The Personal Atonement

I wrote the following poem one day as I pondered on the Great Atonement made on our behalf by our Savior, even Jesus Christ. I hope that we can all reflect on our personal relationship with our Savior, and that we can come to a realization of the great opportunity we can have, if we but lean on Him.

So We Can Be Made Clean

I oftentimes wonder what Christ has done for me.

I stop and think of who I am and it’s easy to see;

For in speech I am not mighty, and I’m really not too strong,

And though I sing with all my heart, not pretty is my song.

But Christ has suffered just for me to get me thru my day;

For when I share His glorious word, He tells me what to say.

His friendship, it is perfect, and it is on Him I lean;

For Christ has suffered pain and guilt, so I can be made clean.

I oftentimes wonder what Christ has done for me.

I stop and think of the things I’ve done and it’s easy to see;

For sins I have committed, ones that make me feel real shame.

And at times I’ve treated this precious life as some sort of game.

But Christ has suffered just for me to allow me to return

Back to His precious fold and thru it all I learn

His sacrifice was perfect, and thru it I can lean,

On He who suffered pain and guilt so I can be made clean.

I oftentimes am lonely like I have nowhere to turn

But there is one important thing that I have come to learn

We should never feel alone on Earth, for Christ is on our side

To Him we may pour out our hearts, in Him we may confide

For Christ has suffered for us all, that we might not do the same

And all he asks us in return is to remember His holy name.

His friendship, it is perfect, and it is on Him I lean

For Christ has suffered pain and guilt so we can be made clean

It’s hard to understand what Christ has done for me

And hard to comprehend how He loves me constantly

He took upon Him my own sins in the Garden Gethsemane

And was beaten, mocked, and spat upon all the way to Calvary

His flesh was pierced by rusted nails as he was placed upon the cross

The Spirit was removed from Him, a most terrible a loss

In love He did it for you and me, and on Him I gladly lean

For Christ has suffered pain and death so we can be made clean.

Now oftentimes I ponder on the blessings in my life

I think about my trials and all the pain and all the strife

With all the ups and downs, all the dips along the way

All of it is worth it, ‘cause He rose on that third day.

For Christ had suffered all for us, yet rose in life once more

Ensuring that one day we could reap the blessings sowed

He lives, it’s true! He lives today! And so we may ever lean

On He who suffered, died, and lived so we can be made clean.

"Oh Sweet, the Joy this Sentence Gives"

Two years ago, during a Stake Conference in my home stake, we were blessed by the visit of Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. In the spirit the Easter Sunday that it was, he shared a powerful testimony of the reality of Jesus Christ; the truth of His divinity, and the power of His Atonement. I was blessed to be up on the same stand as him, as I took part in the choir. As the meeting was coming to a close, we as a choir stood to sing the closing number, the great LDS hymn, I Know That My Redeemer Lives. As the music began, the director mouthed the following words:

"Bear your testimony with your singing."

I took special note of the words I was singing, and the spirit testified so strongly to me of their truth that I had to stop singing, as tears streamed down my face. The words of the hymn struck me with a concentrated power. In the spirit of the upcoming Easter holiday, I would like to make special note here of certain lyrics--just a few--from this most beautiful hymn that struck me that day, and which have influenced my actions ever since.


He lives to bless me with his love.
He lives to plead for me above...

Have we stopped to consider how great a blessing we have to have a God that will love us no matter what? Have we taken a moment or two from our busy days to think of His suffering, to ponder His sacrifice, to be grateful for His love? I know that I often fall short of the covenant that I renew on a weekly basis to always remember Him, to keep His commandments, and to take upon me His name. What is most remarkable, however, is that no matter what I do (or don't do), His love is constant. I could forget about Him for a day, a week, for years, even, and He will be ever mindful of me. Why is that? What have I done to deserve such a blessing? Nothing. I have done nothing.

He has done everything. 

It was that sacrifice in the Garden, His endurance on the road to Calvary and on the cross there, even His triumphant return from the world of spirits in a perfected body which have allowed me the opportunity to overcome my sins and my ignorance, my laziness and my neglect. And so it is with all of us. All He really asks is that we do the little things: study our scriptures, go to church, attend the temple, pray. 

