Often, because of their fallen nature, children do not arrive at the testimony of Jesus Christ and his redeeming gospel easily. They may struggle with spiritual concepts and more readily adopt portions of the prevailing anti-Christ philosophy:

Our children might imagine that pursuing this philosophy is natural, and thus no crime against man or God. ¹

The Effects of the Fall

Whereas they were born pure and innocent, “whole … even from the foundation of the world,” ² sometime early in life, the Fall becomes fully in force in their lives. Blaine Yorgason explains:

Yorgason explains that the poor choices of youth “quickly develop into habits of disobedience,” and cause the “veil of forgetfulness.” This veil “thickens and expands until it is impenetrable, at least from [their] side, and [they] are cut off or shut out from the presence of God.” ⁴

Dr. David Dressler, when speaking to Brigham Young University students, offered a similar assessment.

Those Who are “Asleep” Don't Believe It

Those who are spiritually dead or asleep ⁶ seldom believe it, and that is the ignorant state in which Satan would like to keep them. To be spiritually dead or asleep is to be “encircled about by the bands of death, and the chains of hell, [with] an everlasting destruction … await[ing] them.” Only God has the power to “awaken them out of a deep sleep” and deliver them. ⁷

Until they gain a testimony of their situation, they will either wallow in spiritual darkness with absolutely no interest in or interaction with God, or they will fumble about in a kind of spiritual twilight. Speaking of this spiritual twilight and how Satan uses it to assuage our children's hungers, Catherine Thomas wrote:

Many children tend to be in the thick of thin things ⁹ and in the thin of thick things. They are “spiritually asleep,” ¹⁰ left to be driven by their hungers. Who can awaken them? Who can everlastingly, not temporarily, satisfy their hungers?

Each child had his beginning with God, and they are all on the same continuum ¹¹ that is intended to lead them, like God, to eternal life. Each of them has a salvation timeline, his personal plan of salvation within the Plan of Salvation. Considering that truth and remembering that our children enjoyed an exalted past, we realize that they are comprised of more assets than they may be presently demonstrating.

For example, as we have discussed, they already proved valiant in the cause of truth (although presently they may be demonstrating weakness), and during premortality they developed a strong testimony (although it may be temporarily buried). Religious educator Jack Marshall made these and other points in an address at BYU Education Week. To paraphrase his remarks, our children, like us, build on each state of existence. They do not leave behind everything from their premortal life and start over. They may lay aside their memory of premortality, but nevertheless they bring with them their characteristics, talents, tendencies, faith, and good works (see D&C 138:53-56). ¹²

Speaking to this point, Neal A. Maxwell, quoting Joseph F. Smith, said, “When … we ‘catch a spark from the awakened memories of the immortal soul,' let us be quietly grateful. When of great truths we can say ‘I know,' that powerful spiritual witness may also carry with it the sense of our having known before. With rediscovery, we are really saying ‘I know-again!' I knew before; I know again.'” ¹³

Jeffrey R. Holland calls these spiritual recollections “echoes of earlier testimonies.” ¹⁴ When properly stimulated, premortal testimonies like premortal talents will emerge and flourish. It simply remains for the Awakener to do the work of awakening .

Life is a Test

So why must our innocent children be thrust into this harsh environment that seems to be programmed in every way to oppose them and ensure that they will sin? A young father asked the same question: “As I look at my boy, just learning to walk, curious about everything, three words to his vocabulary and determined to learn more, I wonder if life could get any better than this? But I also realize that life is hard and my boy will face his share of trials. I realize that someday he will sin. How inconceivable that seems to me right now. I don't mean to sound fatalistic, but it causes me to mourn. I wish I could shelter him from life and sin, but I cannot. I commit myself to partnering with the Lord and relying on his redemptive power to navigate my son through the pitfalls of life, deliver him, and successfully shepherd him home.”

Life is a test, and the test will expose our children's weaknesses, force them to deal with those weaknesses, and thus qualify them for exaltation. President George Q. Cannon said,

The Common Denominator — Redemption

There is another, deeper reason why our children must descend into this abysmal environment, where it is impossible not to sin. ¹⁶ In a word: Redemption.

