D&C 58: 42 - Forgive and Forget

D&C 58: 42 says, "Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more." But what does that mean, exactly? I understand the part about repentance and forgiveness, but what I don't understand is the part where the Lord said that He won't remember the sins that we've repented of. Could it be that He actually, literally, forgets them?

Part of me is thinking that that is completely ridiculous. For starters, He's pretty much omniscient. He knows everything, including all of the details surrounding every sin we've ever committed. It just doesn't make sense for an omniscient being to have fuzzy spots in His memory so that He literally doesn't remember the sins that He has forgiven. He must remember that they happened, so what does it mean that He will "remember them no more"?

I'm kind of guessing that it just means that those sins won't be counted against us - that they won't affect our spiritual permanent record. Sure, He'll remember that they happened, because He knows everything, but that doesn't mean He'll necessarily bring them up at Final Judgement. We repented, He forgave us, and that's really all that matters, so there's no reason to bring it back up. In that sense, He might as well have forgotten about them, because they're not going to come up again, but I still think that, somewhere in the back of His mind, He still remembers everything.

So, does Jesus remember repented-of sins or not? If we take His word literally, He must not. But how often does Jesus speak literally, anyway? He frequently teaches in parables and uses what we might call poetic language. He uses words more creatively than we do. Perhaps, when He says that He'll "remember [our sins] no more," it doesn't mean to Him what we think it literally means. It doesn't make sense for an omniscient being to literally forget anything, so what does it mean when He says that He won't remember them?

Once again, I really just kind of think that it just means that He won't bring it up again. Yeah, it happened, and He probably remembers that it happened, but it's been repented of, the debt has been paid for, it's all in the past, so there's no reason to bring it back up. There is, from that moment on, no real need to remember that sin, except to learn what you can from the experience. It doesn't need to stay on your permanent record or be brought up at final judgement. It may as well have not even happened, except that we hopefully have all learned something from it.

I haven't learned definitively whether Jesus literally forgets forgiven sins or not, but I think we've established that once a sin has been forgiven, the information concerning it is mostly no longer needed. If the information no longer matters, then I guess it really doesn't matter whether Jesus holds on to the information or not. Whether He actually forgets or not, what's important to remember is that He forgives.

Encourage Your "Competitors"

Another thing Bishop Stevenson spoke about is an experience that one LDS Olympic athlete did to help another athlete from a different country.

As a skier and a snowboarder myself, I was deeply impressed with the “four-minute” silver medal-winning performance of Australian LDS athlete and snowboarder Torah Bright in the half-pipe competition. She dazzled the world as she finished a virtually flawless run culminating in a backside rodeo 720. However, even more impressive and surprising to the world was the way she reached out and demonstrated Christlike love to her competitors. She noticed that American snowboarder Kelly Clark, who had a bad first run in her final round, appeared to be nervous about her second run. “She gave me a hug,” Clark recalls. “She just held me until I actually calmed down enough and I slowed my breathing. It was good to have a hug from a friend.” Kelly Clark would later join Torah on the winners’ podium as a bronze medalist. 

When asked about this unusual act of kindness toward her opponent, which could have put her own silver medal at risk, Torah simply said, “I am a competitor—I want to do my best—but I want my fellow competitors to do their best, too.” 

With that in mind, is there someone who needs your encouragement? a family member? a friend? a classmate or fellow quorum member? How can you help them with their four minutes?

Life isn't a race. It's not like in the Olympics where there can be only one or three winners (in my opinion, everyone who makes it to the Olympics is a winner, but they don't all get medals, let alone gold ones). In life, everyone can get "Gold Medals." We can all win. I don't think, as some people believe, that there are only so many spots available in heaven or that only a certain number of people will be allowed to go there. I just read a quote on Facebook (and I'm sure I've heard it earlier elsewhere), "The only person you need to be better than is the person you were yesterday." Getting to heaven isn't about who can achieve self-mastery the fastest or who can live the commandments most perfectly. It's about whether we keep the commandments and achieve self-mastery at all. As far as our personal spiritual development is concerned, it doesn't matter how well or poorly anyone else did. We each pass or fail based on our own merits, not wether we were better or worse than anyone else.

So, given that elevating another person and inspiring them to live better isn't going to jeopardize our chances of getting to heaven ourselves, we honestly have nothing to lose by helping others. Torah Bright could have lost out on her Silver Medal if the encouragement she gave Kelly Clark helped Kelly perform a better run than Torah did, but she didn't use that as an excuse to be mean or even apathetic toward Kelly. She helped her fellow competitor do the best that she could do, and so should we. In fact, showing Christlike love is a great way to improve our own spiritual standing as well, so not only will helping another person NOT hurt our chances of qualifying for the Celestial Kingdom, it'll actually help us to do so.

I love the gospel. I love situations where everyone is on the same team and we can all win together. I love it when people help each other, and we all do better as a result of that than we could have done on our own. I love helping others and I love it when I get the help I need when I need it. I also love the fact that getting into heaven isn't a competition to see who can be more righteous than everyone else. I'd be in serious trouble if it were! And last but not least, I'm very grateful for the Atonement, which, as Bishop Stevenson put it, "can make up for imperfections in our performance." I haven't had a perfect run so far (I don't think any of us have), but thanks to receiving a great deal of help from multiple people, I'm doing better than I think I could have done on my own. Now I just hope that I can pay it forward and help other people do better as well.

Remembering the Millennia of Preparation

I haven't blogged about a Conference talk for a while. There's one section left for me to finish up, and I only have about a month or two to cover it until the next one comes. The talk I just read this morning was Bishop Gary E. Stevenson's talk, Your Four Minutes. He spoke of how Olympic athletes had prepared for years for a contest which, in some cases, lasted only four minutes per person. He related these contests to our mortal lives, noting how such a relatively short time from the perspective of the eternities can nevertheless have eternal consequences. He even admitted that it may seem unfair that so much hinges on what we do in such a short period of time. However, just like the Olympic athletes, we have had a good, long time to prepare for this.

You are an eternal being. Before you were born, you existed as a spirit. In the presence of a loving Heavenly Father, you trained and prepared to come to earth for a brief moment and, well, perform. This life is your four minutes.

...

Dear friends, you are in the midst of an exhilarating journey. In some ways, you are racing down the half-pipe or sled track, and it can be challenging to perform each element or navigate each turn along the way. But remember, you’ve prepared for this for millennia. This is your moment to perform. This is your four minutes! The time is now!

My problem with this idea is that I don't remember the millennia I spent preparing for my few decades of mortality. Does training really do a person any good if they can't remember any of it? Yes, and here's why.

Imagine that you're in terrific physical shape. You exercise each morning. You jog for miles, lift weights that weigh as much as you do, and you do it all easily because you're extremely physically fit. Then, one afternoon, a flowerpot lands on your head, knocking you out, and you wake up with amnesia. You don't remember what you did that morning. You don't remember what you've done every morning since you were a child. You don't know that you've been exercising for years. Yet, your body is still strong. You don't have to remember how you got to be so strong. You just need to recognize how strong you are and put that strength to good use.

We've all spent eons developing great spiritual strength, and much of that strength stayed with us as we were born. Some of us may have lost some of our old strength through lack of recent exercise, and some of us may have done things that weakened our spirits even further, but we all still have a great deal of spiritual strength inside of us. We just need to tap into that strength and use it to choose the right - to start exercising again.

One part of our training that I'll admit may not still be useful to us is the study of techniques. If, in the pre-mortal world, we learned tricks that help us resist temptation, keep the spirit with us, and remember Christ always, we've probably forgotten many of those tricks. We don't remember the strategies we learned as we fought in the war in heaven. Yet, maybe subconsciously we do.

The idea of muscle memory is that your body has done something so many times that now you can do it almost without thinking about it. Like tying your shoe. When was the last time you had to ask yourself "Where does this end of the shoelace go at this step?" It's probably been a while because you've had so much practice at tying your shoes that now your hands can do it automatically. The same can apply to other things, like driving your car or writing or typing - things that may have taken a lot of practice at first, but now you can do them without even thinking about it.

It could be that there's something like a spiritual muscle memory. It's possible that we spent so much time learning and practicing spiritual techniques that our spirits may still subconsciously remember how to do them. This may be where we get such talents as singing hymns or saying meaningful prayers. Of course, I'm only speculating on this. It just seems unthinkable to me that we would spend an eternity preparing for our lives on earth without at least some of that preparation carrying over to being of use in our mortal lives. I'm sure that some of our pre-mortal training stuck with us in one form or another.

We may not consciously remember what we did during the thousands of years before we were born on this earth, but just as how we spend our time here will have a big impact on how we spend the rest of eternity, I'm sure that the training we experienced before our births can be of some benefit to us now. That training must still be helping us somehow, even though we currently don't remember any of it.

