Your Mission.. Should You Choose To Accept It...

One of my husbands favorite quotes goes like this:

"Your mission is the mold in which your life will be cast, prepare carefully the mold, for we build and we mold for the eternities."

I believe the context of the quote was referring to an actual mission, but I want to use this quote to talk about a much bigger picture. Our life's mission. How do we know what we are supposed to accomplish in our life?  Our Savior was our exemplar in how to return to live with our Father in Heaven again.

Elder Russell M. Nelson said, "[Christ's] mission was the Atonement. That mission was uniquely His. Born of a mortal mother and an immortal Father, he was the only one who could voluntarily lay down His life and take it up again." We are instructed in the scriptures to become like and to follow the Savior.

"What manner of men ought ye to be? ... Even as I am"

"Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men"

"I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done."

"Therefore, I would that ye should be perfect, even as I, or your father who is in heaven is perfect."

I believe we miss a very important principle in these verses. In the pre-existence we know there was a great council in heaven. During this council our Savior volunteered to take upon himself the sins of all mankind, that through the Atonement we might be redeemed and return to live with our Father in Heaven again. That was His mission. However, when He came to earth the same veil that is placed over our eyes was placed over His, meaning, He didn't know from the very beginning what He was supposed to accomplish. So how did He find out? In D&C 93 we read:

"And I, John, bear record that I beheld his glory, as the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, even the Spirit of truth, which came and dwelt in the flesh, and dwelt among us.
And I, John, saw that he received not of the fullness at the first, but received grace for grace;

And he received not of the fullness at first, but continued from grace to grace, until he received a fullness"

 He learned the same way we do, line upon line, precept upon precept. He "increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man", just as we are asked to do. I think sometimes we forget we are asked to be like the Savior, not to become Him. None of us can do what the Savior did. It is His character and example we are asked to follow. We take those characteristics into our lives and apply them to the mission and purpose we are entrusted with.

Each of us has a divine purpose for being here on this earth. Lorenzo Snow taught that "Jesus was a god before he came into the world and yet his knowledge was taken from him. He did not know his former greatness, neither do we know what greatness we had attained to before we came here." In another address he said, "it was revealed unto Him who He was, and for what purpose He was in the world. The glory and power He possessed before He came into the world was made known unto Him." In other words, the mission of the Atonement was made known unto Him and the promises He had made to His Father in Heaven and to each of us were brought back to His remembrance.

Earlier today, my husband I were talking about the refiners fire. We talked about how at times when you are trying your hardest and doing all you know how to do, you often find yourself feeling the most weak and vulnerable. I reminded him that during the refining process the metal is melted down completely, to an almost liquid state in order to rid it of all impurities. The metal in this form is not strong, and is, in fact, extremely vulnerable. It hasn't been poured into the mold for which it is destined.  Likewise for us, if we desire to be instruments in the Lord's hand, we must allow ourselves to go to this weak and vulnerable place. Only then can we be poured into the mold for which we are already destined.

Let's go back to the quote from the beginning, "your mission is the mold in which your life will be cast, prepare carefully the mold, for we build and we mold for the eternities." We already agreed to our mission before we came down to earth. We made promises to our Father in Heaven and to other of our brothers and sisters. It is up to us to seek out the Spirit and to continue from grace to grace until we, like the Savior, learn what our mission is. That mission will shape all of the choices we make, or it should. Everything the Savior did led up to those final days in the garden and on Calvary. He was always found about His Fathers business. In fulfilling His mission perfectly, He received the glory and promises that were His and we were provided with the opportunity to return to live with Him and our Father in Heaven again.

I know, without a doubt, that our Father in Heaven has a plan for each of us and that we knew of our plan before we came here. I know that our Father in Heaven wants us to remember our plan because it will bring us to our greatest happiness and bring about our greatest potential. Heavenly Father knows the mold He needs us to fit into, we must be willing to be melted down and refined so that we can become the person we promised to be. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen

Love, Taryn