Jesus asked His twelve Nephite Apostles: “What is it that ye desire of me, after that I am ascended to the Father?” They got an opportunity most people can only fantasize about. These men could have asked Jesus for anything. Nine of the twelve requested that after their work was done, “that we may speedily come unto thee in thy kingdom” (3Ne. 28:1-2). The Nephites who were at Bountiful when Jesus descended could not take their eyes off from Jesus. We can assume that the same will be true at the second coming. We will be grateful for the absence of ills and the abundance of blessings, the very reversal of the fall, but we will be most joyful about having the presence of the Lord with us.
“In my Father’s house are many mansions...I go to prepare a place for you...I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, ye may be also...no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:1-2, 6). We all want to go to heaven, but how do we get there? Only by Jesus Christ. How do we get Him to get us into heaven? Faith in Christ, repentance, baptism in water to remit our sins, and receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands. What do these things accomplish? They allow us to belong to Him, they formalize His adoption of us. This is the purpose of baptism, the sacrament, and other covenants and ordinances we receive. Jesus is the only one who earned reentry into heaven; we must borrow His ticket. We must be so attached to Him that wherever He goes, we go also. Covenants bind us, superglue us (so to speak) to Jesus when we keep them. When He enters heaven, He takes us in.
We covenant and demonstrate our willingness to “take upon [us] the name of [Jesus Christ], always remember him, and keep his commandments which he has given us” each Sunday when we partake of the sacrament. Do what He says, always keep Him in our memories, even take His name onto ourselves—these things all bind us to Him. Obedience means we are His servants; remembering Him means we become His fans, enthusiastic; and taking His name on us makes us members of His family. All this indicates own ownership.
That idea rankles modern sensibilities—being owned. “Adoption” might be more comfortable and flattering, but the scriptures do indicate ownership: “...ye are not your own...For ye are bought with a price...” (1Cor. 6:19-20). This is a good thing. If Jesus has no claim on us, then we are the property of offended justice: “...according to the great plan of the Eternal God there must be an atonement made, or else all mankind must unavoidably perish...” (Alma 34:9). We owe a debt we cannot sufficiently pay off; our damnation is all we could offer. Jesus has paid our debt, but we must accept Him. That entails more than lip service.
If Jesus paid the whole debt, why do we need to do anything at all? Jesus’ whole ministry is a long list of dos and don’ts. First Jesus pays our debt, but then He tells we need to work. Justification, or forgiveness for sin, is only one part of being saved; those who end up in heaven are those whose natures are of a celestial quality. To have our natures changed requires sanctification. God cannot change our hearts if we put our agency, our free will, in the way. We must surrender our will to His; good works and obedience demonstrate that surrender.
Lehi teaches, “Behold, he (Christ) offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto none else can the ends of the law be answered” (2Ne. 2:7). Alma asks, “...have ye been sufficiently humble?” His is not asking if we are flawless yet. The sin has been committed already; the Atonement has already paid for it; but are we humble enough to stop sinning, and be cleansed from the desire to sin? Jesus pays for our entry into heaven, but we must submit to polishing before we can enter. This polishing requires our cooperation. Obedience shows this humility, regardless of how often we miss the mark. We do not prove that we are good through our obedience; rather, we prove that we are His. In heaven, obedience is the chief sign of ownership. If something obeys you there, you own it. Our attempts at obedience are often weak and flawed, but when they are symptoms of true humility, they show that we belong to Jesus.
Perhaps that is one reason for the emphasis on willingness in the sacramental prayers. “...God hath said that a man being evil cannot do that which is good; for if he offereth a gift, or prayeth unto God, except he shall do it with real intent it profiteth him nothing...For behold, if a man being evil giveth a gift, he doeth it grudgingly; wherefore it is counted unto him the same as if he had retained the gift; wherefore he is counted evil before God” (Moroni 7:6, 8). Just because it left your hand and went into the coffers does not mean that it counts in your favor. God could take any thing He wants from us; a cheerful giver is what He really values. Doing what God wants is good; doing it out of love for Him is best.
Would God rather have us miss the mark while making a willing effort, or hit the mark while grumbling in our hearts about the assignment of archery? “Behold, the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind; and the willing and obedient shall eat the good of the land of Zion in these last days” (D&C 64:34). Laman and Lemuel physically did everything they were commanded to do; their bodies ended up in the Americas. But their hearts were still reclining in their home at Jerusalem.
Another way in which obedience binds us to God is via direct interaction. As we obey and do the Lord’s work, we get revelation, establish a relationship with Him. “For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served...and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart?” King Benjamin immediately launches into an ownership metaphor: “And again, doth a man take an ass which belongeth to his neighbor, and keep him? I say unto you, Nay; he will not even suffer that he shall feed among his flocks, but will drive him away, and cast him out. I say unto you, that even so shall it be among you if ye know not the name by which ye are called. Therefore, I would that ye should be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in good works, (why? To earn salvation? No, but) that Christ, the Lord God Omnipotent, may seal you his, that you may be brought to heaven, that ye may have everlasting salvation and eternal life, through the wisdom, and power, and justice, and mercy of him who created all things, in heaven and in earth, who is God above all. Amen” (Mosiah 5:13-15).
Our obedience to Christ allows Him to seal us as His own.
“And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.” He will spare “...they that feared the Lord...them that thought upon his name” (Mal. 3:16-17). If we sin (we all sin), it is fitting and just for us to be damned. But if we covenant with Jesus, make ourselves His, repent and humble ourselves, and do the best we can to follow His voice and obey His words, then Jesus can claim us as His property, spare us from punishment, and clean us up so we become more fit to enter heaven with Him, to live in His presence forever. No matter how hard we try, alone we have no leg to stand on. We must rely “wholly on the merits of him who is mighty to save” for actual entry into heaven. However, if we exhibit no signs of changed behavior, repentance, obedience, etc., are we His? If we do not remember Him with love, are we His? If we want something other than Him, are we His? If we are not humble enough to submit our wills to His will, do we really belong to Him? He has done everything for us, given us everything; if we do not try to give Him our all in return, do we really belong to Him?
Our sacrifices and repentance combine with Jesus’ sacrifice and suffering, and connect us to Him. Awareness of our fallen state, and much was sacrificed to save us, and how much we are indebted to Him—awareness of all these things kills our sense of entitlement and petty pride. It awakens a sense of obligation to Him in us.
Read the four gospels. Jesus did not lower the bar for behavior; He raised it to include our internal conditions. “No murder” becomes “love your enemies.” How can Jesus tell us that He has come to pay for our entry into heaven, yet also demand even greater performance of us? If He is buying our debts, it makes sense that He can ask what he wants—but what does our increased performance do?
We grow through effort and experience. This life is a battle, a marathon, an education. We can be sanctified and cleaned inside when we take trials humbly. Active participation not only exposes our hearts, it changes them. We are not just allowed into heaven; we become of the same quality, the same material, as heaven, so that we belong there.
It is a human tendency to look for finish lines where none exist, or even. Even those who assert that a confession of faith in Jesus fulfills our requirements for salvation still experience wrenching and genuine trials in their lives. Death, disease, and financial problems all come. The Lord sends sun and rain on everyone. We insist, like the rich young ruler, that we are ready for heaven; the Lord says, “One thing thou lackest.” Trials show how much growing we have left to do. Faith itself is work: “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent” (John 6:29). “...faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone...shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works...the devils also believe, and tremble” (James 2:17-19). It is self-evident that what we believe most determines how we behave. Behavior is a touchstone for quantifying our beliefs.
In the midst of our floundering attempts to do good, God will inject grace, and make us powerful in accomplishing His work. It is not all pathetic. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do because I go unto my Father” (John 14:12). God can magnify our efforts and prosper the outcome.
“If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Consider the great love shown by Abraham. He was willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac, his most prized possession, the gift he had waited his whole life to receive. The Lord tells him, “...now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me...because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice” (Gen. 22:12-18). We show our love through obedience, and establish whose we are; Jesus then takes his prized possessions the rest of the way into heaven.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Friday, February 22, 2013
The Best Gifts
In Sunday school, we talk freely about perfection, becoming “like God,” complete, whole, flawless, exalted, all-knowing, all-seeing, possessing eternal life. We are inured to the amazing idea of becoming like God. It does not seem unnatural because God is the Father of our spirits, and it is intuitive that children will grow up to be like their parents. “Ye are gods,” Jesus tells those who wanted to stone Him because He claimed to be the Son of God. Any persecution against members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for espousing this doctrine sounds reminiscent of the charges of blasphemy made against the Savior. But the Bible speaks clearly; Jesus speaks of “...my Father, and your Father...my God, and your God” (John 20:17). Paul is candid: “The Spirit itself beareth witness...we are the children of God...and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together” (Romans 8:16-17). Latter-day Saints believe God, our Father, intends for us to mature and become just like Him. The Savior can make us into anything He wants, provided we cooperate with His plan.
It is sad to note that some Latter-day Saints hold the belief that God can make a good man like Himself, yet disbelieve that God can make a bad man good. There is a greater difference between God and a good man than there is between a good man and a bad man. It is easier to climb a flight of stairs than it is to ascend a mountain. President Monson’s recent address in conference notes that while leopards cannot change their spots, men change all the time. We are either ascending or descending; there are no level plains in spiritual progress. Hopefully our complacent plateaus have mostly upward slants.
Joseph Smith taught, and displayed, the principles of love and mercy. How do you most effectively reclaim sinners? On rare occasions, the Lord will send out prophets to “reprove” with “sharpness.” Abinadi, Alma, and Amulek could not convince their audiences to turn away from the brink of disaster. Jonah’s audience in Nineveh responded miraculously to the threat of destruction. But the majority of people do not lack information about their sins. They lack motivation to repent. They defer and delay and postpone and procrastinate because they lack the courage, or energy, or faith, or hope, to let go of their comfortable misery in sin and go looking for happiness elsewhere.
The Prophet’s attitudes come through in his actions and his teaching. “...I...having been...persecuted by those who ought to have been my friends and to have treated me kindly, and if they supposed me to be deluded to have endeavored in a proper and affectionate manner to reclaim me...” (JS—H 1:28).
We Latter-day Saints are fond of quoting Matt. 5:48: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your father which is in heaven is perfect.” But what is the “therefore” referring to? John Bytheway pointed out that the context for this commandment is found in the preceding verses: “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans (the Judean IRS) the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect...” (Matt. 5:44-48). The antecedent clauses for “therefore” are about forgiveness towards those who hate us. Why love our enemies? Because it will help them repent and become our friends, and because it makes our behavior more like God's behavior.
