A glimpse of the eventual joy of God’s beautifully orchestrated steps

Last week we spoke about knowing Christ more deeply by walking with him, by striving to serve others as he would. We also likened him to wearing hearing aids, hearing and observing again and anew as we purposely enable sounds we have lost or not yet experienced. Please consider this analogy further. 

Wailea Point

It was a pleasant Aloha Saturday morning as Joan and I drove from Wailuku to Wailea. We parked and approached the ocean boardwalk just south of the Grand Wailea resort. The ocean bay was relatively calm and we observed many visitors enjoying the beach, snorkeling, playing in and even walking on water via stand-up paddle boards. This is a familiar scene. However, on this occasion as we approached the sea my legs and feet automatically stopped and I gazed over the prominent white-ginger bushes with their scented white five-peddle flowers. My mind took a moment to correlate what I heard with the perspective that I saw.

With new interest I watched a typical wave brake from the left, and from the right. As the left and right breakers converged in the center in front of me, I saw new interactions and admired the collision with my ears. I could hear millions of droplets I hadn’t heard before breaking on the water in front of the wave. I could hear more clearly the children’s voices and the birds and the breeze and the leaves. After a moment we walked on.

Along Wailea Point I again couldn’t help but stop and stare at the rocks below. The gurgling, spraying, crashing, sound of millions of water droplets hitting the rocks as waves lightly struck. Even the sound of water retreating and dripping and babbling from the rocks back into the ocean gently sustained my attention. I was seeing anew with my ears. It was delightful.

Later we continued our preparations for the next day, Sunday, where in addition to attending our ward and Sacrament meeting, we would also make presentations to Ward Councils in two other wards on Maui. Our assignment was to report Addiction Recovery Program (ARP) progress, provide some basic training to council members, and invite them to invite others in their stewardship that could benefit from the program. A thought occurred that we should invite one or both of our ARP facilitators to attend with us and bear their testimony. We felt this in the spirit of love, love for God, love for our fellow servants, and love for those we serve. We sent the text message invitation and then moved confidently toward the sabbath and our first, early morning ward council. I wish I could share the miracles that occurred that morning, and the day before. Miracles and promptings the Lord was orchestrating even the day before as we enjoyed the boardwalk along Wailea Point. The specifics are private and confidential, but I can say the hand of God was at work blessing lives as we and others did our best to listen to his voice not knowing beforehand what he was doing.

Later that Sunday evening we gathered with a few missionaries to reflect on God’s blessings. Not critical to this story is the fact that I was still in significant pain from the Wisdom teeth extraction I experienced a week before, but still God worked his miracles even in our pain and weakness. I asked for a priesthood blessing and was blessed with great love and peace as my fellow missionaries laid their hands on my head.

These experiences helped me later in the week make some refinements to a new poem, a song I drafted a couple weeks before. It was one of those songs that started with an idea, a thought during scripture study, and how life sometimes overwhelms us and seems to control us and our selfish nature comes out in our behavior. Reviewing the sermon on the mount (Matthew 5 and 6), and pondering recent experiences confirms Jesus’ ability to open our eyes to see new things as we walk with the him, with his aid. 

I’m now sixty-seven years old. I’ve lost some of my hair and some of my hearing. But the audible and spiritual renewals I felt this week gave me a glimpse of the joy one can feel through Christ-like love and service and promptings, even amidst pain, physical and emotional. What I experienced at Wailea may be a tiny glimpse of the joy of the physical resurrection. But what we experienced over that weekend may be even more profound, a glimpse of the eventual joy of God’s beautifully orchestrated steps, his agency-based redemption through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

You Open My Eyes

(Verse 1: The teaching – love your enemy)
You’ve heard it said in days of old, love your friend and hate your foe,
But Jesus said to love and bless those, who persecute the soul.
I fall short of earth and heaven, I don’t turn the other cheek,
My eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth ways, don’t bless the poor and meek.

(Verse 2: The teaching – judge righteously)
Now Jesus said don’t judge another, in your eye there is a beam,
The measure that you give your brother, the same you will redeem.
Do some good for one another, as you’d have them do to you,
To enter into Father’s kingdom, His will I need to do.

(Bridge: The struggle)
Life acts upon me o’r whelms me controls me,
I yield to my selfish old way.
Exerting great trust, I do what I must,
I act with His love and the dark turns to day.

(Chorus: Revelation)
You open my eyes, you open my eyes to see,
You open my ears, you open new sound to me,
You open my heart, it changes so I can be,
Like you.