The Postman

Dear Joseph,

I haven’t been able to devote as much time as I’d like towards reinterpreting my world view, as you’ve suggested. I mean, I find it hard to be grateful for things in my life when I’ve spent so much time waiting for things to be grateful for and instead have received things I believe manifestations of either God’s lack of care or God’s lack of existence.

I feel like I maybe I could better appreciate praying to Jesus instead of the father because I know something about him—he’s just more relatable. You know, there’s a whole book out there about him called The Bible. You’d think the father of our spirits would make more than a couple casual cameo appearances in there. Sounds like another thing to be “thankful” for.

—Thomas

Dear Thomas,

I want to address the important concept of the Godhead in a way that I think will help you more fully and appropriately approach the Father. I’ve already written to you about the fact that God, our Heavenly Father, is a real person—a being of flesh and bones. But with that said, it’s important to note what else He is and what else He is not: He is a man, a human, like you and I, but enthroned in glory; He is not the Son or the Holy Spirit, two other separate individuals.

By way of analogy, let’s say that you are a farmer in the middle ages (perhaps not a pleasant thought). The Father, then, is like the king in the castle, the Son is like the postman who goes between your home and the castle, and the Holy Spirit is like the town crier (this is a fairly loose analogy). As you can see, these are obviously three separate individuals, yet their duties and roles are complementary and their mindset is perfectly unified. As one, they flawlessly represent the king.

Now, I would be surprised if the bodily separateness of the godhead wasn’t one of the first things the missionaries taught you when you first began meeting. So why do I bring it up now? Let me ask another question to lead up to that answer. Why do we pray to the Father yet go to a church named after His Son? Wouldn’t it make more sense to go to the church of the Father since he’s ‘the king’ of the castle? It may serve to make Him more ‘relatable,’ right? The saints in America during the time just following Christ’s resurrection asked a similar question:

“And [the disciples] said unto him: Lord, we will that thou wouldst tell us the name whereby we shall call this church; for there are disputations among the people concerning this matter.
“And the Lord said unto them: Verily, verily, I say unto you, why is it that the people should murmur and dispute because of this thing?
“Have they not read the scriptures, which say ye must take upon you the name of Christ, which is my name? For by this name shall ye be called at the last day; […]
“And how be it my church save it be called in my name? For if a church be called in Moses’ name then it be Moses’ church; or if it be called in the name of a man then it be the church of a man; but if it be called in my name then it is my church, if it so be that they are built upon my gospel. […]
“And if it so be that the church is built upon my gospel then will the Father show forth his own works in it” (3 Nephi 27:3-5,8,10, emphasis added).

I’m not pretending to have received revelation on the specifics of the so-called ‘disputations’ that these people faced concerning the naming of the ancient church, but I have a hunch based on the last verse I quoted up there: the people then, as now, were taught to pray to the Father for all things as the giver of life and blessings—and they were taught these things by none other than The Son of God, Himself—”So,” they thought, “maybe the church should be the church of the Father, you know, because it’s Him we’re being taught to seek after in our communications with Heaven after all.”

But, as the scripture above shows, The Lord says that the church He established is clearly not the Father’s church but Christ’s church, so call it after His name. Hence we have The Church of Jesus Christ established originally and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints re-established in, as the name says, the latter days. But that doesn’t answer the burning question:

If our prayers are like letters addressed to the king, why do we worship the postman?

“…I come quickly; and my reward is with me…” (Doctrine and Covenants 112:34).

Universally throughout the scriptures, when a revelation (a return letter) was received by a prophet, it was curiously signed by the postman and not the king. For example, in the Doctrine and Covenants, the book of scripture that accounts the revelations of God to the newly restored church in the prophet Joseph Smith’s day, there are at least eleven instances wherein a revelation includes the identifying phrase of the sender of the answer, “I am Jesus Christ.” In the Book of Mormon and the Bible there are similar examples. But despite the postman signing return letters in behalf of the king, He insists that we continue to address the letters directly to the king:

“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
“And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
“For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen” (3 Nephi 13:9-13, which is similar to Matthew 6:9-13, emphasis added).

The point is that the scriptures make it abundantly clear that the postman wants us to write to the king, just as the postman himself does. In fact, whatever we do should be done as just as the postman himself does (see 3 Nephi 27:7, and 27). Why should this be? Because the postman is the only person in the kingdom who knows how to get into the castle, what the scriptures call receiving of the “fullness” of the Father.

“Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?
“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
“And I, John, bear record that I beheld his glory, as the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, even the Spirit of truth, which came and dwelt in the flesh, and dwelt among us.
“And I, John, saw that he received not of the fulness at the first, but received grace for grace;
“And he received not of the fulness at first, but continued from grace to grace, until he received a fulness;
“And thus he was called the Son of God, because he received not of the fulness at the first. […]
“I give unto you these sayings that you may understand and know how to worship, and know what you worship, that you may come unto the Father in my name, and in due time receive of his fulness” (John 14:5-6; Doctrine and Covenants 93:11-14,19, emphasis added).

Will there be those who the postman will not admit into the castle? The scriptures again provide the answer. Speaking in a parable concerning the time when He would finally take others into the castle, the postman declared that:

“…They that were ready went in with him… and the door was shut.
“Afterward came also the [others]… saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.
“But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not” (Matthew 25:10-12).

The postman will only admit those who are ‘ready’ into the presence of the king (remember, the king resides in the highest degree of glory in Heaven). I will now reveal the the key of this whole analogy, which is the key to getting ‘ready’: the postman doesn’t just take our letters when He comes to our door, He knocks quietly to give us a personal invitation from the king:

“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
“To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne” (Revelation 3:20-21, emphasis added).

The whole point of the postman’s mortal life was to prepare and show us the way back to the king—He ‘overcame’ and went from ‘grace to grace’—it is how the postman became the postman, and thus it is only by Him and His grace that we could ever get a letter—or ourselves—through the castle doors.

Do you see that if we desire to communicate with the king, we must go through the postman; if we desire to worship the king, we must worship through the postman; if we desire to go to the king, we must go through the postman? The church bears the postman’s name not because we are not to worship the king, but because the church is but another conduit through which man must go to approach Him. If it were not so, it would called by some other name.

So, Thomas, Heavenly Father—our king—may yet be a stranger to your heart and mind, but I exhort you to look to the postman. He is the very likeness of His father insomuch that “he that hath seen [the Son] hath seen the Father” (John 14:9). Next time you have a letter to put in the mailbox, wait a moment and listen for a knock at your door. It won’t do to yell “it’s open” or “come in”; you must let Him in from within. Go to church, pray vocally on your knees, read the scriptures daily—these simple things open the door for that unassuming post man.

And when you come to know Him, know that you are also coming to know the Father through Him. You may find that the Father is a lot more ‘relatable’ than you once assumed.

—Joseph