“All the religious world is boasting of righteousness: it is the doctrine of the devil to retard the human mind, and hinder our progress, by filling us with self-righteousness. The nearer we get to our heavenly Father, the more we are disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls; we feel that we want to take them upon our shoulders, and cast their sins behind our backs...if you would have God have mercy on you, have mercy on one another” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 241). It seems that God is very eager to forgive. In fact, He sacrificed His Son, and Jesus sacrificed His own life amid terrible suffering, just to make it possible, legal, and appropriate to forgive us. They have paid a heavy toll for the privilege of excusing our sins and stupid mistakes.
Are we willing to roll our stony hearts a few inches across the line that separates the lust for justice from a willingness to forgive? When we “dream of [our] mansions above,” do we imagine ourselves full of charity and pure forgiveness? All too often, my daydreams are about perfect health and appearance, and other petty concerns. I even dabble in thoughts of enemies wailing in the furnace of hell. This is the opposite of “like God.”
Sunday school is littered with phrases like “perfection,” “eternal life,” “exaltation,” and so forth, but what do they really mean? As I indicated above, the image often evoked is like a Christmas list of telestial concerns. We run through the catalogue of everything on sale; banquets of the richest foods, the absence of blemishes, athleticism, owning whole planets, and on and on. I heard of a Muslim professor who told his students that the description of heaven for Islam is like the inside of a supermarket; rotisserie chicken, milk, honey, wine, etc. My uncle joked that in heaven there will be raspberries the size of footballs with only one seed. You can learn a lot about yourself by examining your expectations of what heaven will include.
We strive earnestly to create a version of our conception of heaven here, however feebly. Those who value health frequent the gym; those who value physical beauty can spend endless hours and enormous funds preening and even submitting to cosmetic surgery. Intellectuals delve into learning, trying to master all sciences; craftsmen and engineers create and build and design. There are buffets for foodaholics; prostitution is still an active profession; enormous mansions always being built, regardless of the state of the economy; drugs for pleasure junkies; ways of risking life and limb for cheap thrills; and security guards, vaults, bars, guns, watchdogs, and bunkers to protect life and wealth. Will heaven be an amplification of this stuff?
The above sounds quite worldly, most of it. It represents the worse and good of the world, not the better or best. This is obvious, so in Sunday school we will preach against most of these things in favor of various virtues we are trying to develop as we strive to become like God. I worry that we also face a red herring there, a decoy. The scriptures describe virtues in long pleonastic lists. We are doomed to be deficient in at least some area of these exhaustive lists. Which ones should we be striving to compensate for, to develop? “All of them” is the knee-jerk reaction. “Be ye...perfect...” And so our discussions about the welfare of our souls can become lamentations of our weaknesses, and plans to prune them out of our systems one at a time. This can be self-defeating, a decoy that draws our attention away from the goal, the best things, and towards the good or better.
I am in no way endorsing sin here. I am saying we have limited time and innumerable options, so we had better lean our ladders on the right wall.
Moroni complained that “thou has not made us mighty in writing...I fear lest the Gentiles shall mock at our words.” Nephi also lamented, “O wretched man that I am.” Enoch wailed, “I am but a lad, and all the people hate me; for I am slow of speech...” Moses shied away from his calling also: “Who am I, that I should...bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt...I am not eloquent...I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.”
These prophets bemoaning their flaws are among the very best men who have ever lived. They were right about their flaws, but their flaws did not stop them from accomplishing their individual assignments. To Enoch: “Go forth and do as I have commanded thee...” anyway, and everything will be alright. Paul asked three times to have a “thorn in the flesh removed.” The Lord gave these men gifts to strengthen them, rather than taking away all their imperfections. The Lord told Moses, “Who hath made man’s mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I?” His response to Moroni is similar: “I give unto men weakness that they may be humble...”
Try as we might, we will be riddled with flaws until after the resurrection. We may enjoy a little success with pruning habits and planting virtues here or there. In this limited lifetime, which virtues should we be developing in our quest to become like God?
Hugh Nibley has noted that no one is very strong, brave, or smart—no one is very anything. He points out two great gifts we have here in life: our abilities to forgive and repent—angels envy us our capacity to do these things. He says we should all take advantage of them while we can, and notes that God has extended our lives for that purpose.
I endorse this course of action wholeheartedly. But there is another ability we possess in this life for which the angels envy us: our ability to marry and beget children, to form families. This may seem like a commonplace endowment among mortals, but it is nonexistent among those without bodies.
D&C 132 contains a confluence of the terms that fill our discussions of godhood, but it goes beyond using them. It defines them. “...exaltation and glory...which glory shall be a continuation of the seeds forever and ever. Then shall they be gods, because they have no end (of posterity); therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue (to have kids); then shall they be above all, because all things (especially their posterity) shall be subject unto them...Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye abide my law (eternal marriage) ye cannot attain to this glory. For strait is the gate, an narrow the way that leadeth unto the exaltation and continuation of the lives (eternal begetting), and few there be that find it, because ye receive me not in the world neither do ye know me.”
Here all those familiar terms—“exaltation,” “knowing God,” “being like God,” “living with God,” “glory,” “power,”—are defined in terms of procreation, a family context. We may be slow witted compared to the angels, compared to who we were premortally, but we have a power in this life we never had before in all previous eons: the ability to beget. God calls Himself Father, and asks us through His Son to address Him by that family title. God gave us a cluster of weaknesses in contrast to the constellation of virtues we covet, but in the midst of that weakness, the gems of forgiving, repenting, and begetting glitter. If we are too concerned with swatting at the mosquitoes of imperfections (which God installed in us anyway) at the expense of forming families, then Satan has decoyed us away from the strait gate and narrow way, from the best to the better.
Even more horrible is the belief that we must wait until we are perfect before we can get married. Yes, we must always be striving against our flaws, and yes, Temple worthiness is the bar we must clear to collect the eternal blessings of marriage, but once we exhibit that “reasonable righteousness” (Elder Maxwell), our main goal should be making and keeping the capstone covenant of sealing to a worthy spouse at the altars of the Temple.
As we survey our flaws, yes, let’s get rid of them. As we drool over the buffet of virtues presented in the scriptures, let’s ask the Lord to bless us with those best gifts missing from our suite of characteristics. But let’s also be mindful of why we want them. Be more forgiving, loving, intelligent, patient, courageous, friendly, stalwart, valiant, faithful, and all the rest, because it will make us good husbands and fathers, good wives and mothers. (Someone with millions of children would need to be all-seeing, all-knowing all-powerful, perfectly patient, merciful, just, and physically indestructible. God gives us gifts to accomplish tasks, not merely for our consolation or vanity.) That is the actual emphasis; we are not here to perfect and perfect and perfect until we feel presentable. Nephi, Moses, Enoch, and Moroni were all mindful of the gaps in their abilities, but the Lord did not give them a note to stay home from school until they recovered from their illnesses. He reminded them of who made them flawed, and told them to “go and do.”
Ugly as it may seem to us, we are burdened down with flaws by the Lord. They are part of His plan; they keep us humble. (Note that the Lord would rather have us humble and weak than strong and proud—that should tell us something about how the Lord values humility). There are, however, compensatory and novel gifts we have been given, and this life is the time to deploy them, regardless of how clumsy our weakness makes the process look. God could bestow or withdraw strengths and weaknesses with the snap of a finger. (He often does). The fact that we do not wake up completely flawless one morning can be interpreted as tacit approval of our circumstances on the Lord’s part. Limp if we must, but let’s still forgive, repent, and create families, aim at that strait and narrow gate, and not become distracted or deterred by the better, good, or bad we lack.
It is sad to note that some Latter-day Saints hold the belief that God can make a good man like Himself, yet disbelieve that God can make a bad man good. There is a greater difference between God and a good man than there is between a good man and a bad man. It is easier to climb a flight of stairs than it is to ascend a mountain. President Monson’s recent address in conference notes that while leopards cannot change their spots, men change all the time. We are either ascending or descending; there are no level plains in spiritual progress. Hopefully our complacent plateaus have mostly upward slants.
Joseph Smith taught, and displayed, the principles of love and mercy. How do you most effectively reclaim sinners? On rare occasions, the Lord will send out prophets to “reprove” with “sharpness.” Abinadi, Alma, and Amulek could not convince their audiences to turn away from the brink of disaster. Jonah’s audience in Nineveh responded miraculously to the threat of destruction. But the majority of people do not lack information about their sins. They lack motivation to repent. They defer and delay and postpone and procrastinate because they lack the courage, or energy, or faith, or hope, to let go of their comfortable misery in sin and go looking for happiness elsewhere.
The Prophet’s attitudes come through in his actions and his teaching. “...I...having been...persecuted by those who ought to have been my friends and to have treated me kindly, and if they supposed me to be deluded to have endeavored in a proper and affectionate manner to reclaim me...” (JS—H 1:28).
We Latter-day Saints are fond of quoting Matt. 5:48: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your father which is in heaven is perfect.” But what is the “therefore” referring to? John Bytheway pointed out that the context for this commandment is found in the preceding verses: “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans (the Judean IRS) the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect...” (Matt. 5:44-48). The antecedent clauses for “therefore” are about forgiveness towards those who hate us. Why love our enemies? Because it will help them repent and become our friends, and because it makes our behavior more like God's behavior.
“All the religious world is boasting of righteousness: it is the doctrine of the devil to retard the human mind, and hinder our progress, by filling us with self-righteousness. The nearer we get to our heavenly Father, the more we are disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls; we feel that we want to take them upon our shoulders, and cast their sins behind our backs...if you would have God have mercy on you, have mercy on one another” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 241). It seems that God is very eager to forgive. In fact, He sacrificed His Son, and Jesus sacrificed His own life amid terrible suffering, just to make it possible, legal, and appropriate to forgive us. They have paid a heavy toll for the privilege of excusing our sins and stupid mistakes.
Are we willing to roll our stony hearts a few inches across the line that separates the lust for justice from a willingness to forgive? When we “dream of [our] mansions above,” do we imagine ourselves full of charity and pure forgiveness? All too often, my daydreams are about perfect health and appearance, and other petty concerns. I even dabble in thoughts of enemies wailing in the furnace of hell. This is the opposite of “like God.”
Sunday school is littered with phrases like “perfection,” “eternal life,” “exaltation,” and so forth, but what do they really mean? As I indicated above, the image often evoked is like a Christmas list of telestial concerns. We run through the catalogue of everything on sale; banquets of the richest foods, the absence of blemishes, athleticism, owning whole planets, and on and on. I heard of a Muslim professor who told his students that the description of heaven for Islam is like the inside of a supermarket; rotisserie chicken, milk, honey, wine, etc. My uncle joked that in heaven there will be raspberries the size of footballs with only one seed. You can learn a lot about yourself by examining your expectations of what heaven will include.
