What times to Live in

First I want to thank all those who check in on this blog, thank you for continuing to come back. Thanks to your support this blog exceeded 5000 views this week, now for some this may seem small, especially for the professionals out there. But for me, someone just getting on to share thoughts and hopefully learn in the process 5000 views sure means a lot. It hopefully means that somewhere down the line someone received what they needed and at the end of the day that is what matters.

Fore ordination is sometimes considered a sticky thing within the church, because many wonder if we are fore ordained where does agency fit in. In an institute class two semesters ago we talked about the pre-mortal life, the war in heaven, the noble and great ones and fore ordination. I would encourage everyone to go to the gospel library, under seminaries and institute and find the Doctrines of the Gospel Student Manual. In that manual is an amazing section entitled "The Foreordination of Covenant Israel and Their Responsibilities". I love this manual because it is based completely on scriptures and quotes from prophets and the Quorum of the Twelve. In our class discussion we talked about agency and focused on the fact that our choices in pre-earth life, how we spent our time, what things we chose to learn about and what we focused on blessed us with certain attributes and abilities in our life here. The things we learned about their gave us certain opportunities here. Peter, James and John were chosen as the foremost apostles because they chose to spend their time with the Savior and come to know and understand His divinity then, thus in the New Testament Peter was able to testify of Christ so strongly even though he had only known him a short time in mortality. Because of our agency Heavenly Father gave us opportunities and made covenants with us of things we would do here in this life. Now that does not mean that we will get it right everytime, we don't even remember what covenants we made and we have our agency in this life. Even with all that Peter's spirit knew of the Savior when he was questioned at the trial of Jesus Christ Peter still denied the Savior three times.

Heavenly Father realizes that we will not always get it right, He knows that this mortal life can be distracting and that temporal concerns and affairs can take us away from where and what we want to be. The beautiful aspect of the gospel is that through obedience, purifying our hearts and seeking for righteous desires we can decrease the thickness of the veil and relearn or recognize anew things we once knew and loved. We can become familiar with our Heavenly Father, with our Savior Jesus Christ, we can be reminded of our purpose and be where we need to be to fulfill the covenants we made then. A large part of the purpose of our life on earth is to learn by faith, to come to recognize our Father and Savior with mortal eyes that we once knew with spiritual ones. At times this may feel like an incredibly overwhelming task, how can we do what we cannot remember, how can we do all that our Father has for us? When the Relief Society was organized under Joseph Smith Emma Smith said that "we expect extraordinary occasions and pressing calls" by the choices we once made and the choices we make now we prepare to meet those extraordinary occasions and meet the turbulent times in which we live.

We each have a divine purpose and calling, we each worked with our Father in Heaven to decide what we needed in this earth life to reach our fullest potential, we receive strength and power from the Atonement to meet these demands. Our Heavenly Father knew that as mortal beings far from the presence of the Lord we would not always live up to our purpose, He provided a Savior for us that we might keep working and trying to fulfill our purpose.  Our Heavenly Father gives us the opportunity to succor his children, to stand in the gap of others faith and struggle with fear. The Lord allows us to assist in this great work of salvation because he knows that this work also refines us.

I hope that we are not overwhelmed by this great calling, but that we realize our Heavenly Father has prepared us in eons of time to do the work we are called to do. He have provided a Savior to assist us and the Holy Ghost to direct us. We are to work with our father to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, for that is God's work and glory, it is his work to bring us all home again and our purpose to help in this great work. What times to live in and what amazing divine assistance we have to do the work.