The story goes that a certain court jester one day went too far and insulted his king. Infuriated, the king sentenced the jester: Execution! Bewildered, the king’s court pleaded mercy for this man who had served him well for so many years. After a time, the king relented only enough to give the jester his “choice” as to how he would like to die. True to form, the jester replied, “if it’s all the same to you my Lord, I’d like to die of old age.”
Years following his mission of “Other Side of Heaven” fame, Elder John H. Groberg, as a general authority, was asked to hold two stake conferences in Lima, Peru. His wife accompanied him and the flights from Salt Lake to Lima had gone well and the plane landed in Lima on schedule. Elder Groberg related:
. . . when we pulled up to the gate and prepared to disembark, strange
delays began to happen.
First, it took an unusually long time to get the paperwork done before the plane’s door opened and we could exit. Then, in the hall to the Immigration checkpoint, one of the doors was locked. The entire group of passengers had another long wait until an officer came and opened the door. By the time we got to Immigration, two other international flights had disembarked and the lines were very long. We were tired and wondered what else could go wrong. Sure enough, there was another delay as our bags were literally the last ones off the conveyor belt. When we eventually got through Immigration and Customs it was close to midnight.
Finally, with bags in hand, we entered the congested waiting area where, despite the late hour, hundreds of people were milling around – greeting travelers, offering taxis and hotels or selling various items. We were met by a member of the Area Presidency and his wife who had been patiently waiting for us. Just as we crossed the crowded street and were melding into the throngs of humanity and cars, we hard the plaintive call: ‘Kolipoki! Kolipoki!’ The last thing I thought I would hear in Lima, Peru, at midnight was someone calling my Tongan name! Yet there it was, clearly, ‘Kolipoki!’ We turned around in amazement and saw a woman coming up to us, all out of breath from pushing her luggage cart, trying not to lose sight of us. ‘Kolipoki, Kolipoki, ’ofa o tokoni mai!’ (Elder Grober, Elder Groberg, please help me!) I responded, ‘Ue! Koe ha ’oku ke fai i heni?’ (Wow, What are you doing here?)
It turned out that a little earlier that evening this faithful Tongan sister had arrived in Lima. She had come to meet her daughter at the conclusion of her mission in Peru. The daughter had made arrangements with the mission president to fly from her last area in Cuzco so as to arrive in Lima about the same time as her mother’s plane did. Something went wrong, and mother and daughter had missed each other. The mother didn’t speak any Spanish and precious little English, but finally made it through Immigration and Customs. As she entered the passenger waiting area, she was pressed on every side by the mobs of people. She looked and looked but could not see her daughter. She kept asking where her daughter might be, but no one seemed to understand or even care; they just wanted to sell her something or get her
in a taxi. To all these requests she simply said, ’No,’ as she knew she must stay there to find her daughter.
She was worried, but with fervent faith she found a small corner, bowed her head, and prayed and prayed and prayed. She knew the Lord would help her. During the prayer she felt a sudden impression like a voice that said, ‘Open your eyes now!’ She obeyed, and lo and behold, passing a little way in front of her she saw Kolipoki! Upon hearing her story, we were able to contact the mission president by cell phone, and before long mother and daughter were safely together and on their way to a missionary apartment.
What are are the odds of such a thing happening on its own? There were millions of people in Peru, and probably no more than three or four who could speak Tongan. A faithful Tongan woman arrives in Lima, finds that she has a problem, prays in faith, listens, opens her eyes, and sees someone she knows who speaks Tongan and can help her!” (John H. Groberg, Anytime, Anywhere p. 86-88)
Wow. Think about that for a minute. Does that not demonstrate the tender mercies of a loving Father in Heaven?
From the very beginning of the Book of Mormon, Nephi is clear that one of his themes for reasons for writing on these metal plates is to document proof of “the tender mercies of the Lord”.
We read in 1 Ne. 1:20, “But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance.”
And in a divinely inspired concluding fashion, at the end of the Book of Mormon, Moroni hearkens back to Nephi’s theme about remembering the mercies of God:
“Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.” (Moroni 10:3)
Elder David A. Bednar taught,
“The Lord’s tender mercies are the very personal and individualized blessings, strength, protection, assurances, guidance, loving-kindnesses, consolation, support, and spiritual gifts which we receive from and because of and through the Lord Jesus Christ. Truly, the Lord suits ‘his mercies according to the conditions of the children of men’ (D&C 46:15)”
When we take the sacrament we have the opportunity to remember and think of Jesus. I used to try to think of the stories of Jesus and his miracles written in the Gospels during the sacrament. Relatively recently though, I’ve come to believe that the most important things we can remember and think on about Christ during the sacrament are the stories of Jesus in our own lives–the fingerprints of the tender mercies of God specifically for us.