We strive earnestly to create a version of our conception of heaven here, however feebly. Those who value health frequent the gym; those who value physical beauty can spend endless hours and enormous funds preening and even submitting to cosmetic surgery. Intellectuals delve into learning, trying to master all sciences; craftsmen and engineers create and build and design. There are buffets for foodaholics; prostitution is still an active profession; enormous mansions always being built, regardless of the state of the economy; drugs for pleasure junkies; ways of risking life and limb for cheap thrills; and security guards, vaults, bars, guns, watchdogs, and bunkers to protect life and wealth. Will heaven be an amplification of this stuff?
The above sounds quite worldly, most of it. It represents the worse and good of the world, not the better or best. This is obvious, so in Sunday school we will preach against most of these things in favor of various virtues we are trying to develop as we strive to become like God. I worry that we also face a red herring there, a decoy. The scriptures describe virtues in long pleonastic lists. We are doomed to be deficient in at least some area of these exhaustive lists. Which ones should we be striving to compensate for, to develop? “All of them” is the knee-jerk reaction. “Be ye...perfect...” And so our discussions about the welfare of our souls can become lamentations of our weaknesses, and plans to prune them out of our systems one at a time. This can be self-defeating, a decoy that draws our attention away from the goal, the best things, and towards the good or better.
I am in no way endorsing sin here. I am saying we have limited time and innumerable options, so we had better lean our ladders on the right wall.
Moroni complained that “thou has not made us mighty in writing...I fear lest the Gentiles shall mock at our words.” Nephi also lamented, “O wretched man that I am.” Enoch wailed, “I am but a lad, and all the people hate me; for I am slow of speech...” Moses shied away from his calling also: “Who am I, that I should...bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt...I am not eloquent...I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.”
These prophets bemoaning their flaws are among the very best men who have ever lived. They were right about their flaws, but their flaws did not stop them from accomplishing their individual assignments. To Enoch: “Go forth and do as I have commanded thee...” anyway, and everything will be alright. Paul asked three times to have a “thorn in the flesh removed.” The Lord gave these men gifts to strengthen them, rather than taking away all their imperfections. The Lord told Moses, “Who hath made man’s mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I?” His response to Moroni is similar: “I give unto men weakness that they may be humble...”
Try as we might, we will be riddled with flaws until after the resurrection. We may enjoy a little success with pruning habits and planting virtues here or there. In this limited lifetime, which virtues should we be developing in our quest to become like God?
Hugh Nibley has noted that no one is very strong, brave, or smart—no one is very anything. He points out two great gifts we have here in life: our abilities to forgive and repent—angels envy us our capacity to do these things. He says we should all take advantage of them while we can, and notes that God has extended our lives for that purpose.
I endorse this course of action wholeheartedly. But there is another ability we possess in this life for which the angels envy us: our ability to marry and beget children, to form families. This may seem like a commonplace endowment among mortals, but it is nonexistent among those without bodies.
D&C 132 contains a confluence of the terms that fill our discussions of godhood, but it goes beyond using them. It defines them. “...exaltation and glory...which glory shall be a continuation of the seeds forever and ever. Then shall they be gods, because they have no end (of posterity); therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue (to have kids); then shall they be above all, because all things (especially their posterity) shall be subject unto them...Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye abide my law (eternal marriage) ye cannot attain to this glory. For strait is the gate, an narrow the way that leadeth unto the exaltation and continuation of the lives (eternal begetting), and few there be that find it, because ye receive me not in the world neither do ye know me.”
Here all those familiar terms—“exaltation,” “knowing God,” “being like God,” “living with God,” “glory,” “power,”—are defined in terms of procreation, a family context. We may be slow witted compared to the angels, compared to who we were premortally, but we have a power in this life we never had before in all previous eons: the ability to beget. God calls Himself Father, and asks us through His Son to address Him by that family title. God gave us a cluster of weaknesses in contrast to the constellation of virtues we covet, but in the midst of that weakness, the gems of forgiving, repenting, and begetting glitter. If we are too concerned with swatting at the mosquitoes of imperfections (which God installed in us anyway) at the expense of forming families, then Satan has decoyed us away from the strait gate and narrow way, from the best to the better.
Even more horrible is the belief that we must wait until we are perfect before we can get married. Yes, we must always be striving against our flaws, and yes, Temple worthiness is the bar we must clear to collect the eternal blessings of marriage, but once we exhibit that “reasonable righteousness” (Elder Maxwell), our main goal should be making and keeping the capstone covenant of sealing to a worthy spouse at the altars of the Temple.
As we survey our flaws, yes, let’s get rid of them. As we drool over the buffet of virtues presented in the scriptures, let’s ask the Lord to bless us with those best gifts missing from our suite of characteristics. But let’s also be mindful of why we want them. Be more forgiving, loving, intelligent, patient, courageous, friendly, stalwart, valiant, faithful, and all the rest, because it will make us good husbands and fathers, good wives and mothers. (Someone with millions of children would need to be all-seeing, all-knowing all-powerful, perfectly patient, merciful, just, and physically indestructible. God gives us gifts to accomplish tasks, not merely for our consolation or vanity.) That is the actual emphasis; we are not here to perfect and perfect and perfect until we feel presentable. Nephi, Moses, Enoch, and Moroni were all mindful of the gaps in their abilities, but the Lord did not give them a note to stay home from school until they recovered from their illnesses. He reminded them of who made them flawed, and told them to “go and do.”
Ugly as it may seem to us, we are burdened down with flaws by the Lord. They are part of His plan; they keep us humble. (Note that the Lord would rather have us humble and weak than strong and proud—that should tell us something about how the Lord values humility). There are, however, compensatory and novel gifts we have been given, and this life is the time to deploy them, regardless of how clumsy our weakness makes the process look. God could bestow or withdraw strengths and weaknesses with the snap of a finger. (He often does). The fact that we do not wake up completely flawless one morning can be interpreted as tacit approval of our circumstances on the Lord’s part. Limp if we must, but let’s still forgive, repent, and create families, aim at that strait and narrow gate, and not become distracted or deterred by the better, good, or bad we lack.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Shepherds
I recently made a comparison between Jesus’ description of Himself as the
Good Shepherd (John 10), and Ammon, the missionary among the Lamanites in the
Book of Mormon (Alma 17). I expected that Ammon would exhibit the
characteristics Jesus attributes to Himself as the Shepherd of our souls, since
Ammon was working to save souls and save literal sheep at the same time. What I
found went beyond what I expected. Not only does Ammon exhibit the attributes
describing the good shepherd; his ministry also parallels the narrative of
Jesus’ ministry recorded in John. Below I will try to list the parallels I
found between the texts in John and Alma.
A Shepherd Described
Jesus calls Himself “the Good Shepherd.” He cares for Father in Heaven’s children as a loving shepherd. Ammon wants to bring the Lamanites to Christ, and is assigned to care for the king’s sheep.
Jesus says the good shepherd is willing to lay down his life for the sheep. Ammon wants to dwell with the Lamanites “perhaps until the day I die.”
Jesus’ sheep know and follow His voice. Ammon’s deepest concern is convincing the Lamanites to “believe in [his] words.” His fellow shepherds heed his suggested strategy for corralling the lost sheep, and eventually everyone Ammon teaches believes and follows his teachings.
Jesus speaks of “thieves and robbers.” Ammon combats actual sheep rustlers.
Jesus speaks of a thief coming “to kill, and to steal, and to destroy” but contrasts His role as the rescuer who gives his own life. Ammon’s fellow shepherds lament their impending doom at the loss of the sheep; Ammon’s quick action saves all their lives from Lamoni’s wrath. He then risks life and limb in combat with the murderous bandits who tried to scatter the sheep. (Jesus also speaks of the wolf scattering the sheep.)
Jesus contrasts the mercenary motives of “an hireling” who runs from danger with the pure motives of the good shepherd, who gives his life in defense of the sheep. Ammon has no ulterior motive in going to serve the Lamanites; he refuses to take a princess to wife, preferring instead to be a literal and figurative lowly shepherd.
Jesus describes the good shepherd as courageous. Ammon stands against a gang of bandits to protect the sheep, and the lives of “his brethren.” (Later, Ammon is responsible for convincing all the converts to flee to the Nephites for military protection.)
Jesus’ discourse on the good shepherd seems to describe Ammon’s personality and his course of action, both as a literal shepherd, and as a missionary. But the parallels do not end there.
Jesus begins to explain theology in John 10: “I and my Father are one.” His audience then takes up stones to kill him. Ammon confronts the bandits, and slings stones at them; they retaliate in kind, “but they could not hit him with their stones.”
Jesus says He can do such miracles because “...the Father is in me, and I in him.” Ammon explains his miraculous power (Alma 18): “...a portion of [his] Spirit dwelleth in me, which giveth me knowledge, and also power...”
Jesus and Ammon both hope the people will believe after seeing the display of God’s power through them: “...the works I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me...If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe...” Ammon says, “I will show forth...the power that is in me...that I may lead them to believe in my words.”
The people Jesus and Ammon were sent to teach both marveled and speculated about their identities: “If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.” “Behold, is not this the Great Spirit...?”
Jesus identifies Himself: “I told you, and ye believed not...” Ammon also: “Behold, I am a man, and am thy servant...”
Jesus delves deeper into theology, citing scripture to explain both His divine nature in relation to that of His audience: “...thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said I was the Son of God?” Hear the echoes in Ammon’s response to Lamoni: “...Art thou sent from God? I am a man; and man in the beginning was created after the image of God, and I am called by his Holy Spirit to teach these things unto this people, that they may be brought to a knowledge of that which is just and true... Now...Ammon...rehearsed and laid before him the records and the holy scriptures of the people, which had been spoken by the prophets...and he expounded unto them all the records and scriptures...and he also made known unto them concerning the coming of Christ, and all the works of the Lord did he make known unto them.” (Incidentally, the name Ammon is likely cognate with the Egyptian Amun (as in Amun Ra, their Sun God); little mystery then that the Lamanites jumped to the conclusion that Ammon was a god.)
Courageous, altruistic shepherds with miraculous power, who explain the divine source of their power, present miracles as the bona fides of their divine commissions as messengers from God. Jesus describes Himself as The Good Shepherd, listing His attributes in the role, and Ammon follows suit.
Raising the Dead
But it does not end with Jesus and Ammon. There are parallels in the lives of their audiences.
Immediately after the Good Shepherd discourse, John describes Jesus publicly raising Lazarus from the dead, disturbing the authorities to the point of conspiring to assassinate Him. Alma 18 and 19 describe Lamoni falling to the earth as if he were dead, and being resuscitated on the verge of burial. Alma 22 describes Lamoni’s father collapsing and being revived in a similar manner. Both revivals are public, and lead to controversy and political upheaval.
