tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45144588981835139242024-03-12T18:56:01.299-04:00Good things now and to comePerspective of an every day ChristianUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger136125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-37291264053128732952023-05-14T11:55:00.006-04:002023-05-14T15:54:30.150-04:00What It Really Means To Be A Mother<p> "I never had that before in my life." This was the phrase I heard Collette use as she was looking at a house she'd like to have one day when we can buy a house and saw a picture of the inside of the house with "fun dishes" in the kitchen. There are actually a lot of things that applies to in her life. From the kind of Christmases that I had growing up to a home where both parents were always adamant about and good at making sure the highest of gospel standards were taught and lived by from day to day.</p><p>I grew up in a really good home and was super blessed to have parents who worked really hard to so we could have the best life has to offer. We were financially blessed, good relationship habits were taught and exemplified, mom always made sure we ate well, we had a clean and well organized house, good mental and emotional support from mom and dad and were taught how to make and keep good friends, had plenty of opportunities to develop talents, holidays always were and felt like special occasions and have fun and much more. After my mission when I returned to Canada I lived the exact opposite kind of life, of my own will and choice because of <a href="https://plpulsipher.blogspot.com/2014/06/a-mother-by-any-other-name-would-be-as.html">the kind of woman Lorraine</a> was in mortality. This was a life where we lived under the poverty line and struggled with more than money - our relationship, addiction, PTSD, finding food that Lorraine could actually eat without health problems, anxiety, depression, social problems with people we thought were our friends, holidays were always difficult (even most Christmases) and brief moments of peace and joy together were few and far between; basically, everything I <b>didn't</b> have to struggle with growing up; and Lorraine and I lived this way together for about 10 1/2 years. We lived in a small apartment with two cats and with all the other struggles going on, we never were able to keep things in our apartment as clean and organized as we wanted.</p><p>So I have had lots of life experience with a life of abundance <i>and</i> a life of intense and constant struggle. From that contrast I learned first-hand the real value of many of the blessings I grew up with and ever since I found out that Collette was deprived of some of those blessings growing up, I have wanted ever since to help make a better life with her... and <i>for</i> her.</p><p>Today, for Mother's day 2023, I write this in an attempt to make this holiday a happy, memorable one for Collette. She knows, from both bad and good examples in her life, what it really means to be a mother. From we've heard people say in our ward (congregation) at church and her current boss at work, her mothering skills at top notch and she has the heart to match them. Here are a few ways (of many I don't have time to list) that Collette fills the role of mother better than most I've seen:</p><p>1. Collette has knows the difference between <a href="https://plpulsipher.blogspot.com/2016/08/abuse-vs-discipline.html">discipline and abuse</a>. She knows how to show to love by "persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile" (D&C <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/121?lang=eng">121:41-42</a>) but also how to differentiate between love and trust and when to do so. She has been praised on multiple occasion - and was even given a gift by her boss - for kindly calling out abusive behavior towards children and being an incredible, gentle, motherly defender of children.<br /><br />2. Her desire to serve and share her gifts with others is staggering! One of the things she got super giddy about recently in looking pictures of one house (can you tell she likes dreaming big?) was when she looked at the kitchen and the first words out of her mouth were "I could serve so many people in that kitchen!" Anyone who has known her for even a few months is aware of how eager and willing she is to share anything she has with people, including her amazing food, especially when it's one of her favorites (which is not something most people do with their favorite foods). Every time her face gets that giddy look about something wonderful she has just had a bite of, she immediately and impulsively gives anyone around her a bit of it and acts like a kid at Christmas as if their reaction when they realize how good it is the best thing to ever happen to her. Collette is one of the most selfless people I've ever known. No wonder Lorraine helped chose her for me from the other side.</p><p>3. She is humble about her weaknesses and therefore incredibly forgiving of others; and God knew I'd need someone like that because I have some weaknesses that <i>just... don't... want... to... go... away.</i> Maybe I need to read Unstuck: How The Savior Frees us From Our Favorite Sins again, haha.</p><p>4. She has incredible faith! Collette is always saying "more Jesus please!" Anthony Sweat, in a recent BYU Speech, said "Christian theologian George MacDonald called the attitude of being “my own king and my own subject . . . doing whatever I am inclined to do, from whatever quarter may come the inclination” one of the “principles of hell.” Why? Because it stands in such stark contrast to Jesus’s perfect, lifelong submission to God, defined by “not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). While a common refrain today might be “You do you,” Christ’s covenant call is “Be like me.” There is power in covenanting that we will obey the laws of God and not merely walk in our own way after the image of our own god." Collette is so focused on Christ and always willing to put her own feelings and beliefs aside if she finds out they contradict the doctrine of Christ and teachings of His prophets, even if they are something deep-seated in her mind. This is the one place, I believe, where we are the best match for each other. Our children, when they come into mortality, will never have a shortage teaching by example what it means to align their hearts with Christ with a mother like Collette!</p><p>_____________________________________</p><p>Collette knows that a good mother is one who shows her children by example what it means to turn to Christ, to develop a love for truth, to live by that truth and refuse to let choices be dictated by flawed mortal emotion, to show compassion to all. She knows a good mother does not let what is merely popular influence the standards taught in and lived by in her home, but also knows how to maintain balance with love, trust and truth with everyone around her. She knows the importance of the God given responsibilities of mothers to follow the standards of <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/the-family-a-proclamation-to-the-world/the-family-a-proclamation-to-the-world?lang=eng">The Family Proclamation</a> and align her life with Christ.</p><p>There is so much more, but I hope this makes your day brighter, my love! Happy Mother's day!</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-25449329017784436612021-06-12T09:11:00.007-04:002022-09-24T22:51:45.181-04:00Revealing Dignity<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Something that has always becomes quite the important topic of discussion in the hotter months of the year is how people dress. I know I'm not anyone's judge and in this article I do not make any judgement calls as to the spiritual standing of anyone who chooses to expose more than their arms, heads and legs legs below the knee in public. However, there is a problem that seems to be a major issue no even since I moved here to Utah where, I must admit, at least a part of me hoped for higher standards of dress than I am seeing in most public places mainly from women.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">My wife Collette has been just as bothered (if not moreso) than me by what we've seen in our last few trips out to get some needed shopping done so I know she echoes my sentiment.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A lot of this has to do with several things about which we felt great disgust as well as great gratitude and relief through our Saturday on June 5 here in Utah County.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">For much of our travels that day we were listening to a talk by Mark E. Petersen about sexual sin and how the devil uses his carefully crafted sales pitch to make sex something to be made common and cheap instead of the beautiful, holy, sacred and special creation of God that it is.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Part of that talk is as follows:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"So what does [the devil] do? Oh, he doesn't some out with a band, a brass band, and go to work. Like every salesman, every clever salesman, especially those who are seeking to sell something that they know will glitter like gold but will by ashes in the end, he comes up gradually. <i>Very</i> gradually. Here a little, there a little. First of all he attacks our modesty and tries to destroy thoughts of modesty, standards of modesty in our mind. He makes you think that it's perfectly proper to expose the human body to various degrees. He sells the idea [by starting with truth] that the human body is something beautiful and <i>in as much as </i>it's something beautiful it's something which should be appreciated [another truth, but then] to be appreciated it is something that should be seen and after being seen it is something to clutch unto yourself. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">That's his sales talk. So he brings forth immodesty in dress. He brings forth bathing suits that are terribly immodest. Why? Because he wants to have our women expose their bodies to the public gaze. He brings forth other styles in other forms of dress, exposing the body to the public gaze. Remember the steps. The body is beautiful. it should be appreciated. To be appreciated it should be seen. And after being seen, then he gets in his great efforts. Do you see, young ladies, why we preach modesty in dress? Do you see why we try to persuade you to keep your bodies covered, to be modest, to protect that virtue, which is of greater value to you than life itself?...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A weeks ago, I was entertained at dinner in the house of a Stake President in between session of Stake Conference. It was a beautiful Sunday. We had had a beautiful Conference session that morning. We went to this home and sat down to a lovely dinner. A 17-year-old daughter helped the mother serve. If that daughter had come out into the living room, in the presence of two members of the Council of the 12, wearing nothing above her waist except a brazier, wouldn't the mother have been shocked and horrified? And yet that 17-year-old girl came out wearing that brazier and nothing over it except the sheerest kind of a waste, which hid nothing. I was embarrassed. My companion was embarrassed. There was nothing modest about the appearance of that girl. It detracted so from her appearance. She had a lovely face, but to thus expose herself? We, who were the visitors were embarrassed. The family should have been and above all the girl.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So you see, the sanctity of the body is so related to the sanctity of sex. Why make the body common? Why expose this sacred thing which is the temple of God to the public eye? I tell you, girls, when you expose your bodies, whether on the dance floor, or otherwise, you do yourselves a great injustice."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">While getting some errands done on June 5th is year, Collette and I were frustrated at place after place we went. Whether it was Walmart, University Mall, downtown Provo or downtown American Fork, each place had so many women and even tweens and teens who might as well have been naked from the waist up (and some from the waist down). And if you are one of the parents who was accompanying your childing while wear clothes that were just as revealing, shame on you for setting such a bad example.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I was, therefore, so relieved to see at least one example of a bunch of women who a) valued their bodies enough and obviously felt secure about themselves enough to not display themselves as sexual objects and b) didn't use heat as an excuse to do so either.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This is a picture of those women and was taken with permission to share it on this blog and as an excellent proof that it is reasonable, possible and even desirable to dress modestly even on really hot days. They weren't even in the air-conditioned store. Lookin' good ladies. They are proof that there is no reason to dress like you're in an sex shop no matter how hot it is.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DQ71th4_saU/YL1Rd43ddrI/AAAAAAAADx8/W9ViObDLOw806Pc_Nh_9SalC2kUvMcY4wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/good%2Bexample%2Bof%2Bmodesty%2Bat%2BAubergine%2527s%2Bin%2BAF.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DQ71th4_saU/YL1Rd43ddrI/AAAAAAAADx8/W9ViObDLOw806Pc_Nh_9SalC2kUvMcY4wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/good%2Bexample%2Bof%2Bmodesty%2Bat%2BAubergine%2527s%2Bin%2BAF.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Yes, it is true that men <i>should </i>look away. They <i>should</i> control their thoughts. There <i>is </i>choice involved. But let me ask you this. When you see a toddler running out into a road when there's a car coming, what happens? What do you feel? The good natured human part of you is immediately and involuntarily terrified and if no one's around you'll either yell at the kid to get out of the way or you'll go pick them up yourself and save them. It's a knee-jerk reaction, the healthy kind of fear the Lord blessed us with, but which can be misused and manipulated.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />The same thing applies to when you dress immodestly. The natural sexual and physical attraction of men to women and women's bodies is <i>supposed </i>to come to the surface quickly when more of the female body is exposed than should be. Men's minds were designed by God to have that desire to see more of and touch the body of and have sex with that woman. That's how marriage between a man and woman is supposed to work. It shouldn't be any wonder that the most sacred of all acts we can do as humans - to express sexual love in marriage and become joint creators with the almighty in bringing forth life - is something around which God has placed the most holy and spiritually heavy safeguards.<br /><br />As someone who has recovered from more than 20 years of the darkest hell you can imagine in sexual addiction, I can tell you those thought patterns about wanting to see and touch the naked female body don't go away. They're not supposed to. They're supposed to be directed to our wives in the divine manner prescribed by our Father in Heaven.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">When you dress the way so many are as the weather gets ever hotter, you are exploiting and unfairly manipulating that natural God-given inclination. Please stop. Those who say "my body my choice" also need to accept that while you have freedom to make your own choices, you do not have the freedom to pick the consequences to those choices. When you pick up one of the stick, you automatically pick up the other as well. You can't demand that boys and men to not oggle you when you do that. Wish they wouldn't? Yeah, me too. Please hope that they won't, but without taking any blame for it yourself? Not cool. In fact, blaming men for oggling and mentally undressing you when dress in a way that exposes or emphasizes the very parts of you you <i>don't </i>want them staring at is like touching fire on purpose and getting angry when it burns you. Doesn't make any sense. Another saying, which is so true, goes "if you roll around in the mud, expect to attract pigs."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Last of all, please remember this isn't about hiding anything, it's about revealing your dignity and loving yourself enough to realize that the right men will be attracted to you, physically <i>and </i>socially, if you keep the sexually teasing nature of revealing attire for marriage, at home with your husband.</div><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-56228418536214136482021-03-21T12:56:00.001-04:002021-03-21T12:56:28.044-04:00Why Church?<p>I saw a post a while ago on facebook that had a quote from Brigham Young about what it means to be a good person. It said something to this effect: "A good man is a good man whether in or out of this church". The person who posted it added their own commentary something like "just because I've decided to take a break from church for a bit doesn't mean I don't know it's true. I wish people would get off our back about it."</p><p>They are correct that you don't need to go to church to know that Christ's church is true. However, there are a few critical elements they are missing that are pertinent to their salvation. This post goes out to anyone who still loves the Lord and is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (or wants to understand it who isn't) and isn't currently going to church. It is an expression of love and invitation, and also a reminder of how to be more happy. If you are not in either of those categories and have a friend who you'd like to share this message with, please do so kindly and tactfully.</p><p><disclaimer>I apologize if I come across as to "in your face". I really did try to say this in as caring and loving a way as possible</disclaimer></p><p>As for those missing elements, here we go.</p><p>1. The import of a covenant.</p><p>Everyone who follows the example of Jesus Christ and is baptized by proper priesthood authority makes a covenant with Him. This covenant includes the following:</p><p><span> a. Always Remember Him<br /></span><span> b. Keep His Commandments<br /></span><span> c. Take His Name Upon Us</span></p><p>All three of those include attending our meetings. The sacrament administered at church is a key element and a divinely designated method of remembering Jesus Christ, His sacrifice for us and determining what we will do better to keep His commandments and thereby take His name upon us. We need that reminder in a place that is specifically designed as an ordinance room, <i>specifically </i>dedicated for such a time of remembrance. I know with COVID there are many families still doing this at home for health reasons, but if you are healthy enough to go, not doing so is breaking your covenants to attend your meetings and robbing yourself of additional companionship of the Holy Ghost. </p><p>2. Knowing Vs Doing</p><p>In the Book of Mormon King Benjamin taught the value of acting on our knowledge of the truth. Knowing isn't and never will be enough to be exalted in the Celestial Kingdom. The gospel is a gospel of action, not passive belief. But belief can fade into unbelief. This happens when it is not persistently, joyfully and deliberately acted upon. This includes attending the Lord's church if we know it's true (see Mosiah 4:10). Not doing so is akin to praying to know if Jesus is the Son of God without spending our lives personally researching and learning about <i>His </i>life, teachings and atonement or, worse yet, refusing to emulate Him as best we can when we find out by the Spirit who He truly is.</p><p>How can we possibly claim to take His name upon us if we are not willing to follow His commandments? The Savior Himself commands attending worship meetings often in 3 Nephi 18:22, "ye shall meet together oft..." when He establishes His church among the Nephites. That command remains in force today.</p><p>This is echoed in the temple recommend interview questions where it asks "Do you strive to keep the Sabbath day holy, both at home and at church; attend your meetings...". If you are safe to attend (<i>be honest about this one!) </i>and are not, then you are negatively impacting your temple worthiness as well.</p><p>On the "knowing and not doing" thing, I have learned the hard way the blessings of actually following through with that and obeying "with exactness" (Alma 57:12). I suffered for more than 20 years in sexual addiction and no matter how much I studied the gospel and "tried", there really is a lot of truth to the phrase, "there is no try, there is only do or do not". I devoured The Infinite Atonement by Tad Callister cover to cover more than once and enjoyed the spiritual deliciousness of The Miracle of Forgiveness, Accomplishing the Impossible, Unstuck: How the Savior Frees us From Our Favorite Sins, When We Don't See Eye to Eye, Without Offense: The Art of Giving and Receiving Criticism, Like Dragons Did They Fight and <i>many more. </i>However, it was all without long term results because studying simply wasn't enough to change my heart. Something drastic had to happen. It wasn't until shortly after Lorraine's death that I regained total worthiness to return to the temple. The Lord knew I needed more of her help to overcome the addiction than she could offer in her broken mortal body and He provided it, but only my accepting that offer by letting her go when God made it painfully obvious it was time did I finally break free.</p><p>Knowing is not doing. It never will be and will never carry the same eternal weight as doing and becoming, meaning becoming someone who <i>wants</i> righteousness, who <i>wants</i> to go to church and obey with exactness consistently.</p><p>3. The minimum</p><p>I LOVE this quote from President Eyring.</p><p>|<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">As the challenges around us increase, we must commit to do more to qualify for the companionship of the Holy Ghost. Casual prayer won’t be enough. Reading a few verses of the scripture won’t be enough. Doing the minimum of what the Lord asks of us won’t be enough. Hoping that we will have the Atonement work in our lives and that we will perhaps sometimes feel the influence of the Holy Ghost won’t be enough. And one great burst of effort won’t be enough.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">Only a steady, ever-increasing effort will allow the Lord to take us to higher ground.|</p><p style="background-color: white;">What is currently the minimum of what the Lord asks of His saints? Temple worthiness. So when he says "doing the minimum of what the Lord asks of us won't be enough", what does that tell you? Asking how good we have to be just to remain temple worthy completely misses the point of worship and discipleship altogether. Asking how good we <i>can </i>be, as I have hammered on multiple podcasts and blogs, is the question that can bring us to sufficiently high ground to remain safe from the devils tactics. He will use the argument that "knowing is enough", he will use complacency, he will use laziness, idolatry, distraction, depression and more. But you cannot afford to simply be comfortable with knowing. Faith is an action word and it leads to action, ever increasing action, as put by Pres. Eyring. If your faith doesn't drive you to <i>ever increasing action, </i>it's<i> </i>not faith anymore. It's doing what Moroni falsely accused Pahoran of doing in Alma 60:7-12.</p><p>I totally understand that often times, life circumstances make it quite difficult to want to go to church. I suffered at the hands of a bully (who happened to be the bishop's son at the time) during my teen years. I have had horrible things said about me and false rumors spread about me and my first wife Lorraine in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. At one point I was legitimately having a really rough time accidentally making a ton of social mistakes (Asperger's is rough sometimes) that ruffled a bunch of feathers in the ward in Hamilton. I came to the point where I considered no longer attending church for a time to give people a break from my weaknesses. My self-esteem was really low at that point. But I never let any of those situations and lots more like them (even on my mission) stop me from going. Why?