The ultimate definition of happiness is to be like God; the more we approach the stature of God in attributes, knowledge, power, and dominion, the happier we are. Conversely, the definition of misery is to be like Satan. Misery is always associated with Babylon.
To become like God and experience his level of happiness rests on two criteria: (1) Justice–the system of celestial laws that make God who he is and provide him what he has; that is, God’s power and quality of life derive from his obedience to celestial laws. (2) Mercy-the Lord’s love, grace, forbearance, clemency, and pity on us lesser beings, as he patiently works with us to help us to become like him. To a great extent our happiness depends upon God’s merciful interaction with us and our extending mercy to others.
The Covenant of the Gods
In a premortal council of the Gods (which preceded the Council in Heaven that we attended), the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost entered into a covenant to work together for the happiness, salvation, and exaltation of the Father’s children. Joseph Smith taught that an “everlasting covenant was made between three personages before the organization of this earth, and relates to their dispensation of things to men on the earth; these personages, according to Abraham’s record, are called God the first, the Creator; God the second, the Redeemer; and God the third, the witness or Testator.” Our interaction with these three Gods began before the world was created, continues here, and will endure into eternity. Every aspect of our interaction with them has to do with our present redemption and our eternal happiness.
Too often we miss the fact that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost define their dealings with us in terms of relationship. Each one of us is dearer to them than we can comprehend. Motivated solely by their relationship with us, they initiated the plan of happiness.
In the premortal world, when the Father announced the plan of happiness, we shouted for joy, perhaps because the plan’s far-reaching benefits were so extraordinary. In that supreme act of love, Heavenly Father offered us the opportunity to become what he is. He held nothing back. His package included indivisible access to and inheritance of the totality of his kingdom, the fulness of his power, the keys to the library of everything he knows, and the ability to become like him in perfections, characteristic, and attributes.
His offer included the quintessential gift of a physical body, and a tabernacle of flesh and bones for our immortal spirits to eternally “act upon.” He also offered us the invaluable gift of divine education: the opportunity to experience good and evil and the unrestricted gift of agency to choose between them. Finally, he offered us the opportunity to enjoy his lifestyle–eternal marriage and family–with the promise of eternal posterity.
Happiness Encompasses All That Is Good
Clearly, the plan of happiness offered us all that was good, which is called righteousness. Righteousness, according to Chauncey Riddle, is “that necessary order of social relationships in which beings of knowledge and power must bind themselves in order to live together in accomplishment and happiness for eternity.”
Happiness is wholly dependent upon righteousness, and it is in righteousness that Zion people weld themselves together by solemn covenants so that they become “predictable, dependable, and united so that they can be trusted. They bind themselves to be honest, true, chaste, and benevolent so that they can do good for all other beings, which good they do by personal sacrifice to fulfill all righteousness.” Thus, being and doing good and being and doing righteousness are synonymous terms; goodness and righteousness are unifying, perfecting, selfless principles that produce happiness.
On the other hand, evil, the opposite of goodness and righteousness, is without discipline, a law unto itself, a corrupting and self-serving principle that produces misery. Evil defines Babylon.
Heavenly Father structured the plan of happiness so as to mercifully wrest us from Babylon, from our complacency, from our evil tendencies, and from the effects of the Fall. Heavenly Father built into the plan of happiness his promise that he would endow us with the Light of Christ, which is an agent employed by the Holy Ghost to “feel after” us and draw us out of Babylon and into Zion. By means of that light, the Holy Ghost would continually offer us opportunities to view ourselves in our “awful state,” for the purpose of shaking us loose from Babylon.
Moreover, the Father promised that he would offer each of us an unmistakable witness of the truth by the power of the Holy Ghost, so that we might reconsider our destructive path, repent of evil, and embrace “the godly order of good.” Clearly, the Father makes every effort to offer us happiness.
Balancing Justice and Mercy
To make the plan of happiness operational, the Father first instigated the covenant of justice, that system of laws that he obeyed in order to become who he is and enjoy what he has. That is, by obedience to celestial he was justified to enjoy the blessings associated with those laws. By living those laws, we, God’s children, can progress and become like him in every way. That is the process that leads to true happiness.
