a steady effort to be true

While reading about the importance of steadfastness, how essential it is to make every possibly efforts to keep our covenants with the Lord, I came across this quote from President Heber J. Grant:

"Nobody lives up to his ideals, but if we are striving, if we are working, if we are trying, to the best of our ability, to improve day by day, then we are in the line of our duty. If we are seeking to remedy our own defect, if we are so living that we can ask God for light, for knowledge for intelligence, and about all for His spirit, that we may overcome our weaknesses, then, I can tell you, we are in the straight and narrow path that leads to life eternal; then we need have no fear." (Conference Report, April 1909)

This came, not only as a confirmation of a doctrine that I already believe -- that it is our efforts that count and not whether or not we are "perfect," but also as clarification.... Because we will inevitably make mistakes, we will inevitably fall off of the path that leads to eternal life... or so I thought. However, this quote from President Grant illustrated to me that IF I can living so that I can ask God for what I need IN ORDER TO overcome weaknesses then I am STILL in the path. My mistakes and the always ongoing-process of repentance lie within the path. (It's like what Robinson was getting at in "Following Christ" -- we only get off the path when we choose to not repent.)

Brigham Young also taught this comforting doctrine. He said: "No matter what the outward appearance is,  if I can know of a truth that the hearts of the people are fully set to do the will of their Father in heaven, though they may falter and do a great many things though the weaknesses of human nature, yet, they will be saved." (Journal of Discourses 5:256)

I have done "a great may things through the weaknesses of human nature." At times it seems to surge up and batter at my heart to think of how I've slipped... But it has given my heart new strength to know that because I am, in my soul -- in the deepest part that is me, truly devoted to God, that I will be saved. I am saved. I'm saved because I'm committed to Him. EVERY time I fall I WILL repent and try again. I will spend my whole life falling and hurting and being healed. This is my steady effort to be true to Him and return to His presence.

love and devotion

Shakespeare wrote on of the most beautiful demonstrations of the power of love in The Merchant of Venice. Reading Portia's words for her beloved Bassanio may have inspired me in the past to seek out the person I can so freely and joyfully give my whole self to. But with the passing of time, my trials, and some help from outside sources, I've come to see that this description more aptly defines the spirit of love I ought to feel toward my Savior. (After all, the covenant relationship is often compared to a bridegroom and his bride.) This is love that brings obedience, that seeks to focus on the beloved. It is sweet and it is true devotion.

You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,
    Such as I am: though for myself alone
    I would not be ambitious in my wish,
    To wish myself much better; yet, for you
    I would be trebled twenty times myself;
    A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich;
    That only to stand high in your account,
    I might in virtue, beauties, livings, friends,
    Exceed account; but the full sum of me
    Is sum of something, which, to term in gross,
    Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractised;
    Happy in this, she is not yet so old
    But she may learn; happier than this,
    She is not bred so dull but she can learn;
    Happiest of all is that her gentle spirit
    Commits itself to yours to be directed,
    As from her lord, her governor, her king.
    Myself and what is mine to you and yours
    Is now converted: but now I was the lord
    Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,
    Queen o'er myself: and even now, but now,
    This house, these servants and this same myself
    Are yours, my lord (Act III, scene II, Lines 150-173)


I pray to be this love and devotion.


(Inspired by S. Michael Wilcox's "House of Glory")

Following Christ

   So I started reading Following Christ by Stephen E. Robinson today and already it is connecting to so many things I've been learning and reassuring me of so much that I've felt about Christ's presence in my life and what it means to turn to Him.
   The first chapter is called "Getting to the Kingdom" and it goes through how in accepting Christ, believing, and entering into a covenant of baptism with him we are saved NOW. The gates of the kingdom of God are already behind us. We are IN.

"Nothing that happens subsequently can be understood as helping you get into the kingdom, or earning your way into the kingdom, or contributing to your getting to the kingdom -- because you are already there. It logically follows that for those who have been born again, the critical question is not one of getting into the kingdom but of staying in the kingdom -- enduring to the end" (17).

   Of course this is something I already knew right? I mean, I knew that I was sanctified and justified through the atonement of Christ and that the only step left was for me to endure to the end and I would be saved. But I didn't think seriously enough what it means that I am already saved... I hadn't considered the POWER and COMFORT Robinson describes that comes from knowing "that as I labor for Christ, I labor as a son, encircled in the arms of his love, from a position of safety in his kingdom" (18).  It really does change how I see my standing with Him to think of it this way; that choices I make and my feeble efforts to be perfect are my decision to stay in His kingdom. (Or in the case of sin, to leave His kingdom.) 

   AND I need to trust myself to be able to remain faithful as I am learning to trust His commitment to love and help me. I am His after all.

Freedom to choose

2 Ne. 2: 27-29

27 Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.

28 And now, my sons, I would that ye should look to the great Mediator, and hearken unto his great commandments; and be faithful unto his words, and choose eternal life, according to the will of his Holy Spirit;

29 And not choose eternal death, according to the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein, which giveth the spirit of the devil power to captivate, to bring you down to hell, that he may reign over you in his own kingdom.

