5 minute read
Feeling God’s love
BYUH students and staff discuss Heavenly Father’s compassion
BY EDEN JONES
The struggles of feeling failure and despair while also accepting God’s love is an issue students and faculty alike said they are facing. According to them, there is hope in following the commandments and patiently waiting for God.
Zach Bright, a freshman from Colorado, said, “I see God’s love everywhere. I think in a trying circumstance is when I personally see God’s love the most.
“It’s hard when I’m experiencing it, but in the end, I know God is proud of my efforts. And the changes I’ve seen in my own life are amazing.
“It’s definitely a process,” he continued. “I would say 98 percent of the people I’ve met on my mission said that God does not love us. You have to learn to see it.”
Alisi Langi, adjunct faculty in the Faculty of Religious Education, said people she’s met separate the love of Heavenly Father and the love of Christ when they are the same. “They think, ‘Heavenly Father has to administer
4040 KE ALAKA’IKE ALAKA’I Graphics by Hannah Manalang
- Elisi Langi
justice, because He’s God, but Jesus Christ administers mercy,’” Langi explained.
“And I think we get so caught up in forgetting that, ‘Yes, they’re separate beings, but they’re one Godhead,’ and if one shows us love, the other also shows us love,” said Langi.
Langi talked about how an individual’s effort to show God love can be done by keeping His commandments, which she said is an excellent first step for those who may struggle to recognize God’s love in their life. “I think one of the miracles of God is that He knows us well enough to know the ways we feel love. He knows how to love us this way,” she said.
A licensed clinical social worker, Leilani Auna, who works on campus at Counseling and Disability Services, spoke of her favorite scripture, Proverbs 3:5-6. “‘Trust in the Lord with all thine heart.’” She then asked, “And you wonder, what does that mean? To really trust in Heavenly Father? If faith without works is dead, what are the works we should be doing?”
Auna said the works are: “Keeping the commandments, doing the things we need to do, being kind to one another, reading the scriptures and saying your prayers.
“Some people say, ‘I do all that, and I don’t see any blessings?’ But you can’t expect any blessings.
“You have to put your trust in the Lord. I think as you continue to do all that, the mysteries of God will open.”
Langi agreed, “I think one of the ways we feel God’s love is by doing His will. The way we interact with other people, the way that we
love them and the way we serve allows us to feel how He feels about his children.”
According to Auna, falling short makes people be hard on themselves. Too often, people think they are not worthy of God’s love. Langi, who teaches Seminary in addition to her university classes, said her high school students in particular feel like this. “They make one mistake and they think it's over. He loves you. You are not lost. We can recover,” she said. “Everybody progresses in many different ways. I’m beginning to really understand that the Lord loves the person who isn’t obeying the commandments, too. I felt like I used to look at them and say, ‘Well, if you just did what I did— follow all the commandments—then you’ll be blessed.’ You can’t be doing that. I think we, as members of the Church, sometimes fall into that. We really can’t compare ourselves. Judge not. Don’t even judge yourself.”
Even when people struggle to feel it, Langi testified God’s love is always there. She recounted experiences she had as her father’s primary caretaker prior to his death and how it helped her learn about the love of her Heavenly Father.
“I think, for me, it gave me an opportunity to recognize a little bit of what our Father feels as He watches and as He takes care of His children.” She said since her father had worked so hard to provide for his family over the years, they had everything they needed, even after he was no longer able to work.
“I feel like in a way that’s our Heavenly Father,” she said. “He’s developed a plan for us, He’s worked so hard, and He set it up so that while we’re here and we’re separated from Him, we continue to reap the benefits and the blessings from Him. I hope we recognize that those are ways He continues to take care of us and show His love.”
Bright spoke of particular experiences during his service in the France Paris Mission in which he was able to see firsthand the effects of God’s love. Speaking of an individual Bright knew who was raised without religion, Bright said he really wanted to know God, and he said this individual “ate up the Book of Mormon.” Then, after taking a month-long break from missionary visits, the individual said he felt the difference spiritually. “It was his first prayer answered—the coolest thing ever,” Bright remembered. “He really seemed happier, under more control. More at peace.”
Langi cited Moses 1:35 to help people understand God’s love. “In the verse, God refers to the worlds He’s created as ‘his.’”
“When I read that, [I discovered] that’s the ‘why.’ The work He does is salvation, but he does it because He sees us as his. He wants our progression and our success. He wants our immortality and eternal life.” •
- Zach Bright 41 FEBRUARY 2020
