Humble Before the Lord

Bev as Έḇeḏ

I never thought I could understand, much less internalize, or even have an interest in reading esoteric scholarly writings. In the words of my daughter, “Mom, it’s just boring.” Over the years, I’ve discovered that what I once thought of as boring… like reading the Old Testament… is really because I didn’t understand the meaning behind the words.  Remember when you were a kid and you thought the children’s shows were fantastic and they held you enthralled for hours? On the other side of the coin do you remember that when your parents wanted to watch the news, you thought it was boring?

Teenagers still roll their eyes when their parents talk about something that they think is boring.

My first encounter with reading something that was beyond my normal reading level was when I read “Approaching Zion” by Hugh Nibley some 30 years ago. Many people think Nibley is hard to understand. Funny thing is that when taken one sentence at a time AND retaining your place in his various digressions or stories, a person can keep hold of the thread of his thought and it is mind blowing. He is a brilliant scholar and a genius. Reading his book created a paradigm shift in my spiritual thinking. It also showed me that I could probably read anything written and learn something from it. I began a lifelong love of following LDS scholarly writings.

So What the Heck Does Έḇeḏ Mean?

Jennifer C. Lane, in her essay entitled “Worship: Bowing Down and Serving the Lord,” found in “Ascending the Mountainof the Lord: Temple, Praise, and Worship in the Old Testament” a book of scholarly essays presented at the 42^nd Annual Brigham Young University Sidney B. Sperry Symposium, describes Worship as a Way of Life: The Example of the Servants (p 132).

I don’t know about you but I have a hard time coming to grips with the idea of a servant bowing down to his master. In modern society the idea of bowing down and submitting oneself to the will of another rubs you the wrong way. Of course this is a cultural bias, coming out of a time where slavery was practiced, even embraced, as a way of life, any outward display of servitude seems degrading.

Hopeful and Inspiring Models of Servanthood

Lane finds a very positive status of a servant in examples found in the Old Testament, our current course of study in Sunday school this year. These examples can show us how we can live in a “true relationship with God.” I became intrigued that I might actually learn something from that ‘boring Old Testament.’

The Meaning of Έḇeḏ

          The Hebrew word for servant ‘eḇeḏ “generally expresses the position of a human being before God,” and it can also describe the servant who is an instrument in the Lord’s hands to accomplish his work and bring about his righteousness.

One phrase in my patriarchal blessing says “Sister Beverly, I bless you that you shall have a determination in your heart to ever serve the Lord… to bring to pass much righteousness upon the earth…” Hmmmm, interesting, me a servant. Give Service. To Serve… Servant. Hear me thinking?

Christ Our Exemplar as Servant

Lane says, “The image of the Suffering Servant describes the redemptive role of Christ in the prophetic writings of Isaiah.” The role of servant singles out one who has a specific task to perform. “This principle —namely, the honor of being chosen, obedient, and working as representatives of God, that of being ‘eḇeḏ in the Old Testament, describes the one who lives in the true relationship with God —always obedient, always on the Lord’s errand.”

We should ask as Paul, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" (Acts 9:6)

Lane says “We do not need to have a messianic or prophetic mission in life in order to worship the Lord as his servants. In fact, recognizing that we all are called to be servants but given different missions is a humbling and also equalizing vision that can free us from envy, resentment, pride, or any desire to boast or compare.”

Worship is Something that We Do

Worship is something that we do and that we are in a relationship with the one we are worshiping. Understanding the Hebrew Old Testament vocabulary usage of the verbs hwh (bow down) and āḇaḏ (serve) that are often translated as “worship” shows they describe the physical expression of a relationship of submission to authority.

Now, I don’t know about you, but that concept or image doesn’t sit well with me. Yet upon further pondering, my bowing my head in prayer, and in the temple, it is a beautiful thing to me. So rather than it being about what “I” think, or what “I” feel, understanding worship in reality, becomes a positive uplifting way of life expressed by the physical actions of bowing down or serving. So, Bev, get over it... bow down... be humble.

Ye Are Not Your Own

The thought as expressed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 “Ye are not your own…for ye are bought with a price” explains that “since we belong to the Lord through the purchase price of the blood of Christ, we should not bow down and serve anyone else.”

In Psalms 5:7, “But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple,” Lane illuminates, “All lands and all people were invited to be the Lord’s servants and to come before his presence in his holy house to worship and to praise. “Bowing down’ and “serving” the Lord in the context of temple worship is a commandment, but it is also an expression of love and gratitude for our redemption.”

