The Rock of Our Redeemer

It's been a long time since I've posted on this blog; not from lack of desire, but rather, lack of time. I just read Elder Wilford W. Anderson's talk titled "The Rock of Our Redeemer". It teaches so beautifully, what I learned just a few years ago while passing through one of my life's great challenges-- Hope.

Here are my favorite excerpts:

• "The true source of hope is faith- faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and in His infinite Atonement.
• "Hope and happiness and joy are not products of circumstance, but of faith in the Lord."
• "Hope comes from faith in Jesus Christ."
• "If we would build our hope, we must build our faith."
• "True faith requires work" (i.e. keeping the commandments, repenting, & following the Savior)

See the common thread? If we want hope we must focus on exercising active faith in our Savior.

Here's the line that says it all for me:
". . .through the atonement everything will be all right."

That's the great lesson that I learned a couple of years ago. I can go through any hard trial God wills me to pass through. No matter what, I will be alright because of the atonement of Jesus Christ. There are no promises regarding how or when all will be made right, but it will, eventually all be made right. Once I learned that great lesson, my fear melted.

Here's how Elder Andersen puts it: ". . .we begin to grow in confidence that through the Atonement everything will be all right. Those feelings are confirmed by the Holy Ghost, who drives from us what our pioneer mother and fathers called "our useless cares." In spite of our trials, we are filled with a sense of well-being and feel to sing with them that indeed "all is well".

That thought reminds me of this line from Elder Uchdorf's talk, "Continue in Patience", also from the April 2010 General Conference, ". . .sometimes it is in the waiting rather than in the receiving that we grow the most." God lets us go through very difficult things, because he knows we are most teachable when we are at our extremities. But, there is the promise that He will make it all well and sustain us through our difficult moments.

I love this verse:
" And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall." Helaman 5:12