Plans for 2011

Dear family and friends, I hope this finds you well.

You have all been very patient and amiable about these Sabbathoughts intruding into your inbox most weekends throughout 2010. The idea began in response to a few people initially asking for a little regular gospel discussion and I ended up imposing it on everyone in my address book! As I say, thanks for your passive acceptance, or at least your absence of complaint.

The comments and feedback have all been positive so it seems to be something worth doing, so we'll continue throughout this year with a weekly (that's "w - e - e - k - l - y" . . . !) Sabbathought. And in response to suggestions from some of you we plan to supplement the 'Sabb' with occasional articles on gospel topics, under the sobriquet GIFTS: Gospel Insights From The Scriptures.

Why would we venture to do any of this?

It seems a logical use of a great tool --- e-mail through the internet --- and perhaps it adds to the Church's gospel study programs (sorry again for the American spellings, you dear and patient folk in Britain . . . . When in Rome . . . !) in Sunday School and generally.

Besides, you can never know too much about the gospel. In addition, as we heard David the Bethlehem shepherd boy saying to his older brothers in 1 Samuel last year, "Is there not a cause?" (17:29), and he promptly went out and took it upon himself to slay Goliath in the name of the God of Israel.

When we catch the vision of all that the restored gospel is teaching, it is exciting and compelling. So that perhaps the only thing worse than imposing it on family and friends is not taking the time and trouble to share it.

Also, we have noted along with Bob Matthews, that "this is not a doctrinal era in the Church. But it must become one, so that we are prepared to meet Him and converse with Him when He comes." So much hangs upon knowing the doctrine of Christ that we would consider ourselves remiss if we neglected to share and rejoice in it.

In this perhaps we should "waste and wear out our lives", in the words of the Prophet, "in bringing to light all the hidden things". Joseph added, under inspiration, that "these things should be attended to with great earnestness" (D&C 123:13--14). We resonate with such a compelling injunction and hope you do too.

As many of you are aware, it has become a cherished custom in Britain and the Commonwealth for the reigning monarch to broadcast a brief speech on Christmas Day. In the Christmas of 1939, a country and family of nations at war with a brutal tyrant heard King George VI, father of our present Queen Elizabeth II, cite these words written during the First World War by Minnie Louise Harkins (1875--1957):

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year
"Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown."

And he replied, "Go into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God,
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!"

A new film released recently entitled King's Speech is a dramatic and moving insight into the background of this broadcast event.

What is not so well known is how the poem concluded:

So I went forth and, finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.
He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone east.

So heart be still!
What need our human life to know
If God hath comprehension?

In all the dizzy strife of things
Both high and low,
God hideth His intention.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Echoes here of the poignant anthem, Be Still My Soul.

And so we ask, is God aware of even the least struggling creature?

He is.

Of you and me? Yes, He is.

Join me in 2011. There is so much to know about Him, His purposes and plans, His intention. And you and I are in that intention. We must needs know where . . . and how . . . and why.

God bless. Please pray for us that we might strike the right note in our searching and our exchange. Things are going to be more than interesting in this world of 2011. As Boyd K. Packer said, "There is no geographical safety for what is coming. The only safety is in the scriptures and their message of the living Christ" (1977).

Please feel free to share this and subsequent e-mails within your own circle of family and friends.

Steve