HUBBLElife Episode 5. Our Premortal Life... Life Before This One

In this episode, we explore our premortal life—reflecting on the journey before we were born. Drawing parallels between genealogy and our spiritual origins.

Transcript

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Welcome, fellow travelers, on this eternal journey. Welcome back to Hubble Life, where we're gonna explore all different things together about life, about life before we came here. In fact, that's what we're gonna talk about today is where we started, where this all began. Before life started here, where were we? Imagine for a minute that before we were here, we were already part of something greater. Today we're gonna step back into that premortal story. Have you ever wondered where you came from? Not just geographically, where did my ancestors come from? Where is my family from, but eternally where you came from? At Roots Tech, people trace their family lines across continents and centuries. But what if I told you that our spiritual genealogy traces back even further? And yet it's a much shorter line. It leads straight to God. Let's talk about where we truly began. Recently I went to Roots Tech in Salt Lake City, and I kept thinking, we spend so much time. There were thousands of people there spending time trying to trace our earthly family lines, trying to figure out where they came from, where their families were from, what was life like back in the homeland where my ancestors lived. Thousands of people gathered to discover these things. And people were asking all the time, where did I come from? Who are my people? And Roots Tech was an amazing place to be to find out information about where my family originated from. The DNA tests that you can take, those are incredible. In fact, I found out I'm 757% from the Nordic countries. So it's no wonder I like cooler weather. I have light hair, I have light eyes. This is interesting. I'm prone to cavities. Proves to be true. Who knew? Who knew that if you were from there you were prone to more cavities? And also it makes it really difficult for me to perform choreography. I don't dance very well. Thank you, my Viking ancestors. That explains our physical origin, where we came from physically. But we are not just physical beings. When someone dies and leaves this earth life, their body remains. It stays here. That mortal overlay still lives on this earth or still stays here on the planet. But something's gone, something else is gone. And that something is their spirit. If a spirit leaves at death and there's just a body there, that mortal overlay, then it makes sense that that spirit that existed on us before, or that spirit that we have and has left when we die, was there before. So the question becomes: where did that spirit come from? Our spiritual DNA can be traced directly back. So what if we tried it? What if we tried to trace our spiritual DNA? Where would that lead? The simple answer is this: it leads straight to the father of our spirit, who is our heavenly father, who is God. And we know that we had a heavenly mother also. We lived with him, we lived with them before this life. We belonged to a heavenly family. When I was little, there was a primary song that we used to sing, and it said, I lived in heaven a long time ago, it is true. Lived there and loved there with people I know, so did you. Then Heavenly Father presented a beautiful plan all about earth and eternal salvation for men. To me, it was just a simple song, and I loved primary songs and I loved learning them. But that simple childhood truth that I learned, that I lived in heaven a long time ago, with people that I loved. What if that song actually was reminding us of something that's real? That we did live with our families and our loved ones before we came here. Premortal life just means life before we came to this earth. And there, in pre-mortal life, we had spirit bodies. We lived with God. We learned from him. We listened to him. We built relationships there, and we desired to become just like him. We weren't strangers. We are not strangers here. We were a family. In the proclamation, it states this: in the premortal realm, spirit, sons, and daughters knew and worshipped God as their eternal father, and accepted his plan by which his children could obtain physical bodies and gain earthly experience to progress towards perfection and ultimately realize their divine destinies as heirs of eternal life. The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave. Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally. There is a plan. It was called the plan of salvation or the plan of happiness. And God presented that plan when we all lived with him before we came here. The plan was this: that we would come to earth, we would receive a body, and we would gain experiences. And in the process, we would progress to become more like God Himself. And we also knew this: that each life here, everyone living, they would have unique experiences. It would be individually tailored to them. We also knew that it would be full of choices. We would get to choose. There was agency was presented, and that was God's plan is that we would have the right to choose what we wanted to do. We would not be forced to choose God. We would come here and we would get to make that choice. We would have a veil that would be placed over our minds that we would forget