I LOVE GOING TO THE TEMPLE

Gilbert AZ Temple Tour

A Tour of the new Gilbert AZ Temple

Story of a Celestial Chandelier

     I have a young friend, Taylor, age 15 who lives in the difficult environment of a CPS group home in Mesa, AZ. Although I first met her when she was baptized at age 8, her tragic life has left her with little knowledge about Christ and His redeeming sacrifice for her. Each month when I go up to Mesa to see her, she will ask if we can go to the Mesa Temple Visitor’s Center where we watch videos or look at special exhibits. Or she’d request a visit to the Regional FamilySearch Library across from the Mesa Temple, where she helps me pull and copy pages from books for my own research. Of course, she also gets onto one of the computers and communicates with relatives in England via FaceBook and Messenger.

     It was a natural idea for me to ask Taylor if she’d like go along with me to visit the Open House of the nearby Gilbert Temple. On the 21^st of January at 4:30pm we toured this beautiful temple. We had a photo taken in front of the temple to begin because no photos are allowed inside due to the sacred nature of it being the House of the Lord.

Taylor and Bev in front of Gilbert Temple

Taylor loves taking photographs and afterwards while the sun was setting, causing glorious lighting, she took some great photos.

     As we were leaving, there was a tent set up where people could fill out request forms to have someone come to their home to learn more about the church. Taylor was drawn into the tent because of beautiful flowers, plant arrangements and wonderful paintings on 

display.

Crystal Chandelier Story

One of the men hosting there was a local Priesthood leader. He took a special interest in Taylor. It turns out that he and his wife and 18 year old daughter named Taylor…Can you believe that?... were asked to help put the strings of Swarovski crystal beads onto the chandelier in the celestial room of the temple.

He tells this story:

They had to wear white gloves to handle the strings. A Swarovski company had a representative on site. They had to hook the long strands of crystals around the rim and down to a center finial at the bottom. In so doing the crystals form a lovely graceful shape.

They had placed about a third of the strands before his daughter noticed that they weren’t hanging evenly. She studied out the problem and noticed some of the bows, located where they attached to the rim, were tarnished, and some were longer than the others. She told her dad that she thought she could fix the problem and asked him to pick out a perfect stand. They laid this one on the table as their guide, then he removed all of the stands and compared each one to that guide. Having selected matching stands and using only these, they rehung all of them. The result was a chandelier that was perfectly shaped.

Official Photo of the Chandelier in the Celestial Room Gilbert Arizona Temple (used by permission)

     These crystals were from Swarovski, he told us, well-known for their high quality, but what most people don’t know is that they also produce a line of crystals even better than what is commonly available. These are the ones used in the Gilbert temple lighting fixtures. Both Taylor and I had gasped at their beauty when we saw them on the tour. There truly was a remarkable difference from the normal crystal you might see elsewhere. These crystals reflected light like scintillating rainbows. I tried hard to figure out how it was done… where the light source was coming from. It was awe inspiring. Words cannot describe how exquisite they are.

Then the man asked Taylor, “What did that one perfect strand represent?”

She answered, “Jesus!”

“What do you think the other stands represent?”

“I guess they represent all of us,” she answered.

     He told her how lovely she was and how talented. She was made of the highest quality materials, in the image of her Father in heaven. In this earth life we acquire a little tarnish and find we have little differences or imperfections (like found in the bows). It is our job in this life, to work on fixing those, so we can become like Jesus, our Savior.

My Taylor IS lovely. Heavenly Father loves her very much.

     He loves each of us, perfectly. He sent his son Jesus Christ to this earth and He died for us, so that those imperfections can be eliminated, if we repent and believe on His name, receive baptism and follow his commandments. This allow us to return to our Father in Heaven unblemished at the end of our earth life.

Worship God, The First Law of Camp Fire

Worship God

Do you know what the word “worship” means?

Worship God…the Father. This was the first Law of Camp Fire. It seemed illusive to me as a child and no adult ever told me to “do” it. We would just repeat the Camp Fire Law occasionally in our group. I didn’t know how to worship, but I desired to do so all of my life.

Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11^th edition, 2012 page 1445 defines worship as “reverence offered a divine being or supernatural power; also an act of expressing such reverence.” Another definition was, “a form of religious practice with its creed and ritual.”