Why Society Should Listen to God on the Topic of Traditional Marriage

I just spent an hour watching a man named Ryan T. Anderson talk about why marriage is defined as being between a man and a woman and what effects that and other possible definitions do or could have on society as a whole. He is in favor of traditional marriage, but for the sake of this argument, he left tradition, ethics, and religion out of the conversation for the most part - considering only what effects various definitions of marriage would have on society and why a permanent, monogamous, heterosexual serves as the best ideal setting in which to raise kids. It was very interesting.

What I mostly got out of it is that society has an interest in not letting society fall apart. As an organism, society has an interest in self-preservation. As a unit, society wants to continue to function, and to do so smoothly. Crime and poverty are disruptive to society. Criminals and the very poor are like auto parts that, instead of helping the car run optimally, add only dead weight or even directly sabotage the machine. It would clearly be great if there were less crime and poverty in the United States.

There are several factors that lead to poverty and to criminal behavior, which I believe are also linked to each other. At least one of those factors is the upbringing of those who eventually fall into poverty and/or turn to a life of crime. Studies show that some types of households and family relationships are less likely to produce criminals than others, and monogamous, heterosexual relationships have a better track record than unfaithful, single-parent, or same-sex-relationship families. Basically, a child is more likely to become an upstanding citizen if they're raised by a loving mother and a loving father. If either of those two parents are absent, that child is going to have a harder time in society, even if the missing mother or father is replaced by a second father or a second mother. Surely, having same-sex parents is better than having no parents at all. It's probably also better than only having one parent, though I haven't heard of many studies comparing those scenarios. But a loving, faithful, heterosexual couple is statistically probably to be better parents than same-sex couples, in terms of whether their kids end up being beneficial or detrimental to society.

As a person who believes, for religious reasons, that heterosexual couples are more favorable than same-sex couples, but who doesn't want to cram his religion down other people's throats, and as a person who believes that new ideas are sometimes (though not always) just as good, if not better than old ideas, I was glad to hear a non-religious, non-traditionalist argument in favor of traditional, god-sanctioned marriage between a man and a woman. Essentially, it'll be better for America. There will be less crime and poverty, fewer broken homes, and generally more stability and happiness in our society.

Now, I don't want to put words into Mr. Anderson's mouth. That was my non-traditionalist, non-religious argument in favor of heterosexual marriage. If you want to hear his thoughts on the subject (and have an hour of time to spare), I'll include a link here.

To throw an inspirational thought onto this political argument, this just goes to show that God know what He's talking about. He knows what's best for His children, for society as a whole. He knows what will bring the most happiness, and He encourages us to support those things. He also knows what's not good for us or for our society, and He has asked us to stand against those things. I don't want to be discriminatory or bigoted, but I have faith that God wants all of us to be happy, that He knows what will contribute to or detract from our happiness, and that His commandments are given for the express purpose of improving our happiness. I want people to be happy, too, and normally that would lead me to allow people to pursue happiness however they choose. But God knows what's best for our happiness better than we do. If God says we'd all be happier keeping His commandments than breaking them, and I truly believe that, then I, too, should discourage people from breaking the commandments, even if they think that breaking God's commandments is what will make them happy.

I'm sure that a lot of people disagree with me on this topic, but I have to stand by my beliefs and by evidence that's shown by society as a whole, especially when those two things agree. And right now, they're both saying that traditional marriages are better for children, the backbone of society, than non-traditional ones.

Tips for Withstanding Whirlwinds

The person who will be teaching in Elder's Quorum today asked me if I would share a brief message about how I prepare to withstand spiritual whirlwinds. The term "spiritual whirlwinds" refers to Elder Neil L. Andresen's talk, Spiritual Whirlwinds, in which he said,

More concerning than the prophesied earthquakes and wars are the spiritual whirlwinds that can uproot you from your spiritual foundations... 

The worst whirlwinds are the temptations of the adversary.

Thinking of spiritual whirlwinds this way, it seems to me that the best way to withstand such whirlwinds is to be firmly rooted on the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.
Helaman 5:12

But that's just a generic, Sunday-school answer. If the teacher wants to hear specifically how I keep myself rooted on the gospel of Christ and withstand spiritual whirlwinds, I'll tell them that I do it mostly by praying for God's help to be able to do it.

Satan's temptations are subtle, sometimes too subtle to detect, and they're strong, sometimes seeming to be too strong to resist. For the wisdom to recognize the devil's temptations and for the moral strength to resist them, I often need God's help, and to get God's help, you often need to pray for it.

Another thing I do to keep myself firmly anchored to the gospel of Jesus Christ is to occasionally review the basics of the gospel. I ask myself questions like "Why is faith important?" "How does faith lead to obedience and repentance?" "What makes repentance and forgiveness so awesome?" and "How do these basic steps help me progress toward my ultimate goal of moral perfection?" It's funny how small and simple questions can lead to big, important answers. And it's funny how having a strong testimony in the basics of the gospel can help a person more than having a vague understanding of the deeper points of doctrine. Perhaps I should devote more of my study time to revisiting the basics instead of looking for new insightful quotes to share or reporting on how my piano practice is going.

Basically, that request I got to share my thoughts on how to firmly root yourself to the gospel has reminded me of how important it is for me to make sure I'm firmly rooted. I haven't reviewed the basics in a while. Maybe it's time to revisit them.

Less Belief in Luck, More Belief in God

(This is yesterday's blog post. How did this not get posted yesterday?)

Blogging about piano tips Teresa taught me reminded me of another insight she shared with me that day. I hope she'll forgive me for sharing it without getting her permission first. The basic idea is that the word "lucky" could, in almost every instance I can think of, be fittingly replace with the word "blessed."

There are some people who don't believe in luck. Such people may believe in fate - that some things are just destined to happen no matter what. Others say that there is no luck because everything that happens is a result of someone's choices, be they ours or God's. I'm leaning more toward that way of thinking right now. Some, including some of those who believe in neither God nor luck ascribe every seemingly random event to the laws of physics which are perfectly predictable, if you know all the factors. Personally, I think that one of the factors is that God tends to pull strings when He needs to.

Not believing in luck can have many benefits, such as an increased sense of personal responsibility and a greater belief in a higher power. These things can be of great benefit when things are going well, but when things are going poorly, you may need a deeper perspective. When bad things happen and you can no longer blame it on a random streak of bad luck, you have little choice but to blame yourself, other people, or God for what has happened. This will require you to own up to your own mistakes, forgive other people for theirs, and understand that God knows what He's doing. But even these "downsides" to a lack of belief in bad luck can have long-term spiritual benefits, even though it's harder to deal with in the short-term.

Personally, I still kind of believe in luck, mostly because there are many times when the laws of physics have too many factors to make the outcome predictable and God doesn't care enough to pull any strings. For example, I could flip a coin right now and the result of the coin toss would be entirely dependent on what I would call luck. Though, theoretically, a person could practice flipping coins in just the right way to determine which side it lands on. Of course, that would take a level of skill that no living person has, but still, it's theoretically possible for a coin toss to not be random at all, so I guess there really is no such thing as luck.

The greatest benefit, I think, to not believing in luck comes in knowing that God is pulling the strings. When fortunate things happen to us, we can be reasonably certain that God had a hand in it. When unfortunate thing happen, we can be pretty sure that God had a good reason to allow it to happen. If we have enough trust in God, we can know that all of our experiences are designed for our benefit, and not just the results of random chance. This can encourage us to try to get on God's good side and remind us to thank Him for the many blessings in our lives. Essentially, we'll probably have more "good luck" if we give proper thanks to the source of it and remember to keep His commandments.

As Plain as the Notes on Your F.A.C.E.

Having read a few of my recent blog posts (I think she reads all of my blog posts, actually), my sister-in-law, Teresa, one of the great pianists I'm fortunate to be related to, taught me a few tricks to help me be able to read sheet music - and they work!

They most eye-opening thing she taught me is that the notes don't move up and down the staff. All this time, I thought that the key of a piece determined which lines of the staff represented which notes, so I had to count up and down the lines to find out which lines represented which keys on the piano, but that isn't true! The lines and the notes they represent are constant. For example, if you look at a hymn book, you'll see that there are five horizontal lines above the words to your favorite hymn. If there's a black dot on the middlemost of those five lines, that dot represents a B above Middle C. Always. Now, it might be a B Flat above Middle C sometimes - you'll have to look out for special symbols to be sure, but it'll never be an F or a C. That means that I can start memorizing which lines on the page go along with which keys on the piano, so I can tell which key a note is just by looking at where it is on the staff!