As I have pondered the concept and manner in which we have been asked to pray, in particular--directed to our Heavenly in the name of a Living Christ--I have come to the conclusion that there is something special going on there; a connection between us and Christ that we can easily miss out on if we don't take prayer seriously. I think of His famous intercessory prayer, recorded by John the Beloved. He said, "I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world...I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me...Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are" (John 17:6,9,11). In that holy moment He prayed for His disciples. Are we not also His disciples? When I feel burdened with particularly heavy burdens, such as sin or trials, I cannot help but feel that even as I cry in prayer to my Heavenly Father in His Holy Son's name, that that very Son--Our Savior and Our Brother--is kneeling right beside me, with His arm around me, guiding my words, and giving me comfort. Surely He lives to plead for us all above.

He lives to calm my trouble heart.
He lives all blessings to impart...

It was the Prophet Joseph whose complaints and questions to the Lord in the midst of incredible persecution led the Living Lord to say the following: "If the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good. The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?" (D&C 122:7-8). It was that same Lord, who, during His ministry, said the following to His disciples: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek, and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30). The Christ lives to allow us an intimate friend in our most trying moments. Such moments, as He pointed out to Joseph, are for our good, but that doesn't make them easy. If we can go to Him in the midst of such trials, He will give rest to our souls.

Indeed, those same sufferings and trials, included in His Atonement, allow us not only the capacity to grow in this life, but the potential to become perfect in the life to come. Bruce C. Hafen said:

Here we will see that the Lord's grace, unlocked by the Atonement, can perfect our imperfections....While much of the perfection process involves a cleansing from the contamination of sin and bitterness, there is an additional, affirmative dimension through which we acquire a Christlike nature, becoming perfect even as the Father and Son are perfect. The Savior's victory can compensate not only for our sins but also for our inadequacies; not only for our deliberate mistakes but also for our sins committed in ignorance, our errors of judgment, and our unavoidable imperfections. Our ultimate aspiration is more than being forgiven of sin--we seek to become holy, endowed affirmatively with Christlike attributes, at one with him, like him. Divine grace is the only source that can finally fulfill that aspiration.

Such a blessing is the greatest blessing that He and Our Father can impart, and the one which They labor incessantly to grant us.

He lives all glory to his name.
He lives, my Savior still the same.
Oh sweet, the joy this sentence gives.
I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVES."

There is nothing that I am more grateful for in this life than the knowledge that I have that our Savior lives. It is this knowledge that we have which should drive us to desire to be disciples after His same demeanor--faithful, hopeful, loving. "And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work. Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence" (D&C 4:5-6). It is this knowledge which make writer Samuel Medley's words so powerful to me, and especially on that Easter Sunday with Elder Ballard. Oh sweet, the joy this sentence gives. I know that my Redeemer lives!"

To believe that Christ lives is to believe that He physically manifests Himself in order to ensure the correct direction of His kingdom here on Earth. This He does today. He did it in times of old. He did it even as He called the Prophet Joseph Smith, who said of it all, "And now after the many testimonies which have been given, this is the testimony, last of all, that we give of him: That he lives! For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father--that by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God" (D&C 76:22-24).

I second the Prophet's testimony here. He lives.

And oh, how sweet that is.

Trials and Miracles

"The beautiful thing about the concept of miracles is that even if we don't get exactly what we wanted or exactly what we expected, if we have the faith and the Christ-like mindset of 'Thy will be done,' we won't come away empty-handed. We'll walk away with the satisfaction and peace that we now know the will of God for us."


Naaman and Elisha
The Book of Second Kings in the Old Testament recounts the story of Naaman, an army commander, who was given a challenging trial, indeed. He contracted the highly contagious and deadly disease of leprosy. One of his wife's servants was a Jew. She knew of the prophets. She knew that Elisha was in Samaria, not too far from where they were. She suggested he make the trip to see the prophet to be healed. He accepted.

Arriving at the dwelling of the prophet, his situation was explained, and a command was given:

Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be healed. 

If you know anything about the River Jordan, you know that it is not at all clean. In fact, it is quite muddy and dirty. And so Naaman's reaction to this counsel is quite understandable. He didn't like it. He wanted the prophet to come out and heal him and get it over with. And since that didn't happen, he was ready to turn back home and live with his trial. But his wise servants said the following:

If the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou have done it? How much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean? Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. 
(2 Kings 5:13-14)

I love the imagery given, that his flesh was like that of a little child's. In truth his flesh was not the only thing that became as a little child's. His heart became so also. Even though he thought the suggestion was silly and overly simple, he followed it and was healed.


