but you must reach and take his hand.
With Him nothing is impossible.
Those who have ears to hear will understand."
"When Someone Cares" | Gwen Moore Cundick
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First snow of the season
Suppose for a moment you are a member of a team. The coach beckons you from the bench and says: “You are to enter this contest. I not only want you to win; you shall win. But the going will be tough. The score at this moment is 1,143,000,000 to six, and you are to play on the team with the six points!”
That large number was the approximate population of the earth in the year 1830 when the restored church of Jesus Christ was officially organized with six members (see James Avery Joyce, sel., World Population Basic Documents, 4 vols., Dobbs Ferry, New York: Oceana Publications, Inc., 1976, 4:2214). The setting was remote and rural. By standards of the world, its leaders were deemed to be unlearned. Their followers seemed so ordinary. But with them, the work was begun. Assignments had been revealed:
The gospel was to be preached to every kindred, nation, tongue, and people.
Ordinary folk were to become Saints.
Redemptive work was to be done for all who had ever lived.
The great dispensation of the latter days had commenced, and they were the ones to usher it forth!
Furthermore, the Prophet Joseph Smith was unjustly held in the unspeakable isolation of a distant prison. In such obscurity, then and there, he was told by the Lord that “the ends of the earth shall inquire after thy name” (D&C 122:1).
If any tasks ever deserved the label impossible, those would seem to qualify. But, in fact, our Lord had spoken: “With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26; see also Mark 10:27; Luke 18:27).
April 1988