And there's a trick for that, too! Looking at those same five lines from earlier, you can see that there are four gaps between those lines. The notes that those gaps represent are, in ascending order, F, A, C, and E. So if you see a dot between the two bottom lines in the staff above the words, that's an F. If you see a note between the middle line and the line second from the top, that's High C. Again, there might be some Sharps or Flats involved (actually, neither of those notes can be Flat, so never mind about that part), but you can still tell, within about half a note, which key you need to strike on the piano to play the note you see on the staff.

I still need lots of practice, both at correctly identifying the notes on the staff and at accurately hitting the right keys on the piano, but at least I know a lot more about how to play music than what I knew before. This is awesome, and it's even starting to sound okay. So I just want to say Thanks to Teresa for teaching me those tricks and for lending me a book with even more great tips. She really helped me out a lot.

You Can't Buy Happiness

I had this song stuck in my head yesterday morning, so when I was asked to share a spiritual thought, I shared one based on this song. This morning, I'd like to share another one.

The Alligator royal family was obviously very wealthy. They had access to diamonds, pearls, rubies, and silver (jars). Then again, the fancy perfume they got smelled "like cheap cigars," and the royal crown was bought at a discount store for seven cents, so maybe they weren't so rich after all. But that's just as well because money can't buy happiness anyway.

Assuming that the alligators were wealthy, which is what I had thought before re-watching the video just now, this really illustrates the point that material possessions don't really make people happy. Most of the alligator sons obviously thought that they did, since they gave their father material possessions believing that receiving such wealth would make their father happy. When in reality, what actually brought the Alligator King happiness was his youngest son's expression of love.

Money can't buy happiness, but you can get it for free by sharing it with others. Making other people happy is a good way to become happy yourself, and expressing and feeling genuine love is a great place to start. The purpose of life is to obtain happiness by following the path that leads to it, and that path has nothing to do with becoming extremely wealthy or receiving a bunch of material gifts. As long as people have their basic needs met, they can be happy whether they have money or not.

I'm not a wealthy person, but I'm mostly satisfied with what I have and I'm able to find happiness without being very rich. Happiness is an attitude, not an acquisition. The Alligator King wasn't made happy by getting something. He was made happy by feeling that he was loved. And we are all loved by our Heavenly Father, who wants very much for us to find true happiness by following Him rather than pursuing the world's idea of happiness by obtaining material possessions.

Experiment Six-to-Six

No, that's not a typo up there. That's what I call an idea Mom had about keeping track of time and how we use it. Basically, from Six O'Clock in the morning to Six O'Clock in the evening, I'm going to keep an hour-by-hour record of what I do today, and probably for the next several days. Why 6am-to-6pm? Because 6am is when I wake up and 6pm is about the time everyone gets home. Plus, it allowed me to use a silly, copyright infringing pun for the name of the idea. And come to think about it, there's a pretty good reason Mom came up with this idea now.

Last Sunday was our Ward Conference, in which our Bishop gave a talk. As part of his talk, he shared this quote from Elder Dalin H. Oaks' talk, Good, Better, Best:

Consider how we use our time in the choices we make in viewing television, playing video games, surfing the Internet, or reading books or magazines. Of course it is good to view wholesome entertainment or to obtain interesting information. But not everything of that sort is worth the portion of our life we give to obtain it.

Bishop Adair placed emphasis on the phrase "the portion of our life we give to obtain it." There are only so many hours in a day, and we only have so many days and years to live. Time is a precious and finite resource. We don't seem to have a whole lot of it, and our supply is always being depleted, like water draining out of a sourceless lake. Eventually, the lake will run dry and our lives will be over, and we'll have to give an account for how we spent our short time here. Did we put a paddlewheel in it and put it to good use, or did we just watch it all flow downstream?

Watching TV, playing games, and surfing the internet are great ways to let time slip by by the hour. Sometimes, you get a little bit back from the time you spent on it. You might learn something new, and you'll almost certainly have a little fun, but is that really worth the portion of your life that you gave to obtain it? Aren't there more efficient ways to learn new things and have fun in less time, or while doing other things? I just sang a few songs as I washed dishes. I got something done and had a little bit of fun while I was at it. Productivity for the win, and it only took me about half an hour.

So, today, I'm going to keep track of my time. I'm going to try to do some more productive things than usual, and that is the ultimate goal of this experiment, but mostly I first want to just see where my time is already going. I'm curious. I know I waste too much time on the internet, but exactly how much time do I waste? Today won't be such a good measure of that, since I have plans to do stuff today, but what about tomorrow? Or Friday? I've got to admit, I wasn't too excited about this idea at first, mostly because I knew I wouldn't like what I knew the record would show, but in this experiment, I'm allowed to change my numbers simply by changing how I spend my time. If I want to write down that I did loads of productive stuff on a given day, I can do that - All I have to do is do loads of productive stuff first. That, in fact, is the whole point of the experiment, and I think it's going to be a success.

Practice Makes Possible

Concerning my ability to play the piano, I typically say that I can't read sheet music and that I can only play one note at a time. That is becoming inaccurate. While I still can't read sheet music, I can decipher it. I can tell how many lines one note is above or below another one, and I know that if a note has a sharp or flat symbol next to it, it means to hit a black key rather than a white one. I can even figure out which key a piece is meant to be played in by looking at the sharp and/or flat symbols at the beginning of the piece and determining by ear which scale sounds right using those sharps or flats. I'm sure that at least one or two pianists just cringed at my methods, and I'll probably take a piano class to learn how you're actually supposed to figure out which notes you're supposed to hit, but my point is that even using my limited knowledge and skill, I'm able to figure things out if I try hard enough.

As for hitting multiple notes, that;s still a challenge for me, but I've been practicing playing two notes at a time instead of only one. Baby steps. I'm still only playing the Alto and Soprano parts of the songs, and I know I'm using the wrong hand to play them (I'm a lefty, so using my left hand is easier for me, so long as I only need one), but it still sounds better than one note did on its own (assuming I'm hitting the right ones. I still make plenty of mistakes while learning and practicing songs).

I suppose what I'm getting at is that I'm not as limited as I thought I was. People with disabilities or simply just a lack of ability sometimes see themselves as being more limited than they actually are. While it's true that I don't have the ability of many of my family members, it's not like I can't find or play the right notes. I can - it just takes me longer than it takes some people and I make more mistakes than they do. Even people with physical limitations may be less limited than they realize. Nick Vujicic, a man who has no arms or legs, has managed to learn how to swim. If he can do that, I can do anything. In fact, that's one of the ideas he hopes people take away from his motivational speeches, so good job, Nick.

Sometimes, there are things that we literally, physically cannot do. I can't fly. Nick can't do jumping jacks. And my dad can't feel anything with his right foot, because it's made out of metal and plastic. But there's still lots of stuff that we can do, and somewhere in the middle, there are things that we think we can't do, but may be surprised to learn that we can. So, if you think you can't do something, you might try to do it anyway. You may fail at first, as expected, but with time to study and practice, you might surprise yourself. You may have, or be able to gain, more skills and abilities than you think you have now.

Preparing to Practice

I went to bed last night thinking that I had a pretty good idea what I was going to blog about, but the idea doesn't sound nearly as good now as it did last night. In fact, by now I can barely remember what the idea was. So I'll blog about playing the piano instead.

I enjoy piano music. I know many excellent pianists - some personally, and their music inspires me. We play the piano at church to accompany sacred hymns. We've had a piano in our house as long as I can remember, and I play it from time to time. The trouble is that I'm not very good at it. I can't read sheet music. My fingers aren't quick enough or accurate enough to reach the keys I need to hit by the time I need to hit them. My nieces are much better pianists than I am. Then again, they have some great teachers, and they definitely spend more time practicing than I do.

That's my problem. I don't practice enough. I'm sure that if I set my mind to it and set aside time to practice, I could gain some skill at it, but practicing playing the piano isn't very enjoyable because I feel like I'm not good enough at it. I'm embarrassed that, at 25 years old, I'm trying to gain a skill that my teenage-or-younger nieces already excel at. I don't practice playing the piano because I have little skill at it.

Of course, I see the error in my logic. I have to practice in order to improve my skill. If I want to become better at playing the piano, I have to try to play it now, even though I'm not very good at it, even though my prospects aren't very promising. I need to look at where my skill level is right now honestly, and figure out how to move forward from here. In essence, I'll never get better at playing the piano until I accept the fact that I'm not good at it now and become okay with that.

