Language is naming. Naming is our way of trying to make sense of our world. I think this is why we have given so many names to our God. It's our effort to understand Him.
Elder Holland said "we know that somehow "happiness, heart, love" are not enough to describe the living son of the living God. Those are abstractions, and he is clearly the least abstract being in our lives. so while we must be fully aware of the limitations -- in our lives, in our language, in our ability to comprehend or appreciate -- we still do well to praise Deity by name and in some small way come to know him better by what he says he is."
He has told us Him names in scripture. For this reason I am going to devote some time to studying the names of God. More to follow...
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
"For Times of Trouble"
I read Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's address For Times of Trouble this morning. I just wandered across his book "However Long and Hard the Road" and this was the first chapter, so I sat down and read it. I'm so grateful that I did. To help you wander across it as well, here is a link to a transcription of the actual talk.
And here are some highlights:
"Remember, (quoting F. Scott Fitzgerald) "Trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement -- discouragement has a germ of its own."
To those who are trying hard and living right and things still seem difficult, I say, take hard. Others have walked that way before you. Read Noah again. Go out there and take a few whacks on the side of your ark and see what popularity was like in 2500 B.C.
Does the wilderness stretch before you in a never-ending sequence of semesters? Read Moses again. Calculate the burden of fighting with the pharaohs and then a forty-year assignment in Sinai. Some tasks take time. Accept that. But as the scripture says, “They come to pass.” They do end. We will cross over Jordan eventually. Others have proven it. I stand before you as a living symbol that anyone can make it through school, fill a mission, and find a job.
Are you afraid people don’t like you? The Prophet Joseph Smith could share a few thoughts with you on that subject. Has health been a problem? Surely you will find comfort in the fact that a veritable Job has led this Church into one of the most exciting and revelatory decades of this entire dispensation. President Kimball has known few days in the last thirty years that were not filled with pain or discomfort or disease. Is it wrong to wonder if President Kimball has in some sense become what he is not only in spite of the physical burdens but also in part because of them? Can you take courage from your shared sacrifice with that giant of a man who has defied disease and death, has shaken his fist at the forces of darkness and cried when there was hardly strength to walk, “Oh, Lord, I am yet strong. Give me one more mountain” (see Joshua 14:11–12).
Do you ever feel untalented or incapable or inferior? Would it help you to know that everyone else feels that way too, including the prophets of God? Moses initially resisted his destiny, pleading that he was not eloquent in language. Jeremiah thought himself a child and was afraid of the faces he would meet.
And Enoch? I ask all of you to remember Enoch as long as you live. This is the young man who, when called to a seemingly impossible task, said, “Why is it that I have found favor in thy sight, [I] am but a lad, and all the people hate me; for I am slow of speech?” (Moses 6:31).
Enoch was a believer. He stiffened his spine and squared his shoulders and went stutteringly on his way. Plain old, ungifted, inferior Enoch. And this is what the angels would come to write of him: And so great was the faith of Enoch that he led the people of God, and their enemies came to battle against them; and he spake the word of the Lord, and the earth trembled, and the mountains fled, even according to his command; and the rivers of water were turned out of their course; and the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness; and all nations feared greatly, so powerful was the word of Enoch, and so great was the power of the language which God had given him. [Moses 7:13]
Plain old, inadequate Enoch—whose name is now synonymous with transcendent righteousness. The next time you are tempted to paint your self-portrait dismal gray, highlighted with lackluster beige, just remember that in like manner have this kingdom’s most splendid men and women been tempted. I say to you as Joshua said to the tribes of Israel as they faced one of their most difficult tasks, “Sanctify yourselves: for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you” (Joshua 3:5)."
------------------------
" You can change anything you want to change, and you can do it very fast. That’s another satanic suckerpunch—that it takes years and years and eons of eternity to repent. It takes exactly as long to repent as it takes you to say, “I’ll change”—and mean it. 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 repentance by its permanence. But change, growth, renewal, and repentance can come for you as instantaneously as for Alma and the sons of Mosiah. Even if you have serious amends to make, it is not likely that you would qualify for the term, “the vilest of sinners,” which is the phrase Mormon uses in describing these young men. Yet as Alma recounts his own experience in the thirty-sixth chapter of the book that bears his name, his repentance appears to have been as instantaneous as it was stunning.
Do not misunderstand. Repentance is not easy or painless or convenient. It is a bitter cup from Hell. But only Satan, who dwells there, would have you think that a necessary and required acknowledgment is more distasteful than permanent residence. 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."
(Go read it all... for me to include anymore, I'd have to include the whole thing!)
And here are some highlights:
"Remember, (quoting F. Scott Fitzgerald) "Trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement -- discouragement has a germ of its own."
To those who are trying hard and living right and things still seem difficult, I say, take hard. Others have walked that way before you. Read Noah again. Go out there and take a few whacks on the side of your ark and see what popularity was like in 2500 B.C.
Does the wilderness stretch before you in a never-ending sequence of semesters? Read Moses again. Calculate the burden of fighting with the pharaohs and then a forty-year assignment in Sinai. Some tasks take time. Accept that. But as the scripture says, “They come to pass.” They do end. We will cross over Jordan eventually. Others have proven it. I stand before you as a living symbol that anyone can make it through school, fill a mission, and find a job.
Are you afraid people don’t like you? The Prophet Joseph Smith could share a few thoughts with you on that subject. Has health been a problem? Surely you will find comfort in the fact that a veritable Job has led this Church into one of the most exciting and revelatory decades of this entire dispensation. President Kimball has known few days in the last thirty years that were not filled with pain or discomfort or disease. Is it wrong to wonder if President Kimball has in some sense become what he is not only in spite of the physical burdens but also in part because of them? Can you take courage from your shared sacrifice with that giant of a man who has defied disease and death, has shaken his fist at the forces of darkness and cried when there was hardly strength to walk, “Oh, Lord, I am yet strong. Give me one more mountain” (see Joshua 14:11–12).
