Can you imagine living in a world where people did not hurt each other or become angry or divided? Can you imagine families with total harmony and marriages with no contention? Can you imagine a world where everyone watched out for each other and people were there to help you when you needed it? Can you imagine a place so pure that God could be there? It may sound too good to imagine, but that is the Zion that the Lord envisions for us and that’s what we hope to build.

You can also find the podcast on the following platforms (click on the platform of your choice):

Join our study group and let’s delve into the scriptures in a way that is inspiring, expanding and joyful.

Maurine

Can you imagine living in a world where people did not hurt each other or become angry or divided? Can you imagine families with total harmony and marriages with no contention? Can you imagine a world where everyone watched out for each other and people were there to help you when you needed it? Can you imagine a place so pure that God could be there? It may sound too good to imagine, but that is the Zion that the Lord envisions for us and that’s what we hope to build.

Scot

Hello, we’re Scot and Maurine Proctor and this is Meridian Magazine’s Come Follow Me podcast. Today we are studying Doctrine and Covenants 58-59 and the lesson is “Anxiously Engaged in a Good Cause.” Transcripts for the podcasts can be found at latterdaysaintmag.com/podcast, and while you are there check out the phenomenally inspiring and insightful articles on Meridian Magazine. The magazine is updated daily, Monday through Friday with inspiring stories, scripture insights, and ideas about how to live joyfully in this sometimes difficult world. Want to make your day? Make sure you visit Meridian Magazine.

Maurine

Joseph Smith had translated Moses 7 and learned that Enoch and his people had been able to build a Zion. In June of 1831, Joseph began to receive instructions in a grand plan about what the saints in the latter-days must do to build their Zion. It was much on Joseph’s mind, and in those early days of the Church, even after the Latter-day Saints were driven from Missouri, we cannot over estimate how important building Zion was to them.

“Oh Zion, dear Zion.” Creating Zion was the burden of the prayers of the early Saints. They yearned for it, carried it like a fire in their hearts, longed for that society away from the oppressions and cares of the world where a celestial order prevails.  It was a heavenly homesickness they carried with them, a sense that “the world we have made and are making is not the world God meant us to have.” God has far better designs and happier ideas for his children.

Scot

From the earliest decades of the Church, those who left their fields and fortunes, coming “one from the bed, the other from the grinding” were about a monumental creative effort. They felt themselves called out of the world because they wanted Zion. “Go ye out of Babylon. Be ye clean.” (See Doctrine and Covenants 133:5-14). They were to gather to Zion for “a refuge from the storm” that would soon be poured out upon the whole earth. They would gather because, according to the parable of the wheat and tares, “the time of harvest is come.”

Maurine

The Bible gives a fairly detailed description of Zion, but the Saints were distinctive in their response to the message. For them, Zion is not a promise of a faraway impossible tomorrow. They believed “that Zion is possible on this earth, that men [and women] have the capacity to receive it right here and are therefore under obligation to waste no time moving in the direction of Zion.”

The Prophet Joseph Smith and others arrived in Independence near the end of July 1831, and a revelation was given that this was “the land of promise and the place for the city of Zion.”

Scot

Though this was a grand vision, the immediate prospects were less grand. Joseph had expected that he would find a more thriving church population, but something was much more disturbing.

“Our reflections were many, coming as we had from a highly cultivated state of society in the east, and standing now upon the confines or western limits of the United States, and looking into the vast wilderness of those that sat in darkness; how natural it was to observe the degradation, leanness of intellect, ferocity, and jealousy of a people that were nearly a century behind the times, and to feel for those who roamed about without the benefit of civilization, refinement, or religion; yea, and exclaim in the language of the Prophets: “When will the wilderness blossom as the rose? When will Zion be built up in her glory, and where will Thy temple stand, unto which all nations shall come in the last days?” (History of the Church  1:189).

Maurine

The frontiers of a civilization can be lawless and attract a rough, uncivilized crowd, and Independence with its courthouse and few scattered buildings was such a place. This place of chaos, roughness and disorder would come to be a formidable obstacle to building Zion, which we will talk about in much more detail, but for now, just note it was clear that the Saints had a steep climb to live near this raucous crowd.

