You Can Only Move Forward- The Amazing Grace

You Can Only Move Forward--The Amazing Grace
By: Jacob Sok

It was 10:30pm after a hard day's work, and my knees hit the cold cement floor of our tiny apartment in Lima, Peru. Serving as missionary was proving to be much more laborious than any typical Sunday school class or youth group activity I had grown accustomed to. It had been a day not uncommon to missionaries of long hours in the hot South American climate, crowed buses and swarms of traffic, fallen appointments and little success. Despite several days and what felt like weeks of similar conditions, my companions and I did our best. It was kneeling on that cement floor that I would often seek counsel and comfort from Heaven concerning the current and rather dismal lack of yield in fruit to our recent efforts. Physically whipped and emotionally drained I often remembered waking up mid prayer in time to apologetically say a very exhausted amen and slink into a more typical sleeping position off my knees.

As I recall one particular Sunday morning, I remember walking to a Church Worship Service with a lot on my mind. Sitting on the hard wooden pew in the rising caloric heat in the tiny church building I kept silent and ponderous. My heart I am sure said a brief simple prayer that I believe reached my Heavenly Father's ears. I decided to pick up an old tattered hymnal and randomly thumb through the selections. As I read the title of the first one I saw a simple message was relayed to my troubled self, the hymn read;¨¡A vencer! or Carry On.

While many things were left to be settled and sorted that simple lyrical command invited a new sense of love and hope in to my body I recall writing a notation that it was one of the first times hope seemed palpable as if I could hold the feeling in my hand.

Pondering what I could share this week has been the culmination of tiny experiences over the years that were insightful after connecting them to a few passages of scripture I came across in my scripture study this week. The essence of this simple truth can be summarized in one phrase--- You can only go forward.

This sentence came across my mind recently and has been the cause of a much pondering. It saddens me to hear the rather cynical connotation people place on life. Being guilty of this myself, I have come to learn recently that Life in of itself is a beautiful thing and is a gift from God, but rather it is mortality that proves at times to be a trial of faith.  I think we as humans often find ourselves in spiritual ruts, plateaued seasons of motivation due to small return- compared to our great efforts. On any given day it would not be abnormal to hear around the office water cooler or school cafeteria something to the effect "this is worst", "life is a pain", and "if I could only get back to the good life". If any of those phrases ring as familiar to you as they do to me, it is probably because beyond the schoolyard and workplace those phrases have been uttered in our very own hearts.

I do not know exactly why life brings an abundance of joyful seasons and those of sorrow or why is it we don't seem to have the capability to eliminate weakness and struggles from our nature immediately, but this I do know God's plan, as we often forget, is entitled the Plan of HAPPINESS, and all seasons of life are part of it.

The Book of Mormon beautifully explains that "it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things"(2 Nephi 2:11) good to bad, choice to consequence, joy to sorrow, strength to weakness and sun to rain, just to name a few. The hills and declines and ping-pong like quips from everyday life can easily disorient and discourage us.

Satan would have us believe that as we slip-up we are done for and lost. He is so determined to make us miserable because he will never know the joy of being able to move forward. I often find that when it comes to letting go and forgiving myself, or even permitting myself to maintain any positive forward momentum that I fall into this enticing lie of his.

He tempts us to feel, as we try to brush ourselves off-- that we have reached the infamous "point of no return". Placing that rather vainly imaginative chip on our shoulder he actually tries to convince us that going back to the past is actually the best solution or only possible destination. He wants us to think its our duty to progress by going backwards. Progressing onward by moving ourselves backward?-- to use a treasured idiom from Elder Jeffery R Holland "well isn't that like trying to stuff a turkey through the beak".

This my dear friends is not a life! Beating ourselves up with the "what if's" of trails to only despairingly have our heads hang down. I for one feel rather tired of the view of my feet from when my head hangs in discouragement. It would be a greater benefit to our spirits (and as my mom would kindly remind me; a benefit to my posture as well) to look up, for that is truly then only direction we can go. No amount of wishing and worrying will transport us back to the past. Our feet might I add, were physically designed to only point forward not backwards.