My Experience with "Silly" Counsel
Anyone who knows me knows that I am a really skinny guy. Almost painfully so. I always have been. When I was little I was always bothered by a sort of bulge of my ribcage on my left side, which was caused by slight scoliosis. When I got to the MTC, I read the story of Naaman and I thought, Might there be a way that I can get rid of this annoying bulge? Maybe a Naaman-type experience? And so I prayed. The impression I got was too random to have come from my own imagination; I felt that I needed to do two things:

1) I needed to run a mile every day in the allotted gym time and 2) I needed to stop drinking soda. Obviously those two things have very little if anything to do with bone structure, and yet I accepted it as a commandment. If the [Spirit] had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou have done it?...

For the two months I spent in the MTC I ran a mile every day. I absolutely hate running long distances, so this was a challenge, especially being in higher altitude than I was accustomed to. I stopped drinking soda during meals, and instead drank juice and water. At the end of my time in the MTC, I suddenly noticed that the bulge that had bothered me my entire life was gone. I realized that during that time I hadn't checked to see if the bulge remained; it was as if a stupor of thought made me forget to check so that the experience would have more power. I don't know if something about running helped with my posture, and I certainly don't know what not drinking soda had to do with anything, but I know that what happened to me was not an invention of my own making. It was a miracle wrought from a humble prayer of a naive new missionary.


Trials and Miracles
Many of us tend to have this perception of miracles as only being these elaborate supernatural occurrences, these awe-inspiring feats of extraordinary divine intervention: Moses parting the Red Sea, Christ raising Lazarus from the dead, Peter and John healing the lame man at the steps of the temple. Certainly these events were not natural as we would define it. But they were (and are) to God. In our personal lives, it is our faith which allows us to see those little miracles, like the one I had. That I know longer had a little bulge of my ribs may not seem to you very significant, but to me it was huge. That bulge represented all of the anxieties and self-consciousness that I had always had over my weak physical stature, and so to see it gone was a sign to me that the Lord was aware of those anxieties, and was willing to help me overcome them. So it is with these little personal miracles-- these tender mercies. They are personal manifestations of our Heavenly Father's ultimate love and perfect awareness of our situations.

A lot of times, however--as it was with Naaman--we fail to remember two important things in regards to this concept of personal miracles. 1) "By small and simple means are great things brought to pass." Ours is a God of simplicity. If He sees fit to perform a miracle in our lives, He will do it. He will more than likely ask something of us, but it will never be something complicated or impossible. Wash seven times in a dirty river. Run a mile every day. Stop drinking soda. Do we realize just how simple these things that the Lord asks us to do are? Give up just 10% of what you earn. Refrain from certain substances. (Note: Just because they're simple, obviously doesn't make them easy, per se, but certainly doable.) 2) He loves us. Consider this scripture from the apostle Paul:

My [child], despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son [or daughter] whom he receiveth....Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. 
(Hebrews 12:5-6,11)

It is a perfect understanding of what it takes to grow into a perfected being that motivates our loving Heavenly Father to give us trials. Some lose family members. Others have to overcome terrible and painful diseases. Still others struggle through intense financial struggles. But just as the same God told the prophet Joseph Smith as he questioned his own trials and those of the early Saints,

If the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for they good. The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?
(D&C 122:7-8)

(Watch this Mormon Message for more on how trials help us grow)

The miracles which are associated with our humble pleas to overcome these intense struggles become the foundation of our eternal relationship with our Heavenly Father. He knows us perfectly. We barely know Him. But when we pass through our own personal Gethsemane's, and feel the love that comes from the manifestations of our fervent prayers to Him, we come to know Him. We start to develop a deep, personal relationship with He who created us. The beautiful thing about the concept of miracles is that even if we don't get exactly what we wanted or exactly what we expected, if we have the faith and the Christ-like mindset of "Thy will be done," we won't come away empty-handed. We'll walk away with the satisfaction and peace that we now know the will of God for us. And of course, a perfect knowledge that He loves us. 

In closing let me share the words of the prophet Moroni, which he gave in prophetic, visionary "response" to the criticisms of modern-day miracles:

"The reason why he ceaseth to do miracles among the children of men is because that they dwindle in unbelief, and depart from the right way, and know not the God in whom they should trust. Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth."
(Mormon 9:20-21)