At the same time, Sidney Rigdon was asked to write a description of the place and it reflects a natural world of abundance and beauty.

He said, “197The soil is rich and fertile; from three to ten feet deep, and generally composed of a rich black mold, intermingled with clay and sand. It yields in abundance, wheat, corn, sweet potatoes, cotton and many other common agricultural products. Horses, cattle and hogs, though of an inferior breed, are tolerably plentiful and seem nearly to raise themselves by grazing in the vast prairie range in summer, and feeding upon the bottoms in winter. The wild game is less plentiful of course where man has commenced the cultivation of the soil, than in the wild prairies. Buffalo, elk, deer, bear, wolves, beaver and many smaller animals here roam at pleasure. Turkeys, geese, swans, ducks, yea a variety of the feathered tribe, are among the rich abundance that grace the delightful regions of this goodly land—the heritage of the children of God.

Scot

Sidney did note a couple of disadvantages: “The disadvantages here, as in all new countries, are self-evident—lack of mills and schools; together with the natural privations and inconveniences which the hand of industry, the refinement of society, and the polish of science, overcome.

But all these impediments vanish when it is recollected what the Prophets have said concerning Zion in the last days…Where for brass, He will bring gold; and for iron, He will bring silver; and for wood, brass; and for stones, iron; and where the feast of fat things will be given to the just; yea, when the splendor of the Lord is brought to our consideration for the good of His people, the calculations of men and the vain glory of the world vanish, and we exclaim, “Out of Zion the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.”

Maurine

The Colesville branch, numbering about 60 souls, arrived in Independence, fully ready and eager to build Zion. Remember, the Colesville branch, were from New York and centered around Joseph and Polly Knight. Joseph Knight had been kind to the prophet when he needed it and helped to sustain them through their poverty as the prophet was translating the Book of Mormon. He had brought Joseph and Emma a barrel of mackeral, some potatoes and a stack of foolscap paper and writing utensils.

Then Joseph and Polly left their beautiful home to gather in Ohio with the branch, and they were invited to settle on Leman Copley’s land. When Copley became disaffected from the church, he demanded the people leave his farm, and suddenly the members of the Colesville branch and the Knight family were without a place to live. When they asked Joseph what to do, Joseph told them that they had been called to move on to Missouri and were given the distinct privilege of laying the foundation of Zion. 

Scot

On the 2nd of August, the Prophet assisted the Colesville Branch, numbering about sixty souls, in laying the first log for a house, as a foundation of Zion. Here would be the center “stake” of the tent of Israel, the place where the Lord would come to visit the earth once more.

Fifty-five year old Polly Knight had been sick on their fifteen-hundred-mile trek to Missouri, so sick, in fact, that her son, Newell, had gotten off the canal boat and had a coffin made for her. She was sustained on the journey by her longing for one thing, to set foot on the land of Zion and be buried there.  Four days after the dedication of the temple lot, she died, having fulfilled her deepest desire.

Maurine

The first two verses of Section 59 refer, in part to Polly Knight.

“Behold, blessed, saith the Lord, are they who have come up unto this land with an eye single to my glory, according to my commandments.

“For those that live shall inherit the earth, and those that die shall rest from all their labors, and their works shall follow them; and they shall receive a crown  in the mansions of my Father, which I have prepared for them.”

Scot

It is noteworthy that the Lord is discussing Zion in Doctrine and Covenants 58, but in the first four verses of the section, the word tribulation is mentioned three times. It seems the purifying power of tribulation will be crucial for building Zion.

The Colesville branch, centered on the Knight family, saw the loss of Polly as soon as they arrived in Independence, and Parley describes that first winter for them which was not easy. “They had arrived late in the summer, and cut some hay for their cattle, sowed a little grain, and prepared some ground for cultivation, and were engaged during the fall and winter in building log cabins, etc.

“The winter was cold, and for some time about ten families lived in one log cabin, which was open and unfinished, while the frozen ground served for a floor. Our food consisted of beef and a little bread made of corn, which had been grated into coarse meal by rubbing the ears on a tin grater. This was rather an inconvenient way of living for a sick person; but it was for the gospel’s sake, and all were very cheerful and happy. (Parley P. Pratt, ed. Scot Facer Proctor, Maurine Jensen Proctor (Salt Lake City, Utah, Deseret Book, pp. 87,88).

