Daily Study June 18th

Today I remembered a topic that has come and gone to my mind many times in the past. It is forgiveness. I mean to speak of it as my teacher in the MTC, Brother Burnell, spoke of it. He told a story of his little brother who had gone through some hard times. He finally turned his life around when not many people thought he would. Brother Burnell tenderly spoke of a conversation he had with his father about the whole situation. His father told him that our Savior does not care about where we have been, but where we are going. He will forgive us our past if we will leave it behind and follow him.

I have tried to remember this in times of my life when people I have known do something that upsets me or wrongs me. I try to remember what the Savior would do, and have me do. Today it came to my mind and I remembered the story of our Savior in Jerusalem. The Scribes and Pharisees were trying to find a way to condemn Christ and brought a women to him who had been caught in the act of adultery. When they asked what to do with her he informed them that he who was among them without sin should cast the first stone. He was the only without sin, yet he cast no stone while the others turned and walked away. When all were gone the Savior said,

“Woman, where are thine accusers, hath no man condemned thee?”.

Her response was simple

“no man Lord.” (John 8:10-11)

What Christ said next shows to me that he truly cares where we are going, not where we have been.

“ Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.”

Oh how we as people hold on to our past. One would think that the past is as valuable as gold. Now the lessons from our past are, but our sin is not. Why can we not let our sins go, or as our Savior said, “go and sin no more.”? Why can we not let the sins of others go?

I am drawn to my experience in raising my dog, Sophie. I studied before getting her so I could train her and be a good owner. One trainer I watched would always tell people that dogs let go of what has happened in the past, we just need to let them let go of it, and to do this we need to let go of it. He especially expressed this when he worked with dogs people had rescued. The new owners would allow bad habits to fester because they felt bad for what had happened in the past to the dog. This only made things worse! Once the trainer arrived and treated the dog normally, as a dog needs to be treated, the dog would immediately begin to act better because it let go of the past and moved forward, just as it’s owners would let go of the past”

Now that I have my dog there have been times she has made me very angry. I cannot reason with her, and if my training fails us both I have caught myself yelling at her for a mistake that roots to me. I can go apologize to her (for my own consciences sake) and she will never hold it against me, we move on and do not live in the past.

Why cannot we move on, like our dogs will, or even better, let us move on because our Savior is waiting for us to do so! Originally I started this thought on forgiveness, we should look at others and say “go, and sin no more”. We should be caring about where others are going, not where they have been. Like my dog does not hold a wrong against me neither should we hold on to the wrongs of others against us. May we be like our Savior by showing no greater love by caring where others are going by thinking “go, and sin no more”.