Thoughts on Truth

Joseph Smith described truth as ‘tasting good.”  Have you ever tasted truth and recognized it?  I have.  I did tonight while preparing for my elders quorum lesson.  The scripture says that truth can be distilled upon us as the dews of heaven.   Certainly truth is not revealed in rainstorms, all at once in a violent rush of power, light, and glory, at least not to most of us.  Rather it is as the scriptures say, distilled upon us drop by drop.  As we absorb the truth we have been offered the Lord provides more.  If we reject the truth we quite literally dry up to things spiritual.

Truth reveals itself in many places, certainly in the scriptures and the words of the prophets, but not only there.  The sweet taste of truth can be found in the honor Buddhists give their ancestors, for it is to our family that we owe our existence.  The savor of truth exists in the thought clearing meditation of Hinduism, for the Lord has commanded us to ‘be still and know that I am God.”   Even the Shinto belief of God’s presence in all things has been seasoned by truths light, for the Savior himself said that he is “in all and through all things.”  

Living among a people whose cultural currents run so deep has brought me to appreciate more greatly the words of the Lord to the Nephites in 2 Nephi 29: 7…

“Know ye not that there are more nations than one? Know ye not that I, the Lord your God, have created all men, and that I remember those who are upon the isles of the sea; and that I rule in the heavens above and in the earth beneath; and I bring forth my word unto the children of men, yea, even upon all the nations of the earth?”

I know that the Lord has an eye on us, both individually and collectively.  I know that he loves us, that he has provided sufficient truth in our lives to make decisions that are in harmony with peace, happiness, and righteousness.  Each of us, if we wish can have the truths of eternity distilled upon our souls.  This is true of the Buddhist priest, the Hindu monk, the Baptist pastor, the atheist skeptic, and the baptized Mormon.  Truth is not confined by religion, but by our willingness to accept it.  If we do not recognize truth as it distills upon us from the many channels the lord uses to offer it, then we choose to cut ourselves off from it.

Mormonism does not say ‘we are right and you are wrong,’ rather Mormonism proclaims the sanctity of truth in all its forms, and offers the restored truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the sunlight from which all shadows, shades, and hints of truth in the world receive their glow.

Because truth is eternal and unchanging, all truth in all cultures and religions comes from the same source: God.  It came from God in purity and simplicity to man. The confusion in the world was not caused be God, but rather by what man has done with the truth God has given him.  It is the precepts and teachings of men that have brought about the prejudices and ill-will of man.  As man becomes hardened, unable to absorb the truth as it is distilled from heaven, he is left to his own devices, and left to his own; man has propagated distorted versions of eternal truth throughout the world.  

Thus it became necessary for the Lord to restore truth in its fullness, to bring again to the earth not only the blessing of previously revealed truth, but the security and power of living truth as revealed by a living prophet of God.  I know that Joseph Smith is the prophet of this restoration, that he rebuilt the tower upon which the Lord’s watchmen continue to stand, and I know that as more of us look to the Lord and his watchmen, more of us will be able to live up to the Lord’s call in Doctrine and Covenants 121:45:

“Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.”


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