This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Priesthood Session of the October 1994 Conference.
In this session, President Hinckley gave a characteristically bracing talk called "Don't drop the ball." I thought this quote from it was great:
The whole design of the gospel is to lead us onward and upward to greater achievement; even, eventually, to godhood. This great possibility was enunciated by the Prophet Joseph Smith in the King Follet sermon.…It is this grand and incomparable concept: As God now is, man may become!Our enemies have criticized us for believing in this. Our reply is that this lofty concept in no way diminishes God the Eternal Father. He is the Almighty. He is the Creator and Governor of the universe. He is the greatest of all and will always be so. But just as any earthly father wishes for his sons and daughters every success in life, so I believe our Father in Heaven wishes for his children that they might approach him in stature and stand beside him resplendent in godly strength and wisdom.
I think often about the fact that being a parent is…probably…mostly intended for the parent's benefit. There are just so many things we (I) do wrong with our children. And then they grow up so soon and make their own choices. But the concepts that have become real to MY mind, on this journey of having and raising children, are things I couldn't have understood any other way.
One of those concepts is just how deeply you can wish for someone else's happiness once you've spent years of your life teaching and loving that person. If I'd heard this quote when I was eight or thirteen or eighteen, I would have thought, "okay, yeah yeah, God wants us to be like Him." But I wouldn't have understood how that wish—that your children find happiness in righteousness—could consume you and become ALL you truly want; the greatest gift you could have.
It's kind of unbelievable to think that just any old regular parent could have feelings comparable to those of a perfect, ultimate, all-powerful parent. But I do. In this instance, I do. God wants Godhood for His children, and I want it for my children too! I think I even understand why he wants it…though I don't know if it's a feeling I can put into words. It's love, of course. But it has all these other things woven into it…belief, hope, vision. I can only imagine how much stronger God's feelings are for us, having been our Father and known us and served us for eternities longer than I've been a mother to my own children!
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