MY FATHER KNOWS ME

Archeologists and historians are trained to make judgments about the accomplishments of ancient and modern civilizations based on the artifacts and writings which have survived the ravishment and rusting of time. They label one very lengthy era as “Stone Age” because of a very few simple tools which have been uncovered, dated and categorized. They brand another “Industrial” to describe an era of time when humans began to desert their family farms and congregate together in cities in order to facilitate the production of goods. The premise upon which the judging and recording of the eras of our existence has been built and sustained, often brings uneasiness to many who view the accomplishments of men as more than the accumulation a few material droppings or scribbling’s upon stone or papyri.

How grateful we should be that our loving Heavenly Father is not confined to the restraints of diggers and compilers. We should give abundant thanks that He will never make sweeping generalizations of large groups of His children, but will always judge each child independently according to their understandings, efforts and accomplishments.

“Now it is better that a man should be judged of God than of man, for the judgments of God are always just, but the judgments of man are not always just.” (Mosiah 29:12)

Thus, we find Lot and his family being saved even though the inhabitants of the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah had reach the point of having their cup of iniquity full. The forward looking Lot escapes the fate of his wife who turned her gaze backward. This is a major component of the good news of the gospel. Even though we might spend our mortality during an era when mankind is practicing dehumanizing lifestyles, our worthiness for a place in God’s kingdom will be judged solely on how we personally have lived.

Long ago, Elijah invited the people of his day to choose between Jehovah and Baal. Likewise, we constantly find ourselves in circumstances where our priorities are demonstrated by our thoughts, words and actions. We can no more walk in two divergent paths in comfort than ancient Israel could serve both false and true gods and remain a covenant people.

We each must choose whether we are going to center our lives in the quest for gaining attributes of godliness or in inundating ourselves in worldliness.
We each must decide if “making the sale” is more important than remaining totally honest in our dealings.

We each must decide if we will allow vulgarism to become more dominant in our lives than purity.

We each must decide if we will speak the profane or the truth.

We each must decide if the social register is to become a more important gauge of our success than how well we are serving our fellows.
Joshua declared that these decisions were not to be tarried upon, but that they should be made today.

We need not fear the judgments of paupers and princes who see through darkened lenses as they stumble with us through mortality.

We need not fear that the success of our mortal passage will be determined by some future digger or compiler as they examine the plastics, polyesters and faded headlines which our generation has left in mountainous heaps throughout the land.

Our Father will never determine our level of advancement by inventorying our material belongings or by comparing us to another, but will scrutinize our souls individually to see how close we have come, given our individual circumstances, to emulating the attributes of our Celestial Parents.

One of the principles of the Good News which we should cherish most is that the judgment of our mortal passage will come from a loving Heavenly Father who will search our individual souls and be able to perfectly view the reality of what we have become.