As we have learned, the work of God is redemption. Should we be surprised, then, that all aspects of this existence have as their common denominator redemption? This is not a sideline or hobby with God; neither should it be for us parents. If we will allow him, God will actively teach and qualify us, who once loved the work of redemption and wanted to be included in the redemptive order of Christ, to develop the power of redemption and become as he is.

As we have learned, we cannot gain the power to redeem others without first having been redeemed. Likewise, our children are now given the opportunity to experience redemption. During their lives, they will sin and face seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and each time they do, if they will come to Christ, they will experience deliverance and redemption, which will increase their capacity and desire to save others. When we grasp this concept, we begin to understand why substantially every encounter that we have with God has to do with redemption.

Trust in God is the ongoing theme in mortality. We never can escape it, although we try to place our trust in someone or something that we can see. Futilely, we sidle up to the influential and powerful, or we attempt to gather about us enough stuff to shelter us from life's risks. Our children often buy into this falsehood. But trust, not stuff, is what Heavenly Father wants them to develop. Trust in God is redemptive trust — trust in his goodness; trust in his power; trust in his knowledge; trust in his love. To develop trust, which is essential to redemption, he will give them weakness ¹⁷ as a gift. Weakness will humble them and draw them to Christ, whom they can trust to strengthen, deliver and redeem them.

Perhaps then, beyond every other reason, God places them in a situation where only he can deliver them. ¹⁸ They must learn to come to him and trust him. This is an important part of their earthly tutorial that is best learned in the blindness and harshness of mortality. Therefore, when we see our children bow under the weight of sin and ache with the agony of weakness, we are really observing the motions of redemption at work and the triggering of our children's personal plan of salvation. At such times, when we plead for divine intervention and do not perceive immediate response, we must not interpret the silence to mean that we have not been heard or that the plan is not working.

Adam and Eve also prayed and waited; they trusted in God's promise that he would hear their prayer and he had set in motion a process to answer it. But they did not know the details. They had no idea that their prayer had caused God to dispatch undetectable angels to assess the situation; they had no idea that these angels would become the agents of deliverance. The implications of this revelation are sobering. Why else would the Lord explain this process to us in such detail if it were not a divine pattern that we could trust?

Redemption from the Grossest of Sins

Trusting God is to trust God's timing. Because he is perfect, his timing is perfect, and for us to urge him to change his timing is to ask him to cease to be perfect. Moreover, God's timing is an act of mercy: God might determine to snatch out a wayward child because he knows that the child will now respond favorably; or God might wait while he patiently works with a wayward child because he knows that the child is not yet ready. Premature snatching, after all, carries with it the obligation of repentance and a full change of heart. Because “full knowledge brings full accountability,” ¹⁹ a wayward child might rebel against God, if he were not ready, and that would bring upon him condemnation — the last thing we would want to have happen.

“But our children are still rebelling and sinning,” we exclaim. “Are they lost?”

No.

“Even if they are rebelling and sinning grossly?”

No.

Elder Boyd K. Packer said, “I know of no sins connected with the moral standard for which we cannot be forgiven. I do not exempt abortion. The formula is stated in forty words: ‘Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more. By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins — behold, he will confess them and forsake them'” (D&C 58:42-43). ²⁰

Clearly, except in the cases of shedding innocent blood and sinning against the Holy Ghost, we must refrain from passing judgment, deciding a fate from our poor vantage point, imposing limitations on the Lord's saving ability, and considering that all is lost. As Mormon instructed Moroni , our obligation is to continue reaching out no matter how hopeless the situation may seem ²¹ and leave all other issues, including timing, in God's hands.

Redemption According to the Perfect Foreknowledge of God

We must remember that our children's waywardness was foreseen and planned for by the Father, and it was completely paid for and overcome by the Son. Therefore, there is divine opportunity waiting. By the scriptural accounts of Paul, Alma the younger, the sons of Mosiah, Lamoni and his father, and the Anti-Nephi-Lehis, we should know that God can and will reach out to every wayward soul when the time is right, and if they respond when he offers to redeem them, they will become powerful in working redemption in others.

