“But because of the faith of men he has shown himself unto the world, and glorified the name of the Father, and prepared a way that thereby others might be partakers of the heavenly gift, that they might hope for those things which they have not seen. Wherefore, ye may also have hope, and be partakers of the gift, if ye will but have faith.” (Ether 12:8-9). I was doing quite a bit of digging to come up with a definitive answer to what is the “heavenly gift” to which Moroni refers. I came up with several possibilities - a vision of the Savior, a testimony of the living Christ, a more excellent hope, the pure love of Christ, the Plan of Salvation, the gift of the Holy Ghost. But maybe there doesn't have to be one right answer. As expertly wrapped as any gift we might find under the Christmas tree, we won't know in what heavenly gift we have the blessing to partake until we have the faith in that which is not seen and do all that we can do to unfold the mysteries of God until our heavenly gift is at last revealed to us. And our gifts may be different from each other, and different from gifts we have received in the past. But one thing is for sure, they are all good gifts. How often has our Heavenly Father handed us a gift and we threw it back in His face because we thought it was too big or too small, or we didn't like the sound it made when we shook it, or we were afraid to tear away the wrapping paper because we thought that any gift was too good for us, or else had strings attached to more responsibility than we felt we could bear? If we will but have faith and trust in the infinite and incomprehensible love and mercy and goodness of our Heavenly Father and come boldly to the glittering, dazzling Tree of Life and lay hold on every good gift, then we can be partakers in all that the Father has.