</p><p>Because I. MADE. COVENANTS. and the Lord <i style="font-weight: bold;">WILL</i> keep His end of them if I keep mine. He always does for me and He always will for you. D&C 82:10, "I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say ye have no promise." No, being perfectly obedient will not always result in us getting what we want or think we need, but it <i>will</i> always make it <i>possible</i> to receive more from God. Wouldn't you rather keep that "tap water", if you will, constantly running through obedience and be patient while God works than shut off the faucet and make it much more difficult for Him to meet our spiritual and temporal needs? He literally is limited or more empowered to bless us to the degree we choose to do as He commands, including attending church. Don't limit yourself and don't limit Him by slowing down the flow of good from heaven.</p><p>Always leave that door open. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-14616776653426858552020-07-23T18:44:00.015-04:002021-03-07T18:46:53.333-05:00Amazing Promises for Amazing Blessings<p>Every so often I notice something in the scriptures that just rocks me simply by analyzing the wording and promises carefully enough.</p><p>Probably four or five years ago, it was Jacob 4:12 where he says “. . . for why not speak of the atonement of Christ, and attain to a perfect knowledge of him, as to attain to the knowledge of a resurrection and the world to come?” This was after the first time I had read The Infinite Atonement by Tad R. Callister. Never before had I felt more weight from this one little verse than I did at that point.</p><p>Last year, it was 2 Nephi 9:51, which is now the license plate on my Hyundai Elantra (well, it actually says “2NE9 51”), especially the part where it says, “Wherefore, do not spend money for that which is of no worth, nor your labor for that which cannot satisfy. Hearken diligently unto me, and remember the words which I have spoken; and come unto the Holy One of Israel, and feast upon that which perisheth not, neither can be corrupted…” (That one hit me so hard that I actually also used it for the URL of my website, www.thatwhichperishethnot.com.)</p><p>Well, another one hit me super hard today. It was part of an answer to prayer for me about having confidence in myself and my ability to receive revelation properly. It is Doctrine and Covenants 121:45:</p><p>“Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.”</p><p>Let’s dissect why this verse is one that every missionary… heck, every member… no, every person on earth should memorize this scripture. What the Lord promises us in this verse is of eternally pivotal and of monumental importance.</p><p>What We Need to Do</p><p>First, the Lord gives us a few instructions. All of them are pretty loaded if you think about them carefully enough. As charity is the pure love of Christ (and seeing that we mortals have a pretty hard time loving absolutely everyone) the command to be “full of charity towards all men” feels like a tall order as it is. Yet when you know how wonderful it is to feel absolute, unquestionable love for someone right to the core of your soul and then realize that everyone deserves that kind of love, it becomes a constant struggle to match what you know with what you feel. Nonetheless, the promises given if we achieve that level of feeling and action for others is monumental — and I’ll get to that here in a bit.</p><p>The next little phrase, “and to the household of faith,” to me, speaks volumes. What is “the household of faith”? This phrase appears in the verse we are dissecting as well as in Galatians 6:10. Both uses seem to imply a respect for sacred things, for the truth, for God’s glory and His plan for His children. To me, this is a reminder of the ever-present conundrum of being in the world but not of the world. Learning to love all men like Christ does and yet also unflinchingly loving the Lord and His plan in a world where so many don’t is a balance that takes most of us a lifetime to achieve.</p><p>Then the Lord adds on one more assignment before getting to the promises associated with these instructions: “Let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly.” This reminds me of what President Nelson said in April 2017 about “reach[ing] up for the Lord’s power in your life with the same intensity that a drowning person has when grasping and gasping for air.” In the same talk, he said, “It is mentally rigorous to strive to look unto Him in every thought. But when we do, our doubts and fears flee.” He’s got the mentally rigorous part absolutely right! When I asked Siri to define “garnish,” she gave the food version and the legal version. The legal definition is to “seize (money, especially part of a person’s salary) to settle a debt or claim.” In my mind, the “seizing” definition seems to fit more given the “unceasingly” part of this instruction. To have virtue seize our every thought every second of every day is something mortal weakness makes so difficult! BUT — and it’s a big but — let’s now consider the ramifications and results of continuously shooting for this lofty goal.</p><p>The Promises</p><p>In Truman Madsen’s first lecture on Joseph Smith, “The First Vision and Its Aftermath,” he described Joseph’s and Sydney Rigdon’s responses to having visions:</p><p>“In 1832, emerging from the vision on the three degrees of glory (Doctrine and Covenants 76) with his companion in the vision, Sidney Rigdon, the Prophet looked strong, while Sidney looked like he’d been through the war. To this the Prophet, with a certain humility as also perhaps with a little condescension, said, “Sidney is not as used to it as I am.” But after the First Vision, he was feeble. It was difficult for him to go home. Similarly, in his 1823 encounter with Moroni, the repetitive encounter, he was left weak, and his father sent him home. He couldn’t even climb the fence, though he was usually a strong and vigorous boy."</p><p>The Book of Mormon also says that Lehi was exhausted from the vision he had at the beginning of the book. So when the Lord gives as a promise to us if we meet the above conditions, “. . . then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God,” think about that for a minute. Who among mortals, even including prophets, has testified of standing in the presence of God without feeling utterly inadequate and unequal to the task, constantly needing to plead with God and realizing that without Him we are nothing? And yet He promises us that if we are full of charity for all men and for the household of faith and virtue garnishes our thoughts unceasingly, our confidence shall wax strong in the presence of God. I can hardly imagine standing in His presence and feeling utterly confident in my standing before Him. I mean, I know that one day if I keep my covenants that will happen, but thinking about that now? Take a few moments to allow the gravity of that statement to sink in. That’s what He promises us!</p><p>And then the last promise, which is equally amazing! “. . . the doctrine of the priesthood shall distill upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.” The two definitions I found for distill are:</p><p>“Purify (a liquid) by vaporizing it, then condensing it by cooling the vapor, and collecting the resulting liquid.”</p><p>and</p><p>“Extract the essential meaning or most important aspects of.”</p><p>Both create pretty strong imagery when applying them to that last promise. It’s like the quintessence of everything good and holy seeping into our bones and sinews. I’m picturing one of those scenes in a Disney movie where someone is transformed with beams of light coming out of them from everywhere. Almost gives me the shivers with how awesome that would be! And it’s real!</p><p>There certainly are many aspects of living the gospel that are, dang it, just plain hard! But for me, when I consider the rewards God promises us for striving for those ideals, the sheer power of those possibilities is vastly more than enough to make me want to “reach up for the Lord’s power in [my] life with the same intensity that a drowning person has when grasping and gasping for air” to be filled with such charity and have my thoughts garnished with such virtue.</p><p>It’s a tall order, but an order worth working to fill every minute of every day!</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-18976078076483260652020-06-06T18:42:00.001-04:002021-03-07T18:44:13.144-05:00The Importance of Eternal Covenants<p>As I was writing in my journal recently after Collette clocked into work (she works from home on the phone/computer), I overheard a second or two of some very muffled comments about the concept, “Oh, yeah, my last name is Pulsipher now!” I could hear the smile on her face as I heard her make the correction on the call. I beamed and my heart had a sudden burst of peace and joy with that wonderful reminder of her commitment to me and to her eternal covenants, especially the covenant of our marriage.</p><p>For the last few days (i.e., the first few days of our marriage), yes, there has been the typical twitterpated expressions of “I love you. I love you more! I love you most!” with the “Get a room, you two!”-frequency of kissing and cuddling. But having been married twice now, with Lorraine’s passing in October last year, and having now been married to two empaths (myself being one as well), I believe there is something much deeper and more wonderful that has come much more quickly in both relationships than many couples experience. God has blessed us in our courtship and marriage with something that I wonder if most couples only dream of.</p><p>This whole time, since we met on leap day up to now, after our sealing in the Payson Temple, Collette and I have prayed for and been enabled by God to have an amazing depth of safe, vulnerable, transparent communication, both verbal and empathic. This has allowed us to establish a spiritual and emotional bond unlike any I’ve ever heard of anywhere in or out of the Church, except my first marriage with Lorraine. (With her, the process was the same in principle, but different because of her unique different spiritual energy or “signature,” if you will.) Either way, I reverently witness of the tender mercies of the Lord in leading me to another woman who has empathic and spiritual senses that I believe are like no one else on this side of the veil.</p><p>I know Collette and I have been recipients of the blessing described in one of the final scenes in The Wedding Singer. In it, Rosie has some good advice for Robbie. She says,”Robbie, you’ll know when you meet the right girl, because it’s not how you feel about her — it’s how she makes you feel about yourself.” While both of those things are important, there are so many reasons why Collette and I fill both of those roles — how we feel about each other and how we make the other feel about themselves — wonderfully, beautifully, and emphatically.</p><p>dance dancingOne that comes to mind is a sweet, tender memory of one of the nights near the time when she first told me she loved me. We were having a deep conversation about spiritual connection and what makes us tick. At one point she began to search my eyes, appearing as if to find some part of me that mortals words cannot describe, and with wide eyes told me that for a brief moment she could see me as God sees me. She said, “Oh, Paul! You are such a beautiful man!” I could feel the charity and energy coming straight from her heart and felt her words and her heart much more deeply than I heard what she said. In that moment, I could feel the same thing about her. I knew and understood, without the slightest shadow of hesitation, the deep, exquisite, abiding power and beauty of the God-made woman she is. Since then, there have been many moments where I have been able to say, with the same intent as Julie Lee’s I See You podcast and James Cameron’s Avatar, “I see you.” It makes the marriage covenant so much easier to nurture and enjoy.</p><p>I understand twice as well now why the eternal marriage covenant is the crowning ordinance of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The true importance of eternal covenants with God, especially the marriage covenant (the only one of our eternal covenants involving three people!), is something that cannot be overstated. As the scripture on the inside of our wedding rings reads (Alma 26:16):</p><p>“Therefore, let us glory, yea, we will glory in the Lord; yea, we will rejoice, for our joy is full; yea, we will praise our God forever. Behold, who can glory too much in the Lord? Yea, who can say too much of his great power, and of his mercy, and of his long-suffering towards the children of men? Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel.”</p><p>And anyone who has felt the grace of mercy of Jesus Christ as Collette and I have will never be able to say the smallest part which we feel, because His peace “passeth all understanding” (Phil 4:7). As the lyrics to one of my favorite songs, “Crazy Beautiful” by Andy Grammar, says, “Isn’t she crazy beautiful? Isn’t she strange, strange and wonderful? I think I love her more than I even understand.”</p><p>The bond we experienced on our honeymoon at Zermatt in Midway brought that even further. It’s a really good thing we are both empaths because if we weren’t, I think it would be quite frustrating having to use just words to communicate how we feel. It is with immense gratitude to God that I consider the blessing we have of empathic communication from heart to heart.</p><p>I’m grateful that my wife puts Jesus Christ and her covenants with Him first, even ahead of me, because when you make Christ and your eternal covenants with Him the center of your life, He enhances every righteous endeavor you make and turns it into something far better than it could ever be without Him. He has strengthened our courtship more powerfully and quickly than I imagined possible because of our vice-grip on the iron rod and our commitment to make our connection go three ways: between each of us and our Savior and Redeemer. The importance of such a covenant cannot be overstated.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-4680729737372183782020-05-10T19:45:00.000-04:002020-05-10T19:45:00.776-04:00...WordsThe last few months have been quite the roller-coaster, wonderfully so, in the way the Lord has been working in my life. So many incredible miracles have happened, and my Book of Mormon studies today has been an accurate reflection of how I feel about it. Interestingly enough, today, on Mother's day 2020, that chapter goes quite well with those feelings and it also has eternal and emotional significance for my fiancee Collette and I. With both of us being empaths, there are so many times where we get a little tongue tied because of the intensity and depth or our own emotions and that of others. We often don't really have words to express how we feel about something until we've have time to process it and sometimes we'll just be like "I feel like... umm... *sigh* ...words... what are they?" Well Ammon does a similar thing in Alma 26.<br />
<br />
Verse 16 has become quite special to Collette and I. Pay attention to the end.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Therefore, let us glory, yea, we will glory in the Lord; yea, we will rejoice, for our joy is full; yea, we will praise our God forever. Behold, who can glory too much in the Lord? Yea, who can say too much of his great power, and of his mercy, and of his great long-suffering towards the children of men? Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel.</blockquote>
This Mothers day, this one goes out to my mom, my sisters, my amazing Lorraine and my incredible, precious, sweet Collette, about whom I cannot say the smallest part of that which I feel. I love you more that words can express my love, both of you.<br />
<br />
You have brought out the deepest part of my heart in the most freeing and joyful ways I could possibly imagine and I know it will only get better from here. As verse 30-31 says in chapter 26 - with a little adjusting for the sake of expressing how I feel about you both - "And [I] have suffered all manner of afflictions, and all this, that perhaps [I] might be the means of [blessing the life of women I love], and [I] supposed that [my] joy would be full if perhaps [I] could be the means of [blessing one.] Now behold, [I] can look forth and see the fruits of [my] labors; and are they few? I say unto you, Nay, they are many; yea, and [I] can witness of [your] sincerity, because of [your] love towards [others] and [your] love toward [me]."<br />
<br />
You deserve the best and I will always give your the absolute best of myself that I possibly can. Your beautiful, celestial hearts, your incredible ability to love me both for who I am and who you have seen I can become, your patience with my weaknesses, your love of music and the joy that fills my soul every time you sing, bear testimony or speak of your faith in Christ, your encouraging my righteous goals, your affection and unmatched focus on Christ and all things Holy. I couldn't have dreamed for any better women in my life than you.<br />
<br />
For all that you are and every will be... ...words.<br />
Happy Mother's day my love, both of you!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-75187645400072038952020-03-13T18:39:00.001-04:002021-03-07T18:42:04.146-05:00If You Knew Why<p>When I lived in Canada, there was a period of time when Lorraine (my late wife) and I had our business licenses for web development and piano/voice lessons. Because Lorraine was on ODSP (disability) and we were both on that check, we had to submit income reports to their office downtown at the end of each month. I would take the city bus down there to submit that one little paper with all the info and then come right back up to what Hamiltonians referred to as the “mountain.” It was actually just an escarpment, but to them, it seemed as tall as a mountain.</p><p>Anyways, it got to the point where I dreaded going down there because I began to feel an almost palpable darkness and evil just getting off the bus at the McNab terminal downtown. I would rush into the ODSP office building, get the paper submitted, and rush back to the terminal as fast as possible and catch the first bus back up the “mountain.” I eventually called and asked if they wouldn’t mind if I just faxed the report to them each month, which they said was fine.</p><p>The reason I mention this is because of all the times I have been the subject of a similar thought pattern for others. I remember all the times people would either avoid us, give us unsolicited advice for Lorraine’s health, or criticize us for not doing things the way they thought they would if they were in our position — and it got very draining. In retrospect, considering how alone I have felt many times since I moved to Utah County at the end of last year, that environment in downtown Hamilton came to mind… And I felt like perhaps I was too quick to want to get away from those people without understanding their why.</p><p>I have a very dear friend here with whom I got wires of communication crossed quite badly for a couple days. Yet when they were patient enough to dig a little deeper and learn more about what it means to have Asperger’s, to learn why I communicate the way I do, they were so much more understanding. It was quite a balm to hear them say things like, “I think I understand you better now” and “I’m so sorry you’re feeling so awful” or “Ohhh, I think I understand now.” It was like my soul could finally breathe again!</p><p>I wonder how many times I could have felt less oppressed by the environment in downtown Hamilton if I had stopped to find out why someone had an aura of this… almost… dementor-like draining energy about them. Maybe then I wouldn’t have wanted to get out of there so fast. Perhaps I would have actually wanted to stay longer to help them get out of that rut themselves.</p><p>At the moment, I don’t remember the exact wording to this quote, but I recall using it in a blog before (which I can’t find at the moment). It goes something like this: “You should never judge someone for their actions because you don’t know their story, and you certainly don’t know what other options they even had at the moment.”</p><p>Ask yourself that next time you see someone making a choice that is clearly wrong, “Yes, that choice is certainly wrong — but why are the making it? What other options do they think they have?” Perhaps every other choice they saw in that moment seemed way more painful than the one they made. Maybe their circumstances are so different from anything you would have supposed that even you would have likely made the same mistake had you been in their same situation.</p><p>I would never use this logic to suggest that we condone or tolerate sinful, unholy, or impure choices and practices. Certainly there is no exception to the Lord not being able to have the “least degree of allowance” for sin. However, the way we respond to people’s mistakes (including our own) would change drastically if we find out why people make the choices they do by getting down to that “chewy caramel center” of what makes them tick.</p><p>Most of the lessons Christ and His prophets taught were always followed up with the phrase “that they may…” or “that ye may…” For example, in 2 Nephi 1:22, 2 Nephi 10:25, Mosiah 18:9, Alma 34:24-25, 3 Nephi 17:3, 3 Nephi 27:20, D&C 45:72, and so many more places in the scriptures (like the sacrament prayers), we are told why the Lord commands us to do certain things. And if we truly understood why people makes some of the bad choices they do — I mean really understand the background behind each choice — it would be much easier to approach the problem the way Christ would and be a more effective instrument in His hands to help Him deliver that person from their sins and pain.</p><p>Just remember that the next time you think anything like “Oh, they should know better” or “There’s no excuse for that” or “If they had the gospel, they wouldn’t be make such dumb choices,” dig down to that caramel center and I almost guarantee you there will be come context you are missing that you couldn’t possibly get any other way. I know everyone who has ever done that for me has helped heal my soul immensely — and often their own as well in the process.</p><p>Give it a shot!</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-37405535398847280582020-01-09T19:21:00.001-05:002021-03-07T18:38:37.539-05:00Nope, Life's Not Fair -- Isn't That a Relief?Anyone who has read anything else I’ve written on this site knows I collect quotes from every book I read, every movie I watch, every podcast that means something special to me, and more. The book I’m into most recently (besides the Book of Mormon) is Believing Christ by Stephen E. Robinson.<br />
<br />
There is a part in that book that makes me especially thankful that God loves us so much that He doesn’t treat us fairly. The author begins it like this:<br />
<br />
“Since Christ and I are one in the gospel covenant, and since in a covenant partnership it doesn’t matter which partnership does what,” [think of this sort of like being a cosigner on a car purchase] “Christ can answer the demands of justice for me, and I can then receive the benefits of mercy from him. This is an arrangement that satisfies both justice and mercy. Yet some people are so addicted to the law of justice that they have difficulty accommodating the law of mercy and grace” (p. 103-104).<br />
<br />
