A Father's Love

This week I studied more about the Atonement of the Savior and everything that occurred on that very important night. I specifically studied Mark chapter four and was struck by the many things that were taught by the Savior in that chapter, even as He was being faced with an unimaginable task. One teaching that particularly stood out to me was what He taught His apostles after He had asked them to wait and watch out for Him as He went into the Garden of Gethsemane, only to find them fast asleep when He returned to where they were waiting. After the first time of finding them asleep, the Savior said to them, “The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.” That statement made by Christ stood out to me because it seems to me that the Savior is taking great compassion on His disciples for giving into even the smallest of temptations. Because the Savior knows us so well and He knows our struggles, He knows that sometimes we have the strongest desire to do such wonderful things to serve Him and God’s children, but we are unable to fulfill that desire as completely as we would like due to physical or circumstantial restrictions. He understands and He loves us for even just the desire that we have to do good. As I read about that specific story from the New Testament this week, I was truly comforted in remembering that all our Heavenly Father asks of us is our absolute best. He never expects us to be perfect; He only wants us to do everything that we can in order to follow the footsteps of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Prepare, Prepare, Prepare!

This week I wanted to talk about a powerful lesson that I learned from the Savior as I studied Matthew 24. This lesson I should always be striving to live my life in a way that I would be prepared if the Savior came tomorrow. This particular lesson is taught countless times in the scriptures, but it really stood out to me as I read this specific chapter in the New Testament this week. I was stuck by the directness of the Savior as He explained that no one, not even He Himself, would know the day of His coming before it happened. Heavenly Father is the only person who knows that information, and there is divine purpose in that. We are directed and guided my the prophets and apostles every general conference (and any other time in the year when we are taught by them) that the coming of the Savior is quickly approaching. We are constantly seeing the increasing amount of signs the He will come soon as well. Why is it, then, that some of us (myself included) don not always head the prophetic counsel to prepare, prepare, prepare for His coming in absolutely every aspect of our lives. We are obviously human, we are not perfect. We make mistakes. That's why we have the tremendous blessing of the atonement in our lives. With that being said, however, I know that I for one could definitely be doing more in the way of preparing for the Second Coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We read in the scriptures of the great calamities and destruction that will warn us that the time is near, and those things can be very scary. I read a verse in Matthew 24 this week that brought me a lot of comfort, though. "...but for the elect’s sake those days [of great tribulation] shall be shortened"(Matthew 24:22). I know that if we are constantly doing our best to prepare ourselves for His coming, we will be a part of the "elect" and we will not have to suffer those great calamities for very long before we will be welcomed into our Savior's loving arms.