Comfort in the Promises of the Last Days

“Despite the lack of righteousness in the world today, we live in a sacred, holy time. Prophets, with loving and longing hearts, have described our day for centuries.” (Cook)

Jeremiah said, “I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt…but this shall be my covenant…I will put my law in their inward parts…” (Jer 31:31-33)

Ezekiel said, “I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore.” (Ezek 37:26) “And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean.” (Ezek 44:23)

You Can Have What You Want or You Can Have Something Better

This post is about the Ten Commandments.  Each item corresponds to one of the ten in order as described by Moses in Exodus 20.

1. You can believe in many gods or no god at all; you can look to horoscopes and scientific hypotheses for explanations or — you can have something better: a rock solid belief in God and trust that He will explain everything in his own due time.
2. You can have your big house, fast car, and all the distractions of life or — you can have something better: a relationship with God.
3. You can make your point with profanity or — you can have something better: reverence for the source of true power in the universe.
4. You can vacation, work, wash your car and a hundred other things on the Sundays of your life — or you can have something better: nourishment that comes from worshipping in church and studying God’s word privately.
5. You can harbor hatred towards your parents for all the mistakes they made — or you can accept their gift of life and the things they did right as the gift they truly are.
6. You can take your frustrations to the extreme and kill either yourself or someone else or — you can learn to be happy by dealing with your emotions.
7. You can have an affair, an open relationship or experiment with same gender attractions or — you can have something better: a marriage to someone who also keeps the law of chastity.
8. You can take what you want or think you deserve with no thought for the consequences to others or — you can earn your daily bread through honest labor and gain the satisfaction that comes from a job well done.
9. You can pretend to be who you aren’t, offer what you can’t deliver, and say what you don’t mean, but there is something better: one heart and one mind at peace with yourself and others.
10. You can have a negative perspective preferring to focus on all the things you don’t have — a house as big as your neighbor’s, a husband or wife as good as someone else, a lack of health, wealth or talents and you can become bitter and resentful of God — or you can have something better: faith in His purposes for your life, hope in a brighter tomorrow, love for your neighbor and yourself and a sense of contentment and happiness.

Life is undoubtedly hard.  The trials we face force us to use all our resources, develop resources we never had and discover our own grit and stick-to-it-ness.  These Ten Commandments (as with all commandments) point the way to happiness.

This video is an excellent speech given to an audience of young BYU students but with a timeless message of hope and encouragement.

The title comes from Jeffrey R Holland as quoted here.

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Four Stories about Repentance plus My Own Thoughts

Enos was a guy who had grown up in a religious family but he hadn’t thought much about it.  He attributes his father to what he does know.  When he finally started to feel that “hunger” to know, he took the opportunity to pray in private while out hunting.  He says he prayed all day.  And when night came he was still praying. He doesn’t specify what exactly he was praying for or about but he heard a voice that gave him a sense of Divine forgiveness and his “guilt was swept away.”  He asked the Divine a question, “How is it done?”  This is truly the essence of repentance stories.  How is it done?  What does it feel like?  When is it over?

God’s answer to Enos was: “And he said unto me: Because of thy faith in Christ, whom thou hast never before heard nor seen. And many years pass away before he shall manifest himself in the flesh; wherefore, go to, thy faith hath made thee whole.”

This answer is very similar to the kinds of things Christ said when he healed a person.  Repentance is a process that makes a broken, damaged, corrupted person whole.

Lamoni was what we would call an indigenous man who was a minor king since his father was still alive and reigning in a different part of the land.  He believed in “the Great Spirit” which is a common belief in native peoples of America.  He was taught about Christ and he believed what he heard completely.  However, his culture valued prowess in war and he had recently killed some servants who had lost his sheep to plundering villagers.  So his past actions conflicted with the new value system and he was worried about the repercussions.  In this story Lamoni falls to the ground and remains unconscious for a period of 48 hours during which he experiences the Divine and is taught the truth.  Wouldn’t that be wonderful if we could all have a personal experience with the Divine?  The only reason I can think of why Lamoni got this when most people don’t get it is that he was a king and had the ability to influence many people by virtue of the leadership position he held. The kind of Divine manifestation Lamoni had is not the major takeaway.  What is instructive is that his unmitigated faith led to a complete change in his character.  He went from a leader who routinely punished small offenses by death to a leader who had “no desire to do evil” and was willing to bury all his weapons of war in the ground and give up his life before committing another murder.  That commitment was tested and he and his people did experience a war where they refused to fight.  Who do you know that has made a commitment to shun evil and been true to that commitment when their life was in jeopardy?

