Face the future as cheerfully as possible. Someone wrote once that of all the encouragement Christ extends to us in the scriptures, of all the hope He repeatedly offers to us, that which we repeatedly fail to accept is the encouragement to “be of good cheer.” May we please take Christ at His word? Could we just try it? May we embrace that happy, hope-filled invitation tonight as we seize yet another chance to start a new year and make of our life exactly what we want it to be.
As with all of His invitations to us, Christ lived them before He taught them. In spite of the burdens that He bore, He was optimistic, positive, and He helped others to be the same, including, I might add, prophets of God. From the depths of Liberty Jail—and the depths of despair he experienced there—the Prophet Joseph Smith’s ultimate counsel to the Saints who were outside praying for his release was to “cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.” And no one is more positive, more optimistic, more filled with hope than Russell Marion Nelson, our living prophet who echoed Joseph’s counsel when he said to us recently: “No spiritual blessing will be withheld from the righteous. … The Lord would have us look … to the future ‘with joyful anticipation’ [Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith (2007), 513].” Prophets are of good cheer because they are true disciples of Jesus Christ, and that is the ultimate source of all optimism. Prophets are of good cheer because they know the plan; they know who wins in the end.
As Sister Holland has said so beautifully, the ability to see the world positively is yet another gift from God. “Men”—and I might add women and children—“are, that they might have joy,” the scriptures are wont to tell us. That is why it is a “plan of happiness.” As a result of that plan and Christ’s Atonement at the heart of it, we can be hopeful no matter how dark some days might be.
The grandeur of the Savior’s example in this matter deserves our reverence as we face a new year, a year that might hold some challenges for some of us. Think about it. How could Jesus speak of cheerfulness in the midst of all the anguish that He faced moving toward the Crucifixion? Even in the fateful atmosphere that must have prevailed at the Last Supper, Christ is still reminding His disciples of the reason, and their duty, to “be of good cheer.” I have wondered, with the pain that lay ahead of Him, how He could speak so positively and expect His brethren to view all of this buoyantly. Surely, this manifestation of His faith, of His hope and charity, comes because He knows the end of the story. He knows righteousness prevails when final accounts are completed. He knows that light always conquers darkness forever and forever and forever. He knows His Father in Heaven never gives a commandment without also providing the way to fulfill it. A victory makes everyone cheerful, and Christ was the victor in His great contest with death and hell. Now, that’s heavy theology tonight, but that is what they were to be happy about. Christ triumphant is the source of our hope in this new year and every year—forever.
January 2023
2023 Devotionals
see also: https://quotestokeep.blogspot.com/2022/08/i-submit-that-to-be-of-good-cheer-john.html?m=0
