The Ongoing Restoration

Last night, in family scripture study, we started reading from the Doctrine and Covenants, having just finished the New Testament the previous night. What struck me most about last night's reading was how exciting it must have been for those early saints (the positive parts, anyway). There was new scripture, new revelations, newly restored Priesthood power, and a newly restored and reorganized church. It seemed to me that the church must have been more "alive" 200 years ago than it is now, but Mom pointed out that there's no reason why the church shouldn't be just as alive and exciting today as it was back then. We're still getting new scripture and new revelations. The Priesthood is just as powerful now as it was then, and the church is just as true now as it ever was. All the excitement I think I might have had at the time of the Restoration could be fully applied to the time we live in right now.

In his Priesthood Session talk, President Deiter F. Uchtdorf said:

Sometimes we think of the Restoration of the gospel as something that is complete, already behind us—Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, he received priesthood keys, the Church was organized. In reality, the Restoration is an ongoing process; we are living in it right now. It includes “all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal,” and the “many great and important things” that “He will yet reveal.”

Sometimes I think of the Restoration as an event of almost two centuries ago, as "old news," but in the grand scheme of things, 200 years isn't really very long. The Restoration is still "new news," and some people still haven't heard it yet, partly because we're frequently getting new stuff to hear. With fresh revelations that are directly relevant to our time period coming out every six months, it can be difficult to stay current with all the new revelations we receive, and I'm sure God will give us more teachings as quickly as we're ready to receive them.

Though we haven't added anything to our scriptural cannon in a while, and most of our new revelations seem just to be adding greater detail and emphasis to stuff we already knew, a lot of what this church teaches is relatively new, and there's no reason for it to be any less exciting as it was when we were first told about it. In addition, I'm sure there's at least some "new news" in our future, waiting for us, and the rest of the world, to be ready to hear it. God isn't done restoring and revealing everything He wants us to have, know, and do. I'd guess that there will continue to be more and greater revelations up to beyond what we might call the end of the world. The Restoration isn't an exciting thing that happened 200 years ago. It's an exciting thing that's happening right now.