He goes on to illustrate that if life were actually completely fair, there would be no cosigner (my wording, not his) on the rewards of eternal life, and we would always get exactly what we deserve. Earlier in the book, he clarifies that if justice was implemented by God in full force, repentance wouldn’t exist and neither would forgiveness of sins or anything else good that comes from Christ.<div><br /></div><div>He continues:</div><div><br /></div><div>“No, sometimes the gospel isn’t fair, but that is actually part of the good news. It isn’t fair—it’s merciful, and thank it is so, for no human being can stand acquitted before the demands of absolute justice. From the perspective of fallen, imperfect mortals like ourselves, being judged by justice alone is our worst nightmare.”</div><div><br /></div><div>So wait a minute—if God is both perfectly just and perfectly merciful, how are justice and mercy both served? Alma 34:16 answers that question by explaining that because of Christ’s Atonement, “mercy can satisfy the demands of justice, and encircles [us] in the arms of safety.” And who is the embodiment of mercy? The Lord Jesus Christ. The partnership between Jesus and Heavenly Father is a divine partnership between justice and mercy. The Father must be enact justice to the fullest extent. Just look at the following scriptures:</div><div><br /></div><div>1 Nephi 14:4</div><div>1 Nephi 15:30</div><div>Alma 42:1,13,22, and 25</div><div>Alma 54:6</div><div>3 Nephi 28:35</div><div>D&C 10:28 </div><div><br /></div><div>From these verses, it is pretty clear that the Father cannot budge from measuring out justice completely and entirely upon us or He would cease to be God.</div><div><br /></div><div>That’s where Jesus comes into the picture. He is the enactor of mercy. Something that really makes me even more appreciative of that fact is the following quote from Believing Christ:</div><div><br /></div><div>“Now here is an odd thing about the nature of mercy: by definition, mercy can only be mercy if we don’t deserve it. For if we deserve something, then it becomes a matter of justice that we receive it. So it ceases to be a matter of mercy. Thus, in this sense at least, to give or to receive mercy is always somewhat unfair. But one of the great beauties of the gospel, some of the best news of all, is that Jesus Christ does not mind this unfairness. He is willing to suffer unfairly and compensate justice himself out of his own person in order to extend mercy to weaker beings like us” (p 109, emphasis added). </div><div><br /></div><div>That phrase “if we deserve something, then it becomes a matter of justice that we receive it” explains perfectly how Christ’s Atonement satisfies justice. The fact the Christ suffered unfairly by choice means that in order for justice to actually be served, He must be compensated for what He did. He does deserve us returning to the Father’s and His presence if we repent and choose to live so that we can receive all the blessings that flow from Him because of His Atonement. Him receiving us back on those conditions serves justice because He deserves it. He utterly refuses to take anything else as compensation. If He doesn’t get what He asks for, justice is, in principle, left naked and exposed as unfairly expecting something that isn’t deserved.</div><div><br /></div><div>There’s a reason why the Book of Mormon teaches us that “in Christ there should come every good thing.” Justice demands that because we have all sinned at least once (because even once is too much for justice), we never return to the presence of God, but the reason mercy even qualifies as a good thing in the first place is because Christ is good! And and since He is the one offering it, life doesn’t need to be fair — it only needs to be the perfect balance of justice and mercy, which it is. That person who hurt you or offended you to whom your bishop was more merciful than you thought he should be? What if it was you in their place? Would you want the bishop to actually be fair to you? To deal out justice in full measure? I doubt it. Christ knows how to keep that balance better than we do and is more than capable of teaching that balance to His ordained judges in Israel.</div><div><br /></div><div>I can’t begin to describe how thankful I am that life isn’t fair, but that Christ is. I love Him and pray that more people qualify to become His reward in the eternities as time goes by — because in the end, that’s all I want to be: His reward. I want to be someone about whom He can say to justice, “If you don’t give me him back and allow me to exalt Him, I will be robbed of my reward and all of creation with go back into outer darkness and the entire plan will be frustrated!”</div><div><br /></div><div>If I live so that I can receive that blessing because He deserves to give it to me and I don’t receive it, the entire plan is frustrated? Now that sounds awesome! Thankfully His plan is never frustrated. What a wonderful and foolproof safety net! Thank the Lord life is never fair.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-77209630096249984182019-12-03T19:18:00.002-05:002021-06-24T05:31:01.948-04:00Human ConnectionOn multiple occasions on my podcast, I believe, and in other conversations, I have mentioned an idea described by Johann Hari in his Ted talk about addiction: the opposite of addiction is not sobriety — it’s connection. If you want to hear his explanation of that, you can do so <a href="https://youtu.be/MB5IX-np5fE" target="_blank">here;</a> however, I’m not writing this article to talk about addiction. Connection is my point in this. The value of human connection, specifically.<br />
<br />
I write this with an entirely new perspective on that issue, with the passing of my wife, Lorraine, just over a month ago (Oct 25, 2019). Lorraine and I share a connection and a commitment to each other that I have seen in few other couples — let alone friendships or other relationships — in this world. During her mortality, we knew more than each other’s preferences, hobbies, hopes, dreams, testimonies, quirks, and such. We knew each other’s heart so well that on more than one occasion, we got about as close (I imagine) as anyone in this world can get to sharing feelings with each each other without actually opening our mouths. That has changed to a more direct form of spirit-to-spirit communication since she passed, and that certainly has its benefits (as it is easier than doing it from mortal to mortal), but I have learned a few things firsthand now that have helped me understand the value of human connection on an even deeper level.<br />
<br />
Honestly, I don’t believe that it is possible to completely understand the full value of things like looking into the eyes of our loved ones, hearing their voices, and experiencing their hugs until those things are taken from us. This is from a journal entry of mine from Sep 2, 2019:<br />
<br />
“To be totally honest, I really miss hearing Lorraine’s voice and getting her input on what I’m doing. She can look at me and focus on me, but with the emptiness of her expression, it just looks like she isn’t even understanding a word I’m saying. She can’t lift or even move her fingers, hands, arms, head, or neck. At the moment, all she can do is raise her eyebrows up and down. Sometimes I think she’s doing it to try and communicate, but once every few hours I will notice her doing it for no apparent reason whatsoever, so I’m trying to trust that Heavenly Father is in control and is in all of the final details from the recovery, especially since her most recent [priesthood] blessing she got said she would recover from this [non-verbal, barely responsive state]. But I won’t lie: it has been hard over the last 48 hours. After she opened her eyes a few days ago for the first time in almost a week, my gratitude for being at least able to look her in the eye[s] grew a lot. Now I just wish I could hear her voice again.” <div><br /></div><div>I’m not sure whether it was more painful to have any ability to communicate with or understand Lorraine taken from me by means of illness or by means of death. A part of me thinks it’s easier in one way because now she can at least communicate with only my spiritual perception limitations as a barrier on her end, but another part of me feels like I would prefer to hear her voice and look into her eyes, even if that means there’s the barrier of mortal language and its limitations with spiritual connection. It’s kind of a happy and a sad trade-off. Either way, I know I’ll be overwhelmed with joy when I can have both of those kinds of connection in their fullness when Lorraine and I can reunite physically.</div><div><br /></div><div>What I know for sure is that we frequently underestimate the value of deep, beautiful, meaningful, loving, nuanced, face-to-face connections with each other as mortals. In his autobiographical book The Message, Lance Richardson said the following:</div><div><br /></div><div>“Some of the grandest experiences of my visit [to the Spirit World] were my opportunities to exchange greetings with others. Because in their world, they do not wave ‘hello’ or shake hands; they hug. A spirit can feel another spirit just as we feel flesh to flesh. And so they embrace one another. And when they embrace, an amazing experience occurs. It is as if each spirit can transfer a feeling and synopsis of their life to others. Suddenly one knows and understands another more deeply and thoroughly than could ever be possible through verbal communication. It creates an instant bond of closeness and friendship to build foundations for loving one another more perfectly. Oh, how I missed those hugs when I left.”</div><div><br /></div><div>In another part of the book, that appreciation was manifested for a form of connection far more muffled by mortality. Lance was in a barely-conscious state, but heard his son — who didn’t know if Lance could hear him — talking about football. When the nurse told his son that he needed to leave for a while, he said, “Dad, I love you. And I am not going to let anything take you away. I promise! I don’t care what happens, I’ll keep you. OK, dad?” Lance was so overcome with emotion himself that he was actually able to cry a single tear, which ran down his cheek. His son’s response?</div><div><br /></div><div>“‘Dad, we saw that! You cried, you cried!’ he shouted. ‘You really are there!’ Then he paused a moment again, knowing he had to leave. ‘Oh, Dad. I love you so much. Please come back to me.'”</div><div><br /></div><div>Please, never underestimate any small sign of the beauty of human connection. It means more than you can possible imagine. Lorraine and I experienced almost all extremes of that spectrum, from being able to communicate almost clearly, spirit to spirit, to being limited to mere micromovements. Every last tiny piece of loving, deep connection between us is worth more to me than all the rest of God’s creation combined. It is supposed to be so, and I’m glad it is. God put that intense longing for connection in us and allows us to hurt when it is taken away because it teaches us its sacred, holy, and beautiful nature. It’s why things like charity, forgiveness, kindness, humility, faith, virtue, knowledge — feel free to recite the rest of D&C 4 if you wish — are so important: because they are all ways we can have those healthy connections with each other and with our Father in Heaven.</div><div><br /></div><div>Nurture them, cherish them, desire them with everyone — and whatever you do, never underestimate them.</div><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-89433728361480917602019-10-31T10:47:00.002-04:002021-03-07T18:34:03.301-05:00You Are PowerfulThere is a meme that floats around occasionally on Facebook that contains a very happy thought, and I saw it again recently in my feed.<br />
<br />
Here it is:<br />
<br />
<img alt="powerful quote" class="aligncenter wp-image-45599" height="433" sizes="(max-width: 479px) 100vw, 479px" src="https://ldsblogs.com/files/2019/10/powerfulquote.png" srcset="https://ldsblogs.com/files/2019/10/powerfulquote.png 854w, https://ldsblogs.com/files/2019/10/powerfulquote-300x272.png 300w, https://ldsblogs.com/files/2019/10/powerfulquote-768x695.png 768w" width="479" /><br />
<br />
<br />
There are quite a few variants of this, but the overall message has both a good and bad part.<br />
<br />
The good part is its implication that we are spiritual lightyears away from being anywhere near as powerful as God; therefore, He can do wonders for our good, regardless of our weaknesses. The evidence of this is so staggering and obvious that I feel no need to explain it any further here. However, there is one part of the meme that may cause us to forget how valuable and powerful we are with our gift of agency.<br />
<br />
In the six month anniversary episode of my podcast, I mentioned the following: Of all the things that Satan failed to acknowledge in the pre-existence — and this is why his warping of the Father’s plan wouldn’t have worked — there is one thing that is perhaps the most important. It is the fact that even if we were to actually be perfect in every thought, word, intent, and action, if it isn’t accomplished by our own choosing, that internal change that happens when we do choose the right by our own will and choice wouldn’t happen. Even if we had lived a life as perfect as Christ’s, it still wouldn’t have produced the change in us necessary to make us like God — and this is key — if that life is lived by force. Righteous acts absolutely have to be done by our own will and choice, or their eternal efficacy is diluted.<div><br /></div><div>We can each choose our eternal path.</div><div><br /></div><div>With this in mind, what is the Father’s plan for His children? “To bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man[kind]” (Moses 1:39). Eternal life as defined in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is to live in exaltation with the Lord forever in family units. That was His plan from the beginning, and we know from the scriptures that many of His children will not choose exaltation.</div><div><br /></div><div>I’m not suggesting that we are more powerful than God, but that, as I talked about in “<a href="https://plpulsipher.blogspot.com/2019/05/lds-blogs-6-fruits-not-roots.html">Fruits, Not Roots</a>,” God is bound by the laws of justice and mercy, so He cannot violate justice by granting exaltation to those who choose not to repent and therefore do not qualify for the blessings Christ made available to them.</div><div><br /></div><div>That’s how powerful and valuable agency is. Jesus knew that agency would be a fatal gift for some, but He also knew that any possibility of our being saved from the our weakened mortal condition or becoming like Him could only be brought about if we were able to choose on our own. We of ourselves are certainly not more powerful than God, but because justice prevents Him from exalting those of His children who do not change through repentance, our choices can result in His original plan for us not coming to pass on an individual basis.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now the interesting irony to this is twofold: You are powerful enough, because of your ability to choose, to distance yourself from God forever, but you are also powerful enough to ensure your own exaltation and therefore “bring to pass… [your] eternal life” alongside Jesus Christ. </div><div><br /></div><div>I love Marianne Williamson’s poem where she starts out:</div><div><br /></div><div>“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.</div><div>Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.</div><div>It is our light, not our darkness</div><div>That most frightens us.”</div><div><br /></div><div>There is a good reason it should both frighten us AND give us immeasurable hope! We are, as has been rightfully parroted for millennia, our own worst enemy, but we can also be one of own greatest allies (Christ being our single greatest ally).</div><div><br /></div><div>The wonderful part about agency is that it is a powerful gift — and because of Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice, repentance is one of the ways we are allowed to use that power. It is in that sense that we really do become our own best friend when we side with our Savior by choosing to realign ourselves with Him, utilizing the very power that comes through Christ to draw us back to Him when we’ve messed up.</div><div><br /></div><div>You really are that powerful! Don’t be afraid of it; be thankful for it! Allow it to be the gift that enables eternal joy with your Heavenly Parents and family. You certainly are not powerful enough to disrupt God’s plan as a whole, but you are powerful enough to either go permanently off course or do things that only bring you everlasting joy because of our Savior. That much is completely within your control.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-40186250452334358232019-10-04T13:05:00.001-04:002021-03-07T18:26:43.514-05:00ManlinessThis article on manliness begins with a few well-researched statistics.<br />
<br />
There was a study done a few years back that showed the #1 most common factor in poverty in the United States is a fatherless home. In fact, in the same study, results were gathered for homes with single mothers and single fathers, and in each category, the single-mother homes showed a rate of poverty that was more than 10% higher than in single-father homes and almost double in the ‘never-married’ category.<br />
<br />
According to “The $100 Billion Dollar Man,” a study done by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s study, “The most recent data available show that 55.2 percent of WIC [the government’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children program] live in father-absent households.” This same study also revealed that “The most recent survey [2003] of family composition of Head Start households … found that 53.6 percent of Head Start households have a father absent” (emphasis added). For those who don’t know, Head Start is a program run by the Department of Health and Human Services that provides comprehensive early childhood education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and their families.<br />
<br />
This study also found that 48.2% of the entire budget for the Head Start program has gone to single-mother homes.<br />
<br />
A third study, “Drugs, Guns, and Disadvantaged Youths: Co-Occurring Behavior and the Code of the Street” reads, “Analysis of the inmate sample shows absent father to be the only individual-level disadvantage variable significantly explaining drug trafficking, gun carrying, and co-occurring behavior both before and after code-based beliefs variable is entered in the model. Before the inclusion of code-based beliefs, having an absent father made an inmate 279% more likely than inmates living with their fathers to simultaneously deal drugs and carry guns. Including beliefs in the model generated some mediation of absent father’s effects on co-occurring behavior, but after such inclusion, even inmates with absent fathers were 267% likelier than inmates who did live with their fathers to have trafficked drugs and carried guns simultaneously” (emphasis added).<br />
<br />
Why do I mentioned these statistics? Firstly, as disclaimer. It’s not to compare men to women or fathers to mothers. Neither role can possibly be more important than the other, according to “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.” Aside from that, I include those statistics for two reasons. One is echoed in this article: that there is a war on men which is diminishing their self-esteem and their sense of inherent value as sons of God. The more important reason, which I want to make the focus of this article, is why we need more righteous fathers who are good examples of what manliness means so more of God’s children are not a part of those statistics.<div><br /></div><div>I read a Facebook post, if I’m remembering correctly, probably a year or two ago where a single mother wrote about what it was like caring for her son without his father there. To paraphrase what she said, “I can teach my son or my daughter, what it means to be honest, kind, strong, patient, or any other number of virtues that all people, men and women, should have. What I can’t teach him is what it truly means to be a good man, simply because I am not a man. It’s that simple. I can’t teach him how a man should treat a woman, at least not by example, because I am not a man. Do I wish his father would have stuck around for that and been the example he should have been? Of course, but my point here is to emphasize the real value of a man in his child’s life.” </div><div><br /></div><div>It went something like that, although the wording is probably different from mine. But the point is the same. In my recent podcast episode with David Warwick, he talked about a situation when people in his immediate family were hurt badly by a neighbor who was physically bigger than him. When he got the call about what happened, his proper fatherly example (something he had prayed to attain) ended up providing an excellent example of what it means to be a peacemaker to his children.</div><div><br /></div><div>I believe it is completely accurate to say that the value of a righteous father is as incalculable as a righteous mother in their respective different responsibilities.</div><div><br /></div><div>On one of our family trips up to Piney River Ranch (an amazing place, by the way), I remember spending one Sunday visiting a local ward. At that time, I was an Aaronic priesthood holder. The young men’s organization in that ward was small, so they had to have all the deacons, teachers, and priests meet together in one room. I was somewhat shocked by the cavalier attitude of many of the young men toward their Aaronic priesthood duties, but even more surprised at the Young Men leaders’ lack of example. They ought to have encouraged these young men to know their priesthood duties so well that they could talk about it at a moment’s notice. At that point, the priests quorum in my home ward was reciting the purposes of the Aaronic Priesthood.</div><div><br /></div><div>Let’s see if I can remember them off the top of my head all these years later. (This could be a little embarrassing, but here I go!)</div><div><br /></div><div>1. Become converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ and live by its teachings.</div><div>2. Serve faithfully in priesthood callings and fulfill the responsibilities of priesthood offices.</div><div>3. Give meaningful service.</div><div>4. Prepare and live worthily to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood and temple ordinances.</div><div>6. Prepare and live worthily to serve an honorable, full-time mission.</div><div>7. Obtain as much education as possible.</div><div>8. Give proper respect to women, girls, and children. </div><div><br /></div><div>Okay, now I’m going to look them up and see if I got them all right…</div><div><br /></div><div>It’s a little embarrassing, considering the purpose of this article, that I forgot the one that says “Prepare to become a worthy husband and father.” Hey, it’s been 15 years since I’ve recited those purposes even once, so that’s still not too bad, I guess! (Keep in mind that I’m sure the ward I visited has probably grown and improved over the last 15 years, but the experience is noted to illustrate the good things I was taught about manliness growing up.)</div><div><br /></div><div>The main point I want to make with this article is this: How on earth can we possibly — and justifiably — expect men to become and be viewed as the good sons, husbands, and fathers we need them to be if we keep pitting women against men (and vice versa)? It ain’t gonna happen unless we learn the view men the way Elder Christofferson taught in his talk, “Fathers“:</div><div><br /></div><div>David Blankenhorn, the author of Fatherless America, has observed: ‘Today, American society is fundamentally divided and ambivalent about the fatherhood idea. Some people do not even remember it. Others are offended by it. Others, including more than a few family scholars, neglect it or disdain it. Many others are not especially opposed to it, nor are they especially committed to it. Many people wish we could act on it, but believe that our society simply no longer can or will.’</div><div><br /></div><div>Elder Christofferson continues by teaching ways that fathers can dispel this myth by teaching that fathers are meant to “lead out in making [teaching the gospel in the home] a high priority,” “demonstrate what fidelity to God looks like in day-to-day living,” and “lay down their lives day by day, laboring in the service and support of their families.”</div><div><br /></div><div>I firmly believe that real manliness and true godhood are epitomes of one another and that if we want to see more men become honest, virtuous, holy, masculine, loving sons of God, we need to believe that that is exactly what they can be and encourage them kindly to measure up to that standard. Of course, the term “masculinity” is often biologically indicative of great physical strength and such, but the real measure of manliness is more about wisdom and the ability to know when and how to use that strength — physical, mental or spiritual — to bless the lives of others.</div><div><br /></div><div>That is true manliness and it will only manifest itself fully in the men we value in our lives when we expect it from them and encourage them to acquire it. Phrases like “Oh, just let them do their dumb guy thing” and “Women are so much stronger than men” are not only untrue, they are some of the most dangerous and corrosive ideas tossed around today by society as whole.</div><div><br /></div><div>You want to see true manliness in your son, brother, or father? Believe that he can be like that and let it reflect in your actions.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-6016786585677433512019-09-29T21:20:00.005-04:002021-03-07T18:23:16.647-05:00All the --- ThingsThis article is a follow-up to “<a href="https://plpulsipher.blogspot.com/2019/09/lds-blogs-10-small-things-are-not-small.html">The Small Things Are Not Small.</a>”<br />