Mary and Martha bury Lazarus. They are prominent figures in the account. Jesus sends for Mary, who runs to Him. The queen summons Ammon, who comes to where she is keeping vigil with her husband’s body, and he tells her not to bury him. Various women (Lamoni’s queen, his father’s queen, and Abish, the maidservant) each play prominent roles in the revival of the comatose kings.
Mary and Martha both lament and plead with Jesus on behalf of their brother, dead for four days. Martha says, “by this time he stinketh.” The queen asks Ammon about her husband’s fate. They discuss whether or not Lamoni is alive; the queen mentions the odor of his body: “...to me he doth not stink.”
Jesus interviews Martha, to ascertain whether she believes in the resurrection: “...whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? ...Yea, Lord: I believe...” Ammon probes the queen’s faith: “He is not dead, but sleepeth in God, and on the morrow he shall rise again...Ammon said unto her, Believest thou this? And she said unto him: ...I believe that it shall be according as thou hast said.”
Jesus becomes very emotional during this episode. “I thank thee Father that thou hast heard me.” Jesus “groaned within Himself” as He approached the tomb. “Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!” Ammon also emoted freely, so much so that he passed out when the king was revived. When Lamoni’s father tried to kill him, Ammon defended Lamoni, and “he also saw the great love he had for his son Lamoni, [therefore] he was astonished exceedingly...” Ammon is perhaps the most emotional person in the Book of Mormon, passing out with joy twice and exulting aloud and undiluted for an entire chapter (Alma 26).
After Jesus raises Lazarus, there is talk of killing him, “...that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.” “Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death.” After Lamoni and his father are raised as if from the dead, and many people are converted, the remaining Lamanites begin to talk sedition against the reigning family, and attempt to exterminate Ammon’s converts. “...they began to rebel against their king, insomuch that they would not that he should be their king; therefore, they took up arms against [Ammon’s missionary converts].” The elders of the Jews also rejected their actual King. Note that on first seeing Ammon, people assume that they can kill him easily; Jesus is also assumed to be an easy target. Later, Lamoni marvels, “I would guard thee with my armies; but I know that thou art more powerful than all they…” Jesus comments that He could have summoned legions of angels to His defense if it were appropriate.
Women in both texts appeal to the main character as they fuss and lament the death of a male family member; through the power of God the main character in each text predicts the rise of the dead man to life; many people believe after witnessing the miracles, and power shifts; public controversy swirls; political turmoil and deadly intrigue arise in the aftermath.
Who Wrote This Stuff?
As I have stated elsewhere, the idea that Joseph Smith or any contemporary dreamed up the Book of Mormon becomes more preposterous as I study its pages. It presents “wonder upon wonder,” like a stack of transparencies overlaid. Each transparency is amazing; the fact that they are all part of a contiguous, organic whole is flabbergasting. It not only provides spiritual nourishment; it provides imposing gems of scriptural complexity that would have taken months for a panel of scholars to compose and insert into the narrative. It is equally challenging for the spirit and the mind.
Parallels similar to those listed above exist between the trial and death of Jesus, and the trial and death of Abinadi, and have been commented on by others. What happened to Abinadi’s people after his death, and what happened to the Jews after Jesus’ death, is also amazingly symmetrical. Cataloguing the parallels is a laborious task (one which I gave up on after seeing they were too numerous to pin down in a day).
And the list of astonishing elements indicating the authenticity of the Book of Mormon grows without slowing.
Acrobats and jugglers and magicians try to attract attention to themselves with their stunts. But the miraculous complexities and authentic touches of antiquity in this book are not amazing for their own sake. The Book of Mormon manages to perform these amazing feats of skill while continuously pointing the reader back to Jesus Christ, which is perhaps the most amazing thing of all.
A Shepherd Described
Jesus calls Himself “the Good Shepherd.” He cares for Father in Heaven’s children as a loving shepherd. Ammon wants to bring the Lamanites to Christ, and is assigned to care for the king’s sheep.
Jesus says the good shepherd is willing to lay down his life for the sheep. Ammon wants to dwell with the Lamanites “perhaps until the day I die.”
Jesus’ sheep know and follow His voice. Ammon’s deepest concern is convincing the Lamanites to “believe in [his] words.” His fellow shepherds heed his suggested strategy for corralling the lost sheep, and eventually everyone Ammon teaches believes and follows his teachings.
Jesus speaks of “thieves and robbers.” Ammon combats actual sheep rustlers.
Jesus speaks of a thief coming “to kill, and to steal, and to destroy” but contrasts His role as the rescuer who gives his own life. Ammon’s fellow shepherds lament their impending doom at the loss of the sheep; Ammon’s quick action saves all their lives from Lamoni’s wrath. He then risks life and limb in combat with the murderous bandits who tried to scatter the sheep. (Jesus also speaks of the wolf scattering the sheep.)
Jesus contrasts the mercenary motives of “an hireling” who runs from danger with the pure motives of the good shepherd, who gives his life in defense of the sheep. Ammon has no ulterior motive in going to serve the Lamanites; he refuses to take a princess to wife, preferring instead to be a literal and figurative lowly shepherd.
Jesus describes the good shepherd as courageous. Ammon stands against a gang of bandits to protect the sheep, and the lives of “his brethren.” (Later, Ammon is responsible for convincing all the converts to flee to the Nephites for military protection.)
Jesus’ discourse on the good shepherd seems to describe Ammon’s personality and his course of action, both as a literal shepherd, and as a missionary. But the parallels do not end there.
Jesus begins to explain theology in John 10: “I and my Father are one.” His audience then takes up stones to kill him. Ammon confronts the bandits, and slings stones at them; they retaliate in kind, “but they could not hit him with their stones.”
Jesus says He can do such miracles because “...the Father is in me, and I in him.” Ammon explains his miraculous power (Alma 18): “...a portion of [his] Spirit dwelleth in me, which giveth me knowledge, and also power...”
Jesus and Ammon both hope the people will believe after seeing the display of God’s power through them: “...the works I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me...If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe...” Ammon says, “I will show forth...the power that is in me...that I may lead them to believe in my words.”
The people Jesus and Ammon were sent to teach both marveled and speculated about their identities: “If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.” “Behold, is not this the Great Spirit...?”
Jesus identifies Himself: “I told you, and ye believed not...” Ammon also: “Behold, I am a man, and am thy servant...”
Jesus delves deeper into theology, citing scripture to explain both His divine nature in relation to that of His audience: “...thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said I was the Son of God?” Hear the echoes in Ammon’s response to Lamoni: “...Art thou sent from God? I am a man; and man in the beginning was created after the image of God, and I am called by his Holy Spirit to teach these things unto this people, that they may be brought to a knowledge of that which is just and true... Now...Ammon...rehearsed and laid before him the records and the holy scriptures of the people, which had been spoken by the prophets...and he expounded unto them all the records and scriptures...and he also made known unto them concerning the coming of Christ, and all the works of the Lord did he make known unto them.” (Incidentally, the name Ammon is likely cognate with the Egyptian Amun (as in Amun Ra, their Sun God); little mystery then that the Lamanites jumped to the conclusion that Ammon was a god.)
Courageous, altruistic shepherds with miraculous power, who explain the divine source of their power, present miracles as the bona fides of their divine commissions as messengers from God. Jesus describes Himself as The Good Shepherd, listing His attributes in the role, and Ammon follows suit.
Raising the Dead
But it does not end with Jesus and Ammon. There are parallels in the lives of their audiences.
Immediately after the Good Shepherd discourse, John describes Jesus publicly raising Lazarus from the dead, disturbing the authorities to the point of conspiring to assassinate Him. Alma 18 and 19 describe Lamoni falling to the earth as if he were dead, and being resuscitated on the verge of burial. Alma 22 describes Lamoni’s father collapsing and being revived in a similar manner. Both revivals are public, and lead to controversy and political upheaval.
Mary and Martha bury Lazarus. They are prominent figures in the account. Jesus sends for Mary, who runs to Him. The queen summons Ammon, who comes to where she is keeping vigil with her husband’s body, and he tells her not to bury him. Various women (Lamoni’s queen, his father’s queen, and Abish, the maidservant) each play prominent roles in the revival of the comatose kings.
Mary and Martha both lament and plead with Jesus on behalf of their brother, dead for four days. Martha says, “by this time he stinketh.” The queen asks Ammon about her husband’s fate. They discuss whether or not Lamoni is alive; the queen mentions the odor of his body: “...to me he doth not stink.”
Jesus interviews Martha, to ascertain whether she believes in the resurrection: “...whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? ...Yea, Lord: I believe...” Ammon probes the queen’s faith: “He is not dead, but sleepeth in God, and on the morrow he shall rise again...Ammon said unto her, Believest thou this? And she said unto him: ...I believe that it shall be according as thou hast said.”
Jesus becomes very emotional during this episode. “I thank thee Father that thou hast heard me.” Jesus “groaned within Himself” as He approached the tomb. “Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!” Ammon also emoted freely, so much so that he passed out when the king was revived. When Lamoni’s father tried to kill him, Ammon defended Lamoni, and “he also saw the great love he had for his son Lamoni, [therefore] he was astonished exceedingly...” Ammon is perhaps the most emotional person in the Book of Mormon, passing out with joy twice and exulting aloud and undiluted for an entire chapter (Alma 26).
After Jesus raises Lazarus, there is talk of killing him, “...that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.” “Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death.” After Lamoni and his father are raised as if from the dead, and many people are converted, the remaining Lamanites begin to talk sedition against the reigning family, and attempt to exterminate Ammon’s converts. “...they began to rebel against their king, insomuch that they would not that he should be their king; therefore, they took up arms against [Ammon’s missionary converts].” The elders of the Jews also rejected their actual King. Note that on first seeing Ammon, people assume that they can kill him easily; Jesus is also assumed to be an easy target. Later, Lamoni marvels, “I would guard thee with my armies; but I know that thou art more powerful than all they…” Jesus comments that He could have summoned legions of angels to His defense if it were appropriate.
Women in both texts appeal to the main character as they fuss and lament the death of a male family member; through the power of God the main character in each text predicts the rise of the dead man to life; many people believe after witnessing the miracles, and power shifts; public controversy swirls; political turmoil and deadly intrigue arise in the aftermath.
Who Wrote This Stuff?
As I have stated elsewhere, the idea that Joseph Smith or any contemporary dreamed up the Book of Mormon becomes more preposterous as I study its pages. It presents “wonder upon wonder,” like a stack of transparencies overlaid. Each transparency is amazing; the fact that they are all part of a contiguous, organic whole is flabbergasting. It not only provides spiritual nourishment; it provides imposing gems of scriptural complexity that would have taken months for a panel of scholars to compose and insert into the narrative. It is equally challenging for the spirit and the mind.