The third story is about a man named Alma.  He grew up in a religious climate and chose to fight it.  “He was a man of many words, and did speak much flattery to the people; therefore he led many of the people to do after the manner of his iniquities.” The fire of rebellion gained strength especially when it got social approval from other people. His father was understandably concerned and began to pray for him. In a Divine manifestation much like that which Saul/Paul had in the New Testament, an angel stops Alma in his tracks.  He describes his repentance process, “I have repented of my sins, and have been redeemed of the Lord; behold I am born of the Spirit…Nevertheless, after wading through much tribulation, repenting nigh unto death, the Lord in mercy hath seen fit to snatch me out of an everlasting burning, and I am born of God.

“My soul hath been redeemed from the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity. I was in the darkest abyss; but now I behold the marvelous light of God. My soul was racked with eternal torment; but I am snatched, and my soul is pained no more.”  The great passion with which he attacked the religion is redirected to a passionate testimony of how God frees the soul from the bondage of sin and leads it into the marvelous light of truth.

In the fourth story, Ammon talks about the great anger that motivated his actions before he went through the repentance process.  He was a friend of Alma in the third story and witnessed Lamoni’s change of heart in the second story.  He explains how God’s justice should have resulted in eternal despair for himself and his friends. Instead Ammon took the mercy offered him to repent and change his ways. His anger was dissipated. His life took on new meaning. In addition, the same process that he took personally, he also witnessed in the people of Lamoni who he says “were encircled about with everlasting darkness and destruction; but behold, he has brought them into his everlasting light, yea, into everlasting salvation; and they are encircled about with the matchless bounty of his love. For behold, they had rather sacrifice their lives than even to take the life of their enemy; and they have buried their weapons of war deep in the earth, because of their love towards their brethren.” (Alma 26:15, 32)

The repentance process is one of change from dark to light, a shift from bondage to freedom, a shift from despair to purpose.  In the traditional sense, it implies a wrong action on the part of the repentant person.  In my opinion, repentance is a generic process that neutralizes the wrong actions of anyone whether I did them or someone did them to me. If I feel any bitterness or bondage, and I’m willing to face it and work through it, the atonement of Jesus Christ can and does dissipate my anger and hurt.  Allen Bergin described the process of repentance as a person who came “before the Lord in mighty prayer and confessed fully and frankly exactly what they had done, step-by-step, intention by intention, they began to realize more deeply how they had betrayed the Lord who loves them; how they had violated their own ideals as followers of the Savior; and how they had betrayed, in many cases, sacred covenants. This self-examination is like psychotherapy in that the process of spiritual reform requires overcoming defenses and accepting painful self-awareness. It is an exercise in honesty, guided by the spirit of truth. This is not an easy thing to achieve.”  I have noticed in my personal introspection that my desire for evil often is tied to an injury I received. In my repentance, I have experienced the bondage of sin break under the light of truth and the desire for evil shift to a desire for goodness.  I want to emphasize that walking through the gall of bitterness is often a part of the repentance process. On the other side of this proximity to “death” is the matchless bounty of God’s love. The fear of “death” is real but if you understand that what is dying is the corrupted part of yourself, then you can walk with confidence the path that burns it out of you. I testify that the result of repentance is wholeness. If you run away from repentance you may end up in an addiction which is a flawed attempt to assuage guilt and pain without resolving it.  There are a hundred ways to run but only one way to be free.  Ultimately a personal experience with the Divine is essential.  I believe faith in Jesus Christ and participation in the nuanced repentance process is the only way to experience lasting peace in this life.

Watch a video about the repentance process here

Additional Scriptures on Repentance

• Matthew 9:10–13; Luke 13:3; Ezekiel 18:30 (repent or perish)
• Alma 7:21 (no unclean thing can dwell in God’s presence)
• 2 Corinthians 7:9–10 (godly sorrow)
• Mosiah 4:10–12 (steps to repentance)
• Isaiah 1:18; Mosiah 26:28–32 (repentance brings forgiveness)
• D&C 58:42 (sins remembered no more)
• 2 Nephi 9:23 (repentance necessary to salvation)
• 2 Nephi 2:21 (repent while in the flesh)
• D&C 19:15–20 (the Lord has commanded us to repent so we will not have to suffer as He did)

If you liked this post you might also like What It Takes to Turn Around

Credit:
Allen Bergin, Psychology and Repentance. BYU Speeches. 1994.
Image used with permission

Course Correction

I run.  I choose a course and prepare to run it.  If a friend goes with me, that is fun.  While we share the course, we are unified in purpose.  Can you imagine running a course with a friend who was resistant to the course?  A disagreement about the direction, pace or duration would necessitate a change of plans.  Either I would have to compromise my course or we would have to part ways instead of running together.  While running, we might pass another runner going in the opposite direction.  Their course being completely different would have different results.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  He is making himself equal to the course.  Anyone who runs with him is sharing his course.  Anyone who disagrees with the direction he is going would have to part ways with him.  I can’t imagine Jesus changing his plans to accommodate one person’s ideal course.  He is the ideal course.  Others are running in other directions and will end up somewhere else.

