Abide

Think of the following as a meditation on Doctrine and Covenants 161:7.

The Spirit of the One you follow is the spirit of love and peace. That Spirit seeks to abide in the hearts of those who would embrace its call and live its message.

What if we were to allow the spirit of love and peace to truly “abide” in our hearts? What if that spirit lived there, not just in these few moments of our quiet time, our morning devotions or evening prayers, but all day long? How might the world seem different if, in each moment of every day, we looked upon it with the spirit of love and peace in our hearts?

If we truly did that, the spirit of love and peace would not, could not, stay in our hearts, at least if we think of our hearts as being a place deep in the centre of our being somewhere. It would spread. If the spirit of love and peace lived in our heart, it would grow and shift and also dwell in our mind, becoming part of our consciousness until it also became our unconsciousness. The spirit of love and peace would also come to dwell in our eyes so that what we looked upon we saw with eyes of love; eyes of peace. That spirit would be in our ears so that what we heard, we would hear lovingly, peacefully. That same spirit would be present in our arms, our touch, so that we held and touched the world differently, lovingly, peacefully.

If the spirit of love and peace truly lived in us, then we would live in the spirit of love and peace; we would truly be in the spirit of the One we follow. Perhaps another way to say this is that if the spirit of love and peace truly lived in our hearts this way, God would be more fully alive in us and we would live in the spirit as well as the Spirit of God.

If that abiding presence were our reality, I wonder, would the things that happen to us matter quite so much? Would not even things we think of as bad be seen differently? An earthquake would still be an earthquake and disaster would still be disastrous, but would we not respond to those events differently? Would we not seek to help those around us rather than just thinking about ourselves? Think of Jesus standing before Pilate, abiding in the spirit of love and peace, silent but looking at his judge through eyes of love, eyes of grace. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? (1 Corinthians 15:55)

The Spirit of the One you follow is the spirit of love and peace. That Spirit seeks to abide in the hearts of those who would embrace its call and live its message. The path will not always be easy, the choices will not always be clear, but the cause is sure and the Spirit will bear witness to the truth, and those who live the truth will know the hope and the joy of discipleship in the community of Christ. Amen. (D. & C. 161:7)

May we abide in the spirit of love and peace today.

Posted by Carman