BEAUTIFUL – GLORIOUS – GOOD

I have spent many wonderful hours pondering about how Heavenly Father went about readying this earth as a place where His children could abide as mortals.

I do not delude myself into thinking I have come anywhere close to uncovering even the minutest understandings of how He and His Son caused this marvelous planet to have its seemingly endless ability to sustain life. However, I have come to the understanding that the work of the creation is done more as a molder and refiner and organizer, but never as a magician.

After the Father and Son formed the elements, regulated the days and seasons with the lights which govern the earth’s movements, divided the waters from the waters with mountains and valleys, put lushness upon them with plants of all kinds, brought forth creatures to swim the seas and animals to roam the earth They declared Their work to be glorious, beautiful and good. It was formed and made ready in such a magnificent manner that it would be able to sustain the lives of His numberless children who would spend their probationary days upon His marvelous Blue Marble.

Male and Female, Father and Mother, Adam and Eve now had a place to sojourn and physically embody the Spirit Children of Heavenly Parents and in Holy Text it declares those begotten to be a little lower than the angels.

Just like so many dramas the one which has been, is and will continue to play out upon our Earthly Home Sphere, the story of This Earth had a beginning filled with so much beauty, hope and promise, but hundreds of scenes which have, are and will be played contain vistas which surely sadden the eyes which once viewed This Earth as glorious, beautiful and good.

As the centuries have passed and the sons and daughters of Deity have desired more and more acreage, higher and higher vistas to build their mansions upon, we have witnessed glorious forestation chopped, burned and wasted. The seas and waters have become cesspools and we witness sea life growing sick and dying. Countless numbers of beautiful species have lost their habitat and existence due to the unquenchable lusts of man. In their desire to have higher and higher abodes we see man attempting to find places among the stars in order to expand their ability to look down upon all.

As wanton as has been our destructiveness upon all the beautiful, glorious and good which Heavenly Father and His Son shaped upon this Earth, we seem to have saved our most wanton destructive activities with scenes of horror which depict man’s lack of reverence for the sanctity of the lives of our Heavenly Parents’ children, which They have declared to be Their crowning creations. These scenes of violence upon Their children now fill volumes, nay, now fill shelves of volumes, nay, now fill countless libraries containing shelves filled with volumes of our unholy acts upon one another.

We view scenes of huts and hovels being plowed under so that masters can expand crops and build mansions. Volumes tell of tear-bringing accounts as scenes are written about adults and children who have learned the demeaning art of bullying brothers and sisters. Shelves are filled with volumes which are filled with scenes of man’s expanding ability to eradicate more and more brothers and sisters with powerful destructive devastating efficiency. We continue to build spacious library buildings in order to give storage place to house the shelves, which hold the volumes, which give explicit details of scenes of man’s seemingly unending inhumanity to This Beautiful world and the children of Heavenly Parents who inhabit it.

The supreme scene of man’s utter disrespect for the Beautiful, Glorious and Good Earth Heavenly Father and His Son so carefully molded as a habitation for our Heavenly Parents’ children’s to abide during their mortal experience is spoken of in many passages of scripture, but the verses which stimulated this Thought for this Sabbath Day is found in First Nephi 19: 7-9.

For the things which some men esteem to be of great worth, both to the body and soul, others set at naught and trample under their feet. Yea, even the very God of Israel do men trample under their feet; I say, trample under their feet but I would speak in other words—they set him at naught, and hearken not to the voice of his counsels. And behold he cometh, according to the words of the angel, in six hundred years from the time my father left Jerusalem. And the world, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be a thing of naught; wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it; and they smite him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering towards the children of men.

We not only have shown our irreverence for the plants, animals and one another, but we even fail to withhold our crudeness from our very Savior and Redeemer.

That Most Perfect Being of all who would come to earth to dwell,

He who is full of grace and love,

He who suffered that His brothers and sisters need not,

He who brought salvation to all,

He who we testify is Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Those who have even faint desires to be Publishers of Peace have always been, are and always will be needed to put forth their efforts to stem the ugliness of the dysfunctional acts we demonstrate to each other.

We need to be voices against discord and promote understanding.

We need to share words which edify and build rather than demean and destroy.

We need to bear witness that that which God formed is beautiful.

We need to bear witness that that which God formed is glorious.

We need to bear witness that that which God formed is good.

I have a strong testimony that in spite of our capacity to turn the beautiful, glorious and good works of God into trash, we likewise have the capacity to publish words of peace which declare and amplify the beauty, glory and goodness of all He has framed.

I end this Thought with an admonition to myself, but which I am also willing to share with you, that we never yield to anyone the power to make us think we are anything but beautiful, glorious and good spirit brothers and sisters, offspring of Heavenly Parents and most especially, I pray, we will strive to deny them the power to in any way make us believe that any of us are trash.


THOUGHTS FOR A SABBATH DAY – WILLIAM L. RILEY

EDITED BY – KATHLEEN W. RILEY