Until then, we are told that the “eye of the Shepherd is upon them,” ²² and where there is much sin the Lord offers proportionately much grace. Nevertheless, once the Lord invites them out they must come out, stay out, and ascend. Catherine Thomas explains:

The Only Principle of Joy

Redemption comes down to this one truth that we hope we can convey to our children: The Holy Spirit is the key to happiness, and to lack the Holy Spirit is the source of misery. “There is no other principle of joy,” said Catherine Thomas, “yet how many ways do we try to circumvent the Spirit to find joy, only to find emptiness? ‘Behold, here is the agency of man, and here is the condemnation of man; because that which was from the beginning is plainly manifest unto them, and they receive not the light' (D&C 93:31).” ²⁴

The devil will attempt to keep our children in ignorance about this truth: “The most valuable knowledge is knowledge about how to get the spirit,” and thus experience true happiness. ²⁵ When the Lord reaches out and blesses them with this knowledge, salvation is at hand. Joseph Smith defined salvation this way:

All Enemies Defeated

Imagine the day when our children turn to Jesus Christ as Alma did. Then they will likewise experience the Lord's grace as he helps them to triumph over all their enemies, and “put them under their feet,” never again to be afflicted by those evil spirits in this world or in the world to come. Then they will know as the Gods know good and evil, ²⁷ for engaging in a mortal experience and being redeemed was how the Gods also became Gods.

First they experienced a Fall, wherein they encountered evil and sinned, whereby they were redeemed, whereby they gained the desire and power to redeem others, whereby they were exalted. It is a process that none of use can escape. It is the process of true happiness.

Like Paul and Alma, our children are experiencing an important part of the process of salvation, and, like Paul and Alma, once they have completed it, they will be presented with a clear choice to forsake their sinful ways, experience redemption, ascend from their fallen state, and bring others up with them. This is the pattern, and this, we hope, will be their destiny.

I invite your feedback and stories. Other despairing parents need information and hope. Visit my website: http://www.larrybarkdull.com or email me: lbarkdull@gmail.com.

1Alma 30:14-17

2Moroni 8:8, 12

3Blaine M. Yorgason, I Need Thee Every Hour, p. 65-67

4Blaine M. Yorgason, I Need Thee Every Hour, p. 65

5 Dr. David Dressler, “Youth in a Troubled World,” Brigham Young University Speeches of the Year, 1960, p.6

6 Mosiah 3:19

7Alma 5:7, 9

8 M. Catherine Thomas, “ Alma the Younger (Part 2) Man's Descent,” Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

9 H. Burke Peterson, “Our Responsibility to Care for Our Own,” Ensign, May 1981

10 Mark E. Petersen, “Sunday School Is Everybody's Business” Ensign, December 1974

11 D&C 93:23, 29

12 Jack Marshall, Address at Education Week, 2002

13 Neal A. Maxwell, But for a Small Moment, p.103

14 Jeffrey R. Holland, “Missionary Work and the Atonement,” Ensign, March 2001

15 James R. Clark, comp., Messages of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , vol. 3:27

16 D&C 109:34

17 Ether 12:27

18Alma 36:2

19 Orson F. Whitney, Conference Report, April 1929, p. 110–11

20 Boyd K. Packer, “Our Moral Environment,” Ensign, May 1992

21Moroni 9:6

22 Orson F. Whitney, Conference Report, April 1929, p. 110

23 Joseph Fielding Smith, ed., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith , p. 322; M. Catherine Thomas, “ Alma the Younger (Part 2) Man's Descent,” Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

24 M. Catherine Thomas, “ Alma the Younger (Part 2) Man's Descent,” Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

25 M. Catherine Thomas, “ Alma the Younger (Part 2) Man's Descent,” Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

26 Joseph Fielding Smith, ed., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 297

27 Genesis 3:5