Parallels similar to those listed above exist between the trial and death of Jesus, and the trial and death of Abinadi, and have been commented on by others. What happened to Abinadi’s people after his death, and what happened to the Jews after Jesus’ death, is also amazingly symmetrical. Cataloguing the parallels is a laborious task (one which I gave up on after seeing they were too numerous to pin down in a day).
And the list of astonishing elements indicating the authenticity of the Book of Mormon grows without slowing.
Acrobats and jugglers and magicians try to attract attention to themselves with their stunts. But the miraculous complexities and authentic touches of antiquity in this book are not amazing for their own sake. The Book of Mormon manages to perform these amazing feats of skill while continuously pointing the reader back to Jesus Christ, which is perhaps the most amazing thing of all.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Truth Detectors
Hebrews 11:1 calls faith “…the evidence of things not seen.” One friend pointed out that it is impossible for the belief in a thing to be the evidence for that thing.
Or is it?
We view faith as a wispy, intangible kind of thing. Even the word is ethereal. Say the word “faith” out loud. The tongue, teeth, and lips almost touch, but never really do. The word “faith” has impressive relatives in our language: “fate,” “wisdom,” and “vision” are all cognate, share a common root with the word “faith.” Faith is like a wet bar of soap—the harder you try to grasp the concept, the more easily it escapes. That is, until we are called to act, to choose. Then our true beliefs become readily apparent. Faith unfolds into virtues like trust, humility, courage, patience, kindness, and forgiveness, when circumstances demand action from us. “Faith” is equated with “belief” in common usage. Just as scriptural “charity” is so much more than affection or alms for the poor, so scriptural faith is more than a synonym for belief.
It may be helpful to distinguish between scriptural faith and other things like it. There are many forms of belief—hunches, inklings, notions, suspicions, instincts, intuition, theories, creeds, impressions, and mental models of the world we project and superimpose over events to explain them. All of these fall under the general category of beliefs. But in a scriptural context, before a belief qualifies as faith, it must be placed in something that is 1. Unseen, and 2. True. Belief in things that are seen and true, seen and false, or unseen and false, do not count as faith in the scriptural sense.
Faith that leads to salvation must also produce action—the devils believe (they KNOW, even), but they are in open rebellion.
How can a belief in something that is unseen, yet true, be evidence for the thing itself?
I believe that each of us, in our spirit, has a built-in truth detector, a part of us that resonates with truth. It might be that truth harmonizes with echoes of what we knew before, and is now covered by the veil. Or it may be that the sum total of all knowledge is buried somewhere inside us, lurking outside of conscious access. Or perhaps the light of Christ is brighter inside us when we are exposed to true ideas, giving us a signal that what we are hearing is correct.
Whatever the nature of the element inside us that resonates upon hearing truth, there are many sources that proclaim that there is some organ of our spirits that is activated by true ideas, producing recognizable symptoms in us.
Joseph Smith taught in the King Follet discourse, “This is good doctrine. It tastes good. I can taste the principles of eternal life, and so can you. They are given to me by the revelations of Jesus Christ; and I know that when I tell you these words of eternal life as they are given to me, you taste them, and I know that you believe them. You say honey is sweet, and so do I. I can also taste the spirit of eternal life. I know it is good; and when I tell you of these things which were given me by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, you are bound to receive them as sweet, and rejoice more and more” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 355). If his ideas were true or sweet, why did so many reject him and even want to murder him? I will explore that in a while.
Alma 32 is universally cited as the preeminent scripture about developing faith. But what is Alma asking us to do? “Now, we will compare the word unto a seed.” Not faith itself, but the word, is being cultivated here. He is asking us to plant the word “in your heart,” and “behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed” a correct idea, “behold it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say…It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious unto me.” In other words, a true idea will activate one’s truth detection equipment.
(D&C 121:42 says that “...pure knowledge shall...greatly enlarge the soul...” Does that mean fiction can shrink the soul? Is that the source of the empty feeling that so often accompanied me on my way out of movie theaters? I watched a teacher at church, over the course of weeks, go from having the Spirit to losing the ability to teach thereby, after he joined his employer’s sales department. Coming out of us or going into us, falsehoods shrivel the soul.)
What is the idea, the word, that Alma and Amulek are asking the poor people to plant in their hearts? “...begin to believe in the Son of God, that he will come to redeem his people, and that he shall suffer and die to atone for their sins; and that he shall rise again from the dead, which shall bring to pass the resurrection, that all men shall stand before him, to be judged at the last and judgment day, according to their works...I desire that ye shall plant this word in your hearts...and nourish it by your faith”—it is the Atonement. (Alma 33:22-23). Alma seems to assume that there is already faith in everyone, like a muscle. He asks them to “nourish the tree...by your faith with great diligence...” (Alma 32:41).
The word itself must be something simple; everyone in need of salvation needs to be able to understand the concept. Our brains are so littered with false ideas and flawed paradigms that it becomes easy for us to ask questions with false premises: “O Lord, wilt thou keep me from sailing off the edge of the earth?” If one’s salvation depends on correct knowledge of the laws of physics or a correct model of astronomy or other scientific principles, we all have problems. Hopefully we can be saved with misunderstandings about math and subatomic particles floating about in our systems of belief. But the concepts Amulek is talking about, the “word,” are so simple that anyone can grasp them. We sin, we die; Jesus is the Son of God, who will suffer in our place, die, be resurrected, and save us as our judge at the last day.
Alma is relying on the existence of some innate truth detector built into the fabric of each soul in his audience, some means of independently confirming the validity of what he is saying to the point that they will act on his words.
We get more hints about why we resonate upon hearing the truth in D&C 93. Jesus tells us that we were with Him in the beginning: “Ye were also in the beginning with the Father; that which is Spirit, even the Spirit of truth; And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come…” According to this, we ARE light and truth—it is our very essence. How could introducing a true idea into our hearts not produce familiarity, a desire to adhere to that idea? “…intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth embraceth truth;…light cleaveth unto light…” (D&C 88:40).
How do we receive more light and truth? John says Jesus learned and progressed in mortality: “…he received not of the fulness at the first, but received grace for grace; and he received not the fulness at first, but continued from grace to grace, until he received a fulness…” (D&C 93:12-13). How? How can we receive more knowledge? “…He received a fulness of truth, yea, even of all truth; And no man receiveth a fulness unless he keepeth his commandments. He that keepeth his commandments receiveth truth and light, until he is glorified in truth and knoweth all things” (D&C 93:26-28). “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself” (John 7:17). “And now, verily, verily, I say unto thee, put your trust in that Spirit which leadeth to do good—yea, to do justly, to walk humbly, to judge righteously; and this is my Spirit.” What will be the result? “Verily, verily, I say unto you, I will impart unto you of my Spirit, which shall enlighten your mind, which shall fill your soul with joy; And then shall ye know, or by this shall you know, all things whatsoever you desire of me…” (D&C 11:12-14).
If we want more knowledge, we also have to be willing to bear the burden of altered behavior that comes with it. “Yea, there are many who do say: If thou wilt show unto us a sign from heaven, then we shall know of a surety; then we shall believe.” (Alma had just barely dealt with Korihor, who received a sign unto destruction.) “…is this faith?…Nay…how much more cursed is he that knoweth the will of God and doeth it not, than he that only believeth, or only hath cause to believe, and falleth into transgression?” Our culpability is proportional to the difference between our knowledge and our behavior. If God gave us all knowledge before we were ready to live up to it, we would heap condemnation onto ourselves. Instead, He teaches us “line upon line.”
Obedience causes the Lord to bless us with light and truth. The opposite is also true: “And that wicked one cometh and taketh away light and truth, through disobedience, from the children of men, and because of the tradition of their fathers.” Our disobedience garbles truth and dims light, making us unfit to receive more. It closes the channels of revelation. What remains is the pang of guilt (the loss of light) and the whisper from the Spirit: “repent.” Notice that temptations from Satan are not the only thing that blinds us to truth. The inertia of old habits, engrained traditions inherited from our family, can keep us from new light and truth. Pride and truth are incompatible; that is the main obstacle to repentance. When we are humble, we are also willing to rearrange the furniture in our brain—to accept a new view of the world. “What shall we do?” the poor people ask Alma. This is an announcement of their flexibility, their willingness to remodel their view of the world. (Without discomfort, it is easy to forget that the invitation to repent is extended to US, not just to everyone else.)
Part of the human enigma is our ability to know something, yet not conform our behavior to that knowledge. Donuts, cigarettes, alcoholic beverages, and numerous other commodities and behaviors, stand as testimony to that sad fact. Doing the right thing requires lugging our appetites and passions and pride and traditions uphill. I sympathize to an extent with ascetics of various religions. They want to forgo being of the world and in the world, shunning everything good to escape everything bad as well. Jesus did not pray for us to be translated and whisked away to some paradise free from temptations: “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” How? “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth” (John 17:17). This seems to indicate some kind of change wrought by God to fortify us against evil while we are in a world saturated with evil. These words mystified Christianity for centuries, to the point that the doctors of the Church “deny the power” of God to change our hearts. The Book of Mormon is the best manual for understanding how to receive this sanctification, the purifying of our desires.
King Benjamin’s people are a good model. They recognize their fallen state, the difference between what they know and what they have done: “…behold they had fallen to the earth, for the fear of the Lord had come upon them. And they had viewed themselves in their own carnal state, even less than the dust of the earth. And they all cried aloud with one voice, saying: O have mercy, and apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins, and our hearts may be purified; for we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who created heaven and earth, and all things; who shall come down among the children of men. And it came to pass that after they had spoken these words the Spirit of the Lord came upon them, and they were filled with joy, having received a remission of their sins, and having peace of conscience, because of the exceeding faith which they had in Jesus Christ who should come…” (Mosiah 4:2-3).
Once their egos were out of the way, they could see themselves as they really were, in dire need of salvation and forgiveness for their sins. Notice that they were not only justified, or excused of their sins. They were also sanctified: “…Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us…”—they have faith— “…and also, we know of their surety and truth…” This is stronger language than simple belief. The Spirit has implanted a certainty in them. “…because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.” The Lord gave them certainty, knowledge, AND the power to live up to it simultaneously. With the ballast of sinful desires diminished, and the buoyancy of righteous desires firmly ensconced, they were ready to ascend the mountain of behavior modification required by this new knowledge.