Maurine

The Lord warned them of tribulation, and this was the merest taste of it. Much more was on the horizon as they went to build Zion. A particular kind of tribulation is described in verses three and four of Section 58.

“Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes, for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation.

“For after much tribulation come the blessings. Wherefore the day cometh that ye shall be crowned with much glory; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand.”

Scot

What was the Lord saying to them? What they didn’t know was that after all their industry of building cabins and communities, of dreaming and seeking to build Zion, within two years, starting in July of 1833, they would be driven out, their leaders tarred and feathered, their houses burned, their existence threatened on every side with death.

Wait a minute. Isn’t this the place where the Lord designated Zion would be? Hadn’t the prophet called them to build Zion? This was the very location. How could they possibly lose Zion and how could the Lord let this happen to them, who had clearly made such sacrifices?

These are not just questions for them, but for us. The Lord tells us that we cannot see with our natural eyes at the present time His design for us, and honestly that causes much angst in our lives. Why can’t he just show his hand now?

Maurine

Sometimes, we ask for blessings that we really need, blessings that we need now because our lives are at a critical place, and it can really hurt our hearts that we can’t always see answers. Didn’t you hear me? we might ask God. Don’t you see my desperate need? Don’t you see I can’t go on without this blessing? People who are in that juncture might easily include either that God isn’t there or that He doesn’t love them or that He is utterly indifferent to their plight.

They might conclude that they are unworthy or that their prayers aren’t good enough or that God is absent in another universe. It can be so easy to be discouraged then.

While you might be able to endure what seems like silence over littler things, sometimes what matters most to you is on the line—and that is when what we think is silence can be so painful.

Scot

I remember one young BYU student saying, “I asked the Lord when I graduated if I could have a husband and a job and I got neither. He has betrayed me.”

Of course, He hadn’t betrayed her at all, but she could not perceive with her natural eyes for the present, the design that God had for her. His design was different from hers.

Spiritual maturity means we have come to trust the Lord and his purposes for us—even when we can’t see them at the moment. Obviously, He sees what we can’t see and knows what we can’t know. Our perspective is tiny, limited, based on flawed assumptions and emotional reasoning. If we could see clearly, we would want the Lord’s purposes to unfold in our life in His way, instead of ours. We, after all, cannot ,with thought, add a single cubit to our height, while He knows how to transform us and our experience with light and joy to become as He is. That’s quite a contrast.

Maurine

More than two decades ago when we started Meridian Magazine, the Lord asked us to exercise trust—and I will admit it was so difficult. We felt led to create a new magazine and every time we thought about it ideas would flow like a mountain stream into our minds. It was so clear that the Spirit was acting upon us, yet for four years of constant striving, nothing worked. We had financing in line for it five different times, and just as we got close to a launch date, the financing dried up. How could the Lord ask us to do something and then not support us?

This wasn’t a small thing to us, right?

Scot

Right. We had eleven children to support and some of them were already in college and missions. We couldn’t spend our time trying to start something and not being paid for any length of time. After all, the dinner bell rang every night, just as it always had, at our home. It seemed so often that we were just about to bring the magazine to fruition, and our financing would dump again. Is there anything more frustrating than working really hard and have everything turn to ashes in your hand? Or to see life as a brick wall when you have many mouths counting on you?

Maurine

We prayed and prayed, and I will confess, sometimes I thought, “Where are you Lord? Why don’t you care about us?” Our goal was to do a print magazine called Meridian that would be published every two months. It was frustrated at every turn. Had the Lord invited us to take this journey only to abandon us along the way?

Then when our last backer announced they couldn’t finance the magazine and suggested that we put it on the Internet instead, we were heartsick. Our new print magazine was to come out in two months, and now we were supposed to turn to the Internet? Those were the days before you and I, Scot, had an email address, let alone knew anything about the Internet, and certainly not about its power and worldwide reach. The Internet seemed like some kind of an obscure thing that only a handful of people were interested in. Besides, we like the feel of print and the cuddle up in bed with something in print. The idea of going on the Internet seemed like the final blow.