the pre-mortal life. We would forget that we had been with him and who he was. And because of that, we would need to walk by faith. And that can be kind of a scary situation, right? Trying to trust in something that we've never seen with these mortal eyes. And we would need to learn to choose him on our own. He would never force us. And because of that, we talked a little bit about this last week. That is the reason we needed a savior, because God knew that we would come here and we would make mistakes. We would all fall short. And he also knew that life would include include pain, loss, heartbreak. It would be tough. And yet, he also knew that he would, he was willing to give his only begotten Son. Jesus Christ the Savior, he was part of the plan. Jesus Christ volunteered to come, and he would come and he would atone for our sins and help us through every experience that we have here. He would go through things in the flesh so that he might know exactly how to succor us in our times of need. And he would make a way back for us to get home. There was another, Lucifer, who presented a plan. And his plan was this I'm going to force everyone to choose God. No one will be lost. Everybody would make it back and get back to heaven with God. But that he would take all the glory and he would take choice out of all of it. None of us would have agency. So God's plan was freedom to choose. There would be risk. There would also be growth, and there would be faith. There was a clear contrast. One we would be compelled, and one we would have agency. So compulsion versus agency. And so there was a war. Not with weapons, but with words, with choices. The question became this: whose plan would you follow? We know that we followed and chose God's plan. That we would have a savior, that he would make it possible for us to return, but we also knew we would forget and that we would experience really difficult and hard things. And yet we would have agency. We would be free to choose him if we wanted to. Imagine that. At that moment, standing in heaven with our family and friends, those that we love, some who have chosen not to follow God's plan, and then those who did, and we know that each of us chose God's plan because we're here. We stood on the edge of eternity, knowing what was ahead, but not fully comprehending because we had never had a physical body before. That was going to be a new experience for us, but it was something that we needed in order to become more like our Heavenly Father. And we chose to come here anyway, knowing that it would be hard, that there would be difficulty, that there would be pain and loss. And yet we chose, we chose this. We chose to come. Elder Ukdorf said it this way. Without a memory of your previous existence, without remembering that you once walked with your father in heaven, would you still recognize his voice amid all the noises and distractions of mortal life? The journey ahead seemed so long and uncertain, so filled with risk. It wouldn't be easy. But you knew it was worth every effort. Because you chose this, you chose growth because growth doesn't come when you're compelled, right? That that growth comes when you make choices on your own and you're figuring things out. We knew we knew that that would happen. So you chose growth, you chose faith, you chose this journey. You're not random or accidental. It didn't just happen. We knew that this would be part of the plan. We knew this would be a stepping stone in our eternal progression. Maybe the reason that you have always felt like you were meant for something more is because you are. You are meant for something more. You're meant for something greater. And because we have forgotten who we were, it becomes difficult sometimes searching for who we are who we are, who we've always been. You are meant to do and be incredible. There are so many things ahead for each one of us. This life is full of experience. And yes, some is painful. But it is incredible, and we are becoming more and more like our Heavenly Father. Hopefully, those are the choices we're making to become more and more like God, to become more like our Savior Jesus Christ. And hopefully, we're making those choices. This life is all about experiences, and you and I were meant for great things. You were that way before you came here. Understanding that right now we're just trying to figure out who we've always been. Sometimes there's things in my life that come along, and I'm like, this feels natural. This feels like something I've always loved doing. Well, probably because I have. I loved it before I came here. I think we were taught, we probably took classes and lessons on what earth life would be like. And we all knew that we could do it. We have this, we got this, and we can get back to live with our Heavenly Father again. Your genealogy of your physical body, that's fun to explore and fun to find out, and fun to figure out where you came from and where your ancestors are from. But you do not have to look very far to see your heritage spiritually. You are a child of God. That's pretty cool. There's one line. It doesn't go off in a lot of different directions. It's one straight line. You are a child of God, and He loves you. He has a plan for you. You are meant for something great. Until next time, have a Hubble life. Have understanding, be believing, and live extraordinary. We'll see you next time.