Though it's embarrassing to let others hear me play when I'm so bad at it and it's discouraging to make so many mistakes as I try to make progress, being able to play even basic songs on the piano is a skill I'd like to have, mostly because I love the music and I'd like to be able to make it myself. It's foolish of me not to practice playing the piano for the reason of needing practice at playing the piano. I'll get better, in time. It may take me a disappointingly long time to learn the basics, and I'd prefer to practice on my own so others don't have to hear me fail, but I can learn to play the piano. I just need to humbly accept my need to practice first.

The Secret to Effective Disassembly

I have choir practice this morning, so once again, I'll be leaving earlier than usual. I suppose I should get used to that, in case I ever get a real job. When that happens, I'll probably have to switch to blogging in the evening, or whenever I'm not working.

Speaking of working, it took pretty much all day on Thursday to set up the technical equipment for the Sacramento North Stake Youth Conference Roadshow last night, but it only took us about two hours to take it all down afterward. Now, I could turn that into a blog post about how it's easier to tear something down than it is to build it up, but I want to be positive this morning, so instead I'll blog about using your resources, including your talents, wisely.

On Thursday, we were setting up the stage lights by climbing up an A-Frame ladder. It was precarious, it gave us only a small amount of working are at a time, and it essentially just took a long period of time to put the lights up via the ladder. To take the lights down, another part of the technical crew let us use their scissor-lift (at least, that's what they called it), a platform that could be raised and lowered by hydraulics. Using that tool, they were able to take down all the lights at once, without having to move a ladder from light to light.

Since I wasn't on the platform, I was free to help the others with the on-the-ground work. One of the tasks was folding up the projector screens and storing them in bins. Normally, folding the screens is a two-person job, but with my experience folding up tents, I was able to fold up one of the screens on my own, once I had been shown the proper way to fold it. Ryan and I then worked together to get the screens and frames into their bins, after which we worked on taking down and coiling wires. Ryan was more comfortable on a ladder than I was, so he did the actual taking down of the wires, but since I had been taught by my dad the proper way to coil wires, and since I had gain some practice working with ropes recently, I was able to coil all of Ryan's wires correctly as quickly as he could get them down to me.

I may not be good with heights, but I have other talents and abilities that I could bring to the table, and once we were putting them to good use rather than sticking them up a ladder, I was able to help the technical crew more effectively. The moral of the story is that when everyone one the team does the jobs that their best suited for, the whole team works more effectively. Now, this isn't truly a fair comparison, since I think we had more people helping take down than we had when we were setting up, and once again, it's easier to take things down than it is to set things up, but still. I know that without the scissor-lift, taking the lights down would have taken MUCH longer, and that once I was free to do less intimidating work, I was able to get it done quickly. We did pretty darn well last night. But now, I'm kind of looking forward to enjoying a day of rest.

Affliction - Tried and True

Because last night there was a change in plans, and because I accidentally slept in this morning, I now have very little time for blogging. Fortunately, I already know what I'd like to blog about.

Yesterday, I saw a man with a shirt that read "Affliction - Tried and True" and it reminded me of part of the purpose of life. We're here to be tested, or tried, to prove whether we'll be true. Part of this test is to see how we act when things go badly. Do we get frustrated and angry? Do we get discouraged? Do we muscle through our problems and soldier on? Do we try to keep a positive attitude? Do we remember to ask for God's help? How we act in the face of adversity and affliction can say a lot about our character, which is partly why we face it so often in life. Affliction is part of the test.

This life is our opportunity to show God that we'll follow Him, no matter what. Unfortunately, the "no matter what" part involves a lot of hardship and adversity, but the struggle is necessary. Through our afflictions, we are tried so that we may prove that we will be true. They're not just obstacles; they're opportunities to show our true colors, to show off how awesome we really are, and that we truly will stay true to God's teachings and commandments, no matter what.

Little Giant, Little Courage

Yesterday, I had the "opportunity" to climb to the top of a Little Giant ladder, reaching up to the ceiling of one of our church building's Cultural Halls (AKA Basketball Court) to hang up about a half-dozen spotlights for a production some of the youth are doing this Saturday. It wasn't a whole lot of fun. For one thing, those ceilings are very high up. Our Cultural Halls are easily as tall as two normal-height rooms stacked on top of each other with the ceiling/floor between them cut out. And the ladder I was climbing, while entirely stable and trustworthy, was... flexible. A little bit more flexible than I was comfortable with while I was two stories up.

On top of that, the lights were heavy, fragile, and expensive. The angles were difficult. The bolts that I had to loosen to adjust the lights were stuck tight, and even though I was strong enough to turn the bolts, I didn't want to apply too much force to the bolts in case they suddenly came loose causing me to lose my balance. I was not having a good time. Nor was I making very quick progress.

Noticing my plight, some brave, Christian people stood up to help. One of them, a young man by the name of Ryan, taught me an important lesson about courage. He confided to me that he was afraid of heights as well. Yet, he was able to ascend the ladder more quickly than I did, work more effectively up there than I could, and generally seem a lot more comfortable up there than I was. He taught me a few of his tricks: to look at specific things such as the lights, the ceiling, or people, rather than letting your eyes wander into looking down; and to really trust your ladder - and remind yourself that you trust it.

What I learned about courage from Ryan's example is that it's okay to be afraid. Even people who seem completely fearless are probably afraid. They've simply learned ways to deal with their fears and to act with courage despite them. Mostly, I think he just tried to keep his mind off of the thing that he was afraid of, and since he was able to control his mind to the point where he could focus on what needed to be done rather than on how high up he was, he was also able to get the job done quickly and make it look easy. It wasn't that he wasn't afraid of heights. It was that he didn't let his fear of heights slow him down.

Paladins, theoretically, are fearless. In D&D, Paladins of 3rd level or higher are "immune to fear (magical or otherwise)." They are never shaken when an enormous dragon flies overhead, they are unaffected by magical spells that normally cause fear, and they cannot be intimidated by other people. I had always thought that this meant that they were never afraid, but now I don't think that's true. What I think now is that Paladins have such discipline that even when they have fear pounding in their hearts, they have the courage to ignore their fears and act the same way they always do - with honor.

I'm obviously not quite there yet. While I aspire to be a Paladin in the same sense that we all aspire to be like Jesus Christ, that doesn't mean that I'm anywhere close to my goal, nor will I be any time soon. If I can be called a Paladin, I'm certainly a low-level one that has not yet gained immunity to my fear of heights. But maybe that's okay. Maybe I don't need to be totally immune to fear. Maybe I just need to pull myself together, focus my mind, and do what's required of me no matter how strongly my fears try to distract me. Maybe, as will every other challenge in life, we're not supposed to overcome the challenge by having it removed from us, but by developing the strength to get through it. I may never lose my fear of heights, and I'm okay with that. I just need to learn to be able to tell my fears to shut up when I need them to, so I can do what needs to be done.

You Can Wonder and Worry, or You Can Ask

Remember everything I was stressing out about yesterday? We don't have to worry about any of it. God knows what we're capable of and how much He expects from each of us. If we listen to the Spirit, He will tell us what God wants us to do. So, the question becomes, how do we get the Spirit? How do we learn to recognize and understand its promptings? Getting the Spirit is easy. There are lots of good, uplifting things we can do to get the Spirit. We can pray and read the scriptures. We can observe and appreciate nature. We can sing/play/listen to reverent music. And those ideas are just a few of my favorites. I'm sure you could come up with a list of your own. Anything that brings you spiritually closer to God will help you to have His Spirit with you.

Once you've got the Spirit, learning to recognize its presence and promptings requires sensitivity and practice. Even more sensitivity and practice are required to help us understand and heed its promptings. For beginners (if there are any reading this), a good way to get started is to do something that you know will bring you closer to God. For example, you could go into a church, sing a hymn, and then pray to God, asking Him to bless you with the presence of His Spirit. Once you've done that, I can almost guarantee that you'll have a really good feeling inside you. If not, there's probably something that you need to repent of, and you'll probably know in your heart what the problem is. If that's the case, pray to God, apologizing for what you've done, and promise not to do it again. Ask for His help, especially if this is a temptation you think you're going to struggle with. Once you've repented and asked God for His help, you should have a good feeling inside of you.

Once you've got that good feeling, you can ask God what He wants you to do. You can ask Him for general directions, for ideas of what kinds of things you should do, or you could even ask Him for specific directions, asking Him what you should do about a given situation, like "What should I do to improve my relationship with my spouse?" or "What should I do to help me find work?" You can even ask Him questions, preferably yes or no questions like "Are you really there?" "Do you love me?" "Is the Book of Mormon true?" If the good feeling you have swells, the answer is yes. If it dims, the answer is no. If it's too subtle to tell whether it swelled or dimmed or remained the same, keep asking, or ask again later.