Do you ever feel untalented or incapable or inferior? Would it help you to know that everyone else feels that way too, including the prophets of God? Moses initially resisted his destiny, pleading that he was not eloquent in language. Jeremiah thought himself a child and was afraid of the faces he would meet.
And Enoch? I ask all of you to remember Enoch as long as you live. This is the young man who, when called to a seemingly impossible task, said, “Why is it that I have found favor in thy sight, [I] am but a lad, and all the people hate me; for I am slow of speech?” (Moses 6:31).
Enoch was a believer. He stiffened his spine and squared his shoulders and went stutteringly on his way. Plain old, ungifted, inferior Enoch. And this is what the angels would come to write of him: And so great was the faith of Enoch that he led the people of God, and their enemies came to battle against them; and he spake the word of the Lord, and the earth trembled, and the mountains fled, even according to his command; and the rivers of water were turned out of their course; and the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness; and all nations feared greatly, so powerful was the word of Enoch, and so great was the power of the language which God had given him. [Moses 7:13]
Plain old, inadequate Enoch—whose name is now synonymous with transcendent righteousness. The next time you are tempted to paint your self-portrait dismal gray, highlighted with lackluster beige, just remember that in like manner have this kingdom’s most splendid men and women been tempted. I say to you as Joshua said to the tribes of Israel as they faced one of their most difficult tasks, “Sanctify yourselves: for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you” (Joshua 3:5)."
------------------------
" You can change anything you want to change, and you can do it very fast. That’s another satanic suckerpunch—that it takes years and years and eons of eternity to repent. It takes exactly as long to repent as it takes you to say, “I’ll change”—and mean it. 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 repentance by its permanence. But change, growth, renewal, and repentance can come for you as instantaneously as for Alma and the sons of Mosiah. Even if you have serious amends to make, it is not likely that you would qualify for the term, “the vilest of sinners,” which is the phrase Mormon uses in describing these young men. Yet as Alma recounts his own experience in the thirty-sixth chapter of the book that bears his name, his repentance appears to have been as instantaneous as it was stunning.
Do not misunderstand. Repentance is not easy or painless or convenient. It is a bitter cup from Hell. But only Satan, who dwells there, would have you think that a necessary and required acknowledgment is more distasteful than permanent residence. 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."
(Go read it all... for me to include anymore, I'd have to include the whole thing!)
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
it comes today
C.S. Lewis:
"We take as starting point our ordinary self with its various desires and interests. We then admit that something else -- call it 'morality' or 'decent behavior,' or 'the good of society' -- has claims on this self; claims which interfere with its own desires. What we mean by 'being good' is giving in to those claims. Some of the things the ordinary self wanted to do turn out to be what we call 'wrong': well, we must give them up. Other things, which the self did not want to do, turn out to be what we call 'right': well, we shall have to do them. But we are hoping all the time that when all the demands have been met, the poor natural self will still have some chance, and some time, to get on with its own life and do what it likes."
"We are still taking out natural self as the starting point." As long as we are thinking that way, one or other of the two results is likely to follow. Either we give up trying to be good or else we become very unhappy indeed. For, make no mistake: if you are really going to try and meet all the demands made on the natural self, it will not have enough left over to live on. The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience will demand of you. And your natural self, which is thus being starved and hampered and worried at every turn, will get angrier and angrier. In the end you will either give up trying to be good, or else become one of those people who, as they say, 'live for others' but always in a discontented grumbling way -- always wondering why the other do not notice it more and always making a martyr of yourself. And once you have become that you will be a far greater pest to anyone who has to live with you than you would have been if you had remained frankly selfish."
"The Christian way is different" "Christ says 'Give me All. I don't so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it No half-measure are any good I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down... I will give you a new self instead, In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours'."
--------
"That is why the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the fist job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other points of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind. We can only do it for moments at first. But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our system: because now we are letting Him work at the right part of us."
"We take as starting point our ordinary self with its various desires and interests. We then admit that something else -- call it 'morality' or 'decent behavior,' or 'the good of society' -- has claims on this self; claims which interfere with its own desires. What we mean by 'being good' is giving in to those claims. Some of the things the ordinary self wanted to do turn out to be what we call 'wrong': well, we must give them up. Other things, which the self did not want to do, turn out to be what we call 'right': well, we shall have to do them. But we are hoping all the time that when all the demands have been met, the poor natural self will still have some chance, and some time, to get on with its own life and do what it likes."
"We are still taking out natural self as the starting point." As long as we are thinking that way, one or other of the two results is likely to follow. Either we give up trying to be good or else we become very unhappy indeed. For, make no mistake: if you are really going to try and meet all the demands made on the natural self, it will not have enough left over to live on. The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience will demand of you. And your natural self, which is thus being starved and hampered and worried at every turn, will get angrier and angrier. In the end you will either give up trying to be good, or else become one of those people who, as they say, 'live for others' but always in a discontented grumbling way -- always wondering why the other do not notice it more and always making a martyr of yourself. And once you have become that you will be a far greater pest to anyone who has to live with you than you would have been if you had remained frankly selfish."
"The Christian way is different" "Christ says 'Give me All. I don't so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it No half-measure are any good I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down... I will give you a new self instead, In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours'."
--------
"That is why the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the fist job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other points of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind. We can only do it for moments at first. But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our system: because now we are letting Him work at the right part of us."
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
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.
"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.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
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")
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")
Saturday, April 10, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, April 5, 2010
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.
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.
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