I love the “There is no end” verses in the hymn, “If You Could Hie to Kolob”. For me, they poetically evoke a sense of the incalculably immense reach and reward of the Atonement.
What a contrast they are to a daily life of bill-paying and yard work, a reminder for me to raise my spiritual eyes to a higher plane.
The works of God continue,
And worlds and lives abound;
Improvement and progression
Have one eternal round.
There is no end to matter;
There is no end to space;
There is no end to spirit;
There is no end to race.
There is no end to virtue;
There is no end to might;
There is no end to wisdom;
There is no end to light.
There is no end to union;
There is no end to youth;
There is no end to priesthood;
There is no end to truth.
There is no end to glory;
There is no end to love;
There is no end to being;
There is no death above.
There is no end to glory;
There is no end to love;
There is no end to being;
There is no death above.
William W. Phelps
If You Could Hie to Kolob, Hymns, No. 284
And a marvelous musical and video evocation of a creation without an end.
Now I’m going to tell you some things you know already. You know’m as well as I do; but you don’t take’m out and look at’m very often.
I don’t care what they say with their mouths—Everybody knows that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t even stars . . . Everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being.
Thornton Wilder
Our Town, Act III,
New York, HarperCollins, 2003. Originally published in 1938
And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. (John 21:25)
. . . .
How can we possibly comprehend . . . a biography [of the Savior]? If the surface of the earth were covered with Harold B. Lee libraries, each containing four-and-a-half million volumes like ours, the thousand trillion–or quadrillion–biographical volumes that could be housed would be insufficient. What would be written in all of those biographical volumes [of the Savior]? Well, “worlds without number” has He created (Moses 1:33; see also John 1:3). Therefore, the creation of worlds may be a significant portion of this library but not the most important part. Perhaps the greatest work among His endless works is the infinite Atonement. After all, what is His work and His glory? See Moses 1:39. Whom does He agonize over? See Luke 22:44 and 3 Nephi 17:14. For whom has He suffered? See D&C 19:16. Yes, as Elder Maxwell notes, He is “in the details of our own lives” (Neal A. Maxwell, “Becoming a Disciple,” Ensign, June 1996, 17). He has experienced all our “aching griefs” and, most important, paid a price we cannot fathom for our personal sins (Neal A. Maxwell, “Plow in Hope,” Ensign, May 2001, 60). Each of us has a unique place in His biography.
. . . .
Can you see that there would be all these details and multitudes more about each of our lives written in His biography because He has borne them? Consequently, as we reflect upon the lives of Saints, we can begin to feel the awesome power of the Atonement. That is the point I want to make! Can you mentally fathom a biography that is more than a thousand trillion volumes in length? No! By feeling we come to understand the Atonement better than by just having a mastery of all the facts. Perhaps this is why the fruit of the tree of life is shed into our hearts (see 1 Nephi 11:22). In our hearts we can feel and understand His love.
Is there an upper or lower limit to what our hearts can comprehend and feel? Moses recorded that Enoch’s “heart swelled wide as eternity . . . and all eternity shook” (Moses 7:41). On a less grand scale, when we even detect these subtle “swelling motions,” we know that they are “real” and “most precious” and “sweet above all that is sweet” (Alma 32:28, 35, 42).
Once we really come to know all that the Lord has done for us and for all our brothers and sisters, we will have a powerful motivating force to keep God’s commandments. Sinning is unthinkable during those moments of seeing “things as they really are” (Jacob 4:13).
Brother Jeffrey D. Keith
Feeling the Atonement, BYU Devotional, 9 October 2001