Scot

How wrong we were. When we turned to publish our new magazine, called Meridian, on the Internet, we were simply staggered by its reach. All those years we were clamoring for the Lord to help us launch our print magazine and help didn’t seem to come now made sense. God had a plan for us all along—and it was a much better plan than ours. If we had done a print magazine, chances are that we would have been out of business years ago. We really couldn’t see with our natural eyes the design that God had in store for us.

Because our natural eyes and our natural circumstances are so demanding, it takes a very, intentional, developed faith to trust in what the Lord is doing, even when you can’t see it. Trust that He has a plan for your life that you can access as you stay truly aligned with Him. Trust that He knows you and your possibilities far better than you know yourself. Trust that His character is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow and He always, always acts in your behalf.

Maurine

Our friend, Paul Horstmeier, told us his story of having to trust in the Lord when his natural eyes couldn’t see God’s design in his life. As a young man, he received a patriarchal blessing that said he had an important work to do in Europe. He assumed that this meant he was going to be called to a European mission, and probably Germany, given his last name. He was working to teach a friend the gospel and assured his friend to watch and see, he would be called to Europe because his patriarchal blessing was so clear.

Then, much to Paul’s surprise, he was called to Peru, and he felt a bit chagrined to tell his friend. Why did he have this call? He went on that mission to Peru and not only was he a great missionary, but met his wife who was also serving in Peru at the same time.

Yet, that question of why his blessing had mentioned the important work to be done in Europe always remained in his mind. Then years later, his grandmother gave him some family history work to do, that was all based in Europe. He caught fire, and to this point has facilitated the temple work for over 19,000 names. One day in the midst of this work, the Spirit whispered to him that this was the important work he was called to do in Europe. The Lord knew all along, even when he was called to Peru.

Scot

That surprising call to Peru put Paul right in line to meet his wife. The Lord’s unfolding plan involves timing

Elder Neal A. Maxwell said, “The issue for us is trusting God enough to trust also His timing. If we can truly believe He has our welfare at heart, may we not let His plans unfold as He thinks best? The same is true with the second coming and with all those matters wherein our faith needs to include faith in the Lord’s timing for us personally, not just in His overall plans and purposes. [Even As I Am (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1982), 93]

Elder Maxwell said: “Since faith in the timing of the Lord may be tried, let us learn to say not only, ‘Thy will be done,’ but patiently also, ‘Thy timing be done’” (CR, April 2001, 76; or “Plow in Hope,” Ensign, May 2001, 59).

Maurine

President Dallin H. Oaks said, “The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith means trust—trust in God’s will, trust in His way of doing things, and trust in His timetable. We should not try to impose our timetable on His.”

This is true in both churchwide and personal revelation. President Oaks said, “continuing revelation is the means by which the Lord administers His timing. We need that revelatory direction. For example, many of us or our descendants will doubtless participate in the fulfillment of prophecies about the building of the city of New Jerusalem (see D&C 84:2–4). But in this matter the timing is the Lord’s, not ours. We will not be approved or blessed in clearing the ground or pouring the footings for that great project until the Lord has said that it is time. In this, as in so many other things, the Lord will proceed in His own time and in His own way.

“We prepare in the way the Lord has directed. We hold ourselves in readiness to act on the Lord’s timing. He will tell us when the time is right to take the next step. For now, we simply concentrate on our own assignments and on what we have been asked to do today. In this we are also mindful of the Lord’s assurance: “I will hasten my work in its time” (D&C 88:73).”

 Scot

President Oaks said, “The Lord’s timing also applies to the important events of our personal lives. A great scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants declares that a particular spiritual experience will come to us “in his own time, and in his own way, and according to his own will” (D&C 88:68).

“So what should be done in the meantime? Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ prepares us for whatever life brings. This kind of faith prepares us to deal with life’s opportunities—to take advantage of those that are received and to persist through the disappointments of those that are lost. In the exercise of that faith we should commit ourselves to the priorities and standards we will follow on matters we do not control and persist faithfully in those commitments whatever happens to us because of the agency of others or the timing of the Lord. When we do this, we will have a constancy in our lives that will give us direction and peace. Whatever the circumstances beyond our control, our commitments and standards can be constant.