This latter description is what I would now have thought it meant I suppose… creed and ritual. This certainly was unknown to me as a child had someone even tried to define it for me. Every religion of the world has its own creed and rituals, so which ones were true?

At a very early age I began to desire to search for this truth, although I didn’t know it at the time. About the second grade…age 6-7… I began going to church with whatever neighborhood parent and childhood friend asked me. My own parents didn’t go to church. I felt good there. I like to sun coming through the stained glass windows, and the singing and the stories of Jesus. But of course, someone had to invite and take me there.

About this time while attending Webster Elementary School in Pasadena, California,

I am the second from the right in the front row

 I joined Blue Birds, the youngest age group of Camp Fire Girls.

I am the center girl in front row

I didn’t know about the Camp Fire Laws yet, but in Third grade my parents divorced.

This was taken on my 8th birthday. I am next to the teacher on the left. I am still happy.

I am fourth from left in front row. But no so happy as my parents had divorced.

At the end of my fourth grade school year, I “flew up” into Camp Fire Girls AND my mother, sister and I moved to Pomona, California where she was selling Real Estate.

I continued going to church with whatever friend was going and invited me. The big Baptist Church had a bus that came around to pick us up, so I went along. Now that I look back on it, I suppose my mother must have given permission and got me up to get dressed in time.  The Kingsley Elementary School where I went also had weekly “released time” bible study. This was fun. I to walk somewhere else for an hour or two during the week, so I went to that too.

In Junior High School I began attending church (Dutch Reformed, I think) where my friend, Toni Nash went because I could walk there. They had week day activities for the youth as well as a week-long bible school in the summer. She and I even played a clarinet duet one Sunday. 

I am in row three, fourth from right, and standing behind my friend Toni Nash

Was I a Religious Nut?

Later in life, my mother told me that my father had asked her, “Are you trying to make Beverly into a religious nut?” when he found out I was going to church regularly. She replied, “This is all her I idea, I had nothing to do with it.” I was just a normal kid, doing normal things, but I just loved how I felt on Sunday when I went to church. No I wasn't a religious nut.

In the summer before college, I went to live with my father in Artesia, California because he was going to pay for my first semester there. He served on the Cerritos College Board or a support group, or something because he was a local businessman, owning a Certified Public Accounting firm. There was a Dutch Reformed church there also, and I met neighborhood friends that went to the Wednesday night youth activities, so I went along. I can’t remember attending on Sunday, but  I suppose I must have, but the feeling of “joy or happiness” wasn’t there.

By fall I had stopped attending and during college, I was exposed to many other philosophies and began exploring them all. Mostly they didn’t “feel” right either, until I found the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during the last semester of College at Cal State Fullerton. It was like coming home. I knew it was true. If you’d asked me then what it meant to worship God, I couldn’t have told you.

Finally I’ve Found an Explanation of the Word Worship

After almost 70 years of life, I’ve finally found the real meaning of the term worship in Daniel L. Belnap’s essay entitled “That I May Dwell Among Them,” found in the 42^nd Annual BYUSidney Sperry Symposium publication “Ascending the Mountain of the Lord” page 12.

“The term worship stems from the English word worth, suggesting that worship is the process by which we recognize the worth of God and in return receive revelation concerning God’s appreciation of our worth. Just as we gain an understanding of these truths through our worship at the temple, so too ancient Israel understood the true nature of man and God, and the manner of the relationship they could have with God by their experiences in the temple and tabernacle.”

Ascending the Mountain of the Lord

This book title means a lot to me. I’ve used this phrase, Ascending the Mountain of the Lord, to describe the significance of a certain petroglyph found very near where I live in Picture Rocks, Arizona. The Native Americans who traverse the area where I live centuries ago, carved or pecked out many pictographs and petroglyphs on a stone outcropping in Saguaro National Park West, located probably three miles from me as a crow flies.

This particular symbol is a spiral and is placed on a rock shaped like a mountain, reflecting a mountain in the distance. Martineau in his book entitled, “The Rocks Begin to Speak,” says the orientation of this spiral means to ascend or climb that mountain over there, to find further instructions.

It seems that my desire to “Worship God” has led me over the years of my life to the knowledge of how to worship, culminating in the joy of temple worship. This desire has also led me how to live my life that I might be worthy of worshiping in His house, the temple, and receiving a witness that God does recognize my worth. I know He loves me perfectly and does reveal his will for me. My life works are a testimony of His guiding hand.