I was thinking about this scripture with the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife. In Genesis 39:10 it says that "day by day" she asked Joseph to "lie by her or to be with her." This isn't just a story of a man resisting the temptation to violate the law of chastity -- it is the story of a man who chose resist anything, harmless in and of itself though it may be,  that would put him in peril of sinning. I think we sometimes justify wandering into what we see as grey area between righteousness and sin. The problem is, we start to think this means since we not choosing sin per say, we are not choosing "captivity and death." The fallacy there is that if we are NOT choosing to follow the Spirit and NOT choosing to do God's will then we are NOT choosing eternal life. We are in fact choosing to give in bit by bit. We are allowing ourselves to come closer and closer to captivation by sin each time we give in to the flesh. When Potiphar's wife grabbed Joseph's garment he quickly "fled, and got him out" because the strength of continual righteous choices was with him. If he had been giving in previously, to JUST "lie by her" (just BY her) or to JUST "be with her" (just WITH her) then what's to say he wouldn't have then be "captivated" and unable to flee -- because he had surrendered the power of his will to the flesh and therefor to the devil.

I am certainly not an expert at this. I know I have made choices in grey areas and justified them because they were not the sin itself. But I have also seen how those choices make it harder and harder to stay away from sin. I need the power to flee when the BIG choices come. I will choose to keep that power by trying harder to choose liberty in the small things.

bread or stone?

In the Sermon on the Mount Christ teaches an important principle about the gifts God gives us.

Matthew 7:7-11
7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

We know that God ONLY gives good gifts. He would never give a stone or serpent. He ALWAYS gives bread or fish -- he gives us what we need to live and does not give us things that hurt us. However, how often do we perceive what we have received to be a stone or a serpent? Or in our minds and hearts turn it into a stone?

Example:
In Genesis 37 Joseph, a free man, is sold into Egypt to be a slave by his own brothers. Bread or stone?  In Genesis 39 Joseph refuses the advances of his master's wife and is thrown into prison. (He's THROWN INTO JAIL for doing the RIGHT thing!) Fish or serpent? In Genesis 40 Joseph is still in prison but interprets the butler's dream and asks to be remembered -- however, when the butler is restored to his position by Pharaoh he totally forgets about Joseph. Bread or stone?

It isn't until Genesis 41 when Pharaoh has his dream that the butler finally remembers Joseph. Joseph is brought in and interprets the dream and Pharaoh is so impressed that he makes Joseph a ruler of all Egypt. Now this one is OBVIOUSLY bread and not stone -- but the others were not stones either. They may have seemed that way to Joseph, but they were all leading up to great blessings.

The Lord sees the bigger picture. He loves us and will give us bread. We just must remember that it IS ALWAYS bread and it is NEVER a stone, no matter how much we think it might be. That is part of faith. Trusting that whatever it is that God gives us, it is WHAT WE NEED.

make dating less painful

This article on making dating a more worthwhile activity in your life is worth reading. Hope you like it!
(Even if it IS from Oprah's magazine...)

it connects so many dots...

This is a rough draft of my efforts to connect some ideas... any input is welcome.
PLEASE :)

So in my reading of The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life I came across the following in Chapter VII: "the decisions of our will are often so directly opposed to the decisions of our emotions, that, if we are in the habit of considering our emotions as the test, we shall be very apt to feel like hypocrites in declaring those things to be real which our will alone has decided."

This connects with my earlier post about emotions being a bodily thing. Our emotions are not happening in "US" -- our inner self, or "will" -- but in our body, our "flesh." Me = me my body AND me my spirit (or inner self or "will")

C.S. Lewis said in The Ego and the Self that while our inner self is "God's creature" it is also "that one self of all others which is called I and me, and which on that ground puts forward an irrational claim to preference" and that this is Christian "war against the ego as ego"Elder F. Enzio Busche states in Truth Is the Issue that "during our mortal life our agency is tested through the inseparable connection of our spirit with the elements of this earth, “the flesh,” or the “natural man” (see D&C 88:15)."

He teaches that it is through our understanding of the gospel and the plan of salvation that we begin to "to see that our life means that the “real me,” or “the spiritual child of God,” created in innocence and beauty, is engaged in a fight for life or death with the elements of the earth, the “flesh,” which, in its present unredeemed state, is enticed and influenced by the enemy of God."

But that "flesh" is the ME and wouldn't that make ME the enemy?

Well yes it does, in a sense, because we have to fight against our present state of being -- which is what keeps us from seeing "the original “real me,” the child of God, in its innocence and potential in contrast to the influence from the other part of me, “the flesh,” with its selfish desires and foolishness" (Busche).

C.S. Lewis said in Mere Christianity that "the battle is between faith and reason on one side and emotion and imagination on the other" and that there always comes a time when our "emotions will rise up and carry out a sort of blitz on [our] beliefs." This is when faith comes in -- choosing to believe; willing to hold on to "things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods." Substitute "will" or our inner selves for reason and you can see why it is so important for us to always be reminding ourselves what we know is true. Our inner self has been taught truth, and yet in the barrage of emotion i.e. doubt we can loose sight of what we once chose.