Knowing that his children would break the celestial laws while they struggled to assimilate them in their lives, and knowing that those broken laws would consign his children “forever to be cut off from his presence,” the Father decreed a second law, which would have the power to override the consequences of broken celestial laws and to thereby save his children. That new law is called the covenant of mercy. We know this law by another name: the new and everlasting covenant.
The covenant of mercy called for the Father to provide an atoning Savior to balance the demands of justice against the purposes of mercy: “And now, the plan of mercy could not be brought about except an atonement should be made; therefore God himself [Jesus Christ] atoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice, that God might be a perfect, just God, and a merciful God also.” Mercy would also allow the children of God to receive physical bodies like their Father’s, with the assurance that these eternal gifts would not be cancelled out by death. The Savior’s merciful universal resurrection would make that possible.
Accessing the benefits of mercy through the Atonement was decreed to be a matter of individual choice. To facilitate that choice, the Father instigated a covenant that we could choose to embrace if we desired to access the Atonement, draw upon its mercy, receive shelter from the demands of justice, and be placed beyond the reach of our enemies. This covenant is called the new and everlasting covenant, and we enter it by our individual agency.
Placed Beyond Our Enemies
The Atonement makes goodness, righteousness, happiness, and salvation possible. According to Joseph Smith, salvation is the power to be placed beyond the reach of one’s enemies. The specific enemy he spoke of was death, but, as Brother Riddle says, “The great enemy of each human being is himself, for in our weakness and selfishness we are and do evil.” We, alone, can neither save ourselves nor fully overcome our weakness or selfishness.
Overcoming our natural selves and our enemies is made possible “only if we fully cooperate with Jesus Christ.” He has the ability to cleanse us completely of the stains of our evildoing and to transform us into righteous individuals who have no more desires to do evil. This process leads to progressively higher levels of happiness. By entering into the new and everlasting covenant for the purpose of accepting the Atonement of Jesus Christ, a repentant person can be “rescued from being and doing evil” through the “merits and mercy of the Son of God.”
How Mercy Appeases Justice
That mercy is a covenant is an essential truth. Every covenant or law of God is obeyed or disobeyed by individual choice. Specific blessings and consequences are associated with that choice, and either misery or happiness results. If we desire mercy, we must live the covenant associated with mercy. As we have learned, that covenant is the new and everlasting covenant, which we are required to receive in order to accept Jesus Christ and his Atonement. It is a truth that this Covenant springs from the Atonement and is the instrument by which we are justified to receive the Lord’s mercy and by which the plan of happiness is realized.
Clearly, the new and everlasting covenant activates the plan of redemption. By means of this Covenant, the Father’s children can receive celestial laws and experiment with them without being destroyed by them. By means of the Covenant, the children of God can lay hold on the blessings of the Atonement by choosing to repent, progress, obtain salvation, become like God, and inherit all that he has. This is the ultimate condition of Zion people.
The new and everlasting covenant also sets us on the defined path that leads to eternal life, gives us the authority of God, places in our hands the keys (not priesthood administrative keys) to God’s knowledge and power, and sets us up in our individual eternal kingdoms. Only the Atonement itself exceeds in glory the magnificence of the new and everlasting covenant. The two are inseparable, and both answer the end-purpose of the Father’s plan of mercy: our happiness.
Experiencing Contrasts Leads to Happiness
To lay hold on the plan of happiness, we must be presented with two contrasting revelations: (1) God and his goodness, and (2) our fallen situation. Because is crucial, the Lord uses contrast to motivate us to choose between these opposites.
As we have noted, there are good and bad consequences attached to God’s laws. Breaking his commandments always results in being “cut off both temporally and spiritually from the presence of the Lord.” This is misery, which Alma described as “the gall of bitterness,” and being “encircled about by the everlasting chains of death.” On the other hand, happiness always results from being brought, through our obedience, into “the marvelous light of God.”
For instance, after Alma had been “racked with eternal torment” for his sins and “harrowed to the greatest degree,” he appealed to the Savior and suddenly swung from misery to happiness. He moved from “inexpressible horror” to “exquisite and sweet” joy, from the “pains of a damned soul” to experiencing redemption and seeing “God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels,” with his soul longing to be there. He exulted, “Oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold.” Then describing the contrast, “My soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain.”
Clearly, seeing the contrast between good and evil motivates us toward happiness. After the Lord appeared to Moses, he left him to himself and he was tempted by Satan. That contrast allowed Moses to experience the distinct difference between having the Lord and not having the Lord with him: “Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed.” Moses also perceived the contrasting differences in glory between the Lord and Satan: “Moses looked upon Satan and said: . . . where is thy glory that I should worship thee?” Now that Moses had experienced these contrasting visions, he was empowered to choose between misery and happiness. He said, “Depart from me, Satan, for this one God only will I worship, which is the God of glory.”
Similarly, but in reverse order, King Benjamin’s people literally collapsed when they “viewed themselves in their own carnal state, even less than the dust of the earth.” Then, after they cried out to the Lord for mercy, “the Spirit of the Lord came upon them, and they were filled with joy, having received a remission of their sins, and having peace of conscience.” Happiness came only after they experienced the contrast.
Similarly, and in a unique way, the Lord will offer us happiness by helping us understand who he is and showing us who and where we are. Then we, like King Benjamin’s people, might be so astonished that we cry out for mercy and deliverance. Hopefully, when we are offered deliverance, we will choose to embrace it with all our hearts. The account of King Benjamin and his people teach us the truth that mercy, deliverance, and eternal happiness are available to us only through the Atonement. We note that King Benjamin’s people were willing “to enter into a covenant with [their] God to do his will, and to be obedient to his commandments in all things that he [would] command [them], all the remainder of [their] days.”
Covenant-making leads to deliverance, which leads to happiness. After we have made a covenant and experienced deliverance and happiness, we will never want to return to our miserable past. Our desire now centers on the Lord sending the Holy Ghost to transform us into new creatures with new hearts. Because that process is beyond our ability, we look to Christ. To achieve a change of heart, we must first accept Jesus Christ and his Atonement, enter into a covenant of salvation with him, and cooperate with him to the fullest extent. Moreover, we must fully submit to his incomparable power and trust him as he remakes us into new creatures by planting the seeds of salvation and happiness into our souls. “Thus human beings may become good and may become gods.”
Summary
To summarize, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost entered into a premortal covenant to save and exalt the Father’s children. A primary purpose of that covenant was that the children achieve ultimate happiness. Therefore, the Gods initiated the plan of happiness, which called for the Father to reveal the system of celestial laws that made him who he is and gave him what he has. The Gods knew that in the process of our learning those laws, we, God’s children, would inevitably break the laws and become liable to pay severe penalties. Therefore, to mitigate the adverse effects of broken laws, the Gods initiated the Plan of Redemption, or the Plan of Mercy.
That plan called for the Father to provide a Savior to rescue us from death and to atone for the consequences of broken celestial laws. The blessings of mercy through this plan could be accessed only by law and by choice; therefore, the Father established the new and everlasting covenant. Now his children could agree to obey this new law that would provide mercy, and God in turn would agree to set aside “the demands of justice.” Thus, justice could be satisfied, mercy could rescue and claim her own, and the children of God could progress in the Covenant until they achieved salvation, exaltation, and ultimate happiness, as the Gods had planned in the beginning.
Thus, Zion people experience unequalled happiness because they choose to embrace the Atonement by entering into and fully living the new and everlasting covenant.
Author’s Note
This article was adapted from my new book, The Three Pillars of Zion. Click here to receive a free sample.
4 Nephi 1:16.
Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 349.
Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 190.
Riddle, “The New and Everlasting Covenant,” 225.
Riddle, “The New and Everlasting Covenant,” 225.
Riddle, “The New and Everlasting Covenant,” 225.
Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 305.
Riddle, “The New and Everlasting Covenant,” 225-26.
Riddle, “The New and Everlasting Covenant,” 225.
Riddle, “The New and Everlasting Covenant,” 226.
Rescuing wayward children is a balancing act, the efforts of juggling Justice and Mercy. In the following correspondence, a father wrestles with dealing with offense, yearning for more priesthood support, and trying to maintain control while showing love-no easy tasks, and common struggles of faithful parents.
Dear Larry,
My family lives in Utah. My wife and I have been married for 25 years. We both served missions, and we try to live faithfully serve in the Church and live the gospel. Our two oldest boys were Eagle Scouts, Seminary graduates, presidents of their quorums, fine examples to other youth, and they both served missions. However, neither one served in leadership positions, and that nagged at them.
When they returned home and joined a singles’ ward, they didn’t feel needed or valued. Now, these boys have been taught that you don’t wait for opportunity to serve. You go get it! You go meet the Elders President and Bishop and let them know you’d like to be put to work. Sadly, nothing happened, and now, three years later, they are inactive. They break commandments that they never would have considered breaking before. I am continually distressed that they put them in compromising situations.
I have met with their priesthood leaders many times. These men recognize the problem, but they want my sons to meet them halfway. I suggested that you don’t meet the “lost sheep” halfway, you go find them and bring them back. Both boys are waiting to feel valued as returned missionaries, that their having served is appreciated. They are waiting for someone to care that they are lost.
Of course, I understand that they are suffering from distorted thinking and ever-weakening testimonies, but their concerns don’t go away. How can totally active returned missionaries go into total inactivity? When I have heard of such stories, I have always thought that I could identify some glaring flaw in someone’s past. But in this case, my boys simply slipped away. Any help?
Confused and Searching Father
Dear Confused and Searching Father:
Living in Utah, especially in predominately LDS areas, can be challenging. On the one hand, Utah is one of the best places to rear an LDS family, and on the other, Utah often provides few opportunities to serve. And service, as we know, it the essence of the gospel and the action that motivates and grows a testimony. My feeling, however, is there are more opportunities to serve beyond the structure of the Church than within–doing many good things of our own free will. For instance, I can promote the Plan of Salvation to tens of thousands of people throughout the world via my writings on the Internet, which service is not a church calling. Moreover, I have friends, who have extracted tens of thousands of names for the Family History project, and other friends who attend the temple often for their deceased relatives. I know men who quietly respond to requests for priesthood blessings, and miracles happen. I know women who give compassionate service for the pure purpose of love, and who seldom receive recognition. These are not official callings, but they bring people to Christ.
A Plague Facing the Youth
But let me talk about your concerns. I assume that your sons are not married. There is a plague that is increasingly consuming the youth, especially marriage-age returned missionaries. They are postponing marriage for a variety of reasons, typically for selfishness, fear and unwillingness to commit. This Satanic strategy is of great concern to the Brethren, who have spoken about it on a number of occasions. Let me be so bold as to suggest that the underlying problem with your sons is not lack of service but lack of progression.
Eternal Marriage-The Primary Purpose of Mortality
When we consider the gospel globally, we come to the conclusion that the purpose of mortal life (meaning the Second Estate-the life between mortal birth and the resurrection) is two-fold: 1) to get back to God, 2) to be like him when we arrive. Neither goal is possible unless at sometime we marry in the temple. The ultimate definition of service is to totally consecrate ourselves by covenant to someone else for a cause greater than we are to the end that life might be enhanced or created. Therefore, temple marriage is the greatest manifestation of consecration and service. Everything and everyone in the universe can be traced back to two people who fell in love and made a covenant at an altar in the temple.
To achieve that lofty goal, we need a mortal body and the covenants and ordinances of the gospel, and all these things lead to an altar in a temple. Nothing else really matters in mortality or eternity if this one goal is not reached. Therefore, this is the single issue that occupies the minds of both God and Satan. In one way or another, every commandment or sin impacts the core issue of eternal marriage. I understand that temple marriage happens for different people at different times, but the verity does not change. In one place or another, sometime in this life or the next, before resurrection, this goal must be accomplished otherwise exaltation is forfeited.
Magnifying our priesthood calling
It is upon the issue of temple marriage issue that Elders “magnify their calling” in the priesthood (D&C 84:33-44). Their calling is NOT “callings,” or assignments, but the actual calling to eternal life, which can only be achieved through temple marriage. By fulfilling their priesthood calling, Elders are both magnified and renewed in the body–that is to say, by this ordinance they now have the power to replicate themselves through posterity with their children carrying the blood of the Covenant and rights to the priesthood and its blessings. By magnifying their calling, Elders qualify to receive all that the Father has. These blessings, according to Elder McConkie, are so profound that they are repeated again on the occasion of marriage to both the husband and wife. All other callings pale in comparison to this singular calling-eternal life through temple marriage. Therefore, because temple marriage is the central purpose of mortality and the priesthood, it is going to be viciously attacked by the adversary.
I suggest that you resist the temptation to be sucked into your sons’ present concerns and deflect your attention away from the core issue: magnifying one’s calling in the priesthood. When that is in place, an Elder is finally in a position to serve, and the opportunities will flow.
The power of example
It sounds as if your relationship with your sons is good. Perhaps you and your wife could sit down with them and explain why you love each other and how much your temple marriage means to you. Maybe you could talk about the power in the priesthood that comes to you because of your sealing. You could tell your sons of the hope that your sealing provides, and why this single ordinance is the most important thing in your life. You could explain why you want this for them. Despite where they are, they can repent and have this blessing in perhaps a short period of time. Both you and I have seen this happen time and again. It is simply a matter of focusing on the right thing, discarding the counterfeit problem, and moving rapidly toward the critical goal.
I hope this helps.
Larry
Dear Larry:
Thank you for your reply. Wise council. They would do well to receive it. I feel, at this point however, that they have removed themselves from the Church so much that they have lost the associations that would help them meet good LDS young women. The issue of being needed continues to be a stumbling block. One of my sons told me that he just wants someone besides his parents to care about him and appreciate him. I am at a loss. I have expressed this concern to his bishop, who is a kind and loving man, but he seems too busy to follow up. I have asked that the Elders Quorum President to make a visit, but so far nothing has been done.
Thanks again for your council. I will look for a teaching opportunity to share this.
Confused and Searching Father
Dear Confused and Searching Father:
I wonder why it is that we, who serve church callings, are too busy to find the lost sheep or feed the Lord’s lambs. It is difficult to find an instance in the Savior’s ministry when he was so caught up in administrative concerns that he hadn’t the time for individuals in need. I wonder why we boast about being saviors on Mount Zion but fail to do the work of the Savior. I wonder if we view advancement to the Melchizedek Priesthood as if it were an increase in scouting rank, and miss the idea entirely that the higher priesthood is the power to bring people to Christ.
When I survey Joseph Smith’s life, I see him reaching out and reclaiming numerous lost souls, including W.W. Phelps. Imagine what our hymn book would be like if two Elders had not purposely sought out Brother Phelps, or if the Prophet had not forgiven his brother.
Nothing of Eternal Consequence Can Be Lost
Our one comfort is the promise that nothing of eternal consequence can be lost because of the actions or inactions of another person. In the end, each person will have his “Alma” experience. The curtains of darkness, deception, sin and confusion will be drawn back revealing the bright light of truth. This is a universal experience, and we have it as two witnesses in the conversion stories of Alma and Paul. When this happens (and sooner or later it will), each person, like Alma and Paul, will have an opportunity to choose. We pray that he or she will choose wisely.
If that person has not sinned beyond reclamation, which is unlikely, the Savior will take him by the hand and walk him back home. Will there be a price to pay? Of course. There was a price for Alma and Paul, too. But the obstacles have already been cleared in the Atonement, and I am certain that the Savior or his servants will explain that verity to the sin-laden soul. The bottom line is this: the prophets’ promises are sweeping and contain very little qualifying language. Most wayward children will return. God has a plan of salvation within the Plan of Salvation for each of them, and he does not rely on the frailties of men to enact that plan. Nevertheless, we are required to sanctify ourselves to participate in that plan, and it seems that our sanctifying effort is an essential element that God can use to infuse that plan of salvation with power.
Time is on your side. Things will turn out better than you think.
Larry Barkdull
Dear Larry,
Thank you for your heartfelt response. We know there are blessings promised as a result of being sealed in the temple and for our regular temple attendance. My wife tells me to just love my boys. That is my challenge. I feel that where much is given much is expected. I expect more from them.
My wife says that I shouldn’t let it bother me, and she is tired of me bringing it up. She feels that I must hate my sons. I don’t hate them. It is because I love them that I want to discuss their situation with her and try to figure how to help them. My wife comes from a family in which several of her siblings became inactive, and two were excommunicated. I did not come from this background. I can’t understand how someone could have the gospel then toss it aside.
I could probably drop the issue except that I am always reminded when the boys come home for dinner and flaunt their inactivity. I am concerned for their younger siblings who see this bad example. In front of their younger brothers and sisters, my older boys brag of their Sunday camping trips and the shopping they do. When I say anything about it, I am the bad guy and need to be quiet. This is my home and I want the gospel lived and respected in my home. How can I be at peace and balance all this?
Confused and Searching Father
Dear Confused and Searching Father:
The balancing act of parenthood can be daunting. On the one hand, Justice recognizes that there are immutable laws that carry blessings and consequences; on the other hand Mercy wants to belay the consequences and bring back the wayward one at any cost.
Justice and Mercy
Balancing Justice and Mercy is the work of a God. Peace results only when balance is achieved, therefore, without the Holy Ghost, we mortals could never accomplish balance. Recognizing that we are woefully equipped to shoulder such a task–especially in an emotionally-charged atmosphere when the stakes are high–should drive us to our knees where we plead for grace. When help arrives–and it always does–perspective settles in, and a course of action becomes apparent.
There are several verities that help us endure:
- Personal sanctification opens the door to revelation and conversion opportunities.
- The Savior anticipated, paid for, and cleared the obstacles standing between your children’s present situation and where they wanted to end up.
- Agency demands that we choose our destinies. I believe that premortally we parents were presented with a “calling” to rescue some of God’s children, we chose to accept that calling, and we were prepared. No one sprung this event upon us. We can draw upon that preparation now.
- A marriage is a partnership with God. Your unity summons the Savior: “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, as touching one thing, behold, there will I be in the midst of them” (D&C 6:32). Your unity with your wife is the most important factor in rescuing your children.
- It’s going to be alright. Time is on your side. The prophets’ promises are so sweeping that we have great cause to hope. What is going on today will dissolve tomorrow. Nothing is impossible with God. Within his Plan of Salvation are personal plans of salvation for your children.
- Charity NEVER faileth. This powerful statement is astonishing. In a world where everything is programmed to fail–time dwindles, people die, relationships crumble, faith falters, possessions end up in the junk yard, governments come and go, organizations disintegrate–charity alone never fails!
Err on the side of Mercy
My suggestion is to let go of Justice for a while and embrace Mercy. Center your attention on unconditional love and acceptance, unless your family is endangered. In a kind way, ask your sons not to attack the gospel that you love so much, and in return do not attack their lifestyles. Mutual respect makes family and home safe places, and someday they will need a safe place to land.
Have a frank talk with your younger children about their choices: Will they follow the examples of their brothers or stay true to the gospel? We recall that Lehi had such conversations with his younger sons. Wouldn’t it be better for your younger children to make a controlled choice within the walls of your home than outside in the uncontrolled environment of peers?
Become more unified with your wife than you ever have been. Let nothing, not even a difference of opinion, drive a wedge in your relationship. Your unity is your greatest spiritual asset.
And finally remember that charity does not come to us naturally. “This love,” Moroni says, is had only by praying for it “with all the energy of heart.” This love “is the greatest of all…and endureth forever.” Increase your level of charity then give it away freely. The person who possesses charity can no more fail than can the charity that defines them. Charity NEVER faileth! This principle is so important that God gave us two witnesses: 1 Corinthians 13 and Moroni 7.
You are a good man. The road you are on is leading to a success that you cannot presently envision, but it exists just the same. You’ll see.
Blessings,
Larry