<br />
This article contains a list of things I’m thankful for not because of something that was taken from me, but because I have them at all. I was going to title it “All the Small Things,” but I included the six things in this gratitude list because of blessings we’ve had and extra good things the Lord has given us… So this one’s about being thankful for all the… things, period (see D&C 78:19).<br />
<br />
1. The Reminder to Be Thankful in All Things<br />
<br />
Even seemingly mundane things like eating, showering, shopping — heck, even paying bills or dealing with bad traffic! — can be an act of thankful worship to God for making those activities possible in the first place. It might seem kind of weird with something that feels so common, like taking a bite of a donut or putting the car in park, to think “Thank you, God, that I am able to do this; that Thou gave me the means to get this food and the body to eat it” or “I thank Thee that Thou blessed me with this car and inspired its inventors to include brakes and mechanisms that allow me to safely park and lock it so I have higher chances of it not being stolen, and have a ride back home to my family.”<br />
<br />
Thoughts like this might seem to some like trying too hard, but isn’t that the point, to reach for God with such great force and constant effort that our faith and love for Him becomes so strong He cannot withhold His greatest blessings from us? The reminder to be thankful for everything in and of itself is a sign of His mercy to us.<div><br /></div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div>2. The Still Small Voice</div><div><br /></div><div>Today I was taught in a gentle way by Heavenly Father about an area I need to improve on. I was reading in Hearing the Voice of the Lord by Gerald Lund and on page 139, it says: </div><div><br /></div><div>“…we must take care that we don’t assume that the more direct forms of revelation [visions, supernatural miracles] are of greater value and meaning to us. It is easy to almost covet the more dramatic forms of revelation, thinking that they validate our closeness to the Spirit and therefore our personal righteousness.”</div><div><br /></div><div>This was a helpful reminder to me to not put more value on those more direct forms of revelation than the less direct forms. What God reveals to us is far more important than how He reveals it. My wife has had experiences with visions. I have not. She has physically seen what it’s like on the other side of the veil. I have not. But, nonetheless, the Lord has still used less direct means to reveal to my heart and mind some things about my future and my life that have been just as mind-blowing and spiritually transformative as what my wife has received, and I am truly thankful for His teaching me about those things. </div><div><br /></div><div>3. The Lord’s Correction</div><div> </div><div>Speaking of the correction I received from the Lord through that book, that’s something else I am thankful for: chastisement from Him.</div><div><br /></div><div>“Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth . . .” (Hebrews 12:6)</div><div><br /></div><div>“I would not dwell upon your crimes, to harrow up your soul, if it were not for your good.” (Alma 39:7)</div><div><br /></div><div>I’m reminded of a part from the movie Ratatouille in the conversation between Remy and his dad. Remy’s dad shows him the rat poison and the traps in the window of the store, and the conversation goes like this:</div><div><br /></div><div>Dad: When all is said and done, we’re all we’ve got.</div><div><br /></div><div>Remy: No</div><div><br /></div><div>Dad: What?</div><div><br /></div><div>Remy: No. Dad, I don’t believe it. You’re telling me that the future is… Can only be more of this?</div><div><br /></div><div>Dad: This is the way things are. You can’t change nature.</div><div><br /></div><div>Remy: Change is nature, Dad. The part that we can influence. And it starts when we decide.</div><div><br /></div><div>Change is most definitely an essential part of God’s plan and almost all of that change is going to mean repenting and fixing what the Lord tells us to fix, with Him helping us along that path. I am thankful for the things He tells me I need to improve in myself, because then I’m aware of how to become more like Him.</div><div><br /></div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div>4. Scripture</div><div> </div><div>And I’m not just talking about the Standard Works.</div><div><br /></div><div>“Whatsoever [the Lord’s servants] shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord, shall be the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation.” (See Doctrine and Covenants 68:4)</div><div><br /></div><div>According to this, anything the prophet, apostles, or members of the Seventy teach in general conference, as well as our patriarchal blessings, are also scripture! Drawing on the third point I just mentioned, I am especially thankful for something that the Lord used to correct me that actually came from my own patriarchal blessing.</div><div><br /></div><div>I am thankful for the reminder He gave me recently to draw upon specific sources for spiritual strength in moments of difficulty. I hadn’t been doing it as well as I should have been, which explains a lot about a few problems that weren’t resolving the way I wanted. Now that He has so kindly reminded me of how I was falling short, I can remedy that problem and, thanks to that reminder from my blessing, I can do what I should be doing to qualify more for the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost.</div><div><br /></div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div>5. My Computer </div><div><br /></div><div>man writing on computerThe laptop I’m typing this article from was a gift from God. He used creative means over the months my wife has been in the hospital to give us the means to buy it, including one helpful friend who has been such a blessing to Lorraine and I for a long time now. When I look back on how many things the Lord engineered over the last few months to allow us to afford it at the perfect time (since our other one is on its last legs), it’s kind of mind-blowing! Also, I have felt since it came in the mail that this is also a means for me to finish making restitution to God for the times throughout my life that I spent waxing and waning in and out of an addiction that required access to the internet. This is a chance to make this blessing from God purely a tool for the Lord’s work.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>6. My Health</div><div><br /></div><div>I had a friend (a different one than in point five) who recently thought something I said in episode 40 of my podcast was kind of comical. The point I made was that I’m physically very low-maintenance, but the particular phrase she found funny was when I said I’m basically a complicated houseplant with emotions. I only need two good meals a day, four or five hours of sleep per night, and at least one hug, and I’m good to go — and that’s no matter how much physical labor I need to get done. God has blessed me with a high physical stamina. I’m stronger than I look, and I think the last time I got sick enough to be incapacitated for even one day was more than five years ago. I have even jokingly told people that if my wife and I could switch immune systems, she’d probably heal from everything naturally in a month. My health has truly been a huge blessing from the Lord.</div><div><br /></div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div>7. Being Born in This Dispensation </div><div><br /></div><div>When President Nelson said “Time is running out” in January, I’m sure there were varied reactions, from a mild “Oh, wow!” to great fear to utter joy and gratitude. Mine was the mostly the latter and the reason is because I know the closer we get to His coming, the more temporal and spiritual examples we will have to look to for what it means to truly be guided by the Holy Ghost constantly. I need that. It’s one of the reasons I asked my mom to buy me the book Hearing the Voice of the Lord by Gerald Lund for my birthday.</div><div><br /></div><div>The counsel we get in the scriptures is 100% on point. I have found greater ability to recognize and follow the Spirit’s guidance better the more I am “submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love,” etc. (see Mosiah 3:19)… And look at all the resources we have to help us with that! Another quote from Tad R. Callister tells us:</div><div><br /></div><div>“The Lord must expect much more of us in gospel scholarship than he did of previous generations, because we have so much more at our disposal.”</div><div><br /></div><div>Living in the time period we do has been a huge comfort to me in the last few years and I am so, so thankful to God that He let me live now!</div><div><br /></div><div>Kevin Clayson had a lot to say about gratitude in episode 19 of my podcast, “Stepping Into Freedom,” and I have personally found that following the advice he gave really does work! Being thankful for absolutely everything really is worth it!</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-28599568411258294192019-09-20T17:01:00.001-04:002021-03-07T18:19:13.558-05:00Earning Vs. QualifyingThere are many ideas in the gospel that are easy to misunderstand if not approached with Christ’s Atonement in context. I was recently reminded of one of those principles. Ever since the Lord helped me understand the difference between earning and qualifying for blessings, I have been extra careful in how I speak of where, how, and why blessings from God come the way they do.<br />
<br />
King Benjamin preaching to his people<br />
<br />
To begin, I’ll start with a few scriptures and an everyday situation (in that order). The first scripture is found in King Benjamin’s speech.<br />
<ul>
<li>"20 I say unto you, my brethren, that if you should render all the thanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, and has kept and preserved you, and has caused that ye should rejoice, and has granted that ye should live in peace one with another—<br />21 I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.<br />22 And behold, all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments; and he has promised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth vary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you. (Mosiah 2:20-22)"</li>
</ul>
Much of what the scriptures can teach us are in what they do not say—in this case, what verse 22 does not say. It doesn’t say, “therefore, because ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you.” It says “if,” suggesting a simple matter of cause and effect. However, the cause for our receiving blessings is not our obedience, which is supported by King Benjamin’s words. It might be tempting to say this contradicts Doctrine and Covenants 130:20-21, but even in those verses it does not use the word “because.” It says “…when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated” [emphasis added]. I have learned to appreciate specific prepositions much more in the last year in the scriptures.<div><br /></div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Christ’s sacrifice is a gift we will never “earn” on our own.</div><div><br /></div><div>I believe that little word by could also be put “by means of”; and the if in Mosiah 2 could be accurately supplemented with because of Christ’s Atonement. I’ll explain using that everyday situation I said I would talk about.</div><div><br /></div><div>Let’s say a man named Jimmy works hard all day at a Fortune 500 company and has to deal with hard things and annoying situations, but chooses to respond in a Christlike manner anyways. When his paycheck comes, he feels entitled to it because he did the work needed to earn it. It’s his hard-earned money, especially because he did it with a good attitude, right? I think King Benjamin would disagree, because he taught that everything we receive, no matter the means of our receiving it, comes from God. Everything in this world was given to us by God. But what about the big gifts, the ones we got with no effort on our own in this life, like our agency? Did we not earn those by choosing the Lord’s plan in the pre-earth life? </div><div><br /></div><div>Not quite. This is where qualifying comes in. Speaking of our character, Jimmy, let’s say he has a secretary named Don. Don also works hard for his paycheck and also does it with a good attitude. Where Jimmy budgets well, prays with his wife about important purchases, and is a good steward over the money he gets from his job, Don feels that because he earned his paycheck, he alone should get to determine how he spends it. He doesn’t always make the best choices with his money, but he does still provide well enough for his family and doesn’t necessarily squander it all on useless things. Both Jimmy and Don worked the same for their money, but even though both “earned” their money, which of them is truly qualified as a person to receive it? Which of the two has grown into the gift of monetary income that God has blessed them with, as opposed to just following mankind’s laws enough to receive it? The answer, of course, is Jimmy.</div><div><br /></div><div>I sometimes think of the blessings of eternity as a big coat that Christ gives us that is far, far too big for us. It’s something that He bought for us with His own life and atoning sacrifice. If anyone earned the blessings we receive, it was Him. He bought that coat of eventual exaltation — godhood — and gave it to us knowing that all of us have the potential to grow into it, and then He taught and showed us how to do it. He has bought and earned each of us one of those coats. He paid the entire price for it. If we don’t grow into it, if we don’t qualify for the blessings of eternity by having our very hearts and natures permanently changed to celestial condition, giving those blessings to us will only do more harm than good. If it wasn’t for Christ’s atoning sacrifice, agency would have been spiritually fatal for us, whether we had earned it or not, no matter how many good deeds we could rack up. The good we do assists us in the process, but it isn’t the same thing as qualifying.</div><div><br /></div><div>Qualifying for something feels better than earning it, anyways. I remember buying a pair of sunglasses as a teenager and the guy at the cash register asked me, “Are they yours?” echoing the idea I had heard my brothers talk about that “fashion standards” dictate that everyone has one pair of shades that specifically suit them. That might be kind of a pointless idea from an eternal perspective, but the principle stands true for every blessing we receive from God, including even our agency.</div><div><br /></div><div>Jesus’ Atonement was to pay the price even for that, because if we had been given that gift straight up, we would never have grown into it or qualified for it. It would have been the very reason we would have been lost and separated from God forever. We didn’t earn it and the only people who will qualify for unlimited use of agency forever are those who grow into it properly by using it correctly. To qualify is far better than to earn. We can’t actually earn anything in this life, and even if we could, if we haven’t qualified for it — if we haven’t become the kind of person who is a perfect fit for any blessing we receive — it won’t even be truly worth having anyways.</div><div><br /></div><div>Christ earned every blessing He gives you. The only way to have true, lasting peace in this life and the next is to qualify for them. Does the “coat” of celestial, eternal life fit you? It’s shrink-proof and will never get smaller in the wash, so the only way to qualify for it is by growing into it.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-76955300239518516602019-09-09T22:42:00.002-04:002021-03-07T18:15:09.403-05:00The Small Things Are Not SmallFor us adults out there, as we grew up, I’m sure we all heard our parents tell us to be grateful for the small stuff in some way or another. It’s something we all know we should do, because, as the lyrics to Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” say, “You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.”<br />
<br />
Every time my wife goes through something that robs her of yet another basic human function, it reminds me to be grateful that I can still do that thing. In the following message, most of the details I will relate are things which have occurred in the last few years. Here are seven things for which, having watched my wife be deprived of, I have come to be more grateful for than I ever expected.<br />
<br />
1. Two Legs That Work<br />
<br />
Lorraine hasn’t always been deprived of this. She learned to walk when she was four because of many complications surrounding her birth in addition to physical abuse and neglect. Even still, she was able to walk with leg braces and crutches for most of her growing-up years. It was only when the pressure ulcers on her feet and legs began to show up on top of the lymphedema in 2010 that her ability to walk began to be severely (and slowly) impacted.<br />
<br />
As of Fall 2017, my wife lost all ability to bear weight on her feet when her leg broke in — wait for it — the hospital. That’s a story for another day, but ever since, I have been extra thankful that I can just stand up anytime I want to go anywhere I want. There are still limits on when and where I can go because of Lorraine’s needs and how often I need to be around to help her, but you get the idea. At this point, at least until the Lord’s promise to heal her completely is fulfilled, her legs are of no purpose to her except as a source of pain. I am beyond grateful that mine still work perfectly fine.<br />
<br /><br />
2. My Voice<br />
<br />
This is something else that has been taken from my wife multiple times. The most emotionally difficult part for her, I’m sure, is how much she loved to sing her whole life (and is really good at it). I mean, she was really good. In the last three years, doctors have had to put a breathing tube down her throat at least three times (though probably more), which also included a feeding tube so she can still get nutrients. Imagine the frustration of being awake, alert, and aware, but not being able to say a single word because the is no physical way for you to speak. You try to use your hands but you’re so tired that all you can do is sit there… And if no one is looking in your direction and you need an itch scratched or you just want something simple like sunshine in the room, you have no way of getting anyone’s attention. That very situation with Lorraine has made me so much more grateful for my voice and is one of the reasons I now use it to try and do as much good as I possibly can.<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>3. My Arms and Hands</div><div><br /></div><div>The power of the gospel is that it makes “bad men good and good men better.”</div><div><br /></div><div>In the last few months, Lorraine has become so weak and has lost enough muscle mass (according to a recent CT scan) that even when she is alert and awake, she has great difficulty moving her hands and arms. Lorraine used to play piano at a grade 10 level. She was really good and our shared love of piano music was one of the reasons (though a less important one) why we fell in love. I’m so grateful that I can still practice piano on a somewhat regular basis.</div><div><br /></div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div>4. Hugs</div><div> </div><div>Speaking of my arms, this one is big for me. My top two love languages are words of affirmation and physical touch. We were always hugging and horsing around in my family growing up, so one of the biggest emotional challenges for me since Lorraine’s health started declining is how little I get to be physically close to her. (Being physically close can be very painful and/or overwhelming for her.) It can be emotionally empty and lonely, so every hug I get these days from those who I can appropriately hug is, in every sense, more valuable to me than all the money and possession the world could ever offer.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>5. Meaningful Conversation</div><div><br /></div><div>men talking friendsAnd I’m not just talking about discussing and rejoicing about the important things in life or venting to someone who is willing to listen. I’m talking about having the deep, meaningful conversations with people who really do see eye to eye with you on more subjects than anyone else and can empathize with you (or at least wants to) from more angles than anyone else. </div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, no one has seen all the thousands of intricate details we’ve suffered through — and been blessed with! — like the two of us (and the same applies the other way around as well), but every moment of meaningful conversation with anyone who can empathize with even a few of the deeper things (bad or good) that the Lord has lead us through is, as the apostle Peter put it, “much more precious than of gold that perisheth.” This is especially true for me since one of my love languages is words of affirmation.</div><div><br /></div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div>6. The Ability to Open My Eyes Every Morning and Look Into the Eyes of Those I Love</div><div> </div><div>I’ve became much more thankful for this in the last week. Lorraine’s lymphedema has gotten better and worse depending on what kind of treatments she has been on with her health. During her latest hospital visit, she had to go on dialysis more than once because of kidney infections. When they are doing the kind that is supposed to also remove fluid, her swelling goes way down — but every time her swelling with lymph has gone down, it always comes back either a touch worse or spreads to a new area of her body.</div><div><br /></div><div>This last week it came back in her actual eyeballs and rendered her awake and aware (though unable to speak or eat) but stuck in a world of blackness where she could hear people and feel nurses’ and doctors’ hands on her when examining, doing scans/tests/etc, without even being able to see what was going on because it was too painful to open her eyes. August 31st was the first time in probably three or four days that she could open her eyes for a split second and I was able to look into them. She has been completely in the dark.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>7. People Who Understand and Can Empathize</div><div><br /></div><div>Wifi has been the only connection I’ve really had with anyone outside of the hospital. No one at our apartment building has any clue what’s going on with Lorraine, so when I told one lady in the elevator the other day that things were “a little tough” and she replied, “Oh, I totally understand what you’re going through,” I almost laughed. (Darn that mortal weakness of mine!) The thing is, I don’t expect anyone to understand except God and I’m not upset when they don’t, but I get frustrated when someone who hasn’t the slightest actual clue in the multiverse what we’re going through tries to tell me they understand.</div><div><br /></div><div>Those who ask questions to try and understand better, pray for us, don’t give unsolicited advice (or at least don’t automatically expect us to follow it), and do things like bring nice snacks and little gifts on occasion and hang around and talk with an understanding heart (whether they actually understand our circumstances or not) are the people who mean more to me than they can possibly imagine. They are always like a balm of Gilead to my soul. They are the ones that help remind me why I keep trying every day.</div><div><br /></div><div>To be honest, I do feel a bit selfish that it took this much for me to see the true value in things money can’t buy, but now that I see it better than ever before, I don’t plan on ever taking those not-so-small things for granted ever again. Those are really the biggest miracles in life.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-5774489024753495032019-08-15T16:19:00.001-04:002021-03-07T18:08:07.064-05:00Total ImmersionMy circumstances for the last 10 years have been pretty unique. God has put me in a place that has allowed me to learn some pretty cool lessons, via both harrowing experiences and glorious, revelatory, spiritually delicious ones.<br />