While I know the Lord does not condone sin or encourage mistakes, I also know He in his infinite mercy allows us to learn from them and not be left as the victims. I know that I need to work on this more and more everyday, but I am grateful that I am learning to little by little. Now I hope to be able to do, if anything, from one human to another encourage us all to try and take those leaps of faith FORWARD where life and the Lord await us.

To think that the Lord's plan for us includes means by which we can grow through the trials and temptations and heal through His power at the same time carrying us on far beyond those troubled parts of the past, truly is the Amazing Grace we may sing about but so often forget to use or allot ourselves.

A Book of Mormon Prophet named Jacob shares with us in a few passages this very truth. Found in 2 Nephi Chapter 10 verse 21 includes "Seeing that our merciful God has given us so great knowledge concerning these things, let us remember him, and lay aside our sins, and not hang down our heads, for we are not cast off."  
Seems that our generations were not the only ones prone to this self-inflicted restriction to grace and being happy as we learn and try to become better. The verse continues "we have been driven out of the land of our inheritance; but we have been led to a better land for the Lord has made the sea our path". We like those of ancient times try and turn back to our own lands of the past, when we fail to see that Lord took the storms and seas of life to become a pathway to a much better life.

I know the Lord while maybe not inherently pleased with some of my choices has when I have let Him, taught me and brought me to a much better place. Far better then trying to go back. He in fact paid the price so I would be able to let those things go as I draw closer to Him. Jacob also brings to light that "thy God pleadeth the cause of his people; behold I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling...thou shalt no more drink it again." (2 Nephi 8:22). He advocates the hopes and efforts we make to try and try again, tenderly drinking on our behalf from the trembling cup of our set backs and struggles so that we may be able to move forward.

My love for the Savior has come to grow even more knowing of some of what he has drunk for me on my behalf. If anything I have obtained once again, a greater desire to change and use repentance piece by piece everyday. To reconcile with the Lord is not so much a stop sign for living, rather than a bridge for progressing, that supports us constantly as we pattern it into our lives.

I will never forget some wise and timely counsel from a dear Professor of mine, who to paraphrase said, "God created the body so it would be difficult to do two things; pat yourself on the back, and kick yourself in the pants".  How we must learn to not hinder happiness and healing grace by beating ourselves up.

The Prophet Moroni who helped in the compiling of the Book of Mormon often remarks how he felt worried by the possible errors of writing in the book made by his weakness in that craft. He said on the book's title page "If there are faults they are the mistakes of men; wherefore, condemn not the things of God" He knowing he was prone to mistakes, in not the doctrine of the book but any faults in the writing itself, says that they are mistakes of him, yet we should still love the work and truths of the Lord therein. When we fail in life, we too frequently almost condemn ourselves; when we only see our faults. Our mistakes are not what define us, rather they are common mortal slip ups God knew would happen. We are of God, being his children, hence we should not condemn ourselves because we have the chance to change.

I pray we can take heart, and allow ourselves not necessarily a little slack but rather a portion of the Lord's grace. Writing this article for me has been not so much a want to share insight, but  much more a plead for help in this common habitual pitfall. Though I am not perfect at it, God in His love has permitted me to taste small and special moments of this principle and I testify of it being true.

So with all the love of my heart and new sense of dedication to enjoying the wonders of the life in all it's seasons; I pray we can all keep our chins up to heaven and our knees down in prayer, moving forward in His grace to the spirit of that special hymn "Carry on, Carry on!".


To further your study on this topic; prayerfully consider the following sources:

- Carry On (LDS Hymnal)
- Tomorrow the Lord will Work Wonders Among You:
                                   By Jeffery R Holland, Apostle of the Lord.
- 2 Nephi Chapters 2 and 9.

{All Pictures found through Google Imaging, Paintings are property of the LDS Gospel Library}