Busche says that "This war is a war that has to be fought by all of Heavenly Father’s children, whether they know about it or not. But without a keen knowledge of the plan of salvation, and without the influence of the divine Light of Christ to bring us awareness, this war is being fought subconsciously, and therefore its battlefronts are not even known to us, and we have no chance to win. Wars in the inner self that are fought subconsciously, with unknown battlefronts, lead to defeats which also hurt us subconsciously. These defeats are reflected in our conscious life as expressions of misery, such as a lack of self-confidence, lack of happiness and joy, lack of faith and testimony, or as overreactions of our subconscious self, which we see then as pride, arrogance, or in other forms of misbehavior—even as acts of cruelty and indecency...One of the great tragedies we see in our lives is that the adversary, through the influences of our “flesh,” can cheat us into establishing images of truth or perceptions of truth. Our brain, the great computer where all the facts of life’s memories are held together, can also be programmed by the “flesh,” with its self-centered ideas to deceive the spiritual self. Without the constant striving through prayer and contemplation to reach the ends of self-awareness and honesty, our so-called intellect can, therefore, based on look-alike truths, play many games of reason, to impress, to get gain, to intimidate, or even to manipulate truth with the vain results of deceit."

The "HOW" is an important question to consider.

C.S. Lewis also said in Mere Christianity that there is love that is just a feeling, what we call "being in love" and that it is "good for us." However, there is a second sense where love "is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other" (109).

I believe that all positive emotions are the same way. They exist as feelings and as something deeper in our selves that we CHOOSE and must work to maintain. We can feel hopeful or BE hopeful. Feel gratitude or BE a grateful person. Feel joy or BE joyful. etc. We also must work to overcome the negative ones which come our way. We have to stop giving so much time/energy/importance to negative emotions "for they are only the servants; and regard simply your will, which is the real king in your being" (H.W. Smith)

The important thing is that Christ has promised to help. All we have to do is put ourselves... our WILL in God's hands. This means, says H.W. Smith, you must do so "making up your mind that you will believe what He says because He says it, and tat you will ot pay any regard to the feelings that make it seem so unreal" You must say to God: "Until now my emotions have had the mastery; but now I put my will into thy hands, and give it up to thy working. I WILL NEVER AGAIN CONSENT IN MY WILL TO YEILD...work in me to will and do of thy good pleasure."

Bruce D. Porter said in Searching Inward that "man simply cannot perfect himself, by himself'" The only way to "self-knowledge" is through Christ. “… if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness.… my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.” (Ether 12:27.)

In that sense we truly place the only thing that is ours on the alter of the Lord. We turn our will, our SELVES over to Him. After all, "it is not the feelings of the man God wants, but the man himself: (H.W. Smith) And by doing so He promises us the help and power to CHOOSE. That our will is stronger than our emotions. That our real self is stronger than just the "me" we are. That our spirit is stronger than the flesh. Then we are truly endowed with power. Then we can actually begin to change and win the battle. When our will becomes His Will and overcomes the world.

p.s. I don't mean to make it seem like feelings are completely horrible things however. God communicates to our spirits through beautiful uplifting feelings.

President Boyd K. Packer reminds that "The Holy Ghost speaks with a voice that you feel more than you hear. It is described as a “still small voice.” And while we speak of “listening” to the whisperings of the Spirit, most often one describes a spiritual prompting by saying, “I had a feeling ….(lds.org)

The Prophet Joseph Smith explained: “A person may profit by noticing the first intimation of the spirit of revelation; for instance, when you feel pure intelligence flowing into you, it may give you sudden strokes of ideas, so that by noticing it, you may find it fulfilled the same day or soon; … those things that were presented unto your minds by the Spirit of God, will come to pass; and thus by learning the Spirit of God and understanding it, you may grow into the principle of revelation, until you become perfect in Christ Jesus.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 151)

The point is, that we must come to understand personal revelation in order to understand these feelings.

And we still have to be wary. In a church lesson from lds.org on recognizing revelation it teaches that sometimes Satan is able to give us strong feelings, which we may confuse with revelation from God. President Boyd K. Packer taught that “There can be counterfeit revelations, promptings from the devil. … As long as you live, in one way or another the adversary will try to lead you astray. … If ever you receive a prompting to do something that makes you feel uneasy, something you know in your mind to be wrong and contrary to the principles of righteousness, do not respond to it!” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1994, 78–79; or Ensign, Nov. 1994, 61; italics in original). In a situation like this, it is the feeling of uneasiness that is the actual revelation. This uneasiness is the Holy Ghost warning us that what we are considering is wrong.

A portion of that difficulty lies in our confusion about personal revelation; “How do I know if an impression is really from the Lord or if it is just my own emotions?” Elder Gerald N. Lund expands on this issue in his address Is it Revelation? by stating that "one of the most important challenges of our mortal probation is learning to hear, recognize, and then follow the voice of the Lord."

(This is a great article and I recommend it!! Elder Lund answers these three questions about personal revelation: 1. What is the voice of the Lord like? 2. How can I distinguish between true and counterfeit revelation? 3. What can I do to enhance my ability to hear, recognize, and follow the voice of the Lord?)