<br />
<br />
If you’ve read any of my previous articles on LDS Blogs, on my personal blog, or heard any episodes of my podcast, you’ll know that my wife struggles with many, many different health issues. In the just over 10 years of our marriage, that has put me in the position of 24/7 caretaker, nurse, cook, housekeeper, shopper, secretary, and more — so the learning curve there has been quite the course in “sink or swim.”<br />
<br />
With that in mind, one of the greatest spiritual gifts God has blessed me with is an unrelenting and unyielding charity and loyalty to those whom I love most. I’m not always perfect at it, but I haven’t found the emotional capacity to even think about giving up altogether.<br />
<br />
Satan has worked hard to try and exploit that trait and has thrown really heinous, evil temptations to which he knows I’m especially susceptible in an effort to make me put that focus and loyalty into those evil practices. I imagine him, in a temper tantrum, saying, “Fine! If I can’t get you to abandon the people you love, I’ll make you do things that make others want to abandon you!” But I recently was shown in different ways by two different people how important it is to do more than just punch back.<br />
<br />
I started my podcast partially in an effort to ramp up the amount of light I was using to displace the darkness that occurred when the adversary tried to put those awful thoughts and feelings in my mind and heart. The other motive was to help others find spiritual nuggets to overcome the same weaknesses I myself was trying to fight. Then, recently these two people who helped me with a major perspective shift impressed on me the importance of doing more than just fighting back on my own. I had to respond to every one of the adversary’s individual attacks with, relatively, an overabundance of light. I had to proverbially respond too what feels like his dementor attacks with this each and every time:<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Yah2H8N7ANY/YEVcaNu4iMI/AAAAAAAADpU/1HsbBIJBcKo4KrY-vLJHAMZkU1WkbNaFgCLcBGAsYHQ/s480/giphy.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Yah2H8N7ANY/YEVcaNu4iMI/AAAAAAAADpU/1HsbBIJBcKo4KrY-vLJHAMZkU1WkbNaFgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/giphy.gif" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>…And it’s so refreshing!</div><div><br /></div><div>Total immersion in the gospel is the only thing that will win out against our greatest weaknesses. As I recently read in The Miracle of Forgiveness:</div><div> </div><div>“In connection with repentance, the scriptures use the phrase, “with all his heart” (see D&C 42:25). Obviously this rules out any reservations. Repentance must involve an all-out, total surrender to the program of the Lord. That transgressor is not fully repentant who neglects his tithing, misses his meetings, breaks the Sabbath, fails in his family prayers, does not sustain the authorities of the Church, breaks the Word of Wisdom, does not love the Lord nor his fellowmen. A reforming adulterer who drinks or curses is not repentant. The repenting burglar who has sex play is not repentant. God cannot forgive unless the transgressor shows a true repentance which spreads to all areas of his [or her] life.”</div><div><br /></div><div>I wonder if many out there might protest this idea from President Kimball by invoking the idea from the Doctrine and Covenants that any blessing we get (or don’t) from God is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated (or lack thereof). </div><div><br /></div><div>I don’t think President Kimball’s quote necessarily disagrees with that doctrine. I think the idea behind his quote is simply that if we truly want to change our disposition to do evil, the way we do that is not by replacing one sinful behavior with another one. Our commitment to do an about-face from sin and put ourselves in total immersion in the gospel has to be absolute and permanent change.</div><div><br /></div><div>Does being repentant have to mean I never commit another sin again? I don’t think that’s what President Kimball would have us believe. Rather, the message is that we at least have to turn with a much stronger zeal towards the spiritual than we did before we got entangled in sin in the first place. If simply returning to our previous level of spirituality actually constituted a sufficient effort, I would think we would never have fallen to said sin in the first place.</div><div><br /></div><div>As Tad R. Callister says in The Infinite Atonement:</div><div><br /></div><div>“The Savior’s plunge into humanity was not a toe-dipping experience. It was a total immersion. He did not experience some pains and not others. His life was not a random sampling, a spot audit; it was a total confrontation with and internalization of every human experience, every human plight, every human trial.”</div><div> </div><div>If Christ’s experience was an all-in plunge into the whole of human experience, why should our plunge back into the ocean of the light of the Lord be any less if we are truly repentant? A mighty change of heart naturally requires a mighty change of lifestyle and the things that we want most from moment to moment.</div><div><br /></div><div>I can tell you from personal experience that every effort I have made over the last 10 years to make my immersion in the Lord’s light has been more rewarding that I could have ever imagined. By creating spiritual habits, my gospel immersion has become more absolute and all-encompassing.</div><div><br /></div><div>Try it. You won’t regret it!</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-3801165538088685802019-06-06T12:37:00.002-04:002021-03-07T17:58:14.231-05:00Face the Fear That Keeps You FrozenAsperger’s syndrome for me means dealing with communication difficulties, especially when people use idioms, generalize, make assumptive statements, or ask assumptive questions. I believe that none of us, myself included, ever says exactly—I mean EXACTLY—what we mean while being tactful at the same time. I have always tried really hard, however, to do exactly that because of how many times I have been misunderstood. Therefore, learning to interpret what people really mean, as opposed to the words they speak, has always been difficult for me. That’s just part of my communication weakness.<br />
<br />
I recently realized a way that Heavenly Father has helped lead me to a place in my life where I am well on my way to finally overcoming that weakness—and it was absolutely NOT in a way I expected. I didn’t even realize until a few days ago that it’s been a process He started with me more than five years ago. Then again, does God’s help ever come in a way we expect?<br />
<br />
When I first got married, I was super confident that the next thing I needed to do with my life was continue to develop my strengths and talents—and that wasn’t a bad goal. God did want me to do that and made it more than possible to do so. Thanks to the kindness and help of family and friends, I was able to pursue an attempt at further education in web design and development, and started my own business with it. I loved programming and was good at it—and for a while, it worked. I had a few clients and was able to hone my skills even more with the work I did. However, without the sufficient support of others who were still miles ahead of me in the field, I soon fell further behind than I realized in respect to web standards. So I pursued the one other thing I knew I was better at than anything else: music.<div><br /><div>I pursued that field with a vigor that only people with my laser focus can muster. I studied and practiced really hard for a few years in hopes that I’d be able to find a sponsor or do a fundraiser to help me pay for exams through the Royal Conservatory of Music when I was ready to go. It was about the time that I had enough theoretical knowledge and almost enough practice to make it happen when Lorraine’s (my wife) health brought those efforts to an abrupt halt. It was so bad that focusing on completing those exams became totally unmanageable. Since then, I have had to make my role as her caretaker my number one priority (aside from the obvious role I have as her husband).</div><div><br /></div><div>I was and still am able to get decent piano practice in and have continued to write music since then, but I haven’t been able to give those endeavors the attention I would like to because of more important responsibilities. As things have turned out, that’s exactly the way the Lord wanted things to be! I’m sure He knew that by drawing my attention away from pursuing a technology or music career, He would be able to divert my efforts to blogging. In 2013, with all the difficulty my wife and I had been through, our problems became stacked so high and so deep that blogging to (at first) see who cared to listen to my spiritual musings was the last outlet I had to deal with everything. That motive quickly changed to something more selfless once I got a following on my personal blog and realized the good I could do if I wrote for others instead of myself.</div><div><br /></div><div>The irony to my continuous blogging was that my biggest weakness, communication (especially about sensitive or controversial topics), was now the very thing I was pursuing most besides my Savior and my wife. I noticed that the process was, as with any weakness, something I got a little better at over time. My first blog post was quite poorly written, but over the next five years and more than 100 articles, I did get better at it.</div><div><br /></div><div>When I decided to start my podcast, which you can find here, I had no idea what I was doing aside from what I’d heard others do in their podcasts. AlI I knew was that I wanted to go outside of my own voice and take the incredible, mind-blowing, edifying kinds of conversations my wife and I have had with so many people we’ve come to know and love and make conversations like that public so more people could be edified by them. I thought maybe, just maybe, some of the gloriously soul-changing things Lorraine and I have witnessed, or at least the joy we have felt from them, could be carried to more people than I could reach by using my voice alone.</div><div><br /></div><div>So each conversation I have with my guests is, a) more practice at changing my biggest weakness into a strength, and b) a way to do more good for more people.</div><div><br /></div><div>I do find it somewhat amusing that it took ten years of marriage for me to see what the Lord really wanted me to focus on, but it’s no surprise to me now that it meant I had to, as the lyrics to Lindsey Stirling’s song “Something Wild” say, “face the fear that keeps [me] frozen.”</div><div><br /></div><div>The joyful thing about that is that now my fears of failure and being ignored because of my past habitual tactlessness has grown into a level of confidence I never thought I would have (and didn’t realize I had gained until a few days ago).</div><div><br /></div><div>Is not the process of repentance and eventual perfection a matter of confronting our weaknesses and deliberately facing them so we can shed the natural man? Becoming godly was never supposed to be easy and I now have one more reason to rejoice in the genius of how God can engineer our lives using mainly hard things to help eradicate our weaknesses.</div><div><br /></div><div>Hard things that God asks us to do aren’t something to fear—they are things to face head on, saying “Challenge accepted!” With Christ, all things are possible.</div><div><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-30617844279592046532019-05-03T17:59:00.001-04:002021-02-21T19:44:45.352-05:00Fruits, Not RootsI have been messaged by two people recently who either stopped believing God’s prophets, lost faith in the truth of His Church, or just stopped believing in God entirely based on the behavior of past prophets and the more transparent Church history we now know about. I’m not going to try to resolve any of their specific concerns here, but something came to mind as I spoke to both of these people; something that I have seen as a recurring theme with possibly everyone in their situation.<br />
<br />
Each individual (more than just those two, of course) who has expressed their frustration, doubt, or disbelief in the restored gospel because of Church history has unintentionally brought the following phrase to my mind:<br />
<br />
Don’t get so focused on the roots of the church that you forget the fruits of the church.<br />
<br />
I pondered to myself what I would say if the Spirit directed me to offer my thoughts to these people, even just to help them understand why I believe, if not help them rekindle the fire of their faith. Each point really boils down to that phrase: focus on the fruits, not the roots.<br />
<br />
Here are three points that I might use as a reminder why it’s not worth giving up faith in the Lord’s Church, let alone the existence of God, because the way a tree was planted seems off to us. God planted it; it’s not up to us to tell Him how He should have done it. It’s our job just to receive the fruits with gratitude, faith and worship.<br />
<br />
Each point is based on a question I have actually been asked or a reason I have been given by such people explaining why they no longer believe.<br />
<br />
<b>“There’s some things early Church leaders did that are really bad. Why can’t I judge the personal conduct of a man who claims to speak with God?”</b><br />
<br />
Because we are commanded not to judge anyone, period, by the Son of God Himself. Even Church leaders. Only Christ can judge whether the conduct of others renders them unable to receive revelation for the world. When the Holy Ghost witnesses in the hearts of the listeners that modern day prophets are indeed the mouthpiece of the Lord, that’s all we should need. Judging their supposed actions isn’t just focusing too much on the roots—it’s tantamount to looking at them through a microscope, which is drastically outside of our rights of stewardship.<br />
<br />
I like to think of witnesses from the Holy Ghost as Tad R. Callister summarizes this situation in a court room.<br />
<br />
“Some years ago my father, who was an attorney, was trying a lawsuit. For his authority, he cited only one case – an old California Supreme Court case, issued many years before. His opponent cited a number of lower court decisions of much more recent vintage. The judge finally said to my father: “Mr. Callister, don’t have have a more recent case than this?” My father looked at the judge and replied: “Your honor, may I remind you that when the Supreme Court speaks on a matter, it only needs to speak once.” The judge nodded with approval. He was reminded that the Supreme Court trumps all lower court decisions, however numerous or recent they may be. So it is with God our Father – He only needs to speak once on the issue of morality, and that one declaration trumps all the opinions of the “lower courts,” whether uttered by psychologists, counselors, politicians, friends, parents, or would-be moralists of the day” (Tad R. Callister, “The Lord’s Standard of Morality,” BYU-Idaho Devotional, January 2013).<div><br /></div><div>Not only do we not have the right to judge them, we don’t even have enough information and context to make such judgments about them or anyone else. As some have said, “God has the numbers” to everything and we just don’t. That’s all there is to it.</div><div><br /></div><div>As Elder Holland said, “Except in the case of His only perfect Begotten Son, imperfect people are all God has ever had to work with. That must be terribly frustrating to Him, but He deals with it. So should we.” One read through Jacob 5 in the Book of Mormon illustrates this point further, especially verse 22. </div><div><br /></div><div>“But there are things we know now that prove that the Church withheld the whole truth about important details of Church history! What about the Article of Faith that says we believe in being honest?”</div><div> </div><div>Did you know that there’s a higher principle than truth? Dr. John Lund said the following in his book, Without Offense: The Art of Giving and Receiving Criticism: “[T]here is a higher and nobler principle than truth: it is to edify. The Lord has said, ‘and that which does not edify is not of God, and is darkness.’ (D&C: 50:23)” (pg. 35)</div><div><br /></div><div>Note that the Lord did not put a qualifier on that last statement, which means that if the truth does not edify, it should be withheld. You wouldn’t fault the Lord for withholding the long list of ancient records that we still don’t have (i.e. the full Jaredite record, the names of the Three Nephites, the book of Lehi, etc.), including those of all the missing prophets mentioned in the Bible. That’s His prerogative, not ours. There are some truths the Lord deliberately withholds from us because it would fly so starkly in the face of everything we understand that it would only cause us spiritual damage and offense. As Joseph Smith said to a group of Saints, “Brethren, if I were to tell you all I know of the kingdom of God, I do know that you would rise up and kill me.” Regardless of Joseph’s actions and personal life, the truths the Holy Ghost taught through Him produced the most incredible and long-lasting change in the hearts of men that the world has ever known. It’s far more useful to focus on those fruits than on the semantics of personal sins (or rumors of such sins) of the mortals who God used to plant them.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Lord even commanded Abraham to lie to Pharoah about who his wife really was. If you look at the Old Testament Institute Manual in the section about Genesis 12:10-20, you will see that in proper context, the situation was much different than it appears at face value.</div><div><br /></div><div>Another thing to consider with this idea is what Brother Callister also said about what we might call the “razor’s edge” God walks.</div><div><br /></div><div>“There are certain laws of the universe [justice and mercy] that are immutable, that are without beginning of days or end of years. They were not created by an intelligent being, nor are they the product of moral thought, rather they are eternal, co-existent realities with the intelligences of the universe. These laws are immutable in that they cannot be altered or modified in any form. They unchangeable from eternity to eternity. They are self-existing, self-perpetuating laws to which even God himself is subject.” (Tad R. Callister, The Infinite Atonement, 300)</div><div><br /></div><div>This isn’t to say that God isn’t all-powerful, but that the reason He IS all-powerful is because He has mastered those laws. He knows what will and will not satisfy both of those laws. He knows when and how certain commandments should be applied, and when they will edify and when they will not. We simply do not know these things. You can read more about this idea here. Also, that concept becomes clearer the more you consider how many times the Lord surprises us with how effectively He can use weak, mortal efforts to accomplish greatness. (Remember how the Lord used the loaves and fishes in the New Testament?)</div><div><br /></div><div>“I still find it hard to believe that this is God’s Church because if He is the same ‘yesterday, today and forever’ and doesn’t show a ‘shadow of changing’ why is the Church changing so much? It’s too hard to keep up with!”</div><div> </div><div>You have to remember that the Church isn’t an end, it’s a means to an end. Referring back to the idea of balancing justice and mercy, God gives us commandments, yes, but those commandments are meant to serve certain edifying purposes at different times. That’s why He could command Nephi to kill Laban, and the Israelites to “utterly destroy” the people in their promised land so they could inherit it. In each case, all parties involved were more edified by a circumstantial command to take the life/lives of another. Yes, sometimes the Lord uses His more righteous children to end the life of others because it’s actually more merciful to release them from mortality so that they don’t heap up any more judgement on their own heads. </div><div><br /></div><div>Because the Church is simply a means to an end—namely, our exaltation—and because we are supposed to change more every day, it only makes sense that the church’s policies and programs continue to change to elevate our manner or worship and the way we live (which should be worshipful anyways). Once the ends are achieved, the means will become obsolete. When President Nelson said we’re running out of time, I felt quite strongly that it was a command from Heavenly Father to change faster than we think we can; to forgive and let go of anger, grudges and hurt more completely and quickly; to serve more willingly; to give more time than we think we have to the Lord and trust that He will magnify our efforts for the rest of it (again, fishes and loaves).</div><div><br /></div><div>The world wants us to think that changing to become like God is contrary to our nature, but to quote Remy in the movie Ratatouille, “Change IS nature.” We are supposed to change so that we have “no more [desire] to do evil,” including, as we get closer to the Lord’s Second Coming, things that perhaps we don’t even know are evil yet.</div><div><br /></div><div>In conclusion, believe me: I know those kinds of changes are more easily said than done. But like something I actually talked about in a recent podcast episode, the Lord has been trying to tell us for a long time now that exaltation and the changes required to attain that, even as monumental as they seem, are more possible than we can comprehend—and He would know. He planted the tree.</div><div><br /></div><div>Just remember to look to the fruits of the Church more than the roots. The roots are there to make the growing of the fruit possible, but they are, like the Church itself, just a means to an end: our eternal happiness.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-3152003512305731662019-04-13T14:17:00.001-04:002021-02-21T19:13:55.355-05:00LayersOne of my greatest difficulties communicating with Asperger’s syndrome has to do with how deeply and powerfully I feel (emotionally) and the seemingly formless amoeba of ideas in my head that I struggle to put into some semblance of spoken language. This becomes particularly challenging when I’m trying to find the right word to express something. More often than not, adjectives like amazing, huge, beautiful, horrific, painful and difficult are pathetic and almost insulting when compared to the magnitude of what I really think and feel.<br />
<br />
My wife has suggested that this difficulty of mine actually comes to me because I have true charity, but don’t know how to harness it properly yet. I was told in my patriarchal blessing that charity would be my most used spiritual gift, so I do believe that my feelings reflect that gift of the Spirit, but that I haven’t “grown into it” yet.<br />
<br />
But the main point I want to make with this has to do with things prophets have expressed as paramount concerns in our lives. I’m talking about things like studying the Book of Mormon daily, working hard at building our relationships, families and homes, and learning to develop the gift of discernment. Much of that has to do with the idea expressed in this quote from Visions of Glory by John Pontius (pg. 65):<br />
<br />
