- Annie Hall

I often think about the suffering in this world, and feel bad that I don’t have the emotional connection, empathy and compassion for my far-flung brothers and sisters that would make me more miserable! ;-) With HF’s omniscience and love for all the children on this earth, how could he not be somewhat sad most of the time? I feel so bad when I make wrong choices because it’s just another cause for sorrow to my Father in Heaven.

Enoch, the one who sees God weeping and marvels at it, finally is shown a grand vision made up of extremes–joy and sorrow. The result is that his heart eventually “swells as wide as eternity.” Not because the good outweighs the bad, but because (as I interpret it) the sheer volume of both, and their coexistence, is so overwhelming.

You understand me well. And I understand you. Obviously we have no real way of knowing, short of asking God.

My reasons for speculating the way I do are as follows:
—if God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, I can’t see him having emotional swings.
—As Matt E. points out, good and evil that God cares about are happening simultaneously all the time. I don’t want to say that God can rejoice because I’m repenting or sorrow because someone else is sinning but not both. I think he has to be able to do both if he’s to be God to both of us.
—None of us wants to trade away or forget our experiences. They mean too much, and this includes the sad and the bitter ones. I want to think that God ‘has all things before his face’ and this means that even the past is real and immediate to him, because it means that someday I too may be able to have my old selves and my old friends and my old places and my old times and my old sorrows and joys back again, and I don’t see how unless we can eventually learn to take everything in at once.

Of course not.

In our limited view, it can be easy to forget this. But I believe He always has hope. And when he sees even a small step towards this “goal”, it must bring great joy.

Consider the following description of God:

has all power
knoweth all things
like devouring fire
past, present, and future, and are continually before the Lord
descended below all things
created all things
comprehendeth all things
God is perfect
God is love
Father of our spirits
mankind is his work and glory
comprehended all things
eventually He will give to the faithful “all that He hath.”

Wow!

On the other hand, some scriptures describe Christ as being filled with two opposing attributes, justice and mercy, which implies a need for him to feel two conflicting emotions, so that he can judge us perfectly. However, does that mean he has to always be feeling conflicting emotions at the same time? The emotions would either be (1) constantly in conflict so as to create a never-ending state of mental conflict (like a sinusoidal wave of emotions) or (2) in complete equilibrium (like counter balancing vectors). To me, this portrays either a very erratic sense of emotions or a very boring sense of emotions.

Although, I admit, I won’t be disappointed if it turns out that emotions are much more complex when we have resurrected and/or celestial bodies. That could make the Millennium or the Celestial Kingdom a very different experience than what I am currently envisioning.