If you were praying for direction, you should have some thoughts come into your mind. These are not necessarily what God wants you to do, even if they seem to be good ideas. Always ask for confirmation. Ask something to the effect of "I got the feeling that Is should do [such and such]. Is that what you want me to do?" Again, the good feeling should either swell, dim, or stagnate. If the feeling dims or stagnates and you've got other ideas, ask about some of those. Once you've asked God "should I do this?" and you get a good feeling inside about it, you've got your directions, but don't leave the chapel just yet! There may be more than one right answer, so if you had more than one idea, feel free to pray about the others as well.

Once you're done praying, take the time to thank God for blessing you with the presence of His Spirit, answers to your questions, and directions for what you should do. It's polite. Plus, it makes God more likely to continue blessing you as you continue to come to Him. Also, it's important to act on the answers and guidance you receive. If you ignore the guidance and answers He gives you, He might not give you guidance and answers again so easily as He did the first time. You have to really be listening, and you have to be willing to obey.

For experienced God-worshippers, the program is pretty much the same, except that you didn't need me to explain it to you, since you already knew by your own experience and by what you learned at church. Going to church, by the way, is another good way to attract God's spirit into your life.

I love that guidance from God is available to everyone who seeks it. I love that God can tell me specifically what He wants me to do in any given moment (I have a special thing called the Gift of the Holy Ghost, which means I can have God's Spirit with me all the time. If that sounds good to you, ask the missionaries about it. You can get in touch with them through mormon.org). It really is such a blessing that I can ask God what He wants me to do instead of trying to figure it out on my own. Don't get me wrong, sometimes, He still lets me try to figure it out on my own, but that's only when I forget to ask or when I should already know the answer. God gives us opportunities to use what we've learned. But when we honestly don't know what God wants us to do, and we're willing to do what God tells us when He answers us, He's usually willing to tell us what He wants to do. As long as we keep asking, we don't have to wonder. God will let us know.

"Inspirational" Picture Quote - The Seemingly Impossible Promise

One of the picture quotes I didn't share yesterday was this one:

"This is very important: as we do our best, He will not let us fail." -Elder Neil L. Andersen

The reason I didn't share it was because I'm not sure how strongly I agree with it. God often lets people fail despite their best efforts. Perhaps this quote is better shared in greater context. The quote was taken from a Worldwide Leadership Training broadcast titled A Spiritual Work. It was given the context of doing the Lord's work. The idea is that if we're trying to do what God has asked us to do, and we're doing the best we can, we cannot fail. In fact, there's another quote that shares that concept better: "It is impossible for us to fail when we do our best when we are on the Lord’s errand." That bold statement came from Elder M. Russell Ballard, from his October 2013 talk, Put Your Trust in the Lord. Yet, despite having more than one Apostle having said what pretty much amounts to the same thing, I'm still not sure how true it is.

I think that sometimes, even when we try our best to do what the Lord has asked of us, we are sometimes allowed to fail. Often, the purpose of such failure is to teach us lessons that probably couldn't be learned any other way. Such a lesson might be that we need to try harder or try a different approach. Then again, if it were possible to try harder, that means that theoretically we weren't trying as hard as we could the first time, which leads me to a question I've had many times before and still have never really answered: When are we actually doing our best?

Theoretically, it's possible for a human being to live life perfectly, never breaking any of God's many commandments. It's been done before. We all, theoretically, have the ability to completely live up to all of the light and knowledge we have, always keeping every commandment we know of and never doing anything that we know is a sin. It's possible. But at the same time, it's impossible. Nobody's perfect (at least, nobody that lives on the Earth right now is). We all make mistakes. And sometimes, our mistakes lead to us breaking the commandments, or in other ways not doing everything that we possibly could have to do what God wants us to do. We never really do our best, so the guarantee against failure never applies to us.

But perhaps God is more lenient than I currently think. While it's true that God can't look upon sin with any degree of allowance, there is a difference, perhaps a substantial one, between deliberate disobedience and human weakness. I had heard a good quote that says that, but I couldn't find it. Luckily, I found this one instead.

The Lord sees weaknesses differently than He does rebellion. Whereas the Lord warns that unrepented rebellion will bring punishment, when the Lord speaks of weaknesses, it is always with mercy.
-Elder Richard G. Scott, Personal Strength Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ

The point that I'm trying to get at is that our human weakness limits our abilities, and that perhaps it's not realistically possible for us to do as well as we theoretically could do. Even when we "do our best," our ability to do our best is limited. It may not be humanly possible to do as well as we possibly can.

To illustrate, say a young basketball player was magically promised that if he did his best, he'd never miss a shot made from the free-throw line. It's theoretically possible for him to make every free throw, if he really knows how to control his muscles during the throw. If "doing his best" means controlling his muscles perfectly, which is theoretically possible, I think, then the magical promise means that he'll never miss a free throw, unless he makes a mistake while throwing.

But is that even fair? He's only human. He's bound to make a few mistakes. Perhaps the magical promise accounts for that. Maybe all he has to do is focus. But even then, humans often lose focus at little or no fault of their own. Perhaps the requirement to "do his best" includes hours of practice to help him control his mind and his muscles, so he can make each free throw with precision, but how many hours of practice are required? If he spent 8 hours of each day sleeping, 2 hours eating, 8 hours at school, and the remaining 6 hours per day practicing free throws, could he have theoretically practiced more? Yes, if he spent less time eating and sleeping. Also, it's possible for him to drop out of school in order to spend those extra 8 hours practicing his free throw. Unless he practiced his free throw literally to the limit of his physical ability, can it really be said that he actually "did his best" at it?

Certainly, God doesn't expect that much from us, does He? Yet, if allowances are made for our being "only human," and if the statements made by the Apostles are true, then that should make failure even less of a possibility. Assuming that the young basketball player doesn't have to practice that much in order to qualify for the magical promise, that means that he should be able to sink every single free throw he makes, while still leaving plenty of time in his days for everything else he needs to do. If the requirements for guaranteed success are set any lower than absolute perfection, that should make it that much easier to satisfy the requirement and be guaranteed not to fail.

And yet, we fail anyway. So what, exactly, does it mean to "do our best" to keep all of God's commandments? Do we have to spend every waking hour working on it, leaving no time for work, school, meals, bathroom breaks, or even sleep? There are certain physical limitations involved in staying alive. We need to eat and sleep to keep our bodies functioning. We need to work for our food, even if we grow it or hunt it ourselves. At some point, we need to learn the skills required to do the work required to get food. And occasionally, what goes in must come out. It is realistically impossible to spend literally all our time trying to keep the commandments, so how much of our time, energy, and effort is actually required of us in order for us to qualify for the promise that we will not fail? While God would never ask of us more than we could give, it's theoretically possible for us to give 100% of ourselves to the effort, even though a certain percentage of that time and energy would probably be better spent making sure we stay alive. How much is He really asking for?

The trouble is that I don't know. Maybe He wants 90%. Maybe He's only asking for 50%, or even 10! Maybe it's different for each person, depending on their circumstances. My point is that I don't know how much God is asking of me, but I know that if I give any less than my best (however much that is), I have no guarantee not to fail. No matter how well I do or how hard I try, God can always say, "You could have done better." Thus, I never really "do my best," so I never qualify for the promise, so as far as I'm concerned, the promise may as well not even exist.

I know that God wouldn't have had the Apostles give us a promise that doesn't mean anything, so it should be possible for us to do our best and be guaranteed not do fail. But how realistic is that possibility? Is it something that we can actually do, or is it just something that we can theoretically do? It really, really bothers me that I don't know. Because sometimes I think I'm doing my best, and I fail anyway. Other times, I set my bar higher, and "doing my best" suddenly seems impossible. How can I know when I'm really doing my best, according to God's definition of the phrase? How can I know when I'm qualifying for the promise?

Inspirational Picture Quotes

If I'm late in blogging again, it's because I've been distracted. Incidentally, did you know that the church has a collection of Inspirational Picture Quotes on their website? I found a lot of them that I liked, but here are a few that I particularly felt were worth sharing.

"Above all, never lose faith in your Father in Heaven, who loves you more than you can comprehend." -Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

"Let us not give up. Let us be true to our covenants. Let us never lose sight of our Advocate and Redeemer as we walk toward Him, one imperfect step after another." -President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

"Stay on the Lord's side and you will win every time." -Elder Richard G. Scott

"The scriptures are the word of God. They are God's landmarks that show the way we should travel in order to draw closer to our Savior and reach worthy goals." -President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

"With Christ, darkness cannot succeed. Darkness will not gain victory over the light of Christ." -President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Why is it that so many of the best quotes come from President Uchtdorf? Anyhow, I hope these images and quotes inspire you at least as much as a real blog post would have. If you've got time, I'd recommend clicking on the link above to find more inspirational picture quotes you may like. I certainly enjoyed browsing through them and finding these.