“If we have faith in God and if we are committed to the fundamentals of keeping His commandments and putting Him first in our lives, we do not need to plan every single event—even every important event—and we should not feel rejected or depressed if some things—even some very important things—do not happen at the time we had planned or hoped or prayed.”

Maurine

Elder Oaks continued, “The most important principle of timing is to take the long view. Mortality is just a small slice of eternity, but how we conduct ourselves here—what we become by our actions and desires, confirmed by our covenants and the ordinances administered to us by proper authority—will shape our destiny for all eternity. As the prophet Amulek taught, “This life is the time for men to prepare to meet God” (Alma 34:32). That reality should help us take the long view—the timing of eternity. As President Charles W. Penrose declared at a general conference memorializing the death of President Joseph F. Smith:

“Why waste your time, your talents, your means, your influence in following something that will perish and pass away, when you could devote yourselves to a thing that will stand forever? For this Church and kingdom, to which you belong, will abide and continue in time, in eternity, while endless ages roll along, and you with it will become mightier and more powerful; while the things of this world will pass away and perish, and will not abide in nor after the resurrection, saith the Lord our God. [CR, June 1919, 37]”

Scot

Trusting in the Lord’s timing and designs, not with our natural eyes but with the eye of faith does great things for us. So much of our own unhappiness comes from our refusal to trust. Insecurity and even faithlessness may come when we can’t see the blessings now that we need. The truth is:  We aren’t insecure. We only think we are.

If we can trust His timing, we can abandon anger and whining toward God when He isn’t doing things for us on our time table. If we can trust His timing, so much of our misery will evaporate. We can cease living in a way as if we will only be happy when something turns out the way we want it to. Trust allows us to understand that the Lord is doing something important for us right now even when we can’t see it. We can choose to develop trust in the One who totally deserves our trust. We can give up fear and anxiety. We can live with a calm heart and patience in our soul, touched by the knowledge that God is completely aware of our needs.

Maurine

Zion, as we know, is the pure in heart. How noteworthy it is that the pure in heart  are also those who will see the face of God. To be pure in heart, we have to be purified, which often comes with tribulation. Tribulation is clarifying. Some who face tribulation sink into cynicism and despair. Others find God in ways more powerful than they ever supposed, because  it becomes clear that they need Him so much. They cannot do it alone.

Those who will build Zion have developed the courage to be “all in” not in spite of their tribulations, but because of them which teach profound lessons that can be found in no other way.

Scot

In the face of tribulation, Elder Maxwell said, “The valiant among us keep moving forward anyway, because they know the Lord loves them, even when they “do not know the meaning of all things” (1 Ne. 11:17). As you and I observe the valiant cope successfully with severe and relentless trials, we applaud and celebrate their emerging strength and goodness. Yet the rest of us tremble at the tuition required for the shaping of such sterling character, while hoping we would not falter should similar circumstances come to us!

–
“However, enduring and submitting are not passive responses at all, but instead are actually more like being braced sufficiently to report for advanced duties, while carrying—meekly and victoriously—bruises from the previous frays.” (Neal A. Maxwell, “Plow in Hope” https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2001/05/plow-in-hope.html?lang=eng#title1

Maurine

We have a dear friend whose husband has been in a coma for 8 weeks from a brain injury. We have learned so much as she has grieved, but also as she has been strengthened and carried through this tragedy. She said, “We know that Satan is bound during the Millennium, but I know that in my life I have to bind him right now. In this time of vulnerability and heartache, I cannot let the Adversary attack me with discouragement or fear. I can’t let my mind go there even a little bit, because it would have the power to undo me.

As she spoke, I thought, the Lord can carry us through the worst tribulation if we will turn to Him with all the energy of our souls. I like the idea of binding Satan by refusing to let your mind entertain discouragement or hopelessness.

Scot

Now, Joseph Smith told the Saints that Jackson County would be the place for the building of Zion, but we also know that Zion is not just a location. It is built by people of a particular type.

