Clearing Things Up: How a Pretty Cool Quote Got Even Cooler
"Our heavenly Father is more liberal in His views, and boundless in His mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive."
I was liberated by that teaching because it allowed me to challenge my perceptions and preconceptions, to open up to ideas I'd never given the time of day before, in short to look for truth outside of my usual intellectual stomping grounds and not feel guilty about it. After all, if I'm not ready to believe how liberal God's views are, then I'm probably seeing things too conservatively (note: I don't use the terms "liberal" and "conservative" in the political sense - this is not a political post).
But something bothered me about the quote, and I couldn't figure out what. Then I realized the problem: I had no context on it. So Sunday I looked it up in Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, (pg. 257) and this is what I found:
"Our heavenly Father is more liberal in His views, and boundless in His mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive; and, at the same time, is more terrible to the workers of iniquity, more awful in the executions of His punishments, and more ready to detect every false way, than we are apt to suppose Him to be. He will be inquired of by His children. He says, “Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find;” but, if you will take that which is not your own, or which I have not given you, you shall be rewarded according to your deeds; but no good thing will I withhold from them who walk uprightly before me, and do my will in all things—who will listen to my voice and to the voice of my servant whom I have sent; for I delight in those who seek diligently to know my precepts, and abide by the law of my kingdom; for all things shall be made known unto them in mine own due time, and in the end they shall have joy. (Aug. 27, 1842.) DHC 5:134-136.
That's the entire section from TPJS, from beginning to end. And that's also much better.
The problem was that on its own, the small excerpt seemed to give a little too much license to the seeker. It seemed to say: "Go for it! Search liberally! Try everything! Accept any crazy idea that comes along! What God doesn't like, he'll forgive, because you were just trying to find out if it was good anyway."
Well, there's some validity to that, as I see it. We do believe in seeking after anything "virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy" wherever it may be found. That injunction comes in the same breath with one of the most dangerous and difficult statements in all of scripture: "we believe all things." What a simple statement, but how hard to figure out for a religion with an "only true church" claim! But, that only supports my position that all truth is found in paradox.
Back to the topic, the larger quotation reins in the smaller. Yes, God is more liberal than we think. Yes, his ideas are much broader than we would accept. Yes, he is incomprehensibly merciful to those who stray. But, if we take it too far, our punishment will also be much harsher than we imagine, and we will be evaluated much more closely than we think for any sign of deviation from the right.
There's the balance. So what's the answer? As my old missionary friend, Elder Batson, used to say: "Ask, ask, ask." God "will be inquired of by His children." That means that he wants us to ask him. The term "will" is used here to indicate intent, not inevitability. God's desire is for us to ask him how to live. Anything we accept that he has not given us is "not [our] own," so our obligation before accepting any principle is to inquire whether it be of God. We are promised not only an answer, but to be lead from there to further truth. No good thing will be withheld if we are diligent and obedient to what we learn.
This is consistent with the teaching from Lectures on Faith that one of the things necessary for saving faith is an actual knowledge that we are following a course that is in accordance with God's will. We know because we've sought and asked and been answered. Then we do it.
There's also an oblique allusion to the fact that this is a very hard way to live. The promise is that we'll get the answers in God's time, not ours, and that in the end we'll have joy. But in the meantime*, we might have heartache, disappointment, sacrifice, tears, persecution, sorrow, loneliness, and any number of other experiences that stretch us and try us both intrinsically and extrinsically. But in the end... Well, the end is what we live for.
*For my ideas about how we'll also have joy in the meantime, click here.
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