"...and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces: and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it.
And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation." -Isaiah 25:8-9 (KJV)
"No waters can swallow the ship where lies the Master of ocean and earth and skies" -Hymns, No. 105
Let's take a trip back in time, to Friday night, before the whole movie debacle, but after I'm hanging out with friends. We take a walk. Somehow, we get talking about the state of the world, and it just gets dark and scary and ooky for a while. Finally, one friend has had enough. She just doesn't want to think about it any more, and rightfully so. We get back to her place, and the mood is still dark and she doesn't like it. So, being the nice guy I am, I try to fix it. "What can I turn the conversation to that will be happy?" I wonder to myself. And then I blurt, "If you could be any mythical creature, what would you be?"
We have a relatively long and inconsequential conversation on the subject. There's some laughter. It works out ok, I guess.
Flash forward to this morning. I'm eating my breakfast-I have the day off, and I'm excited that I get to go help a friend who's getting a house ready to move into (I got to use a nail gun...need I say more?), so I decide to start on my study as I eat. I like to start off with a little something from the Ensign, because it's generally straightforward, very applicable, and easy to understand-it's like a spiritual warmup for the heavier stuff (like Alma 13) I'll be reading later on in the scriptures. I pick the first article with a title that sticks out to me, "Facing the Future with Hope". And it has a couple paragraphs that address this very concern-the feeling from Friday night:
One of today’s great challenges is learning to conquer fear and despair
in order to overcome trials and temptations. It takes only a few moments
for us to open a newspaper, scroll the web, or hear a news broadcast on
radio or television to be confronted with distressing accounts of crime
and natural calamities that happen every day.
Understanding the promises in scripture concerning how the Lord will
conquer evil and how truth will conquer error can help us face the
future with hope and optimism -Elder José A. Teixeira, Ensign, July 2012, "Facing the Future with Hope" (pp 15-17)
As I read those words, I begin to see in my mind a different way-a better way-of dealing with the darkness of the other night. I begin to remember scriptures I've called upon before, in times of trial and fear, for the strength to go on. Two, in particular, favorites discovered on the mission, stick out to me, and I wish that I'd shared them that night. Both say essentially the same thing-that in the day of His Second Coming, Christ will wipe away the tears of those that have waited for Him. They will be His people, and He will be their God (see Isaiah 25, and Revelation 17).
How would that conversation have gone differently if I'd confronted the darkness in the world with the hope presented by the Light of the World? I'm not really sure. But I'd like to find out. The interesting part for me about this whole thing is this-as we discussed the darkness, it only got worse. Sure, each of us felt we should do something, but what can one person possibly do against the onslaught that looms? How can one person hope to make a difference against that? And then as I read the scriptures this morning, and pondered what they said, I knew. Sure, I'm only one guy, and maybe my stand against the darkness of the world will be insignificant. But someone else out there wishing they could do something may just see it, and make a decision to do the same. According to another article I read in the Ensign yesterday, "Anytime we live a principle of the gospel more fully, someone else is blessed either directly or indirectly." (Russell T. Osguthorpe, "The Lesson is in the Learner" pp 30-33).
Besides, when any man worthily stands against the darkness, whether he realizes it or not, I firmly believe he stands with the Lord, the God and Rock of Israel at his back. It's possible we still will be rejected, hurt, maybe even made to cry, but in the end, when that day of reckoning comes, those who stood in spite of the temptation to despair, whose hope in Christ was stronger than their fear of failing, will find every tear wiped away in the joy of their Redeemer's love. But the best news of all is that we don't even have to wait for that...As I read the words about the Lord wiping tears from the faces of the faithful, I couldn't help but think of Alma's words: that He suffered " pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind... that the word might be fulfilled which saith he [took] upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people." (Alma 7:11). The fact is, He's already wiping tears from off the faces of His people; He already is their God, and they His people. And He invites every one of us to come in, and be part of that-to come to Him and be healed.
Once, on my mission, just after a leader I had greatly admired had been transferred away, I found a note he had cleverly secreted in my suit pocket during a companion exchange. On it? A scripture reference that I suppose sums up the way we have to deal with darkness and despair:
"What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?" - Romans 8:31
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