From: Francis Harper
wbfrmsup@iowatelecom.net
Francis Harper Message for 1/25/2019
Dear Ones,
I trust that you will be blessed as you read this beautiful true story. Father John Powell, a professor at Loyola University, Chicago, writes about Tommy, a student in his Theology of Faith class:
“Some twelve years ago, I stood watching my university students file into the classroom for our first session. That was the day I first saw Tommy. He was combing his long flaxen hair, which hung six inches below his shoulders. It was the first time I had ever seen a boy with hair that long. I guess it was just coming into fashion then. I know in my mind that it isn’t what’s on your head but what’s in it that counts; but on that day, I was unprepared and my emotions flipped.
I immediately filed Tommy under “S” for strange . . . very strange. Tommy turned out to be the “atheist in residence” in this class. He constantly objected to, smirked at, or whined about the possibility of an unconditionally loving Father/God. We lived with each other in relative peace for one semester, although I admit he was for me at times a serious pain in the back pew.
When he came up at the end of the course to turn in his final exam, he asked in a cynical tone, “Do you think I’ll ever find God?” I decided instantly on a little shock therapy. “No!” I said very emphatically. “Why not,” he responded, “I thought that was the product you were pushing.” I let him get five steps from the classroom door and then I called out, “Tommy! I don’t think you’ll ever find Him, but I am absolutely certain that He will find you!” He shrugged a little and left my class and my life.
Later I heard that Tommy had graduated, and I was duly grateful. Then a sad report came. I heard that Tommy had terminal cancer. Before I could search him out, he came to see me. When he walked into my office, his body was very badly wasted and the long hair had fallen out as a result of chemotherapy. But his eyes were bright and his voice was firm.
“Tommy, I’ve thought about you so often; I hear you are sick,” I blurted out. “Oh, yes, very sick. I have cancer in both lungs. It’s a matter of weeks.” “Can you talk about it, Tom?” I asked. “Sure, what would you like to know?” he replied. “What’s it like to be only twenty-four and dying? Well, it could be worse. “Like what?” “Well, like being fifty and having no values or ideals, like being fifty and thinking that booze, seducing women, and making money are the real biggies in life.” “But what I really came to see you about,” Tom said, “is something you said to me on the last day of class.” “I asked you if you thought I would ever find God and you said, ‘No!’ which surprised me. Then you said, ‘But He will find you.’ I thought about that a lot, even though my search for God was hardly intense at that time. “But when the doctors removed a lump from my groin and told me that it was malignant, that’s when I got serious about locating God. And when the malignancy spread into my vital organs, I really began banging bloody fists against the bronze doors of heaven. “But God did not come out. In fact, nothing happened. Did you ever try anything for a long time with great effort and with no success? “You get psychologically glutted, fed up with trying. And then you quit.
“Well, one day I woke up, and instead of throwing a few more futile appeals over that high brick wall to a God who may be or may not be there, I just quit. I thought about you and your class, and I remembered something else you had said: ‘The essential sadness is to go through life without loving.’ “But it would be almost equally sad to go through life and leave this world without ever telling those you loved that you had loved them. “So, I began with the hardest one, my Dad. He was reading the newspaper when I approached him. ‘Dad.’ ‘Yes, what?’ he asked without lowering the newspaper. “Dad, I would like to talk with you.” ‘Well, talk.’ ‘I mean, it’s really important.’ “The newspaper came down three slow inches. ‘What is it?’ ‘Dad, I love you, I just wanted you to know that.’ “The newspaper fluttered to the floor. Then my father did two things I could never remember him ever doing before. He cried, and he hugged me. “We talked all night, even though he had to go to work the next morning. “It felt so good to be close to my father, to see his tears, to feel his hug, to hear him say that he loved me. “It was easier with my mother and little brother. They cried with me, too, and we hugged each other and started saying real nice things to each other. We shared the things we had been keeping secret for so many years. “I was only sorry about one thing- that I had waited so long. “Here I was, just beginning to open up to all the people I had actually been close to.
“Then, one day I turned around and God was there. “He didn’t come to me when I pleaded with Him. I guess I was like an animal trainer holding out a hoop, ‘C’mon, jump through. C’mon, I’ll give you three days, three weeks.’ “Apparently God does things in His own way and at His own hour. “But the important thing is that He was there. He found me! You were right. He found me even after I stopped looking for Him.”
“Tommy,” I practically gasped, “I think you are saying something very important and much more universal than you realize. To me, at least, you are saying that the surest way to find God is by opening to love. “You know, the Apostle John said that. He said: ‘God is love,’ and anyone who lives in love is living with God and God is living in him. “Tom, could I ask you a favor? Would you come into my present Theology of Faith class and tell them what you have just told me? If I told them the same thing it wouldn’t be half as effective as if you were to tell it.” “Oooh . . . I was ready for you, but I don’t know if I’m ready for your class.” “Tom, think about it. If and when you are ready, give me a call.” In a few days Tom called, and said he was ready for the class, and that he wanted to do that for God and for me. So we scheduled a date. However, he never made it. He had another appointment, far more important than the one with me and my class. Of course, his life was not really ended by his death, only changed.
Before he died, we talked one last time. “I’m not going to make it to your class,” he said. “I know, Tom.” “Will you tell them for me? Will you tell the whole world for me?” “I will, Tom. I’ll tell them. I’ll do my best.”
My Love to All,
Francis
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“. . . The Greatest of These is Charity”
As we consider the virtues of those who will be qualified to live with the Lord in his millennial kingdom; surely the greatest of these is charity.
Charity has been defined for us: “Charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with them. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son Jesus Christ, that ye may become the sons of God, that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is, that we may have this hope, that we may be purified as he is pure” (Moroni 7:52-53).
These words of Moroni are in complete harmony with the words of John, the beloved, who wrote: “. . . we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 3:2-3).
The supreme virtue is love. Perhaps the greatest treatise on love ever written is recorded in 1 Corinthians 13: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth. Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth; but whether there be prophecies they shall fail, whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. . . . And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity” (1 Corinthians 1-8, 13).
John counsels us: “Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love.
. . . If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; . . . and this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also” (1 John 4:7-8, 20-21).
Jesus was asked: “Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it; thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:35-39).
What more need I add to these inspired words? It has been my experience that it is only when I am filled with the Holy Spirit that I possess the Lord’s celestial love. Our utmost desire should be that we be filled with the Spirit of the Lord always. Our prayer request should be as was prayed by his disciples in ancient America: “. . . and they did pray for that which they most desired; and they desired that the Holy Ghost should be given unto them” (3 Nephi 9:10).
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