Joining the Conversation

This morning, I've been reading a lot of Mormon stuff. Some of it was from Mormons, some from non-Mormons, and some of what I read today was even from anti-Mormons (some of what they said was surprisingly accurate and impressively well-worded to twist the truth, but the rest of it sounded completely bogus and it all could have used more citation of their sources). Following links around blogs and articles, I eventually came to the realization that I have my own blog to come back to and that even though I haven't really felt involved in the internet conversation on Mormonism, I've personally been a part of it for well over a year now. There are hundreds of Mormon, non-Mormon, and anti-Mormon bloggers that have thrown in their two cents about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and I'm suddenly surprised to realize that I'm already part of that group. I've joined the conversation already.

Now, I'm not an activist. I don't have an agenda to push (at least, I don't think I do). I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. Mostly, I'm just talking to myself and posting the conversation on the internet. Yeah, I'm a Mormon. I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but I don't think of myself as the kind of person who'd tell the whole world about it, even though I technically just did. I didn't want to start any arguments when I started this blog. I didn't even want to join one. But the conversation is going on all over the internet, and I've kind of just stumbled into it. So, so be it. I'll go ahead and talk about my religion, especially since everyone else is, and I technically started talking about it in February 2013, so it isn't really even a decision at this point. I made this choice (unwittingly) when I made the commitment to blog every morning. If any Mormons, non-Mormons, or anti-Mormons have ever visited any of my blog posts, I've already told them a little bit about my beliefs and my religion. I'm already part of the conversation. I guess the only question now is how involved in that conversation do I want to be.

Do I want to keep doing what I'm doing and basically only telling people what I believe if they come onto my blog and ask me, or should I seek out people with whom I could share my messages (assuming I actually have anything to say)? The latter might be more productive, but the former is less abrasive. I don't want to rub off on people the wrong way. This morning, one of the videos I watched was "things Mormon missionaries won't tell you," or something like that, and some of the things we "won't tell you" we just basically don't say because it would be rude. Courtesy is an aspect of Christianity and we try to be as Christ-like as we can, so while it's true that we believe that all other churches have at least some falsehood in them, we'd either try to find a diplomatic way to say that or, as the video suggested, we just wouldn't say it at all. There's a part of me that doesn't want to be part of this conversation because I don't want to offend anyone or get anything wrong as I try to explain church doctrine to the rest of the world, but a greater part of me believes that not being a part of this conversation is no longer a viable option for me. I have to say something every morning, so the question now is "what am I going to say and how am I going to say it?"

Moving forward with the knowledge that I'm part of a world-wide conversation on Mormonism, I could go about it in any number of ways. I could aggressively defend our beliefs against criticism. I could try to explain our beliefs logically or through heart-felt testimony. I could continue putting disclaimers on almost everything I say (I personally believe that... ...this is just my opinion, but... ...unless I'm mistaken... ...this is what I think). I could cite doctrinal sources and compose compelling moral arguments. Or I could get emotional and try to stir up emotion in others by making inflammatory statements, as many of our detractors have  done. Fight fire with fire, as they say. Except that that's not in my nature. I'm more of a pacifist, personally. I'd rather talk about things and encourage understanding than try to get people to pick a side or switch sides. I may not convert many people that way, but to be honest, I'm not trying to convert anybody. I don't really care what religion you are, and I'm certainly not going to tell you that you'd be better off as a Mormon, even though I believe that you might be. We all have to make our own choices, and I'm not going to try to get you to change your mind, no matter what it is you believe. I'd rather just say "This is what I believe," and if you agree with me, that's cool, and if you don't, you're entitled to your opinion, but in any event, you'll understand Mormonism a little bit better because you'll have learned what one of them believes.

I think that amounts to having a positive impact on the conversation. A tiny impact, but a positive one. And that's really all I'm going for at this point. As I've said before, this blog is mostly just for my own benefit. This is me, talking to myself, and posting the conversation online in hopes that someone enjoys it and/or learns something. Being part of this conversation was kind of a side effect of creating this blog, not my primary purpose in doing still, and it still takes a secondary place of importance while I keep this blog going. I didn't make this blog because I wanted to be part of this conversation; I'm just part of the conversation because I have a blog.

How Do You Wear a CTR Ring?

How do you wear a CTR ring? I recently got one, and I put it on with the top of the shield facing the back of my hand, so that when my hand hung by my side, the shield would be right-side up, and anyone looking at my hand from any direction other than just behind me would see the ring as being right-side up.

However, with it on my finger that way, I saw the ring as upside down. That didn't bother me because I knew it was a CTR ring. Whenever I saw it, I got the reminder to Choose The Right, but recently, I removed the ring and put it back on so that the top of the shield is pointing toward the tip of my finger, so the shield is right-side up as I look at it, but upside down for everyone else. Looking at my ring this way, the reminder is much stronger, and now I'm slightly torn between the two ways to wear the ring. Should I have the shield right-side up for me or for others?

Having the ring right-side up for me increases the potency of the reminder to Choose The Right, which is exactly the reason I got the ring in the first place. Wearing the ring this way allows it to more effectively fulfill its primary function.

However, there are secondary benefits to having the shield be right-side up to others. Some might see the letters C.T.R., and wonder what they stand for. They may even become curious enough to ask. Then I could explain that members of my church often where CTR rings to remind them to Choose The Right. Perhaps the conversation could continue from there, and it may be of benefit to the person who saw and wondered about the CTR ring I was wearing. I somehow doubt that such a conversation would take place if the casual observer couldn't clearly see the letters on the ring, e.g. if they were upside down.

Still, did I get this ring to be a CTR ring, or to be a member missionary conversation starter? Was it meant to be a reminder to me to Choose The Right, or to invite others to accidentally ask me a question about my church? To phrase the question in the most selfish way possible, did I get this ring for the benefit of my soul, or theirs? The answer, of course, is the former. I got this ring for my benefit, to help me choose the right. I wasn't really thinking about other people when I got it. It was all about me.

But now I've learned that there are two ways to wear a CTR ring. One of those ways helps me more, and does better at what I got the CTR ring for it to do, and the other way has an improved chance of getting others to ask about the ring, which, if they do, will cause it to be of benefit to them as well. Either way, the ring helps remind me to Choose The Right (to either a greater or lesser degree) and it carries a small chance of getting people to ask about it (though that chance may be increased by wearing the ring a certain way). Either way, the ring does some good for both parties, but should I wear the ring so that it does more good for me or for others?

Phrased that way, the question seems obvious. Of course I should try to help others more than I should help myself. But at the same time, I kind of need all the help that I can get. Does it make sense to worry about others' souls when one's own soul is in jeopardy? Having missionary-style conversations with others can improve one's spirituality, but unless their spirituality is already in good shape, their missionary-style conversations won't carry much spiritual strength. Which comes first: convincing others to be righteous, or being righteous yourself? If personal righteousness must precede invitations for others to be righteous, then wouldn't it make sense for me to wear my CTR ring so that it'll be of maximum benefit to me, so I'll be better prepared to answer people's spiritual questions if and when they ask?

Perhaps I'm just being selfish, or perhaps I'm being practical. Either way, I'm out of time to talk about it. I've got to go get ready for church. I still haven't fully made up my mind on this, but for now, until I decide otherwise, I'm going to keep the ring facing me.

Inexperienced

As a person who feels like I don't have much experience doing pretty much anything, this quote means something to me. Also, as a person who favors role-playing games over other forms of recreation, it also means something else entirely. In most role-playing games, as a character fights monsters and overcomes challenges, he gains Experience (XP for short). When he has enough XP, he levels up, becoming stronger and more capable in many ways. Thus, a character with a lot of Experience is a powerful character, whereas an inexperienced character is a weak one.

Though our inexperience can cause us to be foolish, ignorant, and weak, God can make up for all of those traits. He can strengthen us, reveal things to us, and guide us down the right paths, and when we follow Him, that's exactly what He does. He makes up for our weaknesses in exactly the moment we need Him to - But what about after that? Will we ever become stronger, or will we keep needing God's help? As I said in a recent blog post, Our Dependence on God, I believe that we will eventually become strong enough, and experienced enough, to handle things on our own. Here's how that works:

Lifting weights makes you stronger, right? Imagine that you're trying to lift a weight that weighs 100 pounds, but you can only lift 75 pounds. Your Personal Trainer comes along and says "Could you use a hand with that?" If we're humble enough to accept His help, he'll exert a certain amount of upward force on the weight at the same time that we do. If He provides zero pounds of upward force, that'll leave the whole 100 pounds for us to lift, and I've already pointed out that we can't lift that much. If He provides 100 pounds of upward force, He'll lift the whole weight by Himself. We know He's strong enough to do that, but that'll leave zero pounds for us to lift, and lifting zero pounds of weight isn't exactly what I'd call exercise.

