, how
many of us ask Heavenly Father to get us out of that situation? When we are
experiencing pain, infirmities and hardships, how many of us ask for this time
of challenge to be removed?
In the New Testament we see many examples of when the
Saviour and his disciples exercised their spiritual gift of healing and
recognised that these individuals had the faith to be healed. (Acts 14:9; 3
Nephi 17:8; D&C 46:19). We tend to have faith that Heavenly Father will
remove the hard times that we are experiencing or to remove the infirmities
that we have, but a question I have pondered on is
Do we have the faith to not be healed? Do we have the
faith to not be removed from the hard time that we are facing? Do we have the
faith to submit to the will of the Father?
We must be disciples of Christ who are valiant in the
submission of our will to His. We must be disciples of Christ who overcome the
natural man (Mosiah 3:19) tendency to demand impatiently and insist incessantly
on the blessings that we want to receive and believe that we deserve. Having
faith not to be healed, not to be released from challenges and trials seems
counterintuative; however, as we look from this perspective, we allow our trust
to be put in Heavenly Father's plan for each of us. We increase our faith and
knowledge that the Saviour is in charge whatever the outcome might be. Our
petitions will be changed from "Please get me out of this situation"
to "Please give me the strength and the faith to accept whatever Thy will
is."
A principle that applies to every devoted disciple is
this:
Strong faith in the Saviour. With this, comes the
submissive acceptance of the will of our Heavenly Father - even if the outcome
or the journey is not what we wanted or hoped for.
My invitation to you all this week is to be a devoted
disciple of Jesus Christ by submitting to the will of our Heavenly Father and
"shrink not".
As you press forward along this strait and narrow path to
our Heavenly home, with a steadfast faith in Christ and a willingness to submit
to all things you will be blessed in extraordinary ways to learn the essential
lessons for eternity.
I love you all!
Sister Roos xx (: (:
