With the onset of a new year, there are many things to ponder, many goals to set. What will I do this year? What will I become? Will life prove different, or remain much the same? What change is desirable? Some people desire physical or emotional changes. Others want financial changes, or changes in love and romance. And perhaps even a small few seek spiritual changes, a change of heart if you will. So as I enter the new year, I wonder to myself: what is it that I seek? Or perhaps, for me, the better question is: Whom do I seek? And I know what the answer is. It's quite simple, actually, what I want out of this coming year. I don't care if I lose that extra five pounds. I'm not giving up treats, or buying a gym membership I'll never use. I don't need millions of dollars or a burning romance. But I do need a relationship--one with my Savior, Jesus Christ. I need to know Him more fully, understand his life and words better, and be a better friend to Him. Elder Jeffery R. Holland, of the quorum of the twelve apostles, wrote a recent talk entitled: None Were With Him that summarizes my real desire for the coming year. I will include some excerpts of the talk here:
"I speak of the loneliest journey ever made and the unending blessings it brought to all in the human family. I speak of the Savior’s solitary task of shouldering alone the burden of our salvation. Rightly He would say: “I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me. … I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold [me].”
One of the great consolations of this Easter season is that because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so. His solitary journey brought great company for our little version of that path—the merciful care of our Father in Heaven, the unfailing companionship of this Beloved Son, the consummate gift of the Holy Ghost, angels in heaven, family members on both sides of the veil, prophets and apostles, teachers, leaders, friends. All of these and more have been given as companions for our mortal journey because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the Restoration of His gospel. Trumpeted from the summit of Calvary is the truth that we will never be left alone nor unaided, even if sometimes we may feel that we are. Truly the Redeemer of us all said: “I will not leave you comfortless: [My Father and] I will come to you [and abide with you].”
My plea at this Easter time is that [the] scenes of Christ’s lonely sacrifice, laced with moments of denial and abandonment and, at least once, outright betrayal, must never be reenacted by us. He has walked alone once. Now, may I ask that [He] never again will. As we approach this holy week—Passover Thursday with its Paschal Lamb, atoning Friday with its cross, resurrection Sunday with its empty tomb—may we declare ourselves to be more fully disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, not in word only and not only in the flush of comfortable times, but in deed and in courage and in faith, including when the path is lonely and when our cross is difficult to bear. This Easter week and always, may we stand by Jesus Christ “at all times and in all things, and in all places that [we] may be in, even until death,” for surely that is how He stood by us, when it was unto death, and when He had to stand entirely and utterly alone."
May I always be worthy to stand and walk with Him--that is what I seek this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment