How do we reach Heaven?
Faith Matters resources to accompany your Come Follow Me study: Feb 9-Feb 15
There is spiritual safety in following the Lord’s prophet. Following the Lord’s prophet will bless me and my family.
The Flood was an act of God’s mercy.
The family of Adam and Eve had grown from a neighborhood into a town into a city into a nation. They were living, and growing, and farming, and shepherding, and marrying, and having babies, and getting older and older. And when they got really old, something very sad happened. They died. And some people died even before they were old. Some people just got sick and then never got better. Others got hurt or had an accident and died very suddenly. And every time someone died, it felt terrible. Even when they were old and worn out and ready to go, it still felt so, so bad, like it wasn’t supposed to happen.
And the people began to fear death more than anything. And the fear of death made their lives feel short, like there wasn’t enough time or money or attention. They competed for food, wealth, and fame because they all wanted to be remembered forever, as if somehow that would keep them alive. And so the world filled with war and blood and, of course, death. And this made God sad because their fear of dying was only causing more death. …
—Sarah & Josh Sabey, “Noah, who tried to save everything”
God will keep His promises to me.
We live under clouds of fear. Daily life’s grind and grime wear out our bodies and souls. Wars rage on; the world changes faster and more maddeningly than we ever could have anticipated; natural disasters spread destruction; family challenges burden our hearts; loved ones grow sick; we experience gutting loss.
And yet, the light of Christ’s peace still breaks through. Because Christ loves us, because he knows fear and overcame fear, He can help us to fear not. Christ lifts us out of despair, ennui, and fear, but also meets us in our heartache, allowing us to step out of our gloom and look forward with trust in His promises. “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
—Megan Armknecht, “His Gospel is Peace”
Elder Robert M. Daines eloquently articulates, “When prophets and apostles”—and I would also include God—“talk of covenants, they aren’t like coaches yelling out from (red velvet) bleachers, telling us to ‘try harder!’ They want us to see our covenants are fundamentally about relationships. . . . They are not rules to earn [God’s] love; He already loves you perfectly. . . . Covenants are the shape of God’s embrace.”
—Travis Hicks, “My Side-by-Side God”
Tokens or symbols help me remember my covenants with the Lord.
Although I didn’t see it at the time, Grandma created for us a sacred ritual with the cool caramel taste of root beer, the slow, joyful work of seeking tiny treasures, and the gentle rhythm of rosary beads sliding through her reverent fingers. In root beer, I learned that I am loved, that happy times together bond us, that a little sweetness makes things better. In sea glass, I saw that broken things can become new and beautiful, that letting our rough edges smooth isn’t something to be avoided, and that beautiful discoveries are there to be found but require patience and diligence. In the rosary, I remember that I am a part of history both sacred and familial, that girls like me are creators of meaning, that we matter, that the repetition of our story, women’s story, will never be in vain, and that our pleading, yearning, and seeking are consecrated by God. Build love, accept our Heavenly Parents’ refining hands, remember women’s vital role in faith, family, and church: these are the lessons lovingly imparted through Grandma’s rites of root beer, sea glass, and rosary. You are loved. You are redeemable. You are essential.
—Amy Watkins Jensen, “Tokens of Meaning”
Following Jesus Christ is the only way to Heavenly Father. Following Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven.
I think it must have been terribly frustrating and divisive to have lived in Babel after the Lord had confounded the language of the people. The inability of those people to communicate with each other must have caused enormous discord and confusion. Perhaps today we are suffering from a similar malady—an inability to listen to, value, and understand each other. But God has not done the confounding. We have done it to ourselves.
—Kathy Kipp Clayton, “Ward Choirs”
In contrast, we see many attempting a purely upward trajectory, demarcated by performative markers. This futile path, described in scripture as “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 3:7), is exemplified by the Pharisees of the New Testament and in the story of the Tower of Babel. Those invested in the tower tried, as many have, to get to heaven without doing the radical (and radial) soul work required. They attempted to build an outward manifestation of what they should have been cultivating inside: communion with God. Thinking they could climb to heaven, they rejected their own transformation path, their hearts, and God Themselves in the process.
—Kathryn Knight Sonntag, “Communion and Consciousness”
Soon, they thought, we will be in heaven and we will knock on God’s door and say, ‘Hello there! Can we stay with you?’” And they imagined seeing God and how he would respond. He would certainly be proud of them for finding their way back home and maybe even a little impressed.
But God was not proud of them, though he was a little impressed. Working together, they managed to build a most remarkable skyscraper. It was an architectural triumph. There was something so right about what they were doing. They were looking for heaven. And they were doing it by working together. But there was something very wrong about why they were doing it.
The whole grand endeavor was being motivated by fear. Fear of the world. And fear of death. And while they thought they were running towards God, they were running away from him as well.
Because God did not live in the sky. He was not hiding behind a cloud. Heaven was not up there at all. It was going to be built here, on the beautiful earth God had created. And so God wanted his children to stop building a ladder to climb to heaven, and to start building heaven, on the very world they were trying to escape.
God didn’t want them to fear the world, or to run away. He needed his children to face their fears. To love the world so they could help fix it. They didn’t need to run back to God, because he was coming for them.
Because heaven was not a destination in the sky, but a project. It was a community built not with bricks but with people. This big tower was getting in the way of what they ought to be building. And what they ought to be building was a community. And this community would grow sideways, not upwards.
—Sarah & Josh Sabey, “The people who ran away from the earth”
