“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people” (Luke 1:68). Whenever we find ourselves having wandered far enough off the Gospel path that repentance will be slightly more involved than a quick prayer and the Sacrament on Sunday, we might think that until we have become sufficiently clean and forgiven of our sins, our access to the Savior and His Atonement are restricted to such a degree that we have more or less been cut off from His presence. After all, no unclean thing can enter into the presence of God. This is absolutely true, but that does not mean that Christ cannot enter into our presence, be we ever so stained with sins. Christ’s ultimate goal is to redeem us, and every time that we have fully and sincerely repented and have been cleansed of all iniquity, we are for that time redeemed. But for all of the occasions when we can't bring ourselves to fully repent and thus fully be redeemed, Christ can and does visit us, even in our lost and fallen state. Of course we should not procrastinate the day of our repentance, and of course we should be anxiously engaged in doing everything in our power to qualify for and obtain a full and complete redemption, but for all of the thousands of times that we are too stubborn or proud or willful or scared or weak or discouraged to repent fully, we can still be visited by our Savior. For all of the times when we must continue to endure trials that seem to be pushing us past what we can bear, Christ can visit us in our afflictions, even if the time to remove the thorn from our side has not yet come. We are so blessed that while we are working out the slow and painful path to redemption, we are not cut off from our Savior visiting us and giving us guidance and hope and strength to hold onto our way and with patience work without ceasing towards our actual redemption, when we will no longer need to wait for Christ to visit us but will abide with Him forevermore.
