Several years ago I was blessed with meeting someone who changed my life for the better. He made me realize that I was worth more than how I looked at myself. I was a better person because of him. I let the petty things I worried about at the time disappear. 14 years later he and I are still friends and we still keep in touch with each other. Sometimes I think back on it and I feel so blessed that he came into my life at just the right time. I was so caught up in the crazy high school life of who-likes-who and the whole social status thing that I was miserable but he made me realize that there are better things in life than that. I have felt oftentimes that somehow, somewhere in a different life we were very close friends, that we knew each other personally and in the next life we'll still have that friendship, that closeness.
A few weeks ago I met someone for the first time. I'd never met this person before but I instantly had a recognition like I'd met or known them before. In our conversations following I was reaffirmed by that fact. I felt like I needed to search my memory to figure out how I'd known them before.
It was after this second incident that I started thinking about it more in depth. I know that we've been told that we all knew each other personally in the Pre-Existence. These experiences have confirmed that for me. I've felt the spirit and I know it to be true. I get excited to think that I will have more of these experiences! It's almost as if in Heaven we said to each other, "Good luck down there! I'll try to find you!"
The Fulness of the Gospel: Life before Birth
A continuing series explaining basic beliefs of the restored gospel, doctrines unique to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Of all the major Christian churches, only The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that the human race lived in a premortal existence with God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. “One of the strange things to me,” wrote President Joseph Fielding Smith (1876–1972), “is the fact that so many people believe that there is a spirit in man and when he dies that spirit continues to live as an immortal thing, yet that it had no existence until man was born in this mortal life.” 1
Solving Life’s Mystery
President Boyd K. Packer, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, addressed the significance of this doctrine: “There is no way to make sense out of life without a knowledge of the doctrine of premortal life. … When we understand the doctrine of premortal life, then things fit together and make sense.” 2
Without an understanding of our premortal life we cannot correctly comprehend our relationship with our Heavenly Father, nor can we completely grasp the purpose of this earth life and our divine destiny. “This doctrine of premortal life,” said President Packer, “was known to ancient Christians. For nearly five hundred years the doctrine was taught, but it was then rejected as a heresy by a clergy that had slipped into the Dark Ages of apostasy. Once they rejected this doctrine, … they could never unravel the mystery of life. They became like a man trying to assemble a strand of pearls on a string that was too short. There is no way they can put them all together.” 3
Man Is Eternal
"As the Lord restored divine truth through the Prophet Joseph Smith, knowledge of the premortal existence became critically important to our understanding of Heavenly Father’s plan for our salvation. “Man was also in the beginning with God,” the Lord revealed. “Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be” (D&C 93:29). Thus, in the sense that our intelligence has always existed, we had no beginning. But at some distant point in our premortal past, spirit bodies were created for us, and we became, literally, spirit sons and daughters of heavenly parents. 4
The knowledge that we are spirit children of God, that we lived with Him before our mortal birth, and that we desired to become like Him defines our relationship with our Eternal Father. Joseph Smith taught that “God himself, … because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby [His children] could have a privilege to advance like himself.” 5 A necessary part of our advancement required us to leave our Father’s presence, to have a veil of forgetfulness cast over our minds, and to walk by faith, learning obedience to His commandments.
What We Know
Because we came to earth to be tested and to walk by faith, the Lord has not revealed many details about premortal life. What has been revealed, however, is sufficient for us to accomplish our purpose here on earth. A few of the revealed facts about our premortal existence follow:
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We are God’s literal spirit children, and as such we have the potential to become like Him (see Rom. 8:16–17; D&C 93:33–34).
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We participated in a Grand Council in Heaven where we heard the Father’s plan for our salvation. We chose to follow Jesus Christ, who was chosen to come to earth as our Savior and Redeemer, and we shouted for joy at this wonderful opportunity (see Job 38:7; Abr. 3:24–28).
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Lucifer, “an angel of God who was in authority in the presence of God” (D&C 76:25), said, “I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost” (Moses 4:1). But he sought that God should give unto him God’s own power and glory, and he proposed to change the conditions of our mortal experience, destroying our agency. Without agency, we would have been incapable of actually becoming like our Heavenly Father, so this proposal was rejected by God and by two-thirds of His children. Lucifer then rebelled, there was a War in Heaven—a war of words and a spiritual conflict—and he was cast out with “a third part of the hosts of heaven” who had followed him (D&C 29:36). He became known as Satan, and he and his followers now work with devilish determination to destroy our souls (see Rev. 12:7–9; D&C 29:36–39; Moses 4:1–4).
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We came to earth without the memory of our prior existence, but we did come with individual strengths and talents, as well as weaknesses we must strive to overcome (see Ether 12:27; D&C 104:17; D&C 138:55–56; Abr. 3:23).
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Earth life is not the beginning or the end of our existence, but it is both a test and a crucial stage in our ongoing development. Our performance in this test shapes our eternal future (see Abr. 3:25–26)."