“…anytime Christ descends and speaks to a mortal, it is so weighty with meaning that mere words cannot convey the fulness of the truths given. The message is layered. First are the words He speaks, and then there is a vastly larger body of truth you receive spiritually, layer upon layer, more truth than you can understand for years afterward. One small moment in the presence of the Savior can last for a lifetime.<br />
<br />
This is the reason the scriptures are so powerful, because they contain the words spoken by Christ, and this layered truth is still there, spiritually interwoven with those words. It takes a lifetime of spiritual growth and obedience to be able to receive the deeper layers. They are truly there, and they contain the great mysteries and greater truths He desires that we acquire and enjoy in our lifetime” (p. 65).<br />
<br />
Those spiritual layers aren’t just in the scriptures, but in everything Christ created, including us. Everyone has those spiritual layers to them. Everyone has all the minute, nuanced details of our thoughts, feelings, desires, experiences and beliefs written in layers into every fiber of our being. All of this information is forever woven into our very sinews, so as John Pontius says at another point in his book, Christ can literally read us like a book.<br />
<br />
I have pondered on this idea for a long time and wished and longed and yearned and desperately desired the ability to do that.<br />
<br />
If you’ve seen Ender’s Game, you’ll know what I’m talking about when I say this, but there’s a part where Ender wonders if, instead of attacking their alien “enemies,” there’s not a more diplomatic solution. Since they can’t speak English and their communication is more telepathic, Ender wonders, “What if we could communicate with them? What if we could… you know… think to them? What if they could think to us?”<br /><div><br /></div><div><div>Obviously the Lord’s plan for me has not yet allowed me to have telepathic or empathic abilities. However, something like that would be so helpful for me to dig through all the spiritual, emotional and mental layers of those I love so I could communicate more the true nature of my thoughts, feelings, and experiences completely and accurately.</div><div><br /></div><div>A specific example of the true force, sanctity, and power of being able to dig into deep spiritual layers is illustrated in Tad R. Callister’s book The Infinite Atonement when he writes about the angel who came to minister to Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. Yes, I know I reference that book a lot, but there’s just so much good stuff in there! Here’s the quote:</div><div><br /></div><div>“What divine messenger offered such aid? … Certainly at such a critical moment in the destiny of man, this angel must have been a being of towering stature [spiritually]. [The Angel] could not take the Savior’s place … but what he could do, he no doubt wanted to do. Perhaps he was there to console him, to comfort him, to support him, maybe even to bless him. The scriptures are silent as to the nature of the exchange between Christ and his angelic visitor. No doubt this was one of the those moments so sacred it was not to be recorded in the annals of man. Evidently certain thoughts of the [S]pirit are so lofty, so poignant, that thee cannot be reduced to the oral language or written word of man. They simply defy mortal expression. Surely this was one of those moments” (p. 123-124).</div><div><br /></div><div>The process of transcending mortal language to be able communicate on such a higher level and discern those spiritual layers is actually—believe it or not—a gift we can have right now. I won’t claim that it is easy to attain to such a high spiritual stature. Such “Zion-esque” abilities take time, immense righteous sacrifice, and personal spiritual capacity to develop. However, according to John Pontius in his other book, The Triumph of Zion, we still may not have to wait until then to get to that point. </div><div><br /></div><div>“Do we, as individuals, have the authority to pursue a personal place in Zion? For nearly two centuries most of us have left the future of Zion in the hands of the latter-day Church with no sense of personal responsibility other than faithful membership. Is it even appropriate for us to adopt a personal quest to obtain a Zion stature when the Church says little about this aspect of the latter-day Zion? Even if it is within our reach, is it within our calling and our privilege to do this? Can we just march up to the veil and purchase a seat on a bus that the Lord apparently mothballed some 160 years ago?</div><div><br /></div><div>I believe the answer to all of these questions is a resounding yes! The first reason is that the bus to Zion was not mothballed, it was merely given a more personal destination. The second reason for so believing is that the Lord is no respecter of persons. Anyone who obeys the laws of Zion must, by divine justice, be given the blessings of Zion—”even to as many as believe on my name” (JST Genesis 14:29)—regardless of whether it is time for Zion to exist as a city or not” (p. 173).</div><div><br /></div><div>Can you imagine how amazing that would be? Imagine how much contention we could avoid if we could simply see… er… feel into another persons heart spiritually. Think about how much easier it would be to refrain from passing judgement on people and holding grudges if we could instantly understand the whole context of someone’s words or actions. We could become one so much faster! And as the Savior said, “. . . if ye are not one, ye are not mine.” Of course, we should still stop judging and holding on to grudges either way, but one day mortal language and communication will no longer be stumbling blocks. Why not make that day sooner than later?</div><div><br /></div><div>I don’t know about you, but I fully intend to work towards that goal. I have complete faith that the ability to comprehend all the spiritual layers of those I love can be mine just as soon as I find within myself the will to make whatever sacrifice is necessary to reach such a goal. Why not you, too? I say go for it!</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-53935638464777158132019-03-26T14:12:00.001-04:002021-02-21T19:11:26.315-05:00Penlight to the SunThe original reason I started blogging was kind of selfish at first. I had given a talk on agency back in… 2013 I think? You know how it goes with talks — you often get more out of preparing it than perhaps the congregation gets out of your giving it. And that’s what happened for me, but I thought, “I don’t want this to stop. I need more of this influence from the Spirit.”<br />
<br />
Obviously I couldn’t give a talk every week, so instead I just decided to write down whatever I felt inclined to dig into for my own spiritual well-being and put it out there for whoever cared to read it. After a while, it got to the point where I was writing more with a sincere desire to actually do some good for others: perhaps my words would brighten someone’s day, get people thinking about their own spiritual standing, or help them in finding ways to overcome major burdens.<br />
<br />
My thoughts here veer back towards looking for… just… pure spirit food; a useful reminder for myself and perhaps a refresher or new perspective for others, and as I prayed to know which direction I should take for that purpose, a little voice in my head said, pure and simply, “talk about your Savior.” So this time my thoughts are based on this quote from Tad R. Callister’s book The Infinite Atonement.<br />
<br />
“<i>Those who have belittled the Savior’s sacrifice as no superhuman feat, because others have been so crucified and died so “nobly,” have forgotten the moments in the Garden. The physical pain of the cross alone, when compared to the accumulated pain of the Garden and the cross, was as a penlight to the sun. Perhaps the cross was chosen because the Savior wanted us to know he had endured man’s greatest form of inhumanity to man; but even then, such anguish was relatively insignificant when compared to the spiritual agony in the Garden, which was extended on the cross.</i>” (The Infinite Atonement, p. 133)<br />
<br />
A penlight to the sun! Wow!<br />
<br />
I thought of that analogy and I realized, is not everything between us and our Savior as a penlight to the sun? Are not our actions, righteous desires, the Christlike love we feel for others, and our honest efforts to follow our Savior’s example but a penlight compared to the celestial “sun-like” brilliance of His merits and His love?<br />
<br />
One beautiful irony behind this is that the scriptures teach that our mere penlight can become as a proverbial “sun” because of the Son Himself.<br />
<br />
I could go on for hours about this idea, but here are three things about the Lord that fit this analogy really well and how they serve as a huge comfort and motivator for us....<br /><br /><div><div>1. His Love</div><div> </div><div>This one probably seems obvious to most, but I believe that some of the more sacred experiences my wife and I (especially her) have had have given us an extra special understanding of just how overwhelmingly intense, unending, healing, and comforting His love really is. Obviously we are still nowhere anywhere close to understanding fully how powerful and pleasantly pervasive it is, but what we have felt, in dreams and other special experiences, have left us without mortal words to express the incredible, beautiful, lasting effect He has on us when we allow His love to play more of a role in our lives.</div><div><br /></div><div>Faith becomes much easier for me to exercise the longer I dwell on how unquestionably and irrevocably unquenchable His love is — and taking decent time to just ponder and process things of God is a commandment, anyway (3 Nephi 17:3). The more we take time to even begin to wrap our heads and hearts around the things of God, the easier it becomes to put aside our fear and acknowledge that faith in and adherence to God is more important. We will understand and believe that there is no one more safe in whom to put your trust than the Lord Jesus Christ. </div><div><br /></div><div>2. His Judgement</div><div><br /></div><div>Something I was actually just reminded of today through a disagreement that was mostly my fault is that while truth — especially absolute truth — matters, context and edification matter just as much. So much of the time we mortals spend bickering about semantics, who is right (as opposed to what is right), and fairness could be easily avoided if we would just take the time to consider all aspects of the issue at hand. Considering context, having patience to ponder, scrutinizing the track record and veracity of the source of our information, and, most importantly, revelation and the gift of the discernment (Elder Bednar gave a fantastic talk about that!) are all crucial in coming to the proper conclusion about anything.</div><div><br /></div><div>Considering each of these factors, our perspective and ability to make fair, kind judgments compared to Jesus is also as a penlight to the sun. How long will we continue to cling to hurt feelings, refuse to forgive, and hold grudges before we believe Christ (different from believing in Christ) and trust that He needs to be the one to decide when and how to execute justice?</div><div><br /></div><div>3. His Faith</div><div> </div><div>This may seem a little strange to some because most of the time we time we talk about us exercising faith in Jesus Christ, but quoting from Tad R. Callister again: </div><div><br /></div><div>“In [Jesus’] moment of agony, he cried out, “my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” The Savior was facing his great trial [on the cross] with nothing to support him but his will and his faith. More faith was required of him than was ever exacted from any mortal. Mortals recognize their intellectual inferiority compared to God. In other words, they know they do not know all. They expect to have moments when faith is required. But here was a God whose knowledge reigned supreme, yet there was still a “why” – a gap between his cognitive powers and empirical senses. He had encountered a dark zone, an intellectual “out of bounds,” even for him. Perhaps he did not expect this. Perhaps he did not contemplate a total abandonment. Perhaps he did not comprehend in advance the totality of the aloneness he must endure. Perhaps his infinite mind knew and understood all that is possible to know in advance, but even this fell short of the hard-core reality that comes from actual experience.” (The Infinite Atonement, p. 113-114)</div><div><br /></div><div>To me, His “sun” of faith to our “penlight” is one of the most comforting ideas because this incomprehensible amount of faith is placed in our potential! In His restored gospel, He teaches us that we can become as He is and He shows faith in our now-penlight faith, that it can turn into “sun” faith.</div><div><br /></div><div>Considering the comparative magnitude of both of those things, it becomes staggeringly obvious how much more faith He has in us than we do in ourselves. How many times do we consider that the One who understands and sees our weaknesses and sins in a perfectly clear and glaringly painful lens of divine light still exercises and shows more faith in us and what we can become then we ever do? How often do we consider that He also shows that faith in those we perceive as most difficult to forgive, who do us wrong?</div><div><br /></div><div>Whether it’s in love, judgement, faith, patience, kindness, or any number of other virtues, our Lord and Redeemer’s “sun” of influence can, if we let them, overwhelmingly overshadow any fears or hurt we feel in the trials of life, whether they are merely circumstantial or as the result of another’s actions. As with the actual sun, when we become distracted from or ignore His ever-pervading light, love and invitations to tune out our impure mortal impulses and embrace the sensation of the Spirit, we might as well be a dog endlessly running around in circles, mindlessly chasing our tails.</div><div><br /></div><div>The only thing that’s ever worth our focus is the sun of His will and His love, ignoring all the meaningless penlights in the process.</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-47219019951964622702019-02-26T14:07:00.001-05:002021-02-21T19:06:44.118-05:00The Wound is the Place Where the Light Enters YouDuring our family scripture study growing up, my dad had a habit of interjecting his own personal thoughts, explanations, and anecdotes every… maybe 0.7 verses.<br />
<br />
Okay, that’s probably a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point. In my and my siblings’ kid brains, we were often mildly annoyed at him for doing this, but it was a good thing he did. Today in my own personal scripture study, I do that possibly more than even he did—and I enjoy it!<br />
<br />
My wife caught on too and began with me to find gospel parallels in many parts of everyday life: in books, movies, shows, etc. Considering that our tastes of what constitutes a good movie make it really difficult for us to find one that we both want to watch over and over and over again, if we ever tell you of a movie that we both actually enjoyed together and want to watch again, you know it’s a must-see. It also means, however, that we have both seen a crazy amount of gospel parallels in it.<br />
<br />
One of those is A Wrinkle In Time. There is one particularly profound, yet often feared, truth in that movie I want to discuss here. It’s when Mrs. Who says, “The wound is the place where the light enters you.”<br />
<br />
Rather than just diving right into my personal take on this, let’s go to the scriptures for examples of where this truth is taught.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Replacing Darkness with Light</u></b><br />
<br />
Take a look at 3 Nephi 9 in the Book of Mormon. Chapter 8 ends by talking about the mourning, howling, weeping, wailing, and tangible darkness all over the face of the land after the catastrophic destruction of the Americas following Christ’s death. With this perspective, the timing of what happens in chapter 9 is absolutely awesome. Almost the entire chapter is the voice of Christ speaking to the hearts of everyone who was spared and inviting them to come unto Him. They literally heard the audible voice of Christ speaking to each one of them!<br />
<br />
Notice the timing of that: it was right in the middle of the deepest darkness and their most desperate cries for help that they heard His voice. Only when they were brought face-to-face with total darkness did they hear the clear, piercing, soothing, inviting voice of the Lord.<br />
<br />
Another thing that really caught my attention was that the moment when the darkness around them completely paralyzed them with fear and left them physically immobile was the same moment where the voice of Christ stunned them so much that all the crying and moaning immediately stopped.<br /><div><br /></div><div><div>It was in that moment that the voice of Christ had so much power that it turned great guilt and mental and emotional suffering into a change of heart.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you look carefully at the scriptures and the lives of righteous saints, you will always see that the Lord establishes consistent patterns of teaching and changing us. I have seen His pattern of using these starkly contrasting opposites of darkness and light in my own life in moments when it felt like the Lord “injected” light into me. He always does this for me by first arranging for a dark hole or injury to open up—something I am perhaps afraid to expose or don’t feel ready to confront. The effect of that wound opening inside me feels something like the sound of a that egg Harry Potter opens after the first task in the Triwizard Tournament. Yet as that hole opens up and that fear, anger, hurt or loneliness is exposed, He can then displace it with His light because of His Atonement.</div><div><br /></div><div>Exposing the Wound </div><div><br /></div><div>My wife and I have had multiple painful experiences like this in the last few years. If you read my article about the power of a covenant, you’ll get a short taste of the medical horrors my wife has faced. But in the last few years, through several hospital admissions lasting from a few weeks to a few months, she has faced pains and health problems that are an entirely new ballpark even for her. Learning to witness her suffering while often being unable to do a thing about it has also been its own struggle on my end as well. However, each time something new comes up—something that further complicates my wife’s pain and requires me to be more patient and creative in making her comfortable enough to get by (even when I feel like there’s absolutely nothing more I can do and the situation feels unbearable for both of us)—something divine happens. And in the last few years, those experiences have always taken place in the hospital.</div><div><br /></div><div>In those times, the Lord uses those dark moments to speak to us in ways that do more than just make us feel better. He heals the source of the wound while it’s exposed. </div><div><br /></div><div>My social/communication difficulties with Asperger’s syndrome has presented quite a few hurdles for my wife and I to overcome as a couple. However, last year during my wife’s longest hospital admission, there were a few days where the nerve pain was so bad that it put her in a different mental state. She was acting as if she had just had her wisdom teeth pulled, yet you could tell her judgement wasn’t impaired at all. </div><div><br /></div><div>After a few days of this I realized that this mental state of hers was something spiritual. For those few days, she might as well have had one foot on each side of the veil with the spiritual gifts and abilities she had. One of those gifts was the ability to speak and listen in such a way that it was impossible for me to misunderstand her, and vice versa. During those few days, we had, among other things, conversations that totally resolved deep-seated issues in each of our hearts. These were issues that were so sensitive that speaking to each other about them was nearly impossible without creating contention, yet we were able to completely resolve them!</div><div><br /></div><div>This gift of the Spirit, temporarily granted to us because of my wife’s pain-induced mental state, resulted in these unspeakably painful emotional wounds being cleaned, treated, and proverbially wrapped up in celestial white bandages, never to be worried about again.</div><div><br /></div><div>“What if Your Blessings Come Through Raindrops?”</div><div> </div><div>As the song “Blessings” by Laura Story says:</div><div><br /></div><div>“What if your blessings come through rain drops?</div><div>What it your healing comes through tears?</div><div>What if a thousand sleepless nights is what it takes to know you’re near?</div><div>What if trials of this life are you mercies in disguise?”</div><div><br /></div><div>I certainly know this is true because I have seen it happen in so many ways firsthand. The most brilliant, holy light always shines for and in us when it can enter us via our deepest wounds. We just to stop being afraid to expose those parts of us and let in the light.</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-10721941336789162462019-02-19T12:49:00.002-05:002019-02-19T13:22:51.224-05:00Four of the Most Amazing Promises in All ScriptureFor years now I have gradually increased my focus on how certain phrases in the scriptures are worded to help me dig deeper into the spiritual layers of the words of prophets and our Savior. Having Asperger's syndrome makes it a lot easier to really dissect the phrasing and really get down to the juice caramel center of Holy Writ.<br />
<br />
One of the key passages that I have repeatedly noticed uses some pretty awesome phrasing is Matt 5:5-8. These four verses each contain one key word that solidifies them as not only some of the most comforting promises in all scripture but also some of the most ironclad. That word is "shall".<br />
<br />
I absolutely love any time the Lord makes a promise and says that the blessings we receive as a part of that promise "shall" come to pass. There are no ifs, maybes, buts or unless's, etc. The promises made with the conditions spelled out are guaranteed. You don't find that kind of thing very often in this life. So many times have General Authorities taught that living the gospel does increase the chances of overall happiness but rarely guarantee when or how or even how often that will happen because of the Fall. But the promises in these verses are ironclad and guaranteed. I want to give each of them separate and deliberate attention to show what I have seen and felt as I have studied them. Let's pick 'em apart.<br />
<br />
<b>5. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.</b><br />
<br />
Many times, as illustrated above, the real meaning of certain verses in scripture comes out more by focusing on what it <i>doesn't</i> say. Let's look at the word "inherit." If you inherit something, you didn't get it by working for it or because you deserve it, but because someone else earned, bought and/or acquired it and you get to have it because you happened to be in some sort of legal will or perhaps bloodline down which said thing has been passed for generations. You get it because of who you are, not what you have done.<br />
<br />
In the case of this verse, Jesus promises us that those who are meek will inherit the earth. Whoa, wait a minute, did you catch that? The entire earth? As in the whole physical globe, the planet we call earth, the entire planet, will become the <b>property </b>of the those who are meek? That's all there is to it? The answer is an incredible YES! Does that sound too simple? Did you immediately think "ummm... hold on, sir, there's more to it than that"? Well, lets look at what it means to be meek and see if we can find out if it's really as simple as the phrasing our Savior used.<br />
<br />
Elder Neal A. Maxwell, one of His apostles, said the following about meekness.<br />
<ul>