Rather than lifting all or nothing, our Personal Trainer could lift exactly half of our weight, leaving 50 pounds for us. We can lift that much, and as far as our muscles are concerned, it's counted to us as if we had lifted a 50 pound weight on our own. If our Personal Trainer knows exactly how strong we are (and He does), He could lift just barely enough of the weight to make it possible for us to lift the rest. If He provides 25 pounds of upward force, that'll leave 75 pounds for us to lift. That's our maximum. We can do it, but it'll be difficult for us. Thankfully, difficulty is precisely the point of exercise. As we exert our 75 pounds of force, it's counted to us as if we had lifted a 75 pound weight, and that, of course, makes us stronger. If we do that enough times, we'll eventually have enough strength to lift the whole 100 pounds ourselves, and we can keep increasing in strength from there.

While we currently rely on God for extra strength, that doesn't mean that we're not growing in strength ourselves. He may be lifting a portion of our burdens, but only rarely will He lift the whole weight for us. Most often, He requires us to lift as much weight as we can, whether that's a little or a lot. As we exercise as much strength as we have, we continue to grow in strength, until someday we'll become as strong as He is now. Though we may be inexperienced and weak now, especially compared to God, don't worry about that. Don't worry about how far you have to go to reach your full potential and how long it'll take you to get there. Instead, remember how glorious your full potential is, and keep working your way toward that goal. With time, determination, and a good deal of God's help, you'll get there. You will gain experience.

Don't Split the Party

On August 4, 2013, I explained a few basic concepts about role-playing. Essentially, I said that a group of players get together, each one controlling one or more characters, and their characters get together to form an adventuring party. Since there are multiple adventures all working together on the same team, each character can afford to specialize in what they do. There are characters that specialize in healing, characters that do melee combat, character that focus on dealing lots of damage to the team's opponents, characters that provide useful, sometimes essential, magical effects, and characters who play a support role, basically just making everyone else better at what they do.

Because each member of the party is usually specialized in what they do, they can all run into a lot of trouble if they split away from each other in the middle of an adventure. The wizards won't be equipped to deal with the monsters the fighters usually protect them from, the fighters won't last long in combat without the healers keeping their health up, and the healers might be able to survive a fight against some monsters for a long time, but they had so little attack power that it's really just a matter of time until they run out of healing spells and the monsters finally finish them. Since every member of the party relies on every other member, they sometimes go to great lengths to make sure they stay together - while they're on an adventure, anyway.

Like an other adventurers, we typically need to stick together and help each other out, too. We each have different talents and skills. None of us could accomplish alone what we can all accomplish together. We need each other for help and support, so it's really unwise for any of us to distance ourselves from each other. And it's selfish, too. People count on us to help them, and we often need their help, too. We need to be there for them when they need us just as much as we sometimes need them. It's important for us to stick together, to be there for each other, to ask for help when we need it, and to willingly give help when asked.

Life is an adventure. In some ways, it's often a perilous one. If any of us are going to make it through this, we're going to have to do it together.

The Hope of God's Light

This morning, as I was searching through LDS.org, I found President Deiter F. Uchtdorf's April 2013 talk, The Hope of God's Light. As I read the talk again, these few paragraphs stood out to me.

Your Heavenly Father knows that you will make mistakes. He knows that you will stumble—perhaps many times. This saddens Him, but He loves you. He does not wish to break your spirit. On the contrary, He desires that you rise up and become the person you were designed to be. 

To that end, He sent His Son to this earth to illuminate the way and show us how to safely cross the stumbling blocks placed in our path. He has given us the gospel, which teaches the way of the disciple. It teaches us the things we must know, do, and be to walk in His light, following in the footsteps of His Beloved Son, our Savior. 

Yes, we will make mistakes. 

Yes, we will falter. 

But as we seek to increase our love for God and strive to love our neighbor, the light of the gospel will surround and uplift us. The darkness will surely fade, because it cannot exist in the presence of light. As we draw near to God, He will draw near to us. And day by day, the hope of God’s light will grow within us, “brighter and brighter until the perfect day.” 

To all who feel they walk in darkness, I invite you to rely on this certain promise spoken by the Savior of mankind: “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”

There is a lot of darkness in the world, and many of us occasionally find ourselves walking in it. While not many of us are guilty of walking in the paths of sin, we each spend more time than we should in the darkness of confusion and despair. God's light allows our challenges and choices to become clear and to be seen in His eternal perspective. It can guide us, uplift us, and redeem us from our sins. It can help us understand what God wants us to become and help us along the path to fulfilling our potential.

I want to have God's light with me more, and to that end, I know what I have to do. Darkness and light cannot coexist. I must strive to remove all darkness - all despair, all doubt, and all sin - from my heart and replace it with the light of joy, faith, and virtue. Then my path will become more clear and my hope more sure. Then, I will be better prepared to successfully follow the path to becoming what God wants me to be.

My middle name, James, mean "supplanter" in Hebrew. To supplant something means to remove it and replace it with something else. For example, you can supplant weeds with flowers in a garden. I plan to supplant the darkness within me with the hope of God's light. I'm going to let God's light fill me until it becomes part of who I am. I'm going to let it change me until I have become what God and I want me to be.

From Push-ups to Prayer - Roundabout Revelation

This morning, I was in a little bit of a funk. I didn't feel very well physically or spiritually. Searching for ideas on how to get out of the funk, I thought that some exercise would help, so I got down and did some push-ups. After a handful of push-ups, I started to feel a little better, so I rested on my knees for a moment. Suddenly, I understood where I got the idea to do push-ups. Still kneeling, I told God in prayer that I had always known that He was clever, but that I never knew that He was that sneaky, and I mentioned that I was impressed.

Sometimes, God helps us indirectly. Rather than telling us precisely where He wants us to go, He tells us the next step along a path that'll get us there. God knew that He'd have an easier time getting me to pray on my knees if He got me down to my knees before asking me to pray. If He had asked me to pray while I was still at the computer, I probably would have prayed right there where I was sitting. By getting me on my knees first, He made sure that I was really thinking about what I was praying, and that I spent more time praying than I would have if I had prayed while doing something else.

Of course, had I been more receptive to the Spirit, God could have told me to get on my knees and pray without having to trick me into it by getting me to do push-ups. Then again, if I were that receptive to the Spirit, I wouldn't have needed Him to remind me of my need to pray, nor would I have been in the funk I was in at the time, because I would have already done something about it by that time. The thing is that we humans can sometimes be pretty thick. We typically don't listen to the Spirit very well, and we often find ourselves in emotional states that make it even harder for us to receive spiritual guidance. At those times, God has to almost trick us into doing what He wants be giving us any directions we're willing to follow that'll amount to being a step in the right direction. I'm sure God was trying to give me more ideas than just "maybe some push-ups would help," but I just wasn't listening. Eventually, He caught my ear and then did His best with what He could get. The end result was that I said a kneeling prayer, but that was more a result of His persistence than my perception.

Still, I shouldn't be too hard on myself. We all have times when it's hard for us to feel the Spirit, and at those times, God has to get creative in order to give us the direction we need. I'm just glad that He's persistent enough to keep talking to me and giving me directions, even when I'm having difficulties hearing Him.

In Case You Thought You Were Safe...

What I said on May 17th, August 4th, and December 26th of last year is still true. I still get to my blog by making a web search for it. On December 26th, I noted that the top hits for my blog were "Sword of the Spirit" and "Helmet of Salvation." Now, that has changed. Now the search engine gives me a direct link to the my recent blog post, but it also gives me a link to a specific post, that of May 2nd, 2013, Moroni's Diligence. Since the subject matter I wrote about then has been on my mind lately, I thought I'd blog about it again.

I wrote in my journal recently that I felt kind of safe - that Satan wasn't really tempting me all that much, or at least that it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. I felt like I didn't really have a whole lot to worry about, which I instantly understood wasn't true. I've heard it said that life isn't a cruise ship - it's a battleship, and if you're not being shot at, you should be grateful for that. But I think that if you think you're not being shot at, you should probably check again. Satan is extremely subtle and he's always on the attack. If he's not attacking you in ways that you recognize, then he's probably working to weaken your spiritual defenses. Which is why Moroni's example is so important.

One thing that Moroni is famous for (besides his short fuse) is how well he defended the armies he commanded. The first thing he did as their commander is get them some armor, and while their war was in a brief hiatus, he built and rebuilt fortresses around all the cities of the Nephites. He continually improved the Nephites' defenses as much as he could, knowing that the Lamanites would be back eventually, and his men would have to fight them off once again.

