(September 7, 2013)
My thought here are tangential, and related to the statement about the “patience” of the Saints. As I thought about this, it dawned on me that the Lord truly needs nothing from us. We have absolutely nothing to give Him and no way to hurt Him. Should I praise Him today, He would be no greater. Should I curse Him tomorrow, He would not be any less for it.
I draw an interesting conclusion through that. Sometimes I feel like we stand on ceremony and reverence because we believe that we somehow disrespect the Lord when we fail to do so. We look at signs of disrespect, as we see them, towards the Lord and feel the need to “defend Him” (as if we could, or as if He had the need for us to do so).
Our understanding of the Atonement, however, is enlarged when we understand that Christ has no need of us. He lived a perfect life, and could have returned to the Father to live out an eternity in Exaltation alone, had He so chosen. Instead, He suffered through the Atonement to bring us with Him. He did it not for the formality or the hymns we would sing to Him, but rather because of His love for us.
The signs of respect we can show the Lord are good to perform – for us. It is in the quiet and contemplative moments, or the moments when our hearts are filled with song as we praise Him through hymns, when we feel that moment of inspiration and the pull towards living more like Him. But we should not stand on structure as if it was somehow necessary or demanded by the Lord for His benefit. I find it unlikely that He would see our honest attempts as somehow diminished because of some loss of decorum (especially decorum we might not even understand).
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