<li>"Meekness is thus so much more than a passive attribute that merely deflects discourtesy. Instead, it involves spiritual and intellectual activism: “For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments” (Ezra 7:10; see also 2 Chronicles 19:3, 20:33). Meek Nephi, in fact, decried the passivity of those who “will not search knowledge, nor understand great knowledge, when it is given unto them in plainness” (2 Nephi 32:7). Alas, most are unsearching—quite content with a superficial understanding or a general awareness of spiritual things (see Alma 10:5–6). This condition may reflect either laziness or, in Amulek’s case, the busyness usually incident to the cares of the world. Intellectual meekness is a persistent as well as particular challenge. Without it, we are not intellectually open to things that we “never had supposed” (Moses 1:10). Alas, some have otherwise reached provincial and erroneous conclusions and do not really want to restructure their understanding of things. Some wish neither to be shaken nor expanded by new data."("Meek and Lowly”, Oct. 21, 1986 Devotional at BYU)</li>
</ul>
I think it becomes much clearer why, of all the attributes of God Jesus chose to use as the most prominent of those who would inherit the earth, He chose meekness. Elder Maxwell describes this virtue as not just one of holding back when the time is not right to speak or act, but also - in contrast - as a virtue that expands the mind and soul, emboldens and fine tunes the spiritual senses and glorifies a man or woman who can stand in quiet, yet brilliant and unyielding majesty in the presence of the prideful and benighted of the world; someone familiar with, as President Monson said, the "glorious feeling it is to know that you stand in your appointed place clean and with the confidence that you are worthy to do so."<br />
<br />
Such meekness is surely a forerunner of Godliness and a one of the keystones in the marble arch of charity. No wonder only those who have it are given the unconditional promise of inheriting the earth itself.<br />
<br />
<b>6. And blessed are all they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Anyone who is more well versed in the New Testament will see slight difference in wording from the King James Version. The last phrase "with the Holy Ghost" is only found in the Lord's similar discourse to the Nephites in the Book of Mormon as the resurrected Lord.<br />
<br />
A few years back, I had wondered and discussed with my wife the idea of having the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost with us every second of every single day and wondered if it was truly possible. I mean, we all sin and render ourselves unworthy of the full presence of the Holy Ghost many times a day with things we do wrong that we don't often think twice about, so is it really possible? Even the Lord tells us "my Spirit shall not always strive with man" (D&C 1). But then I realized that the only reason the Holy Ghost <i>doesn't </i>always strive with us is because we are not following the counsel of King Benjamin, which, if we do, we are promised <i>constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. </i>King Benjamin says this:<br />
<ul>
<li>And again I say unto you as I have said before, that as ye have come to the knowledge of the glory of God, or if ye have known of his goodness and have tasted of his love, and have received a remission of your sins, which causeth such exceedingly great joy in your souls, even so I would that ye should remember, and always retain in remembrance, the greatness of God, and your own nothingness, and his goodness and long-suffering towards you, unworthy creatures, and humble yourselves even in the depths of humility, calling on the name of the Lord daily, and standing steadfastly in the faith of that which is to come, which was spoken by the mouth of the angel. <u><i>And behold, I say unto you that if ye do this ye shall <b>always</b> rejoice, and be <b>filled</b> with the love of God, and <b>always</b> retain a remission of your sins</i></u>; and ye shall grow in the knowledge of the glory of him that created you, or in the knowledge of that which is just and true. (Mosiah 4</li>
</ul>
Wow! Did you see that!? Yes, we <i>CAN </i>be filled with the Holy Ghost, according to the Lord's promise in Matthew, if we are constantly hungering and thirsting after righteousness. That's obviously more easily said than done. There are seemingly innumerable means the devil uses to distract, deceive and discourage us, but I find comfort in President Nelson's words, "It is mentally rigorous to strive to look unto Him in every thought. But when we do, our doubts and fears flee." And we've been given an incredible promise when we do, being <i>filled</i> with the Holy Ghost. Just as an additional incentive for you and I to narrow our focus on righteousness and thereby receive such an amazing gift, here's a small description, limited by mortal words, that paints a picture of what it's like to be filled with the Holy Ghost by Parley P Pratt:<br />
<ul>
<li>"The gift of the Holy Ghost...quickens all the intellectual faculties, increases, enlarges, expands, and purifies all the natural passions and affections, and adapts them, by the gift of wisdom, to their lawful use. It inspires, develops, cultivates, and matures all the fine-toned sympathies, joys, tastes, kindred feelings, and affections of our nature. It inspires virtue, kindness, goodness, tenderness, gentleness, and charity. It develops beauty of person, form, and features. It tends to health, vigor, animation, and social feeling. It invigorates all the faculties of the physical and intellectual man. It strengthens and gives tone to the nerves. In short, it is, as it were, marrow to the bone, joy to the heart, light to the eyes, music to the ears, and life to the whole being."</li>
</ul>
<br />
<b>7. And blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
This goes along well with Helaman's discourse to his son Corianton about the law of restoration. He teaches that "the meaning of the word restoration is to bring back again evil for evil, or carnal for carnal, or devilish for devilish—good for that which is good; righteous for that which is righteous; just for that which is just; merciful for that which is merciful."<br />
<br />
The interesting thing I noticed right away with this is that if we look again at what verse 7 <i>isn't</i> saying. In this case what this verse isn't saying actually reveals <i>more</i> about the doctrine taught here by the Lord. The agreement in this promise is strict and straight to the point and further explained by Jesus in Matt 7:2, "For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." He can be as merciful to us as we are to are to each other. If we can come to completely forgive every wrong ever committed against us and let the Lord deal with justice, His atoning sacrifice becomes fully efficacious in our lives and we are thus forgiven completely for every sin we fully repent of.<br />
<br />
That's the other reason Matt 5:7 is so powerful. It teaches us the often disregarded aspect of forgiveness from the Lord. We are so often taught that to be forgiven of sins we must fully repent and this is unequivocally true, but ultimately, there are technically <i>two</i> things that we <i>must </i>do in order to have complete forgiveness from the Lord. Repent fully of all our sins and forgive everyone for every wrong committed against us or anyone else. Both are required according to the Son of God. If we compartmentalize others and use our insufficient, weak, out-of-context judgement skills as the standard by which we measure the worth of others and how we should feel and think about them, why on earth would we have the right to expect that the Lord should just wipe our slate clean and bring us to Celestial Glory if we can't come to love everyone - yes, <u>everyone</u> - the same way He does? (even if not to the same intensity)<br />
<br />
I can imagine many who just read that and thought right away, "do you realize how tall of an order that is? That is... <u style="font-weight: bold;">huge!</u> I completely agree, but then again, as Elder Holland put it, "...salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy. We are The Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him?" <br />
<br />
This single short verse is loaded with what it says and what it doesn't say.<br />
<br />
<b>8. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
I think this one has to be my favorite out of all of them. I personally know a few people aside from those publicly taught about in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who have seen our Savior in person. They have each confirmed what Joseph Smith said about being in His presence, that "His eyes were as a flame of fire; the hair of his head was white like the pure snow; his countenance shone above the brightness of the sun; and his voice was as the sound of the rushing of great waters" (D&C 110:3).<br />
<br />
We know of so few who have seen either the Father or the Son and yet, in His mortal ministry, the Son gives us the very formula in just eleven words to have that very same thing happen to us. It stands to reason, of course, that this must mean being pure in heart is quite hard to achieve, given that those who saw Him <i>because</i> they were pure in heart - as opposed to the wicked who saw Him because of the prayers of the righteous and the justice of God - seem to be so few and far between in the annals of recorded history. Still, our Savior doesn't make us any promises or tell us how to do something or give us commandments without making any of it possible. I wonder if some of you are already thinking, "Yeah, but there are a lot of hard things to do in the restored gospel that we have been promised are possible that are still ridiculously difficult."<br />
<br />
My only response to that is to echo Elder Holland again when he said the following. And keep in mind that since repentance is synonymous with positive <i>change</i>, you can substitute almost every instance of the word "repentance" with "change" below, as I already have, <br />
<ul>
<li>"You can change anything you want to change and you can do it very fast. It is another Satanic falsehood to believe that it takes years and years and eons of eternity to [change]. <i>It takes exactly as long to [change] as it takes you to say “I’ll change”—and mean it.</i> Of course there will be problems to work out and restitutions to make. You may well spend—indeed, you had better spend—the rest of your life proving your [change] by its permanence. <i>But change, growth, renewal, and repentance can come for you as instantaneously as it did for Alma and the Sons of Mosiah.</i> Do not misunderstand. [Change] is not easy or painless or convenient. It can be a bitter cup from hell. But only Satan would have you think that a necessary and required acknowledgement of sin is more distasteful than permanent residence in it. Only he would say, “You can’t change. You won’t change. It’s too long and too hard to change. Give up. Give in. Don’t repent. You are just the way you are.” That, my friends, is a lie born of desperation. Don’t fall for it." (emphasis added) ("How To Change" Liahona, Feb 2017)</li>
</ul>
<br />
I still haven't seen Him, but I know it's possible to do so because I know people who have and I aspire to reach the point where I'm "D&C 4:6" enough to see Him. I know that as I pray for God to purify my intentions and my desires that He will dispel my fears and make me into someone who can see Him in person, and I want you to see Him, too. Lets purify our hearts along side our Savior together, shall we?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-57586560617575001332019-02-09T20:42:00.004-05:002019-10-13T00:39:06.044-04:00Show Me Your Dash and I'll Show You MineThis morning I saw an article on my facebook feed that I'm sure was put there at the time by divine design. Just yesterday I had read an <a href="https://ldsmag.com/is-our-gospel-message-clear/">article</a> that focused heavily on making sure everything we teach in the church is related to the One after whom our faith in named and upon whom it is based, our Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ. Then, as if God was trying to put icing on that spiritual cake - well more like a huge pallet loaded with bags of icing - I read <a href="https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/thomas-b-griffith_root-christian-doctrine/">this</a> article today by Stake President and District of Columbia US Court of Appeals Judge Thomas B Griffith.<br />
<br />
There's a part in it on which I am basing my comments here. It's this section:<br />
<ul>
<li>"In the last revelation Joseph Smith received before he was permitted to organize Christ’s Church on the earth—in what was the capstone of Joseph Smith’s preparation to be an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ—the Lord gave the only first-person detailed account of the suffering He endured so that we would not need to suffer the full effects of our disobedience: behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent; . . . Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink— [D&C 19:16, 18] There is something curious about this narrative. <i>Verse 18 ends with a dash.</i> The Savior did not complete His thought. Why? I don’t know, but I am persuaded by the explanation that the Savior might have cut short His description of what He suffered because it was too painful for Him—some 1,800 years after the event—to complete the description[]." (emphasis added)</li>
</ul>
<br />
He proposes this idea of course as his opinion, but I believe it for the following reason. Why does the Lord withhold information from us? Usually it's because it would be more detrimental than helpful to our spiritual growth, but with Joseph Smith, I don't think that would have been the case. Here was a man about whom Truman Madsen recalled the following:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>"Early in his life, he said, [Sydney B. Sperry, a man who was perhaps the Church's most knowledgeable Hebraist] had aspired to know more about the scriptures than any man living. He told me, and this is the point, that he had become aware that no man in this generation could possibly know as much about the scriptures as did the Prophet Joseph Smith. I begin with that because a feeling constantly recurs as one studies the life of Joseph Smith. You never quite get to the bottom. There is always more. You can be so impressed and overcome with glimpses that you say, "Nothing good that I could learn of him would be surprising." And then you become surprised. There is always more. It takes deep to comprehend deep, and I often wonder if any of us have the depth to fully comprehend this man."</li>
</ul>
<div>
No, I believe that Joseph's capacity to receive or not receive what the Lord would have said next was not because of His own limitations, especially coming from a man who said, "I could explain a hundred fold more than I ever have, of the glories of the Kingdoms manifested to me in the vision, were I permitted, and were the people prepared to receive it."<br />
<br />
I think the reason is as brother Griffith deduced. And that begs the question, just how loaded is that dash?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Obviously, the answer is not something the world needs to know right now - and likely something the world is spiritual light-years from handling well - or else we would have such knowledge revealed to us via President Nelson. However, what I want to suggest here and that we use this thought as an example for our own lives. One of the most profound differences between us and our Lord is the fact that nothing He holds back from us is because of what He <i>wants</i> to reveal to us. According to President Nelson, "One of the things the Spirit has repeatedly impressed upon my mind since my new calling as President of the Church is how willing the Lord is to reveal His mind and will." The Lord has His own reasons for not explaining that loaded dash, but - and consider this carefully - is there any good reason for us to be trying to hide our "dash" from Him, or... even at all?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>Our </i>unsaid dash could be a lot of things. Perhaps it is our hidden brokenness, complex emotions, addictions, worries, internal (or external) battle wounds incident to life's trials or even our deepest dreams, hopes, joys and love that we believe are to crazy to expose for fear of backlash or dismissal. It may be everything we really want to express to others but don't have the courage to do so. Maybe it's the "Oh, and one more thing"s that often results from our afterthoughts that come to us too late and stem from deep emotional crevasses that take work to dig out and display. Either way our dashes are never going to be as loaded as his, so why should we be so hesitant to expose ours?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I saw a meme on facebook today that said "Don't judge people for the choices they make when you don't know the options they had to choose from." I could discourse on how to apply that phrase properly, but for now, the point I want to make from it is that - while I acknowledge it is wrong to judge another person's level of spiritual health (if you aren't a Bishop, Stake Pres, etc.) - maybe, just maybe, we would no longer even falsely perceive a need to judge at all if we <u style="font-style: italic;">did</u> know the options others had to choose from in the moments where they had to make their hardest choices. Whether those choices are good or evil, if we can bring ourselves to a) be brave and open with each other while staying kind and b) properly show each other our dashes, it would be easier for us to have the needed <i>context and motivation</i> to be kinder to each other. This would also serve as an effect means for us to receive direction from the Holy Ghost about how to bear and, when possible, lighten each others burdens instead of exacerbating them by making uninformed decisions about what we <i>think</i> others need. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Now, I'm not talking about just spewing out verbal diarrhea, of course. That would just result in a bunch of "TMI" looks from a lot of people. What I <i>am </i>saying is that learning to express ourselves to each other the way I mentioned in the first section of <a href="https://ldsblogs.com/42945/3-things-every-man-needs-to-have-in-mind-while-courting">this article</a> would make it much easier for us to minister to each other so that all of us feel safe showing our dash, to <i>display </i>all those "other options" I mentioned in the previous paragraph and really give proper context. This also means we need to seek to understand other's dashes as well.<br />
<br />
The first verse and chorus to one of my recent favorite songs goes:<br />
<ul>
<li><i>Truth is harder than a lie<br />the dark seems safer than the light<br />and everyone has a heart that loves to hide<br />I'm a mess and so are you<br />We've build walls nobody can get through<br />Yeah, it may be hard but the best thing we could ever do, ever do:<br /><br />Bring your brokenness and I'll bring mine<br />'Cause love can heal what hurt divides<br />and mercy's waiting on the other side<br />If we're honest, If we're honest</i></li>
</ul>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
Showing our dashes also often means coming from behind the proverbial bedroom door we slammed behind ourselves and laying our problems before the Lord and, as we learn to do it properly, before each other. This also helps in effective ministering because part of the church's ministering program means being good listeners. Giving our ministering brothers and sisters something to listen to is one of the best ways to meet each others needs. It also gives us context the Holy Ghost can use to guide us in our ministering. We have to take the step to reach out sometimes when others can't see the invisible pain we often seem so willing to hide. I remember reading an article in a New Era magazine in 2007 while I was serving as a full time missionary where Nathan Richardson noticed this about hiding the truth:<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>"What we find is that when we try to fix ourselves, we don’t have the needed equipment. So we might try to approximate the repentance process. But the medicine hurts too much, so we don’t apply it; and the bandage is impossible to put on by ourselves, so we try to cover it with a few little Band-Aids. Then the Father comes in and sees our raw sore, which we had tried to hide from Him. He helps us clean it out. He applies the Atonement to our wounds, which begins the healing process. If it doesn’t burn at first, we’re not repenting. Then He helps us tape on a bandage that we could never have gotten on by ourselves. With our red wound now dressed in white, we are left to wonder why we were ever afraid to ask our Heavenly Father for help. I think that if we really came to know Heavenly Father, we wouldn’t be so scared to repent."</li>
</ul>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
The same applies not just to repentance but becoming unified as Saints and disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. If we become willing to come together and show our dashes with mercy, understanding and forgiveness, and see each others "other options", I am convinced that judgement would cease to fester in our minds and, with proper honesty and context, showing our dashes would become something we <i>want </i>to do. It would become a way to heal, to become completely free from the cares of this world and <i>choose</i> happiness (different from <i>finding happiness</i>).<br />
<br />
So what do you say? Show me your dash and I'll show you mine. Let's heal and be perfected along side our Savior together.</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-26061694209788593022019-02-06T20:39:00.001-05:002019-02-06T20:39:35.977-05:00Overcoming Pornography - 5 More Virtues That Will Help You Beat ItBack April 2017, I wrote about <a href="https://plpulsipher.blogspot.com/2017/04/overcoming-pornography-5-virtues-that.html">5 virtues that will help you beat porn addiction</a>. Everything I said came from my own personal experience battling it at different times in my life. However, there are five more virtues that I feel a need to outline which I feel are critical in walking the path to freedom from such evils.<br />
<br />
1. <b>Humility</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
One of my eye opening chapters in the Book of Mormon (and one of the hardest pills to swallow) is in King Benjamin's speech in Mosiah 2:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>"23 <i>And now, in the first place, he hath created you, and granted unto you your lives, for which ye are indebted unto him. </i><i>24 And secondly, he doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you; and therefore he hath paid you. And ye are still indebted unto him, and are, and will be, forever and ever; therefore, of what have ye to boast? </i><i>25 And now I ask, can ye say aught of yourselves? I answer you, Nay. Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth; yet ye were created of the dust of the earth; but behold, it belongeth to him who created you. </i><i>26 And I, even I, whom ye call your king, am no better than ye yourselves are; for I am also of the dust. And ye behold that I am old, and am about to yield up this mortal frame to its mother earth.</i>"</li>
</ul>
This attitude is something that will serve you well if you are trying to overcome a porn addiction. The happy part of humility (as weird as that may sound to some) is that the Lord has promised us that the it is the<i> humble seeker of happiness</i> who qualifies the most for the divine power and grace of God. As Malachi teaches us, He is a "purifier of silver" (Malachi 3:3) and refines, as does someone like a blacksmith, the impurities or <i>dross</i> from us until all our impure desires and impulses are gone.<br />
<br />
Being humble enough to remain thankful to God while suffering the feeling of ignominy in addiction recovery is one of the best ways for God to cause within us a permanent change of heart. I sometimes pray "with all the energy of heart" (Moroni 7:48) begging Heavenly Father to cause me to be forever and instinctively repulsed by things of the natural man, in all areas of life. If we be humble enough to truly understand how many of our desires are - when we are <i>really </i>honest with ourselves - unholy and impure, the road to healing and having a "mighty change of heart" (Mosiah 5:2; Alma 5:14) can be traveled much faster. Until that change is complete - and you'll know when it is - humbly remembering that we still have lots of work to do is a great way to combat the evil one and his relentless temptations.<br />