Though we may drive Satan away as frequently as he shows up to tempt us, we should never grow comfortable, thinking that we're as good at resisting temptation as we need to be. We need to continually improve our spiritual defenses in order to keep Satan at bay. We need to keep strengthening our testimonies. We need to keep praying, keep fasting, and keep reading the scriptures to make sure we'll always be strong enough to resist evil. We know that Satan will always come back to try and tempt us time and time again, but it's impossible to guess how subtle and how alluring those temptations will be, so we should follow Captain Moroni's example and continue to strengthen our resolve to keep the commandments. We're not safe from Satan's influence, and as long as we're alive, I'm not sure we ever will be.

Would You Rather... - Decisions and Distractions

There is a game called Would Your Rather...? in which players are asked to choose between two hypothetical situations that are almost equally undesirable. For example, would you rather always spit when you talk -OR- always be spit on when spoken to? (I'd take the latter, by the way.) One of the questions on the box is "Would you rather be the circus person that the knife thrower throws knives at -OR- the one who puts their head in the lion's mouth?" This question is easy. I'll take the knife thrower every time - because I know how the trick works.

Like most circus/magic tricks, it's all about distraction. The performers mesmerize us with flashy lights and costumes and dramatic music so that we don't realize that the knife throw doesn't actually throw the knives. Instead, he hides them with his sleeves after making the throwing gesture while a perfectly timed secret compartment instantly flips around in the wall the target is standing against, suddenly showing a knife exactly like the one the "thrower" apparently threw. As long as everything happens fast enough to fool our eyes, we think that a knife was thrown and that it stuck into the wall inches away from the target, but in reality, the target was never in any danger at all.

In life, we're constantly having to make difficult decisions, but many of those decisions become easier to make when when know what the options actually are. Satan tries to distract us and confuse us into misunderstanding what our options are so that we'll make the wrong choices, but if we develop the skill of seeing through his deceptions, it becomes easier to choose the right. None of us would ever turn down eternal blessings in favor of eternal damnation if we knew that was what we were doing, but after Satan has worked his stage magic to make something dangerous look safe and something safe look dangerous, we're liable to make the wrong decisions as often as not. We need to be careful and observant to see through are the tricks so that we know what we're really choosing between. I'm sure that if we knew the truth about our options, the decisions wouldn't be as difficult as they first appeared to be.

What are we Getting Ready for?

I need to stop going to bed on Saturday nights without knowing what I'm going to blog about the following morning. Also, I should have showered last night. There's a song our children sing in church, "Saturday is a special day, it's the day we get ready for Sunday." We did that by washing the car and shopping yesterday, but I didn't make any personal preparations myself. I need to do better at that. I also need to blog about something really quickly so I can take a shower. I don't want to be so lame that I relate preparing for church to preparing for the Second Coming. That's not creative at all. How about this: Why should we "get ready" for church? Really, what's so special about it that we need to make special preparations the day before so we can be "ready" when it comes on Sunday? What do we need to be ready for?

Revelation

On Sundays, we hear talks, testimonies and lessons. If the Spirit of God is in the words of the speakers, then their words could carry messages almost directly from God into our hearts. If we're listening, those messages can sink into our hearts, answer our questions, calm our fears, and change our lives for the better. These are life-altering blessings, but we need to prepare our hearts to receive them.

Commitment

In Sacramento Meeting, we take the Sacrament to testify that we are willing to always remember our Savior and to keep His commandments. In return for this commitment, God promises us that we may always have His Spirit (a member of the Godhead) to be with us as a constant companion. It's a strong promise, and we should prepare ourselves to take it seriously.

Instruction

Many of the messages we hear in church are calls to repentance. We're told that we need to pray more, have family prayer and scripture study more, serve more, worship more, do our Home and Visiting Teaching more. It can be overwhelming. But somewhere in the midst of everything we're told that we need to do more, there will be a handful of things, or maybe even only one, that God wants you, specifically you, right now, to focus on. I know a good quote to share, but I can't find it and I'm short on time.

In short, church is a special event in which we can connect and communicate with God better than we normally do during the week. Why is that? I would guess that it's because of many things at church that invite the Spirit. We sing hymns, we pray, we bear testimonies. And perhaps part of our personal receptivity to the Spirit we can feel at church is affected by our personal readiness for church. When I'm clean-shaven, freshly showered, and nicely dressed, I feel more ready to feel the Spirit than when I'm not. I had better go take care of that (assuming there's still time). But really, some of it I should have taken care of on Saturday, when I had more time to do it.

Our Dependence on God

As I wrote "Happy Independence Day" in my journal last night, I thought about our dependence on God. We depend on God for the necessities of life, for guidance through the scriptures and through the Holy Spirit, and for extra strength and courage when our own strength and courage fails us. We rely on Jesus' Atonement  to overcome help us overcome our past and move forward, and we rely on the Resurrection to give us any real hope for the future. This is God's plan and we're following it through His power. I'm not sure that there's any part of this plan that we could successfully complete completely on our own. We are, as I understand it, entirely dependent on God.

Yet, some people pretend not to be. They think they're doing pretty well in life without any help from God at all. Those people, if I'm not mistaken, are either getting a lot more help from God than they realize, or aren't doing as well in life as they think they are. Possibly both. I know I wouldn't be doing so well as I am without God's help, and I'm not doing was well as I'd like to be anyway. Perhaps I'm not relying on God enough.

In each of us, there's a temptation to do things by ourselves and to do them our own way without any help from anyone, even God. Doing so would give us ultimate bragging rights. "I did this, by myself. It was my idea, my plan, my skill, and my accomplishment. I have no one to thank for this but me." But that's never true. We are always getting at least some help from God, which is fortunate because we always need it. Being as imperfect as we are, we always need God's help, which He's more than willing to give us if we're humble enough to ask for it.

But will we always be dependent on God? Are we ever going to be grown up enough that we don't need God's help anymore? Possibly. See, the goal of this plan is so we can become like God, and God is omniscient and all-powerful. I'd be surprised if He needed anyone's help for anything at this point, and that's part of what He wants for all of us. When we become as God is, we will become as wise and as powerful as He is now, and I doubt we'll still need Him to give us directions and extra strength at that point because He will have already given us all the strength and help we'll need. Part of the plan seems to be to eventually become independent from God - That is, we'll no longer rely on Him for everything, as we do now.

I'm not sure how much I'm looking forward to that. Actually, right now I'm not even sure if it's even true. This is just my speculation and logic. I could very easily be wrong. We might still be dependent on God for everything forever, which is a little bit depressing. Are we never going to become so wise that we won't need His counsel? Are we never going to become so capable that we won't need His help? It would seem that we don't have much of a future if we'll continually need God to hold our hand forever. But on the other hand, the thought of doing things without God's help is frightening. It means that, at some point, He's going to cut our spiritual umbilical  and we'll be completely on our own. Perhaps He'd still let us turn to Him for advice and comfort occasionally (I can't imagine God ever turning His back on us completely unless we turn our backs on Him), but still, we'll be expected to pretty much handle things on our own. We'll be expected to do what He does - to govern a world - which is really daunting, but then again, we'll also have a God's wisdom and power at that point, which is kind of exciting.

The bottom line is that, right now, we are utterly dependent on God. That may or may not always be the case - I'm really not sure on this point, but it's certainly true for now. While we celebrate having declared our independence from Great Britain, let's not be too quick to declare any kind of independence from God. We're certainly not ready for that yet. In fact, we may never be.

Free to Choose Liberty or Captivity

I saw a photo on Facebook that reminded me that 2 Nephi 2: 27 tells us that we "are free to choose liberty and Eternal Life... or to choose captivity and death." A few centuries ago, people fought and died to give us our freedom. We have it now, but what are we doing with it? Are we making choices that protect our freedom, or that threaten it?

Because I don't want to get too political (for once), I'm going to try to relate this back to spiritual things. Before the world was made, we fought to ensure that we would have the freedom to make choices for ourselves, but what choices are we making? Are we choosing "liberty and Eternal life through the great Mediator," or are we choosing "captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil?" We fought for the freedom to choose for ourselves, but are we still defending that freedom, or have we started to give it away?

Satan wants to enslave us and control us. He always has. We didn't let that happen before. Are we letting it happen now? Are we letting Satan's temptations manipulate us toward destruction, or are we letting God's commandments lead us toward even greater power and freedom? It's our decision to make, but if we make the wrong one, we may find that our freedom has been severely limited. "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled... with the yoke of bondage." Galatians 5:1