More than meets the eye

I thought when I posted the readings for this last week, that there wouldn't be much to talk about. The readings were nice and short. We are only asked to read three verses in the Doctrine and Covenants, which explain a bit about the office of the first presidency, twelve and seventy. The passage in Our Heritage was also easy to read, and I was familiar with some of the stories already, particularly about when Brigham Young appeared like Joseph Smith to many of the Saints.

As I thought about what to post about this week, I remembered something that we talked about during class in Mia Maids. The teacher asked the question: "What does it mean to you to have a prophet?" We talked about how the prophet guides us and helps us feel the spirit. We also talked about how having a prophet gives us a comfort zone. Having a prophet means having organization for revelation and for the church. Having a prophet gives us a man to point to and say: "He's in charge," and for us humans, that is important. It is important because we tend to like answers to questions and someone to question, for good or bad. That is the blessing and difficulty of leadership. We may go along in our daily lives without a thought of the prophet, but because at some point we've learned that he's there and we know he's called of God, our lives are a little less chaotic (well, hopefully - over the long haul for sure, but hopefully daily as well).

So, when I thought about the Saints during this time in the U.S., I thought about all the different churches that had formed, especially during this time where religious freedom was a hot topic and new churches with variations on traditional doctrines formed. You had a church, and with the church you had a preacher. With that preacher you had doctrines set up, put in place by that preacher based on the Bible or other religious sources. It would be easy to assume (as the mobs in Illinois did) that when a preacher dies or moves, that church disassembles and those doctrines whither.

The mobs of Illinois thought this, but I wondered what the Saints were thinking. According to "Our Heritage" the Saints had been sufficiently schooled by teachings and experience what the confirmations of the Spirit felt like. They did not fall for Sidney Rigdon's plan, which sought to place himself as the "guardian" of the church, as there could according to him, be no one to replace the prophet. The manual said that very few Saints supported him. But when Brigham Young arrived a little over a month later and began to preach the doctrines of the gospel, not only did some of the Saints see him as Joseph, but the Spirit confirmed their feelings of a need for continuous leadership in the same office. The church would continue under the eye of the Lord, through a prophet, His chosen prophet, with the same doctrines and method of receiving doctrines.

I think this is marvelous!