I have been thinking of the reason I started a blog titled myriad musings. Perhaps the first reason was that I wanted to put on "paper" my thoughts and feelings, to develop my thinking and reasoning, and to share my thinking with others. Otherwise, I could just fill out my journal pages as part of our family history efforts.
Can I make a difference to others? Will my thoughts and beliefs help someone who is experiencing parallel
events or feelings? I hope so.
Hope fills our lives. We hope for small things like good grades on tests, good jobs, good meals, good interactions with others, etc. There is one great hope, the hope we have in Jesus Christ. Without a Redeemer, our journey through mortality would not have any hope. None. We make mistakes, and because Christ is our Redeemer, we can partake of repentance. Because of Him, we can come to understand our mistake, and why we made it, and tell our Heavenly Father we are sorry, ask for forgiveness, and realize that we are forgiven. We can become clean again, without the sin or mistake clinging to our souls and our psyches. We go forward with hope. Hope seems to be a renewal of belief. We are commanded in the Bible and other Scriptures to have hope in Christ, to have faith in Christ, to know that His name is the only name under Heaven who can offer redemption. He suffered for our sins, and died for us, and lives again. He wrought the only atonement ever given for us. I cannot conceive of the pain he suffered, but I am utterly grateful for His love and obedience that made eternal life possible - for all of us.
I think of how He made the sacrifice, but it us up to us to partake of it. If we never repent, never learn obedience, never receive the covenants, never try to do as the Lord commands us......then that great sacrifice will not apply to us. We will have to suffer for our own sins. I think the greatest sorrow will be the "might have been", the "if only".
Jesus Christ exhorts us to follow Him. He showed us the path, he leads the way, he prays for us, he helps us succeed when we try, we receive immeasurable blessings when we apply ourselves as commanded.
God gave us commandments as a measurement of agency. Our agency means we do not "have" to follow those commands....but we will be judged by them, and suffer the consequences if we ignore them, or follow them half-heartedly. Christ did not make any half-hearted gestures or actions! He fully healed, fully forgave, fully suffered, and foremost....he fully obeyed our Father in Heaven, always.
Hope is fully embodied in Jesus Christ. Because of Jesus Christ's atonement we can have hope of returning to live with our Heavenly Father, hope of becoming like God, hope of spending eternity where our work and glory will be to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, just like our Father does.
Hope is in the here and now, a light for our mortal lives. There is only joy in obeying what Heavenly Father asks us to do, and there is only sorrow in rejecting our Father. I exhort us to have hope, to develop faith, and to come to know the joy only He can give. It's the better way!
