Scripture of the day:
Romans 8:16-17
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
There it is, right there. I don't know how I missed this before I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but I did. For me, hearing the message from the missionaries really struck home. Before they came I had spent a lot of time thinking and pondering about God and his nature. I had made several decisions about such things and I made a decision I would not join any church that didn't agree with what I felt. That seems really self-absorbed and selfish but I had come to believe these things and felt they were true. Interestingly enough the things the missionaries taught me were exactly as I had decided to believe. To me they were truth. I was very much amazed that the two things came together.
In fact there as a time after I had became a member and someone was teaching a Sunday School lesson. They mentioned in the lesson that other churches had a different belief. I was simply amazed at the other belief. It seemed to me that the belief I had and the one the LDS church believed was a part of me my entire earthly existence.
The reason the above scripture means so much to me is how it came about to my knowledge. While I had figured out many things about the nature of God and his relationship with us there were some gaps in my education. Sometime after I had joined the LDS church they had a special Saturday conference for the women of the stake. (A stake is the collection of many congregations in a geographic area.) I attended a class by a man named Frederick Babbel. He talked about catching the vision, meaning having a spiritual understanding of what he was teaching. He is the one who talked to us, sisters about being children of God. He even went a step further and talked about how we were of divine lineage because we were the children of our Heavenly Father.
He knew that as women and women of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints we were very hard on ourselves. We are our own biggest critics. He reminded us that being children of our Heavenly Father and because we have a divine lineage we needed to remember that when we were degrading ourselves. The day he gave this lesson it was all new to me. I sat in tears because it struck me so intensely. He said I had caught the vision.
Years later we had a lesson in our women's class called Relief Society. It was a lesson on grief. In the lesson the teacher had us write down on three pieces of paper three things we most valued. Many women had the typical answers like home, family, children as well as church things like our temple recommends. I don't remember what the first two things were but my last one was the knowledge that I was a child of God. This one still makes me tear up. During the lesson she passed a hat around and told us to put in the hat one of the things we could give up. The first one wasn't too hard since it was the first but when she did it two more times and the last thing was that. It was the most difficult thing anyone could have asked me to do.
You may wonder how anyone can give up such a thing since it was a matter of knowledge. But people do all the time. They give up the knowledge when they become addicted to drugs and/or alcohol. They no longer care about their person but care only for the next high and many times they are willing to even sell themselves to get the drug. I believe that some may even give up that knowledge when they have everything taken away from them and then willingly give up that knowledge also. They think they no longer deserve to be considered a child of God because how could all these things happen to them if they were. I say take a look at Job because he lost everything and God even said he was a good son. Or maybe they have done things to other people and in a mood of remorse feel they are no longer worthy to be called such because they have sinned too much.
Let's take that down a notch and think if it was your own child who was addicted to drugs or the one who is taking advantage of others, would you stop loving them? You may not like what they do but that doesn't mean you stop loving them. I think our relationship with our father in heaven is the same. I don't think he ever stops loving us and we don't ever stop being his child.
This morning I read an article about a man who had a treasure trove of art and collectibles that were acquired from Jews during WWII. The article said how the man rarely left his apartment and the art had become his family. He missed the paintings when they were confiscated. He even said in one rare interview that the paintings meant more to him than even his sister. This man had been influenced by his father who had been part of the Nazi's inner circle. It was said that the father wheeled and dealed with the Nazi's just to keep himself alive. But in the process, it seems to me, that he lost his knowledge of who human beings are and what we are to do. The son also was the same way. It said in the article that the man, the son, with the art never had a wife, in fact, never even had a love in his life, like a girlfriend. I really believe that is an example of losing the knowledge of being a child of God.
So my thoughts about being a child of God came to be with me all today as I have thought about this man and reminded me of my acquiring the knowledge that I am a child of God also.
Those are just my thoughts...
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