Arguing with the truth can destroy such a mighty change, and cause us to revert back to our old state. “…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. And behold, I say unto you that if ye do this ye shall always rejoice, and be filled with the love of God, and always retain a remission of your sins; and ye shall grow in the knowledge of him that created you, or in the knowledge of that which is just and true” (Mosiah 4:12-13). If we can accept our lowliness and dependence on God, and agree to try to do things His way, He can reach into our hearts and modify our desires to be more like His. With the obstacle of pride out of the way, we will grow in revelation and the gifts of the Spirit.
For years I was so hung up on the unflattering phrase, “unworthy creatures,” that I failed to notice a formula promising permanent happiness in the Book of Mormon. Pride hides the truth from us. How does joy flow from awareness of one’s own nothingness? It invites the Spirit because it is true. It is an easier pill to swallow when it is paired with the greatness of God, and His mercy towards us. All these things are true; and accepting truth into our hearts, uncomfortable or a relief, allows us to receive more light and truth.
King Benjamin’s people are rid of pride in that moment, and he tells them to freeze their minds in that position, lest they lose the light and fall. When we are willing to have our pride skewered, then the rest of our being can experience the gifts of the Spirit, revelation, peace, love, and joy.
When we pray for help with the mundane concerns that consume our routines, the Lord may or may not intervene. But when we pray to know what we need to repent of next, the Lord will reveal it to us (see Ether 12:27). He is anxious to see us progress, and when we pray for what He wants for us, He will undoubtedly give it to us. We keep the commandments to keep our spiritual truth detecting equipment in tune. I suppose we should add this to the list of things we can take with us into the next life—clean spiritual receptors for light and truth.
Or is it?
We view faith as a wispy, intangible kind of thing. Even the word is ethereal. Say the word “faith” out loud. The tongue, teeth, and lips almost touch, but never really do. The word “faith” has impressive relatives in our language: “fate,” “wisdom,” and “vision” are all cognate, share a common root with the word “faith.” Faith is like a wet bar of soap—the harder you try to grasp the concept, the more easily it escapes. That is, until we are called to act, to choose. Then our true beliefs become readily apparent. Faith unfolds into virtues like trust, humility, courage, patience, kindness, and forgiveness, when circumstances demand action from us. “Faith” is equated with “belief” in common usage. Just as scriptural “charity” is so much more than affection or alms for the poor, so scriptural faith is more than a synonym for belief.
It may be helpful to distinguish between scriptural faith and other things like it. There are many forms of belief—hunches, inklings, notions, suspicions, instincts, intuition, theories, creeds, impressions, and mental models of the world we project and superimpose over events to explain them. All of these fall under the general category of beliefs. But in a scriptural context, before a belief qualifies as faith, it must be placed in something that is 1. Unseen, and 2. True. Belief in things that are seen and true, seen and false, or unseen and false, do not count as faith in the scriptural sense.
Faith that leads to salvation must also produce action—the devils believe (they KNOW, even), but they are in open rebellion.
How can a belief in something that is unseen, yet true, be evidence for the thing itself?
I believe that each of us, in our spirit, has a built-in truth detector, a part of us that resonates with truth. It might be that truth harmonizes with echoes of what we knew before, and is now covered by the veil. Or it may be that the sum total of all knowledge is buried somewhere inside us, lurking outside of conscious access. Or perhaps the light of Christ is brighter inside us when we are exposed to true ideas, giving us a signal that what we are hearing is correct.
Whatever the nature of the element inside us that resonates upon hearing truth, there are many sources that proclaim that there is some organ of our spirits that is activated by true ideas, producing recognizable symptoms in us.
Joseph Smith taught in the King Follet discourse, “This is good doctrine. It tastes good. I can taste the principles of eternal life, and so can you. They are given to me by the revelations of Jesus Christ; and I know that when I tell you these words of eternal life as they are given to me, you taste them, and I know that you believe them. You say honey is sweet, and so do I. I can also taste the spirit of eternal life. I know it is good; and when I tell you of these things which were given me by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, you are bound to receive them as sweet, and rejoice more and more” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 355). If his ideas were true or sweet, why did so many reject him and even want to murder him? I will explore that in a while.
Alma 32 is universally cited as the preeminent scripture about developing faith. But what is Alma asking us to do? “Now, we will compare the word unto a seed.” Not faith itself, but the word, is being cultivated here. He is asking us to plant the word “in your heart,” and “behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed” a correct idea, “behold it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say…It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious unto me.” In other words, a true idea will activate one’s truth detection equipment.
(D&C 121:42 says that “...pure knowledge shall...greatly enlarge the soul...” Does that mean fiction can shrink the soul? Is that the source of the empty feeling that so often accompanied me on my way out of movie theaters? I watched a teacher at church, over the course of weeks, go from having the Spirit to losing the ability to teach thereby, after he joined his employer’s sales department. Coming out of us or going into us, falsehoods shrivel the soul.)
What is the idea, the word, that Alma and Amulek are asking the poor people to plant in their hearts? “...begin to believe in the Son of God, that he will come to redeem his people, and that he shall suffer and die to atone for their sins; and that he shall rise again from the dead, which shall bring to pass the resurrection, that all men shall stand before him, to be judged at the last and judgment day, according to their works...I desire that ye shall plant this word in your hearts...and nourish it by your faith”—it is the Atonement. (Alma 33:22-23). Alma seems to assume that there is already faith in everyone, like a muscle. He asks them to “nourish the tree...by your faith with great diligence...” (Alma 32:41).
The word itself must be something simple; everyone in need of salvation needs to be able to understand the concept. Our brains are so littered with false ideas and flawed paradigms that it becomes easy for us to ask questions with false premises: “O Lord, wilt thou keep me from sailing off the edge of the earth?” If one’s salvation depends on correct knowledge of the laws of physics or a correct model of astronomy or other scientific principles, we all have problems. Hopefully we can be saved with misunderstandings about math and subatomic particles floating about in our systems of belief. But the concepts Amulek is talking about, the “word,” are so simple that anyone can grasp them. We sin, we die; Jesus is the Son of God, who will suffer in our place, die, be resurrected, and save us as our judge at the last day.
Alma is relying on the existence of some innate truth detector built into the fabric of each soul in his audience, some means of independently confirming the validity of what he is saying to the point that they will act on his words.
We get more hints about why we resonate upon hearing the truth in D&C 93. Jesus tells us that we were with Him in the beginning: “Ye were also in the beginning with the Father; that which is Spirit, even the Spirit of truth; And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come…” According to this, we ARE light and truth—it is our very essence. How could introducing a true idea into our hearts not produce familiarity, a desire to adhere to that idea? “…intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth embraceth truth;…light cleaveth unto light…” (D&C 88:40).
How do we receive more light and truth? John says Jesus learned and progressed in mortality: “…he received not of the fulness at the first, but received grace for grace; and he received not the fulness at first, but continued from grace to grace, until he received a fulness…” (D&C 93:12-13). How? How can we receive more knowledge? “…He received a fulness of truth, yea, even of all truth; And no man receiveth a fulness unless he keepeth his commandments. He that keepeth his commandments receiveth truth and light, until he is glorified in truth and knoweth all things” (D&C 93:26-28). “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself” (John 7:17). “And now, verily, verily, I say unto thee, put your trust in that Spirit which leadeth to do good—yea, to do justly, to walk humbly, to judge righteously; and this is my Spirit.” What will be the result? “Verily, verily, I say unto you, I will impart unto you of my Spirit, which shall enlighten your mind, which shall fill your soul with joy; And then shall ye know, or by this shall you know, all things whatsoever you desire of me…” (D&C 11:12-14).
If we want more knowledge, we also have to be willing to bear the burden of altered behavior that comes with it. “Yea, there are many who do say: If thou wilt show unto us a sign from heaven, then we shall know of a surety; then we shall believe.” (Alma had just barely dealt with Korihor, who received a sign unto destruction.) “…is this faith?…Nay…how much more cursed is he that knoweth the will of God and doeth it not, than he that only believeth, or only hath cause to believe, and falleth into transgression?” Our culpability is proportional to the difference between our knowledge and our behavior. If God gave us all knowledge before we were ready to live up to it, we would heap condemnation onto ourselves. Instead, He teaches us “line upon line.”
Obedience causes the Lord to bless us with light and truth. The opposite is also true: “And that wicked one cometh and taketh away light and truth, through disobedience, from the children of men, and because of the tradition of their fathers.” Our disobedience garbles truth and dims light, making us unfit to receive more. It closes the channels of revelation. What remains is the pang of guilt (the loss of light) and the whisper from the Spirit: “repent.” Notice that temptations from Satan are not the only thing that blinds us to truth. The inertia of old habits, engrained traditions inherited from our family, can keep us from new light and truth. Pride and truth are incompatible; that is the main obstacle to repentance. When we are humble, we are also willing to rearrange the furniture in our brain—to accept a new view of the world. “What shall we do?” the poor people ask Alma. This is an announcement of their flexibility, their willingness to remodel their view of the world. (Without discomfort, it is easy to forget that the invitation to repent is extended to US, not just to everyone else.)
Part of the human enigma is our ability to know something, yet not conform our behavior to that knowledge. Donuts, cigarettes, alcoholic beverages, and numerous other commodities and behaviors, stand as testimony to that sad fact. Doing the right thing requires lugging our appetites and passions and pride and traditions uphill. I sympathize to an extent with ascetics of various religions. They want to forgo being of the world and in the world, shunning everything good to escape everything bad as well. Jesus did not pray for us to be translated and whisked away to some paradise free from temptations: “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” How? “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth” (John 17:17). This seems to indicate some kind of change wrought by God to fortify us against evil while we are in a world saturated with evil. These words mystified Christianity for centuries, to the point that the doctors of the Church “deny the power” of God to change our hearts. The Book of Mormon is the best manual for understanding how to receive this sanctification, the purifying of our desires.
King Benjamin’s people are a good model. They recognize their fallen state, the difference between what they know and what they have done: “…behold they had fallen to the earth, for the fear of the Lord had come upon them. And they had viewed themselves in their own carnal state, even less than the dust of the earth. And they all cried aloud with one voice, saying: O have mercy, and apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins, and our hearts may be purified; for we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who created heaven and earth, and all things; who shall come down among the children of men. And it came to pass that after they had spoken these words the Spirit of the Lord came upon them, and they were filled with joy, having received a remission of their sins, and having peace of conscience, because of the exceeding faith which they had in Jesus Christ who should come…” (Mosiah 4:2-3).
Once their egos were out of the way, they could see themselves as they really were, in dire need of salvation and forgiveness for their sins. Notice that they were not only justified, or excused of their sins. They were also sanctified: “…Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us…”—they have faith— “…and also, we know of their surety and truth…” This is stronger language than simple belief. The Spirit has implanted a certainty in them. “…because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.” The Lord gave them certainty, knowledge, AND the power to live up to it simultaneously. With the ballast of sinful desires diminished, and the buoyancy of righteous desires firmly ensconced, they were ready to ascend the mountain of behavior modification required by this new knowledge.