<br />
2. <b>Charity</b><br />
<br />
One of the greatest reassurances of having charity is mentioned in Moroni 7:47, that for all who posses this greatest of all spiritual gifts "at the last day, it shall be well with him." One of the reasons for this is illustrated well by a recently quote I saw from one of our modern day prophets (I wish I could remember for sure which one) where he said - and I'm paraphrasing - "if we could really remember who we are as children of God, we would try a lot harder to do what's right." This ties well into charity because when we have it, we love God, our brothers and sisters throughout the world and ourselves enough to act like who we <i>really </i>are.<br />
<br />
I am reminded of the story of Daniel in the Old Testament. In Daniel chapter 1 he refused to defile himself with the wine brought to him by order of King Nebuchadnezzar. This king had commanded to be brought to him "certain of the children of Israel, and of the king’s seed, and of the princes; Children in whom was no blemish, but well favored, and skillful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king’s palace, and whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans."<br />
<br />
Daniel knew of both his temporal standing as a prince and divine standing as a child of the Almighty God. He refused to do anything that would contradict his identity and thereby stain his pattern of living up to those birthrights. If we really love God, our families, our friends and remember who we really are in moments of temptation, we won't even allow ourselves to be in situation where we even <i>might</i> slip a little. I suggest meditation to accomplish this.<br />
<br />
King Benjamin also gave some wise counsel to help us consistently maintain our worthiness in Mosiah 4:11-12<br />
<ul>
<li>"And again I say unto you as I have said before, that as ye have come to the knowledge of the glory of God, or if ye have known of his goodness and have tasted of his love, and have received a remission of your sins, which causeth such exceedingly great joy in your souls, even so I would that ye should <i>remember</i>, and always <i>retain in remembrance</i>, the greatness of God, and your own nothingness, and his goodness and long-suffering towards you, unworthy creatures, and humble yourselves even in the depths of humility, calling on the name of the Lord daily, and standing steadfastly in the faith of that which is to come, which was spoken by the mouth of the angel."</li>
</ul>
and there's the effect he promises:<br />
<ul>
<li>"And behold, I say unto you that if ye do this ye shall <i>always rejoice</i>, and be filled with the love of God, and <i>always retain a remission of your sins</i>; and ye shall grow in the knowledge of the glory of him that created you, or in the knowledge of that which is just and true."</li>
</ul>
That's a pretty amazing promise. So learn to love and remember who you really are and use that as motivation to <u>live up to it.</u><br />
<br />
3. <b>Courage</b><br />
<br />
This is a big one and it ties in well with accountability from the previous entry about this. I know from experience that one of the scariest things in addiction recovery is forming a rigid habit of confessing - candidly, completely and immediately - when setbacks happen in your journey to permanent sobriety. I have felt horrible about the hurt I caused to many at different times in my life when addiction reared it's ugly head, so horrible that I would sometimes lose the courage to confront the problem soon enough with those most affected by it. One of the worst things you can do when fighting an addiction is procrastinating courage, the courage to confront the problem head on <i style="text-decoration-line: underline;">before</i> the pain of the problem becomes worse than the pain of the solution.<br />
<br />
Another part of courage I have seen be very effective in overcoming addictions like this is finding something out of your comfort zone just to break up your normal routine. Whether that means you take a different route to work or church, deliberately introduce yourself to a complete stranger and strike up a conversation with them or maybe do your morning routine in a completely different order, having the courage to go out of your comfort zone will do wonders for you. Not only will it help you practice replacing evil habits with good ones, but also just get out of your own head, re-calibrate and help shift your focus to what matters most.<br />
<br />
4. <b>Meekness</b><br />
<br />
I believe this virtue to be the most misunderstood and, therefore, one of the most difficult to master. Neal A. Maxwell had the following to say about meekness.<br />
<ul>
<li>"There is, of course, much accumulated stereotyping surrounding this virtue. We even make nervous jokes about meekness, such as, “If the meek intend to inherit the earth, they are going to have to be more aggressive about it!” We even tend to think of a meek individual as being used and abused—as being a doormat for others. However, Moses was once described as being the most meek man on the face of the earth (see Num. 12:3), yet we recall his impressive boldness in the courts of Pharaoh and his scalding indignation following his descent from Sinai."</li>
</ul>
Meekness isn't just about being silent and submissive or assertive and aggressive, although there are times when those things are applied in proper balance in someone who is truly meek. It's more about becoming willing to be totally transparent, teachable and firm in the resolve to utterly expose the darkest and most well hidden parts of our emotions, motives, rationalizations, preferences, and actions for the sake of allowing the Lord to wipe us completely clean from such evil. Meekness means standing firm and unyielding in our faith in Christ and His truth with the understanding that the only way to really become like Him is to expose and allow Him to purify and clean all of our spiritual "wounds and infections", self-inflicted and otherwise. I am reminded of one of my favorite lines from the movie A Wrinkle In Time, "the wound is the place where the light enters you."<br />
<br />
Elder Maxwell further clarified,<br />
<ul>
<li>"Granted, none of us likes, or should like, to be disregarded, to be silenced, to see a flawed argument prevail, or to endure a gratuitous discourtesy. But such circumstances seldom constitute that field of action from which meekness calls upon us to retire gracefully. Unfortunately, we usually do battle, unmeekly, over far less justifiable things, such as “turf.”<br /><br />Just what is this “turf” we insist on defending almost at the slightest provocation? If it is real estate, this will not rise with us in the resurrection. If it is concern over the opinions of us held by others, there is only One opinion of us that really matters. Besides, the opinions of others will only be lowered if we go on an ego tantrum. If “turf” is status, we should not be overly concerned with today’s organizational charts. Who cares now about the pecking order in the Sanhedrin in 31 A.D., though so many cared so much at the time? Where are those now who worried so much over losing their places in the synagogues? (See John 12:42.)<br /><br />Granted, there are some things worth being aroused about, as the Book of Mormon says, such as our families, our homes, our liberties, and our sacred religion. (See Alma 43:45.) But if all our anxiety amounts to is our so-called image, it’s an image that needs to be displaced anyway, so that we can receive His image in our countenances."</li>
</ul>
'Nuff said.<br />
<br />
5. <b>Diligence</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
I quote here from my most viewed entry this blog (<a href="https://plpulsipher.blogspot.com/2016/01/words-of-wisdom-going-beyond-health-and.html">this one</a>). "I think of Harry Potter and his occlumency lessons when Harry asks if he can rest for a moment and Snape responds "The dark lord isn't resting!!" The same applies here. If you think that there is room to slip up a little when somewhere in your mind or heart the Holy Ghost is saying "are you sure that's a good idea?", get ready for a harsh wake up call when Jesus comes again."<br />
<br />
What I have learned from experience that even one microsecond of pulling a Lehonti can be more deadly to your spiritual and even physical health than you have any idea. Even after years of freedom from addiction, the fight against it must be a continual pursuit. The devil doesn't just know who you are, he knows who you were before you were born. He isn't going to quit trying to make you fall to old habits, even after years, just because you have been clean for so long. He's like the paranoid kid who is immovably convinced that he has to look behind his shoulder to check for the boogie man every five seconds for his entire life, always asking "how about now? how about now? how about now? Hey, look! look! look! Look at that! Look at it! Look at it now! Nowww! NOOOWWW!" He is relentless and his biggest victories are to make the very most stalwart, faithful saints fall to old habits, even in isolated events for a brief moment.<br />
<br />
Diligence is unspeakably vital in the battle against pornography addiction. Even once is too much.<br />
<br />
___________________________________<br />
<br />
Pornography addiction is one of the most pernicious evils to ever spread across the earth. Anyone who has not overcome it be the time they pass from this life is going to be in a world of hurt and I hope more people overcome it than who don't. As Amulek said, "that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world." Any addictions you haven't overcome by then will stick with you when you die, so take care of it now. Don't be one of those people who dies with regrets.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-47161685038694044962019-02-02T14:03:00.001-05:002021-01-26T18:51:52.801-05:00The Real Power of A CovenantIf you’ve read The Infinite Atonement by Brother Tad R. Callister even once all the way through, you’ve seen how incredible an author he is. There is one quote in that book that, among over 180 others I collected while I read it the first two times through, sticks out to me more than most of the rest and it illustrates the principle that has guided almost all of my most important decisions in my marriage. Here is what it says:<br />
<br />
“<i>It may have been that such a covenant [to atone] helped sustain the Savior in the Garden when all his apparent spiritual and physical energies had been exhausted, when there was “nothing left” to combat the Evil One and sin itself but the pure covenant to atone. How many such covenants have lifted men to loftier heights, conferred upon them added strength, and generated newfound reservoirs of resistance when all else seemed to collapse around them? So it may have been that, in some way, this covenant satisfied the laws of justice for those who lived before the Atonement was performed, and, in addition, helped to sustain the Savior in his hour of greatest need.</i>”<br />
<br />
In the book, Brother Callister says a lot more about Christ’s Atonement in regards to being infinite in its scope of time. For now, I just want to focus on how he speaks of the weight of a covenant. The sole fact that Jesus made a promise to the Father and to us was enough for Him to confront and conquer, head on, all the demonic powers of the evil one, unleashed in all their hellish hue. That was the power of a covenant for Him. So why not for us?<br />
<br />
My wife and I were told extensively before we were married about the importance of the marriage covenant—that it is the highest covenant in the Church and the only one we make with two people (God and our spouse). What I really wanted to do with this is illustrate how the power of a covenant has helped me in my marriage.<br />
<br />
Buckle up, this might make you cry—happy and sad tears.<br />
<br />
Before I even knew my wife, she had lived the lives of ten people. The amount of abuse she endured, in every form you can imagine, even before she was born, took me a few years to even process—and I have Asperger’s syndrome, so my mind and heart run a billion miles a minute. Thankfully for me, when I was first learning about her life, I was not quite 2000 miles away and couldn’t act on what I’d heard, so I had plenty of time to think about the people she’d forgiven: what they had done to her, and the meekness, patience, and faith she showed in her responses.<br /><br /><div><div>My wife has long list of health problems including, but not limited to, PTSD, misophonia, spina bifida, recurring Crohn’s disease, Charcot arthropathy, severe lymphedema, hydrocephalus, and anemia of chronic disease. To make things even more interesting, my wife is way more introverted than I am, and therefore naturally doesn’t like to bring a lot of attention to herself—even for the sake of medical attention—to avoid people thinking “Oh, you poor thing.” The complications of these conditions being concurrent as well as all the medications she has to take to even make her tolerably comfortable from day to day make for quite the unpredictable daily routine. Many doctors and specialists have asked her how she is in so much pain from moment to moment every day and yet still puts on a good attitude, smiles, and sometimes even apologizes because she feels like she is the inconvenience for others. Pretty mind-blowing, I know.</div><div><br /></div><div>As you can probably imagine, the emotional complications of all that creates some… complex situations, especially considering my primary love languages are physical touch and words of affirmation. Some of the complications the Lord has allowed us to face have left many of our emotional needs within our respective love languages unmet until many of the blessings God has promised us when my wife is eventually healed are fulfilled. I’m a touchy-feely person so this has proved quite difficult.</div><div><br /></div><div>Another side effect of her health problems is that we never know when some problem is going to flare up suddenly and require immediate attention from me, so I literally can’t leave her alone for more than an hour or two on any given day. This has meant we’ve had to be very creative and find ways to communicate that don’t drive each other nuts. Our 10-year anniversary is coming up this year and we’re still learning, but we have come up with plenty of ways to not get on each other’s nerves and keep the peace in our home.</div><div><br /></div><div>The reason I mention any of this is because the physical, mental, and emotional rigors of this kind of lifestyle for this many years has had some pretty drastic effects. My wife’s health has progressively become worse with each year and such circumstances also naturally require the exercise of faith on a level I never dreamed would be necessary in my lifetime. Having Asperger’s, I feel everything exponentially stronger and for longer than most. Therefore, learning to process the hurt I feel, the frustration at the gross injustices my wife has suffered, the monumental (even starstruck) love I have for her, and all the while trying to figure out how to express the depth of my love for her without being overwhelming, has been an adventure all on its own.</div><div><br /></div><div>As weird as this may sound, the blessings that have resulted in all these difficulties have been just as intense, if not more so.</div><div><br /></div><div>My wife and I have received some pretty amazing promises from God in priesthood blessings, a few of which I have permission to share here. First, she was promised that she would be completely healed of absolutely every physical, mental, or emotional problem—and in this life. We have both received some very personal promises about what the future holds for us as a couple if we remain faithful to our covenants. I have personally felt the physical presence of Jesus Christ in our home and I know with absolute confidence that He has personally attended to my wife and me on multiple occasions. Believe it or not, these are some of the more minor blessings God has, in His mercy, given us. I have felt His forgiveness, His enabling power, His peace, and His love in ways no mortal words can describe.</div><div><br /></div><div>I know—I really know—that He lives and that He will, with absolutely perfect timing, do exactly what He said in Isaiah 54:11-12: </div><div><br /></div><div>“I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones.”</div><div><br /></div><div>Another scripture that I believe illustrates this principle is in 2 Nephi 2:2:</div><div><br /></div><div>“…thou knowest the greatness of God; and he shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain.”</div><div><br /></div><div>I know this is true now more than I ever did. The reason I know it is because of the commitment the Lord has helped me gain to make my covenants with Him and my wife the first priority over anything else, including (and especially) my trials. If the power of Christ’s covenant to atone for us was enough for Him to descend willingly into such depths, why should a covenant with God on my end not be enough for me to descend into whatever depths He sees fit for me to go to and still respond with faithful, even joyful obedience?</div><div><br /></div><div>There is a reason the Lord says He is bound when we do what He says. The power of a covenant is so strong for Him that He cannot break it on His end, not because He is unable to make such a choice (He obviously has the ability to choose), but because there is not even the smallest imaginable trace of such an inclination in His nature. I have a long ways to go to say that I’m keeping all of my covenants perfectly, but one thing I know I will never stop doing is to at least keep trying to do so until I am perfect at it.</div><div><br /></div><div>In his March 2006 BYU Talk, “The Very Root of Christian Doctrine,” Thomas B. Griffin said the following: </div><div><br /></div><div>“In the temple recommend interview, we are asked, “Do you have a testimony of the Atonement of Christ and of His role as Savior and Redeemer?” In my experience as a bishop and a stake president, I can happily report that I have never had anyone answer that question other than yes; yet I have long had a concern that we don’t fully appreciate that question. I think it significant that of the many roles of Christ, we are asked about only two: His role as Savior and His role as Redeemer. There must be something about these roles that is particularly important to the temple—a place where He binds us to Himself through covenants.”</div><div><br /></div><div>I find it interesting that Brother Griffin mentions this, because it emphasizes the fact the Christ’s primary roles as our Savior and Redeemer are only accomplished—or in other words, we are only saved from sin and death, redeemed from the mortal condition and bound to Him and each other—upon receipt and observance of covenants.</div><div><br /></div><div>I once answered one of those “Did You Know?” Facebook profile questions that said, “What gets you out of bed in the morning?” The question got me thinking, what is really my biggest reason for getting up each day? Amid all the horrific things I’ve seen my wife go through—all the moments where I felt utterly helpless in her hours of greatest need, all the unmet needs we’ve both suffered over the years, the unrequited love we’ve felt for others and inexpressible love we’ve felt for each other—I thought briefly of all the blessings that resulted from those moments and the only fool proof answer I could think of was “my covenants.”</div><div><br /></div><div>That is power of the covenant for me.</div><div><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4514458898183513924.post-39256188920430498412019-01-27T13:54:00.003-05:002019-01-28T21:21:46.104-05:00A Special Connection<div style="line-height: normal;">
This last Sunday my wife and I were going through some of the new Come, Follow Me manual and in the third lesson for January there is a video that focuses on how Joseph felt as he helped raise The Messiah. As I was watching and read about it and I was dumbstruck by the portrayal of how he felt when Jesus was missing on their way back from Jerusalem. I don't know how to explain this very well, but it was as if all of the sudden I could feel Joseph's love for his step Son, his understanding of who He was and the resulting overwhelming anxiety he felt, knowing who Jesus was and that they had lost Him. I could feel so strongly the enormous responsibility he felt for keeping this Holy Boy safe and teaching Him, the best he knew how, the righteous traditions of his forefathers.<br />
<br />
I felt in that moment an empathy for him like I had never felt for any other mortal father. I could feel the urgency in his efforts to get himself and Mary back to Jerusalem as fast as possible to make sure Jesus was okay. When I watched the video and saw the look on Joseph's face when Jesus said "wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" realizing what he meant, I felt like Joseph's expression almost yelled "how could I have forgotten that? I am only His mortal guardian. I need to be more humble about this. I should have known."<br />
<br />
The contrast I felt between a) his absolute and intense sense of love duty to provide for and protect his wife and the Son of God and b) his realization that his role in Jesus' life was only temporary was so overwhelming for me that it got me thinking about the parallels in my own life that seemed to fit this moment of clarity for me like a brand new lock and key.<br />
<br />
Joseph instinctually acted with an urgency the totally rocked me. Finding Jesus was of pivotal importance to him. I began asking myself: Are my actions mirroring the faith, love and loyalty I say I feel for my God, my wife, my family and friends? How can I better transfer how I feel about what matters most into my habits?<br />
<br />
I see the example President Nelson is showing of following the Lord's counsel without regard to what is convenient or what others say about him and I wish I was doing better at that myself. Well, my readers, I don't know about you, but today I have felt a huge but gentle push from God to go against the grain of my natural instincts and replace more of my unholy habits with Godly ones.<br />
<br />
I was recently listening to a podcast with Chad Daybell where he was talking about what will be required of today's youth and he said the following: "[our youth] will have to be stronger than the stripling warriors, and the reason I say that is because the stripling warriors only had to worry about one side of that kingdom, the physical side, because they were raised in a Zion-like society. They didn't have the problems with pornography, [] multiculturalism, [] drugs, gender-identity, [] socialism, they didn't have all these... just bombardment of satanistic attitudes that are coming at our kids left and right."<br />
<br />
I see a great irony in this. We perceive, and justly so, these amazing examples of faith and endurance from saints and prophets from long ago. We have songs that say things like "I'll have faith like brother Joseph [Smith] and the strength of the pioneers. I'll be brave as the stripling warriors and, like Nephi, persevere." Yet there is that statement by Chad Daybell which is spot on.<br />
<br />
How many of those anciently who we look up to are watching us today in both utterly unanticipated horror as well as dumbfounding wonder and joy with the levels of wickedness and righteousness they see in humanity today? My own patriarchal blessing says my heritage (which is rich with faithful examples in church history) will guide me in my determination to do everything within my power to be faithful and obedient to the Lord's will.<br />
<br />
That... connection I guess you could call it, that I felt from Joseph was a huge reminder to me that my desire to be faithful in everything the Lord has asked me personally to do needs to increase exponentially. And I'll will going about that just the way the Lord told me to in my patriarchal blessing, by focusing on carrying on my family legacy of faith and loyalty to my God, my wife and my covenants. And I hope this has inspired someone else to do the same.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0