Friday, January 7, 2011

Oh the joy

I've been thinking a lot about happiness and joy. It is interesting to think that we are that we might have joy. Sometimes I meet people and it seems that their sole purpose in life is to make themselves and others unhappy. I also think that the way we find this out is placed in an interesting spot in the scriptures. As we are finding out about opposition and the fall, we learn that we are that we might have joy. Something that I am sure most people could quote per batum but not really understand. Because right after we learn what brings happiness and joy.
If it wasn't for the Atonement then we would be and are lost.
The Atonement is a more complex principle than I believe that we realize. It covers things that we cannot begin to wrap our minds around and I feel that the least of which is sin. Sin is serious, but if you think about it much more easily cured than other things. The Savior himself said (granted it was Him, but still), "Wherefore is it easier to say thy sins be forgiven thee or arise and walk?" I used to think that if I was judged for having a bad thought about someone I might as well say it. True that the actual sin itself is the same. The effects, however, are not.
If I think something hurtful it is easily repaired between God and me. If I say it and it hurts the person, on a deeply spiritual level or not, there is more to be considered than previous. That is the Atonement. It covers that vast expanse that we cannot begin to imagine. It heals the hurt and the sorrow, the bitterness of Hell and the pain of Eternity. 
I think that part of true joy is realizing that there is no lasting sorrow.
That is why we can be taught about the Atonement right after we are taught about oppostion, the fall, agency, all of the things that bring temporary sorrow into the world, Then we are taught the true eternal nature of our test in mortality. To have Joy. To exercise enough faith in the Power of the Atonement that even though things are hard there is no lasting sorrow. I find very few things that are in life to be sad about and the main reason is that it doesn't last. It is worse than putting money in a bank with a bottomless pit. 
It will never last. If you build up a life around feeling sorry for yourself and being miserable you will have nothing left at the end, because there is no sorrow in the Realms of Eternal Glory. Everything is paid for by the Savior. There is no sorrow that we can feel that He has not felt, no pain that He has not endured in the the fullness of it, and at the lowest point of His life. He owns those things. "Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me..." Are we keeping things that don't belong to us?

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