Arguing with the truth can destroy such a mighty change, and cause us to revert back to our old state. “…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. And behold, I say unto you that if ye do this ye shall always rejoice, and be filled with the love of God, and always retain a remission of your sins; and ye shall grow in the knowledge of him that created you, or in the knowledge of that which is just and true” (Mosiah 4:12-13). If we can accept our lowliness and dependence on God, and agree to try to do things His way, He can reach into our hearts and modify our desires to be more like His. With the obstacle of pride out of the way, we will grow in revelation and the gifts of the Spirit.
For years I was so hung up on the unflattering phrase, “unworthy creatures,” that I failed to notice a formula promising permanent happiness in the Book of Mormon. Pride hides the truth from us. How does joy flow from awareness of one’s own nothingness? It invites the Spirit because it is true. It is an easier pill to swallow when it is paired with the greatness of God, and His mercy towards us. All these things are true; and accepting truth into our hearts, uncomfortable or a relief, allows us to receive more light and truth.
King Benjamin’s people are rid of pride in that moment, and he tells them to freeze their minds in that position, lest they lose the light and fall. When we are willing to have our pride skewered, then the rest of our being can experience the gifts of the Spirit, revelation, peace, love, and joy.
When we pray for help with the mundane concerns that consume our routines, the Lord may or may not intervene. But when we pray to know what we need to repent of next, the Lord will reveal it to us (see Ether 12:27). He is anxious to see us progress, and when we pray for what He wants for us, He will undoubtedly give it to us. We keep the commandments to keep our spiritual truth detecting equipment in tune. I suppose we should add this to the list of things we can take with us into the next life—clean spiritual receptors for light and truth.
Service and Progress
We all want to progress and become better than we were. Ultimately, we want to be as much like Jesus as possible. What does that entail?
“He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him…” (2Ne. 26:24). The natural, practical reaction to this description of total service orientation is something like, “But I need to brush my teeth, study my scriptures, repent of my sins, gather food and money and clothes, and take care of me first. If I am a mess, can I straighten someone else out? If I am hungry, can I feed someone else? What can I share when I am broke?” This touches on a paradoxical truth in the gospel. We need to repent and change ourselves to progress, but at some point (far earlier in our development than we tend to suspect) progress can only happen as we use our gifts to serve others. Parenthood and missionary work and temple work are all shining examples of this. Exposure to the Holy Spirit refines and purifies us. Do we want the Lord’s Spirit with us? Then let’s be about His Father’s work. His work is to bring about the immortality and eternal life of man—there are many ways in which we are privileged to help in that work.
“That’s fine for God—He has no physical requirements like I do. But I need Me Time to recuperate, and meet my own needs first.” Jesus tells us that the laborer is worthy of his hire—that anyone who is working for the salvation of others can count on the Lord’s help with regard to his physical needs. “Consider the lilies of the field, no thought for raiment, food. “But the laborer in Zion shall labor for Zion; for if they labor for money they shall perish” (2Ne. 26:31). Those who obsess about their own needs become emptier and emptier, while those who serve others are filled with peace, love, and joy. It is a paradox, and yet it is not so hard to see that a dog chasing its tail gets nowhere.
Why are we saddled with so many needs, wants, desires, emptinesses, backs that we cannot massage or scratch for ourselves? Let’s invert the question: Why do all the people around us have so many needs that only we can meet? I believe that all this neediness was constructed by God to draw us together into communities, families. We, and others, are riddled with needs because we need the opportunities to serve and be blessed.
What about self-sufficiency? Isn’t that a virtue? No one is truly independent. “Are we not all beggars?” asks King Benjamin. He cites our dependence on God for oxygen. It’s hard to earn a bonus or get that promotion when our faces are turning blue. Be as self-sufficient as possible, yes; and acknowledge God’s hand in giving it to you. Remember Jacob’s injunction to seek riches for the sole purpose of lifting those who are less fortunate.
If our needs are already met, and we are in hot pursuit of more, more, more, is that a sign of ingratitude? A famine-mentality has swept American culture. One man quoted a sweeping survey stating that the world is incapable of producing enough food to feed X-billion people, and we are therefore headed for disaster. I wondered if the sources he was quoting had taken into account that a full third of the world’s food is wholly wasted, either thrown away after it is prepared, or lost to crop failures. I also wondered if he had considered that most American food companies process food in such a way as to make those who eat it hungrier and thirstier. Repentance on the part of wasteful customers and greedy manufacturers would solve the problem of sufficient food instantly. Delivery to the poor would be the only step left to eradicating hunger.
It is not just food that seems scarce in this richest society ever. Jobs are squabbled over. Everyone, including the wealthiest, is acting as though they do not have enough. If you told someone even a century ago that there would be a country where the leading cause of death was overeating, they would think you were describing some hedonistic version of a fantastic paradise. Overweight, rich people who think they are starving and poor. This is the dog chasing its tail.
Consider a few good men who broke free from this cycle and saw the needs of their fellow men: Ammon, Aaron, Omner, Himni, and their unnamed mission companions. They were up to their eyeballs in hedonistic pursuits when the angel came and blasted their activities. They suddenly had certain knowledge that what they were doing was wrong. What did they do instead? Did they start worrying about their righteous needs instead of their bodily appetites? No. “…the sons of Mosiah…desired that they might...preach...and...impart the word of God unto their brethren, the Lamanites—That perhaps they might bring them to the knowledge of the Lord their God...that they might also be brought to rejoice...Now they were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea, even the very thoughts that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble. And thus did the Spirit of the Lord work upon them, for they were the very vilest of sinners” (Mosiah 28:1-4).
Faith in our salvation leads to a feeling of security about our needs, which opens up our hearts, wallets, time, and resources for worrying about the needs of others. True, these missionaries were fearful of being destroyed themselves, lost because of their iniquities, but those pangs melted into sympathy for their fellow sinners, the Lamanites.
Joseph Smith: “The more we become like our Father, the more we are disposed to look with compassion upon perishing souls with compassion, want to take their sins on our backs…” The plan (a predetermined course of action) of salvation (rescuing) is what we are currently involved in. So is the rest of the world, regardless of whether they know it or not. To be like God is to plot and conspire for the benefit and happiness of those in need.
The difference between a good man and a terrible sinner is much smaller than the difference between the same good man and God. There is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than there is over the good works of a hundred good men. This puts missionary work into a premium position in the economy of heaven, for it is the preaching of the gospel of repentance. Missionaries encourage sinners to repent; “And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father! And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great shall be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me!” (D&C 18:15-16).
Ammon passes out because of the joy he feels. He spends an entire chapter exulting, and his brother even worries that he is carrying on too much. But Ammon demonstrates that he is still coherent in the midst of his joyful paroxysm: “Yea, he that repenteth and exerciseth faith, and bringeth forth good works, and prayeth continually without ceasing—unto such it is given to know the mysteries of God; yea, unto such it shall be given to reveal things which never have been revealed; yea, and it shall be given unto such to bring thousands of souls to repentance, even as it has been given unto us to bring these our brethren to repentance” (Alma 26:22). He gives us a formula for success as a missionary: take a massive dose of the same medicine you are trying to administer. Faith, repentance, good works, continuous prayer—these are the keys to empowering missionaries so they can convince others to exercise faith, repent, do good works, and pray without ceasing.
A sturdy beam falls over easily when you balance it on its end. But when it supports the weight of a whole house, it is not easily moved. Sheep are lost until they work as shepherds to the Lord, to help him find and reclaim his other lost sheep.
We each have an assortment of needs and weaknesses that render us dependent on the Lord and each other; we have also been given a tool belt of spiritual gifts. Why? “…they are given for the benefit of those who love me and keep all my commandments, and him who seeketh so to do; that all may be benefited that seek or that ask of me…To some is given one, and to some is given another, that all may be profited thereby” (D&C 46:9, 12). Some people have all the gifts given to them, “…in order that every member may be profited thereby” (vs. 29).
Gifts from God are service-oriented. True, they benefit their owners, but if you have the gift of writing, you probably should not use your pen mainly as a backscratcher. The holes in my abilities find corresponding sufficiency in someone else’s tool kit, and I have the gifts he lacks. The barriers to a mutually beneficial exchange here are pride and self-absorption; if I need help, will I admit my weakness and ask for it? If I cannot see beyond my own naval, will I notice my neighbor’s need?
The Lord’s way of doing things is often backwards from ours. Instead of waiting to become perfect before we start helping others, He expects us to start helping others, and we become perfected in the process. Can we shift our obsessive self-help paradigm? Laman and Lemuel were not as wicked as they were just practical: “Leave our cushy home in Jerusalem to wander in the wilderness because dad is having nightmares about assassination? Help crazy brother Nephi build a boat to cross an ocean and colonize a place that may not even exist? What next, build a rocket and fly to the moon?”
If the Lord asks us to do anything, it probably will not make sense to us. If it made sense, we would already be doing it, and therefore no course correction or new direction would be needed. So most revelations are impractical on their face. The idea of healing one’s self by administering to the sick, or getting rich by giving everything away, or saving one’s life by losing it for Christ, all seem absurd to the natural man. I used to think the “natural man” was the black-hat bad guy, the villain. What does “natural” mean? Born that way. It’s not “they” or the “other.” We are all natural men and women until we appeal to the Lord and He changes us. Practical, pragmatic, evidence-based thinking is part of being a natural man. This pragmatism useful until the Lord tells us to go against it; then we enter the realm of 3-D faith called trust, where our actions become our testimony. (How we hem and haw and hesitate on the edge of obedience! How we kick ourselves when we defer and see action would have worked.) Black and white faith unfurls, becomes colorful courage and trust and humility as we act on those intimidating promptings.
Bro. Basset was an institute teacher of mine in college some years ago. He told a story about an excruciating headache he was experiencing. He prayed to know what to do. He was prompted to go and serve someone else. It seemed ridiculous, but he went and performed the service as directed by the Spirit. After he finished, his headache departed.
Service to others must be a pillar on which Zion is built. It is more that quaint; it is vital. One measure of how much we are like God is our usefulness to others here on earth, or our desires to be useful. That is the true measure of how similar we are to Christ.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
There'll Be Some Changes Made
I've said elsewhere (on this blog, perhaps?) that repentance is our life's work. No one can do it for us. Various events in life can, however, propel us in a certain direction.
Remember Jonah. He went in the opposite direction of Nineveh, but the Lord only gave him two options: Nineveh, or the belly of a whale. He could not even choose to go somewhere nice instead of Nineveh. No flip-flops and beach chairs and sunny sands for him.
