Welcome to “Behold, here I am” a blog for LDS youth. This title is layered in meaning but simultaneously denotes at least three important elements. "Behold, here I am." is:
1) An invitation to see and experience God the Father
2) An invitation to receive the Son
3) A reminder of our need to obey
First, “Behold, here I am” is an invitation to see and experience God the Father. When God spoke to Abraham, Abraham responded, Behold, here I am. (Click here for more commentary regarding Abraham). Of course Abraham is a symbol of God the Father; his name denotes, “Father of the multitudes.” So as Abraham (a symbol of the Father) says, “Behold, here I am,” so too does the Father say “Behold, here I am.”
How might the Father say, “Behold, here I am.”? In what ways do you “behold” or see and experience God the Father in your own life?
In Doctrine and Covenants 88:41 we read that He is “in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things; and all things are by him, and of him, even God, forever and ever.” Alma tells Korihor that “all things denote there is a God.”
Consider the stars... as a young boy in Vermont, Joseph Smith often gazed at the stars and marveled at the order and majesty of the universe. In the psalms, we read that “The heavens declare the glory of God.”
Second, “Behold, here I am” is an invitation to receive Christ. “I am” here signifies Christ. Consider the words of James Talmage with my paraphrasing and quoting: Jehovah is the Anglicized version of the Hebrew, Yahveh or Jahveh, signifying the self-existent one, or the eternal. Talmage writes how, “the Hebrew Ehyeh, signifying I am, is related in meaning and through derivation with the term, “Yahveh or Jehovah." When the Lord revealed himself to Moses, "thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you.” The Lord later says "I am the Lord: and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob.”… “The central fact connoted by this name, I am, or Jehovah, the two having essentially the same meaning, is that of existence or duration having no end, and which, judged by all human standards of reckoning, could have had no beginning; the name is related to such other titles as Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” … Jesus declared to the Jews: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am." Talmage writes that the true significance of this saying would be more plainly expressed with a sentence punctuated and pointed as follows: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham, was I am”; which means the same as had he said- “before Abraham, was I, Jehovah.” The Jews were so enraged that he declared himself to be “Jehovah” or “I am” that they immediately took up stones to kill him.
Therefore, the title “Behold, here I am” is an invitation to behold and receive the great and eternal “I am” or Jesus Christ the Son of God, for I know that Jesus of Nazareth was and is what he declared himself to be to Nephites, "I am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world."
Third, “Behold, here I am” is a declaration of obedience. This is how most of us commonly understand the phrase. We might first consider Abraham’s humble and listening ear (to the voice of God). For we must first ask, seek, and knock to have it given, to find, and to have it opened. Then after hearing the call of God to, "take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest… and offer him," Abraham was obedient as the Lord commanded him (knowing not why) like Adam; "I know not, save the Lord commanded me." and both were blessed beyond imagination.
As we go about our lives, it is my prayer that we might see and experience the Father and receive the Son so that when when we hear the soft voice of the Lord we might courageously respond with the phrase, "HERE I AM!".