Hugh Nibley said, “When all the accidentals and incidentals are stripped away, what remains that is quintessentially Zion? Buildings, walls, streets, and gates—even of gold and jasper—do not make Zion; neither do throngs in shining robes. Zion is not a Cecil B. DeMille production; the properties do not make the play, no matter how splendid they may be. What makes Zion? God has given us the perfect definition: Zion is the pure in heart—the pure in heart, not merely the pure in appearance. It is not a society or religion of forms and observances, of pious gestures and precious mannerisms: it is strictly a condition of the heart. Above all, Zion is pure, which means “not mixed with any impurities, unalloyed”; it is all Zion and nothing else. It is not achieved wherever a heart is pure or where two or three are pure, because it is all pure—it is a society, a community, and an environment into which no unclean thing can enter. “Henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean” (3 Nephi 20:36). It is not even pure people in a dirty environment, or pure people with a few impure ones among them; it is the perfectly pure in a perfectly pure environment. “I . . . will contend with Zion . . . and chasten her until she overcomes and is clean before me” (D&C 90:36).

Maurine

Nibley continued, “This makes it so different from our world that it almost begins to sound distasteful. But a moment’s reflection will show that Zion cannot possibly be other than wholly pure. For Zion is the eternal order; it has existed elsewhere from the eternities and will someday be permanently established on this earth. Even the smallest impurity or flaw in anything designed to continue forever would, in the course of an infinite stretching of time, become a thing of infinite mischief. The most perfect structures men have been able to erect have been short-lived because of tiny, all-but-imperceptible flaws. Hence, any flaw, no matter how small, must be removed from a system designed to be timeless; otherwise, there will be no end of trouble. The only kind of life that can be endured forever is one completely devoid of sin, for we are told that the most calamitous thing that could befall man at present would be for him to reach forth his hand and partake of the tree of life and live forever in his sins. Jeremiah describes Zion as a comely and delicate woman who cannot live in the presence of what is vile (Jeremiah 6:2-7). “When men presume to build up Zion in their sins, they labor in vain.” (Hugh Nibley, Don E. Norton, “What is Zion? A Distant View” in Approaching Zion, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, pp. 26-27)).

Scot

Those early Saints who were called to Missouri to lay the foundations of Zion were given a charge, as the Lord said in Section 58, “that your hearts might be prepared” and “that a feast of fat things might be prepared for the poor” (vs. 6,8). This feast of fat things is the most choice and abundant of blessings, “a supper of the house of the Lord” to which all nations are invited (v. 9). This includes “the poor, the lame, and the blind, and the deaf” who, despite their circumstances are all invited.

Can you imagine a society where there is no poor? This is the work of Zion. It is the ultimate humanitarian project. Here is the essential humanitarian quote given by President J. Reuben Clark. “The real, long-term objective of the welfare plan is the building of character in the members of the Church—givers and receivers, rescuing all that is finest down deep inside of them and bringing to flower and fruitage the latent richness of the spirit, which after all, is the mission and purpose and reason for being of this church.”

Maurine

I am moved by this idea that the latent richness of the spirit is freed in Zion, because, among other things the poor and afflicted have been freed. Sharon Eubank, who heads the humanitarian division of the Church said, “The nature of relief and development work is to be exposed to everything that is unjust, everything that is disastrous and those circumstances are like a killing frost to the potential—that flower and fruitage in human beings” to release the finest that is deep, down in people.

Meanwhile, while we wait to build Zion, we can seek Zion now in our own souls. We can ask the Lord to help us become more pure. We can work for Zion in our marriages, in our family relationships in our friendships. “O Zion, dear Zion.”

Scot

That’s all for today. We’re Scot and Maurine Proctor and this has been Meridian Magazine’s Come Follow Me podcast. Transcripts for this podcast are at latterdaysaintmag.com/podcast and we hope you are reading Meridian Magazine every day. Take a refreshment from all the bad news you find in the mainstream media. We have the most remarkable, inspiring and insightful articles written by scores of Latter-day Saint authors. You can sign up for the email to come into your inbox with fresh news of the Church every weekday at latterdaysaintmag.com/signup.

Next week on the podcast we will study Doctrine and Covenants Sections 60-62, “All Flesh is in Mine Hand.” Thanks to Paul Cardall for the music and to Michaela Proctor Hutchins who is our producer. See you next week.