It is easy to cringe and shy away from that one dreadful thing the Lord has asked us to do.
Ironically, Jonah discovered he had the easiest mission any emissary of the Lord ever had. The instant the king found out about his warning of impending doom, he ordered everyone in the kingdom to repent in sackcloth and pray mightily. He ordered a universal fast—even animals could not eat!
Ironically again, Jonah was angry, rather than pleased, with their repentance. He asked the Lord to kill him (after he cried for deliverance from death in the whale), but the Lord tried to calm him: "Doest thou well to be angry?" (Jonah 4:4). Then Jonah sits outside the city limits under a lean-to, and waits for the Lord to unleash destruction on his investigators. (Sounds like someone waiting for a fireworks display.)
Jonah seems tossed back and forth between extremes; either he runs away, and begs for life, or fulfills his mission, and begs for death in frustration at his own good success.
"And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death. Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?"
The Lord spares everyone in the story—Jonah, the people in the ship who threw him overboard, the whale, the entire city of Nineveh. Only the gourd is destroyed, and its destruction is instructive. Jonah did not do anything to create Ninevah, its 120,000 inhabitants, or the gourd. He mopes and grumbles because the Lord will not destroy Nineveh after they repent. He is ambivalent about his own life, too.
So many bad things can happen in life, but we can usually look back and say in honesty, "That wasn't so bad." Anticipation of the horrors is usually worse than the things themselves. (Jonah would have run to Nineveh if the Lord had told him how the people would receive his message. But the Lord tests our faith by not giving us windows into the outcome of our obedience.)
"...thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high..." (D&C 121:7-8).
Jonah could not change anything in his narrative but his own attitude. He could go to Nineveh on foot, or by whale. He could not change the people's attitude (though he did succeed at persuading them, the most amazing thing Jonah did affect in the story!). He did not make the gourd grow; he could not keep it from dying; his lean-to was insufficient; nothing he did, EXCEPT what the Lord told him to do, made the slightest bit of difference in his success or trajectory. He did not change a thing, except his own attitude.
If the circumstances do not change when we endure well, what does "enduring well" entail?
Remember Jonah. He went in the opposite direction of Nineveh, but the Lord only gave him two options: Nineveh, or the belly of a whale. He could not even choose to go somewhere nice instead of Nineveh. No flip-flops and beach chairs and sunny sands for him.
It is easy to cringe and shy away from that one dreadful thing the Lord has asked us to do.
Ironically, Jonah discovered he had the easiest mission any emissary of the Lord ever had. The instant the king found out about his warning of impending doom, he ordered everyone in the kingdom to repent in sackcloth and pray mightily. He ordered a universal fast—even animals could not eat!
Ironically again, Jonah was angry, rather than pleased, with their repentance. He asked the Lord to kill him (after he cried for deliverance from death in the whale), but the Lord tried to calm him: "Doest thou well to be angry?" (Jonah 4:4). Then Jonah sits outside the city limits under a lean-to, and waits for the Lord to unleash destruction on his investigators. (Sounds like someone waiting for a fireworks display.)
Jonah seems tossed back and forth between extremes; either he runs away, and begs for life, or fulfills his mission, and begs for death in frustration at his own good success.
"And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death. Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?"
The Lord spares everyone in the story—Jonah, the people in the ship who threw him overboard, the whale, the entire city of Nineveh. Only the gourd is destroyed, and its destruction is instructive. Jonah did not do anything to create Ninevah, its 120,000 inhabitants, or the gourd. He mopes and grumbles because the Lord will not destroy Nineveh after they repent. He is ambivalent about his own life, too.
So many bad things can happen in life, but we can usually look back and say in honesty, "That wasn't so bad." Anticipation of the horrors is usually worse than the things themselves. (Jonah would have run to Nineveh if the Lord had told him how the people would receive his message. But the Lord tests our faith by not giving us windows into the outcome of our obedience.)
"...thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high..." (D&C 121:7-8).
Jonah could not change anything in his narrative but his own attitude. He could go to Nineveh on foot, or by whale. He could not change the people's attitude (though he did succeed at persuading them, the most amazing thing Jonah did affect in the story!). He did not make the gourd grow; he could not keep it from dying; his lean-to was insufficient; nothing he did, EXCEPT what the Lord told him to do, made the slightest bit of difference in his success or trajectory. He did not change a thing, except his own attitude.
If the circumstances do not change when we endure well, what does "enduring well" entail?
A good mentor and friend has defined repentance as a change of perspective, seeing things differently. The biggest change is not giving back the money we stole—it is becoming an honest person who sees others' needs and feelings as equal to his own. Where has the big change happened? In the thief's mind and heart. If a change of behavior were the sum of repentance, going to prison or losing the opportunity to sin would count as repentance. Having the opportunity, but not wanting to commit the sin, is the essence of repentance; a change of behavior is one of the symptoms (an important one, but a symptom nonetheless). Dragging our feet when the Lord asks us to do something is rebellion, however innocuous our omission may seem externally.
Giving up a horrendous evil is fairly easy in the sense that we know we need to do it; giving up something we see as good or neutral requires a genuine love of the Lord, because there is no peer pressure to smoke us out of our bunker. God's requirement to surrender whatever it may be makes holding onto it a sin. So we may be losing the Spirit by sitting still, not simply by committing overt, grievous sin.
I wonder if the Lord looks at our messed up hearts the way a mother might look at her small daughter's tangled, snarled hair. The mother might apply a painfully firm stroke of the brush to untangle the knots; the Lord applies the absence of the Spirit.
"I will impart unto you of my Spirit, which shall enlighten your mind, which shall fill your soul with joy..." (D&C 11:13).
But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I...of which in the smallest, yea, even in the least degree you have tasted at the time I withdrew my Spirit" (D&C 19:17, 20).
"...After ye have repented of your sins, and witnessed unto the Father that ye are willing to keep my commandments, by the baptism of water, and have received the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost, and can speak with a new tongue, yea, even with the tongue of angels, and after this should deny me, it would have been better for you that ye had not known me" (2Ne. 31:14). Entering into covenants with the Lord is like driving a car over one of those one-way spike systems; forward is the only safe direction to go. The Lord knows this, and so He is willing to use harsh measures to keep us oriented toward Him. That includes being thrown overboard in a storm, or swallowed by a whale.
Jonah seemed to have come to a path, where he did not know what would happen if he walked down it (though it seemed like certain doom). The Lord told him to walk that path. He balked at first. He gave in when the Lord twisted his arm. When he finally did walk down the path, an entire city repented together. The same thing would have happened whether Jonah tried to take a detour in the ocean or not; that is probably why Jonah received the assignment in the first place. Jonah needed to repent as much as anyone in the city; his heart was in the wrong place, whether his body was in the whale or in Nineveh.
Giving up a horrendous evil is fairly easy in the sense that we know we need to do it; giving up something we see as good or neutral requires a genuine love of the Lord, because there is no peer pressure to smoke us out of our bunker. God's requirement to surrender whatever it may be makes holding onto it a sin. So we may be losing the Spirit by sitting still, not simply by committing overt, grievous sin.
I wonder if the Lord looks at our messed up hearts the way a mother might look at her small daughter's tangled, snarled hair. The mother might apply a painfully firm stroke of the brush to untangle the knots; the Lord applies the absence of the Spirit.
"I will impart unto you of my Spirit, which shall enlighten your mind, which shall fill your soul with joy..." (D&C 11:13).
But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I...of which in the smallest, yea, even in the least degree you have tasted at the time I withdrew my Spirit" (D&C 19:17, 20).
"...After ye have repented of your sins, and witnessed unto the Father that ye are willing to keep my commandments, by the baptism of water, and have received the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost, and can speak with a new tongue, yea, even with the tongue of angels, and after this should deny me, it would have been better for you that ye had not known me" (2Ne. 31:14). Entering into covenants with the Lord is like driving a car over one of those one-way spike systems; forward is the only safe direction to go. The Lord knows this, and so He is willing to use harsh measures to keep us oriented toward Him. That includes being thrown overboard in a storm, or swallowed by a whale.
Jonah seemed to have come to a path, where he did not know what would happen if he walked down it (though it seemed like certain doom). The Lord told him to walk that path. He balked at first. He gave in when the Lord twisted his arm. When he finally did walk down the path, an entire city repented together. The same thing would have happened whether Jonah tried to take a detour in the ocean or not; that is probably why Jonah received the assignment in the first place. Jonah needed to repent as much as anyone in the city; his heart was in the wrong place, whether his body was in the whale or in Nineveh.
In the midst of the darkened wreckage of the destruction after the Savior's death, the Nephites hear a voice that consoles and amazes them, even as it takes credit for all the catastrophes: "Behold, I have come unto the world to bring redemption unto the world, to save the world from sin. Therefore, whoso repenteth and cometh unto me as a little child, him will I receive, for of such is the kingdom of God. Behold, for such I have laid down my life, and have taken it up again; therefore repent, and come unto me ye ends of the earth, and be saved" (3Ne. 9:21-22). Cities being laid waste was more than a spanking—it was a nudge in the right direction. They were a people who had made covenants, and they were careening off into the path of sin. The Lord saved them from sin by ending the party (abruptly, roughly). The survivors did come to the Lord, and He did receive them.
"...Behold, O Lord, thou hast smitten us because of our iniquity, and hast driven us forth, and for these many years we have been in the wilderness; nevertheless, thou hast been merciful unto us. O Lord, look upon me in pity, and turn away thine anger from this thy people...And I know, O Lord, that thou hast all power, and can do whatsoever thou wilt for the benefit of man; therefore touch these stones, O Lord, with thy finger, and prepare them that they may shine forth in darkness; and they shall shine forth unto us in the vessels which we have prepared, that we may have light while we shall cross the sea" (Ether 3:3-4). We are not just being clobbered; we are being driven in a specific direction.
What changes can we make? We can adjust our attitude, bend our will a little, and go along with the Lord's plans for us.
"...Behold, O Lord, thou hast smitten us because of our iniquity, and hast driven us forth, and for these many years we have been in the wilderness; nevertheless, thou hast been merciful unto us. O Lord, look upon me in pity, and turn away thine anger from this thy people...And I know, O Lord, that thou hast all power, and can do whatsoever thou wilt for the benefit of man; therefore touch these stones, O Lord, with thy finger, and prepare them that they may shine forth in darkness; and they shall shine forth unto us in the vessels which we have prepared, that we may have light while we shall cross the sea" (Ether 3:3-4). We are not just being clobbered; we are being driven in a specific direction.
What changes can we make? We can adjust our attitude, bend our will a little, and go along with the Lord's plans for us.
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