Then Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”  I look at the commandments as par for the course.  If I resisted a commandment for whatever reason, I would have to split with Jesus.  I really can’t run with him if I’m going somewhere else with my life.  I can certainly choose to go somewhere else, but not with Jesus.

This doesn’t leave much wiggle room for worshipping wealth, profaning God’s name, breaking the Sabbath, lying, stealing or coveting.  Jesus talked about all these common sins.  He also talked about being merciful, pure in heart and a peacemaker.  Each of his teachings are part of his course.

I know He saved us when He died on the cross.  His death promises us a resurrected body and a new life.  What it doesn’t promise us is that we will abide in his love on Earth.  Jesus said, “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.” (John 15:10)

In my own life, I’m willing to run the course with Jesus, but I’m resistant to abiding in his love as shown by others.  I avoid the warm fuzzy rewards that people give each other and me.  I don’t feel loved by those around me because I have built up a resistance to it.  I have a negative belief that praise and gratitude are for someone else and not for me.  I have thought about why I avoid this positive feedback.  I think I must have questioned someone’s authenticity when they praised me.  I became emotionally allergic to their words.

Resistance in myself is evidence of an injury.  I don’t want to go where it hurts.  Jesus says, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”  I allow the pain to stop me from trusting that the course will take me to the glory God has planned for me.  Jesus says to me, “don’t allow that because I will give you peace.”

Jesus said, “Love one another.”  I’m ok with loving others, just not receiving love.  I know it doesn’t make any sense but this is what I’ve observed in myself.  My resistance causes tension in myself.  It’s hard to trust with this kind of emotional allergy. 

So I run the course and resist slightly.  I want to go where Jesus is going so I make myself keep going even though it hurts.  (I do that in my physical run too).  Over time, I have tried to understand my resistance and where it comes from.  In time, I’ve come to new conclusions and my perspective change has lessened my resistance.  I think that faith is running the course.  Hope is believing it leads to glory.  Love is what I give myself when I acknowledge my fears and resistance.

The Eternal Reality

Jesus said in John 12:31-33 , “Now is the judgement of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.  And I, if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me.  This he said signifying what death he should die.”

Jesus was born, of royal birth, heir to the throne of David.  He came with a message of salvation and his followers hoped that he would save them from the Romans.  He knew that the people wanted a king and he knew that he was the Savior prophesied to come, but he also knew that he had to give his life first.  Knowing all that, it must have been tempting to ride through the city on a donkey and see the masses waving palm fronds in adoration.  A little fame can be intoxicating.  However, true to his godly nature, he never deviated from the will of the Father and sacrificed everything on the cross.

Now think about his followers.  They had a somewhat foggy idea of who he was.  When Jesus asked, they answered, “Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.” (Matt 16:14)  The more they saw of his miracles, the more they imagined miraculous ways that he could make their lives better.  When he died at the hands of the “Romans,” they went back to their normal lives, fishing, etc. (John 21:3)  The whole mission of Jesus, with his followers demoralized, could have petered out -- but it didn’t.

The followers imagined Jesus’ mission as a king and created a false hope in their minds that he was come to reign.  Jesus always knew the truth and he tried to prepare his followers for his death and their roles to play after he was gone. 

We, too, view life and God’s purposes in it from our own point of view.  We see what is happening to us and imagine falsely what it all must mean.  Then when our hopes are dashed by reality, we grieve.  Lost in a mist of past hopes, present hopelessness, and future uncertainty, we flounder.  

The truth is that Jesus is a king and that he will come to reign.  But he will not just reign in Jerusalem, he will reign over the whole Earth.  What he could have been then is eclipsed by what he will be in the eternal scheme of things.  Only he understood the eternal reality.  His followers couldn’t see it.  We can’t see it. 

The future plans God has for us are more grand and glorious that anything we can imagine.  They include mansions and thrones and power beyond belief.  So when a child dies and our heart breaks for all the things unsaid and memories never made, we are crying because we can’t see.  When everything seems lost, we must remember that Christ calmly gave up everything.  His mission is to prepare us for the role we will play in his Heavenly Kingdom.  Our job is to follow his direction and prepare even if life throws curve balls and we find ourselves being taught through suffering.  There is a purpose to it all.  We can’t see it, but He can.  Every promise He has ever made will be fulfilled.  We can count on that.

