Gods and Gifts

I finished The Aeneid this week, so I’ve made it through the great triumvirate: The Iliad, The Odyssey, and now The Aeneid. However, what really makes them significant are the lessons about relationships with others including friends, family, and the gods.

Of course, the gods are very closely connected with individuals’ lives. In fact, this is as much a battle among the gods as it is between the Greeks and the Trojans. Here in The Iliad is a passage about Zeus and Poseidon taking opposite sides:

After Zeus had brought Hector and the Trojans
To the Greek ships, he left the combatants
To their misery and turned his luminous eyes
Far away. . . .
He never dreamed that any of the immortals
Would go to help the Trojans or the Greeks.

But Poseidon wasn’t blind. He sat high
On the topmost peak of wooded Samothrace,
Marveling at the war going on beneath him.
He could see all Ida, and Priam’s city [Troy],
And the Greek ships, from where he sat.
The sea crawled beneath him. He pitied
The Greeks being beaten by the Trojans,
And he was furious with Zeus.

So both the gods take sides. The lonely mortals are not only fighting against each other but against the gods who are trying to defeat them. Some of the gods try to level out the impossible odds by giving their favorite mortals special divine gifts. Two such gifts include special god-made armor. Achilles’ mother, who is a goddess, gets the god Hephaestus to create this incredible seven-layered armor for her son which protects him and allows him to battle the Greeks—Achilles is blessed by the gods because of this gift.

In The Aeneid, the Trojan Aeneas is battling the Italians who is favored by Juno, the Queen of Heaven. But the goddess Venus wants to protect her mortal son Aeneas, so she goes to the same god Vulcan (Hephaestus) to create armor and a shield for Aeneas. And this gift of armor helps Aeneas to be victorious.

While reading these accounts, I’m so grateful we have a Heavenly Father who loves us, who wants what is best for us, and does not pit other gods or evils to impede us. He, too, wants to give us divine gifts to protect us and to strengthen us as we do His work. He gives us the Holy Ghost and spiritual gifts. In Doctrine and Covenants 46:8, 26 we’re counseled to “seek earnestly the best gifts, always remembering for what they are given. . . . And all these gifts come from God, for the benefit of the children of God.”

We have been given divine gifts to protect us and to strengthen us. Our Heavenly Father loves us and wants us to succeed and to be happy—we are his sons and daughters.

One other great thing about the armor gift Aeneas received from the gods. The shield’s design has images of Aeneas’s future generations (they become the founders of Rome and the great Roman emperors). Get the meaning of this neat experience:

Aeneas was moved
To wonder and joy by the images of things,
He could not fathom, and he lifted to his shoulder
The destiny of his children’s children.

What we are doing now and the choices we are making not only will bless our lives but will bless our children’s children’s lives. We are lifting them to our shoulders as we battle for what’s right and good.