You talk with
people every day who say that God does not
exist or is far, far away. A woman sat next
to me on a plane. I spoke to her. She strained to understand me. When she spoke, her accent
almost overpowered her English. In answer to my
question, she told me that she was returning to
the place of her birth. She said that the
occasion which drew her was a religious observance of
the death of her father, who died many years ago. She had made the flight
on the third, the seventh, the thirteenth, and the
seventeenth anniversaries of his death. And now she was going again. I told her that I admired
her devotion to her father. She said, quietly, that she
believed in the veneration of her ancestors. I asked her if her family
had attended church. She smiled and
said, "No, only go to church when someone dies." I asked her if she
believed in a god. She said, "Yes." I asked her if she
thought he was close by. She said, "No. If we should need
him we would say, 'come here,"' and she made a
beckoning sign with her hand. I asked her who she
believed God was. Her soft, tentative
answer was: "Well, he is like one of our
distant ancestors." God is our ancestor,
not distant but close. He is the Father of our
spirits; we are his children. But like that woman,
we all at times feel far removed from him. Like her, if we are to have the
words of the gospel of Jesus Christ touch us, then
we must believe in God. We must want to be with him. And we must sense our need to be
purified to be with him again. The day will come when
we will see him again. President Benson
described it this way: "Nothing is going
to startle us more when we pass through the
veil to the other side than to realize how
well we know our Father and familiar his face is to us."