I received an email from a lady who said she was feeling the weight of her past sins, including the fact that she divorced her husband without sufficient cause. She said she didn't think she had a chance at Zion and asked for my advice. Here's what I told her:

To focus my response, I would ask you to consider: what do you want?

Casting Zion as the fulfillment of all your hopes and dreams is a common and terrible mistake. Like heaven, its qualities are already defined, and they aren’t desirable to those who aren’t like Jesus.

Zion is not a destination. It is the next step in a process. Those wishing for a magical escape from the need to improve will be sorely disappointed.

To obtain Zion as a group, you must first work towards it as an individual. You do this by making the next incremental change to improve yourself given where you presently are.

Instead of viewing your past choices as disqualifying you from Zion, see them as incontrovertible evidence that you would be miserable there with what you presently value.

Rather than see your past choices as an irreversible condemnation, see them as incontrovertible evidence of your present character.

The next steps are not a mystery. You’ve already been told. [Details removed for anonymity]. Master these things, then go to God and ask for whatever comes next.

Now you get to choose whether you truly desire something better than what you desired before or whether to continue living in a way that guarantees that what you’ve already experienced will be as close to heaven as you’ll ever come.

-Rob