Pondering On Pedestals

Do you think of your dad, who for most has shown great love towards you? Or do you think of an awesome "father figure" that has been there when you needed him, given really good advice and helped you out of a sticky situation - not for any gain of his own but just because he cared about you being happy?

For me my mind goes to a lot of different places and each one has had impact on my life for the better.

The thing is when we hear the words Heavenly Father some of us put heaven at a distance and thus think that the title Heavenly Father is has a distant, metaphorical implication and that is why I want to address how literal "Heavenly Father" is and what that means to us in our lives.

We are all sons and daughters of God, He is the father of our spirits - which existed before the creation of the earth. In us are seeds of divinity.

The Apostle Paul taught, "... for we are also His offspring." (Acts 27:28) And then again to the Romans saying, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God..." (Romans 8:16)

Paul isn't the only one who taught that we are children of God, Jesus Christ Himself taught this when he associated Heavenly Father with an earthly father. (Matt. 7:9-11 3 Nephi 14:9-11)

Now that we have established the literalness of Heavenly Father's title, we can now ask what does it matter to me? What changes or why should I care?

I'd like for you to take a second and read Matt. 7:9-11 then think about your father, or father figure and say to yourself, "if he is imperfect and loves me this much, cares for me this much, or wants me to be happy - how much more does my Perfect Father?"

This also ties in neatly with my last post in that we know God loves us and wants us to be happy; therefore, we can face our trials more confidently.


When you are hungry what is a stone to you? Useless, sure if an animal were around you might be able to throw the stone and kill the thing for food but for the most part a stone is useless when someone is hungry.

How about a serpent when asked for a fish? Dangerous. I ask you for a fish and you give me a basket with a serpent in it and I unknowingly reach in expecting a rainbow trout...

Our Heavenly Father does not give us useless and dangerous things, those would be evil gifts and God is not the giver of an evil gift. So those trials you are facing, that have come by reason of the Fall of Adam (which we will talk about later), which fall was planned so that we might be happy... they aren't useless brothers and sisters and when we are living righteously they aren't dangerous either - not dangerous in the sense that really matters, many of God's servants have suffered death for their testimonies.

I wanted to talk about one last scripture and then I will be done. In Acts 27:29 Paul says, "... as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device."

Obviously Paul is talking about idols and idol worship here, but a thought came to me as I read "we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold..." and the thought was what is gold like?

Cold and lifeless. When we're having a bad day does our gold watch, or any substance like gold, cry for us? No. Does it care about our feelings, hopes, and desires... I've never a conversation with gold but I don't think so.

If you want to know how God feels about us and the things that affect us, I would think the best way would be to look towards the man who is most "perfect" in your life and see how they care and then know that God is perfect and cares exponentially more.

I bear my testimony that God is our Heavenly Father and that He loves us dearly and wants for us to choose to come back home, He has provided a way through His Son that we may. This is in my knowledge.