If You Could Hie to Kolob

 LDS Hymn 284 is one of my favorites. During a memorial service I recently attended, all 5 verses were sung. I think the notation at the beginning of the hymn explaining how the hymn is to be sung is appropriate for both singing the hymn and even just reading the lyrics: “With contemplation”

If You Could Hie to Kolob

With contemplation

1. If you could hie to Kolob

In the twinkling of an eye,

And then continue onward

With that same speed to fly,

Do you think that you could ever,

Through all eternity,

Find out the generation

Where Gods began to be?

2. Or see the grand beginning,

Where space did not extend?

Or view the last creation,

Where Gods and matter end?

Methinks the Spirit whispers,

“No man has found ‘pure space,’

Nor seen the outside curtains,

Where nothing has a place.”

3. The works of God continue,

And worlds and lives abound;

Improvement and progression

Have one eternal round.

There is no end to matter;

There is no end to space;

There is no end to spirit;

There is no end to race.

4. There is no end to virtue;

There is no end to might;

There is no end to wisdom;

There is no end to light.

There is no end to union;

There is no end to youth;

There is no end to priesthood;

There is no end to truth.

5. There is no end to glory;

There is no end to love;

There is no end to being;

There is no death above.

There is no end to glory;

There is no end to love;

There is no end to being;

There is no death above.

Text: William W. Phelps, 1792–1872

https://youtu.be/7OdUBvB3Ots

All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience

 From a May 6, 2023 Facebook post.

Inspirational thought of the day for my friends who are experiencing hard things.

In a recent podcast, my neighbor Liz Watt talked about how difficult experiences can actually be blessings.

This got me thinking about what God told Joseph Smith while he was unjustly imprisoned in miserable circumstances in Missouri for several months during the cold winter of 1839 while fellow Saints (including some of my ancestors) in destitute condition were driven from the state in the middle of winter by a governor’s cruel extermination order. After enumerating a lengthy list of awful theoretical and real fates, the Lord told  Joseph…

“ …know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.” D&C 122:7

It would seem then that the purpose of mortality is NOT to experience fairness and always enjoy ease and comfort, but to be tested and have our character tried and tempered in the crucible of adversity. 

Difficult circumstances and needful opposition in all things provide valuable experiences and tutoring that can be achieved in no other way. 

If endured well with an eternal perspective, these difficult experiences from which we would prefer to be spared, will emerge in hindsight as blessings from a loving God that will sanctify and purify our souls, and through the Atonement and grace of Christ, help us become the kind of beings who, at the conclusion of our mortal probations, will be comfortable in the presence of Almighty God and fellow Saints who have also been willing to humbly submit to the will and wisdom of Him who knoweth all things, and to consecrate their whole souls to qualify to receive Eternal Life, the greatest of all the gifts of God.

So then…as the Lord counseled the Prophet Joseph…

“Therefore, hold on thy way…for God shall be with you forever and ever.”