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Mending a Rift with Family

I wrote recently about how a rift with God affects spirituality.  In this post I’d like to address how rifts with family members affect spirituality.

Image Courtesy:  American Gateways

In my own extended family rifts have formed over people leaving the family religion, finances when living arrangements were shared, a divorce which affected children negatively, finances when one member needed help, an addiction, and marital discord to mention a few. 

One of the effects I’ve observed is that no one wants to talk about the situation because of the conflict that arises.  Some families avoid arguing.  Others argue in colorful outbursts.  I agree with Troy Dunn who said, “time heals almost no wounds.  What heals a wound is good treatment.  That doesn’t come from sitting there, waiting.”

In my own life I have seen how wounds that don’t get aired out fester.  It is hiding the truth about our soul wounds that impedes our growth.  I like how the hymn states it, 

Who am I to judge another

When I walk imperfectly?

In the quiet heart is hidden

Sorrow that the eye can't see.

In a Deseret News article Charles Randall Paul was quoted as saying, “Take turns talking not about the problem, but ‘how I got to where I am’ with respect to each other or the issue.  A boy who left his mother’s church should not talk about his religious beliefs, but how he reached them.  The honesty and emotion of sharing usually crumble part of the wall separating people.  The potential for healing is in sharing and feeling listened to, confided in, trusted.”  I liked this quote because it identifies the “right question” to ask when seeking to resolve conflict.

Arguments are over the theology, the finances or the details.  I don’t think it is productive to argue about anything.  It is important to hear how another person viewed the events.  Often the same event is viewed differently by people who experienced it together.

Recently I had a mending conversation with a family member.  I learned that without our families we wouldn’t know our imperfections (or what needs to be fixed).  It is tempting to me to try to find peace by isolating myself from others.  While there is potential for happiness in solitude, I believe that the greatest happiness we will ever know will be in our family relationships.

Spirituality is harder in a climate of conflict.  We turn to God in conflict for comfort and guidance.  We often can’t feel peace during these times and spirituality helps.  Some of us turn to numbing agents like drugs and alcohol.  The peace we need is the warm reassurance that everything will be all right in the end.  God can give us that.  As we resolve conflicts we gain confidence that a happy ending is possible.  

Spirituality is a tool for solving problems.  The more we use the tool, the better we get at using it.   I think that spirituality is a healthy way to address life’s problems.  

It Will All Work Out: Faith is The Opposite of Fear

This is Part 2 in a series on Faith

In this post - Fear of the Unknown - Relying on Heaven - Miraculous ways - Learning from Mistakes

Bad things happen.  We all have trials.  Sometimes we even anticipate anxiously the bad things we will experience in our future.  Fear is something we all experience.  I remember a time when the future seemed to hold no promise and when I thought about it I felt depressed.  I use faith when I trust that things will work out even if I don’t know how.  Faith is trust in a Heavenly Father who is looking to bless us.  

One way that fear grabs us is by presenting the unknowns and letting our imagination do the rest.  To avoid this kind of trip, I try to stay in the present.  The present is where I have choices and can “write the ending” to my story.  The present is the safest place to be mentally.  In Texas we say, "If you want to forget all your troubles, take a little walk in a brand new pair of high-heeled ridin' boots."  If you don't have boots, focus on the patterns of light on the floor, the “white noise” in the background, or go outdoors and listen to nature until you feel calm.  I always feel more calm after reading in the Bible — even if the passages have nothing to do with my fears.

Relying on heaven for guidance, assurance or protection is faith.  I rely on heaven by praying fervently, searching for answers and waiting patiently for a heavenly response.  Like a little seed, I cannot control the sun or the rain.  I must grow upward trusting that God will send the sunshine and the rain that I need.  God doesn’t always stop bad things.  Sometimes He strengthens us to endure them.  Sometimes He protects us in miraculous ways.   

For example:  My daughter wanted to bring her doll to a friends house.  I didn’t stop her from bringing it.  She forgot the doll at her friends house and was crying dejectedly.  I said, “some things we have to learn by experience.”  She wouldn’t believe me that it is unwise to take toys elsewhere (at the age of 5).  Now she knows how easy it is to forget and “lose” them.  Luckily, her friend found the toy and will return it.  Good parents let kids make mistakes and learn from them.  Likewise, God could tell us all the answers but we wouldn’t believe him.  We have to see for ourselves. 

“O Israel thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.”  Hosea 13:9

Seedling

Challenge:  Next time you feel afraid turn to the Bible for peace.  You will feel better.