When Alma shares the story of his conversion with his son Helaman in Alma chapter
36, he urges him first,
“I would that ye should do as I have done, in remembering the captivity of our fathers; for they were in bondage, and none could deliver them except it was the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he surely did deliver them in their afflictions.” (Alma 36:2)
Alma is exhorting Helaman to remember the tender mercies of the Lord in his life and the lives of his ancestors. Do you have specific tender mercies that you remember? Are there time’s when you can look back and recognize God’s hand guiding, delivering or sustaining you in His tender, merciful way? What about coincidences in your life? I’ve always felt that coincidence is when God chooses to remain anonymous. I’d like you to think and remember time’s when you’ve felt God’s coincidences or tender mercies in your life.
Recognizing the Lord’s tender mercies requires that we see with spiritual eyes, hear with spiritual ears, and understand with our hearts.
“Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember? (Mark 8:18)”
Sin can obscure our ability to see and hear with our spiritual senses and understand
with our hearts.
“For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. “(Matt. 13:15)
Repent and change for the better and we’ll be better able to recognize tender mercies in our lives.
I’d like to share two quick stories that show my Heavenly Parents’ tender mercies in my life.
When my son, was 18 months old or so, my wife was pregnant with my youngest daughter. Wanting to get away from the house with the kids, and it being a beautiful Cleveland summer day, she had taken the kids to Fairport Harbor to spend a day at the beach. I was unable to go because of work. The two older kids were playing on the playground at the top of the beach, the 18 month old was contentedly playing in the sand maybe 25 yards away near some other mothers and youngsters in the ward.
My wife went up to the top of the beach to throw some garbage away in preparation for returning back home. On turning around, she sees our son making a b-line as fast as his little feet can carry him toward the water. She immediately screamed his name and took off run-waddling down the beach as fast as her pregnant feet could carry her. No one else in the group had noticed the little boy booking for the water. Halfway down the beach, my wife knew that he would trip in the water and fall head first into it. Uttering mental prayers that as soon as she’d reach him and pull him out, he’d breathe. My wife said it was the longest 5-8 seconds of her life as she saw him trip, fall head first into the water and assume the dead-man’s floating pose. Sure enough, as soon as she pulled him out of the water, he gasped, breathed, let out a couple cries and then was fine. This was a tender mercy in our lives–that my wife saw him and knew immediately what would happen, that she was able to reach him quickly, and that he hadn’t ingested any water and all was well.
Elder Bednar taught, “Faithfulness, obedience, and humility invite tender mercies into our lives, and it is often the Lord’s timing that enables us to recognize and treasure these important blessings.”
When I graduated with my PhD it was 2010 and the economy was still reeling from the 2008 financial collapse. I was having difficulty finding job opportunities in industry. My life plan had me working in the neurostimulation division of Medtronic, living in Minneapolis. But that wasn’t happening. All I’d been able to secure were opportunities as a post-doc either in Pasadena, California, Seattle Washington, or at the Cleveland Clinic. My wife and I sat down and did the whole pros-cons columns exercise and prayed over what we should do. And we waited for inspiration. And we waited. And then, with inspiration still not received, we made a decision best we could, largely based on what we thought best. Up to this point, our “Life Plan” had worked out – I’d gotten in to BYU and the U of U’s Biomedical Engineering PhD program while my wife completed her Master’s at BYU. But now, I didn’t really want to do a post-doc–-I had no desire to be a professor and work in academia which is typically the route or reason for doing a post-doctoral fellowship. I remember we visited the Historic Kirtland Visitor’s Center relatively soon after we’d moved to Cleveland. On one of the walls was the scripture from D&C 38:82, ”ye should go to the Ohio; and there I will give unto you my law; and there you shall be endowed with power from on high;” At that moment, the Spirit confirmed to my wife and I that “this is the right place.” And since then we’ve felt the Spirit guide us to our home where we now live. God answered our prayers and this became a testimony of His love for us and a proof of His tender mercy in our lives. As in this experience of mine, the Holy Ghost helps us to recognize and treasure tender mercies as important blessings.
Indeed, Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness and salvation has also been called the “Plan of Mercy.”
We read in Alma 42:15 “And now, the plan of mercy could not be brought about except an atonement should be made; therefore God himself atoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice, that God might be a perfect, just God, and a merciful God also.”
Many times we are reminded that God’s work and glory is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. However, we seldom hear quoted the scripture that speaks of what our work is . . . . In D&C 11:20 it teaches, “Behold, this is your work, to keep my commandments, yea with all your might, mind and strength.”
Is that an encouraging statement? Yes and no, right? Perhaps at times. We all come short of this though. Or perhaps we feel un-confident that we aren’t giving our entire might, mind, or strength to keeping those commandments. The gap between fulfilling that statement and where we are can sometimes be daunting or discouraging. And in those moments we need to remember the Lord’s mercy – that He’s designed the perfect answer to our perpetual shortcomings–repentance. Repentance is about change. Heavenly Father’s plan is about change. It’s about transformation. About changing or transforming us from fallen men and women, to Celestial ones. And it only works because of the atonement of Christ. The gap is filled, not because of all we can do or because of our efforts, but that through our efforts of repentance we can gain access to the unbounding and enabling grace of Christ to change and become better than who we could have ever hoped to be without repenting. We all are in need of making changes. Some of us may have large changes that we need to make, or perhaps we are in the middle of trying to make those changes. With others, perhaps we are as yet unaware of the changes that we need to make. Yet, I believe that the tender mercies of the Lord will put us in a position to have the opportunity to learn what we need to in order to change to continually improve and progress towards Eternal Life. He won’t give up on us, nor should we ever give up on ourselves.
I love this quote from President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.,
“You know, I believe that the Lord will help us. I believe if we go to Him, He will give us wisdom, if we are living righteously. I believe He will answer our prayers. I believe that our Heavenly Father wants to save every one of His children. I do not think He intends to shut any of us off because of some slight transgression, some slight failure to observe some rule or regulation. There are the great elementals that we must observe, but He is not going to be captious about the lesser things. I believe that His juridical concept of his dealing with His could be expressed in this way: I believe that in His justice and mercy, He will give us the maximum reward for our acts, give us all that He can give, and in the reverse, I believe that He will impose upon us the minimum penalty which it is possible for Him to impose.”
And in a similar vein, Elder Holland taught,
“. . . surely the thing God enjoys most about being God is the thrill of being merciful, especially to those who don’t expect it and often feel they don’t deserve it.”
In conclusion, recently in a training meeting for new mission presidents Elder Holland related a story that demonstrates the mercy of God:
One night a young man from Southern Idaho stormed out of the house and set off to join an infamous motorcycle gang. He succeeded in that resolve and for 20 years became immersed in a culture “of temptations yielded to and degradations explored,” never contacting his parents, who feared that he was dead.
Eventually ending up in Southern California, he one day was sitting on the porch of a rented home when he saw two LDS missionaries making their way up the street.
“With a rush of memory and guilt, regret and rage, he despised the very sight of them,” Elder Holland recounted. “But he was safe, because he kept all visitors at bay by employing two Doberman Pinschers who viciously charged the gate every moment that anyone came near.” The dogs startled the missionaries as they passed by and continued on, “our man on the porch laughing at the lovely little drama he had just witnessed, wishing only that the gate hadn’t restrained his two dogs.”
Then, the two elders stopped, looked at each other, conversed a little, “likely said a silent prayer,” then turned around and approached the gate. “The Dobermans on cue charged the gate again, hit it, snarling, frothing, and then stopped in their tracks. They looked at the missionaries, dropped their heads, ambled back to the front steps and lay down.”
The man on the porch was speechless as the missionaries opened the gate, walked up the path and greeted him.
One of the elders said,“Are you from this part of California?”
The man said, “No. If you want to know, I’m from Pocatello, Idaho.”
There was a pause. “That’s interesting,” the elder said. “Do you know the [such-and-such] family in Pocatello?”
With a stunned look, the biker paused, and then, in very measured words, said, “Yeah, I know them. They are my parents.”
“Well, they’re my parents too,” the missionary said. “God has sent me to invite you to come home.”
The younger brother had been born after the older boy had left home. The elder brother did not even know of him.
“Mom and Dad have been praying for you every morning and night for 20 years,” the younger brother said. “They were not sure you were alive, but they knew if you were, that someday you would come back to us.”
The wayward son invited the two in, and they talked for the rest of the day and some of the night. He did return home, returned to Church activity and, in March 2015, was married and sealed in the Boise Idaho Temple.
Commenting on the account, Elder Holland said, “This is a story of the role of Almighty God, the Savior of the World, and the Holy Ghost involved in the work of the ministry to which we’ve been called. “The Holy Ghost prompted those parents to keep praying, to keep believing, to keep trusting. . . . The Holy Ghost inspired that rebellious boy to come to himself like the prodigal he was and to head for California.. . . The Holy Ghost influenced that younger son to serve a mission and be willing to accept a call to Southern California.. . .The Holy Ghost inspired one of my brethren in the Twelve, who was on the assignment desk that Friday, to trust his impression and assign that young man for service not a great distance from his native-born state. The Holy Ghost inspired that mission president to assign that young missionary to that district and that member unit. The Holy Ghost led those missionaries to that street, that day, that hour, with big brother sitting on the porch waiting, and, with Doberman Pinschers notwithstanding, the Holy Ghost prompted those to elders to stop, talk and in spite of their fear, to go back and present their message.. . .
“And, through the elders, the Holy Ghost taught repentance and brought true conversion to one coming back into the fold.”
Elder Holland said the young elder, without realizing it, gave the missionary speech of all time, when he said to his brother, “God has sent me here to invite you to come home.” (http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865683974/The-divine-companionship-includes-the-Holy-Ghost-in-missionary-work-Elder-Holland-says.html)
God loves us. He sends us very personal and individualized blessings, protection, assurances, support, and spiritual gifts, because He is a merciful God who knows our circumstances, and the yearnings of our hearts and wants us to come back home to Him. Even when we do not recognize these tender mercies for what they are, He continues to send them. It is my prayer that we will do our work – to keep His commandments with all our might, mind, and strength– and when we inevitably fail to do so, that we will quickly humble ourselves and repent so that we might claim the mercy that God is so freely willing to give us if we but choose to do so. And then whether we die young or in our old age like the jester at the beginning of my remarks, we may be confident that we will stand before a much more Merciful King, our Father. I say this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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