Eternal Progression - Starting Today

Note to Self: The next time I agree to give a lesson in church, I'm going to try to find out the subject of the lesson I am to give BEFORE the day on which the lesson is to be given. In fact, I STILL don't know what I'm supposed to talk about, even though I'm giving the lesson in about 4 hours. In my defense, I've had a crazy, busy week, but I should have obtained my topic about a week in advance, so the business of said week should not have been an influence on whether I know my topic or not.

But since I don't know my topic, but I know that this is the week in which the instructor teaches from a recent General Conference talk, I'm free to pick one. And the talk I chose to begin studying this morning is What Manner of Men? by Elder (or President?) Donald L. Halstrom of the Presidency of the Seventy.

The reason I chose this talk is that it seemed like a good, basic, Christian message, and because I like that it addresses both the need to change and the reason we can have hope in our ability to change.

Jesus Christ has commanded us to become as He is, to become perfect. This seems like such an impossible task, especially considering all our human habits and weaknesses, that some people are tempted to give up the quest of perfection and basically say, "I'm flawed, I have bad habits, I'm nothing like the Savior, but that's just the way I am. I can't change that."

And it is tempting. I've occasionally thought, "Wouldn't it be easier to quit Mormonism and find a church that accepts people the way they are without expecting them to change?" The trouble with that idea is that I know this church is true. When asked whether they would leave the Savior's company and effectively leave the church, Jesus' disciples answered, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." John 6:68 We hear those words at least twice a year, in General Conference, and we share those words with each other at least once a month, in lessons like the one that I'm giving today. And it's those same words that are saying that we need to become perfect, and that we can.

My favorite thing about the concept of eternal progression is the duality of its meaning. Firstly, it's progression to become like God, because God is Eternal, and secondly, it's eternal because we have an eternity to work on it. Becoming perfect isn't really realistic, or even possible - not in one lifetime, anyway. But since we can continue progressing throughout the eternities, we can have hope that we can eventually reach any goal we commit ourselves to pursuing, even perfection.

Fortunately and unfortunately, we're not just talking about the eternities. Elder or President Halstrom also teaches us that we can, and must, make some changes during our mortal life. God doesn't expect us to become perfect right now, but He does expect us to start working on it as soon as possible, and He makes such change possible not by giving us an infinite amount of time to work on it but by giving us His Son to be our Example and our Savior. It's through the power of Jesus' Atonement that we gain the power to change our behavior, and even our very natures, even while we're still human.

Through the power of the Atonement, we can change. Any sins, bad habits, or addictions can be put behind us, making us free to become better, or in other words, more perfect, people. None of us are perfect yet. Many of us may have imperfections that we're not even trying to change right now. But God expects each of us to become perfect eventually, and He wants each of us to start working on that today.

I suppose it was such an imperfection that caused me to procrastinate and forget to ask for the topic of my lesson until it was too late, and I probably ought to begin working against that bad habit of procrastination, starting today. Or perhaps I'll procrastinate kicking the bad habit of procrastination until long after I'm dead, and I'll spend all of eternity saying to myself, "Yeah, I should work on that, but I can do that later." There's a reason God wants us to start working toward perfection now - because if we don't start now, maybe we never will.

This is shaping up to be a pretty good lesson, but perhaps it was meant to be a lesson just for me, because I just got a text from my Elder's Quorum President letting me know what the actual topic of my lesson is. I'd better go start studying it now.

Only God Can Save Me

While riding on a lightrail train a while back, I saw a guy wearing a shirt that I thought read "Only God can save me." As it turned out, the shirt actually said "Only God can judge me." I like my version better.

Saying that "only God can judge me" gives us license to do whatever we want, unrestrained by social conventions, common courtesy, or even basic morality. It is to proudly say that we are unwilling to change our behavior, even if the ability is well within our reach. Pride is a prevalent problem in each person's lives individually and in the world in general (If you don't believe me, ask Ezra Taft Benson), and when we say "only God can judge me," we are pridefully asserting that we refuse to address our vices and that no one has any right to comment on them or complain about them.

Saying that "only God can save me" is to admit that we have vices; vices that only God can remove. It is to humbly say that we are willing to change our natures to more closely match God's, even if the ability escapes us. Sin is a prevalent problem in the world in general and in each person's lives individually, and when we say "only God can save me," we are admitting the truth that only God can save us from ourselves and from the influence of the world.

I'm not sure if there's a T-Shirt that says "Only God Can Save Me." I wouldn't be surprised if there were, especially since I'm sure that one could be made easily. If there were one, and if I had one, I wonder if I'd be brave enough to wear it. It would take a certain amount of guts to tell everyone that "only God can judge me," but it probably takes a comparable amount of courage to say that "only God can save me."

I don't know what it is about sin that makes people want to keep it secret. Is it just embarrassment? Is it the influence of Satan, trying to prevent people from seeking, offering, or accepting help from others? Whatever the reason, many people have at least some internal reluctance to admit that only God can save them, and when their vices do come to light, some people then become defensive, essentially saying that only God can judge them, and maybe not even Him. I want to be a better person than that. I want to be humble enough to admit that I have many problems that I need God's help to solve. And I want to have the courage to reach out to others and remind them that only God has the power to save us, and even then, only if we have the courage to admit that we need saving.

Cards, Karma, and Justice

You know that moment when you're playing UNO and you play a Draw Two card on somebody, and then someone plays a Reverse and the person you played a Draw Two on plays a Draw Two on you, saying "guess when I drew that card"? Some people would call that karma or poetic justice. Some people call it statistically influenced probability (or luck, mingled with a slightly increased likelihood of getting that kind of luck). Some might say that it was destined to happen, while others may say that it only happened because you (and possibly the other guy(s)) made it happen. I don't know the laws of the universe well enough to say exactly why things happened that way, but I do know that there will be a frightening amount of justice on Judgement Day, and it might look an awful lot like karma.

Now, I'm not saying that any bad thing that you do will come back to bite you during the same lifetime, or even the next one, if you believe that there's life after death. I believe that you can repent and have sins taken off of the list of things you need to be punished for before the punishment actually happens, allowing you to avoid punishment altogether. But part of repentance is changing your behavior, which will require at least a few good deeds, so it might be argued that by doing good deeds, you generated enough good karma to counterbalance the bad karma you generated by doing bad things. But once again, I don't know the laws of the universe well enough to say whether karma is really a thing that actually happens or not. I'd guess not, because it's mostly only promoted by non-Christian religions, but it still could be true, especially since it so closely resembles justice, which I know is a true principle. Maybe karma is mostly true, perhaps even entirely true. Like I said, I don't know the rules well enough to say.

However, I do know that for every act, there is going to be an appropriate amount of justice. If we sin and don't repent of that sin, sooner or later we're going to suffer the consequences. On the other hand, whenever we do something good, God blesses us for it, either in this life or the next. That sounds a lot like karma, too. So maybe those Buddhists and Hindus know what they're talking about. After all, both they and Christians have reason to believe that you reap what you sow. [Link: Karma] [Link: Christianity]

Competence

How pathetic is it that I believe that one of the best feelings in the world is that of competence? Yesterday, in math class, we were given a complicated math problem that involved multiplying negative numbers with exponents on them, and I felt good when I eventually came up with the correct answer. As an leader of eleven-year-old Scouts, I sometimes struggle finding ways to keep the boys interested as we try to fulfill Boy Scout requirements, but I recently received a compliment that at least one of the boys thinks I'm funny, so I must be doing something right. And I've always been the kind of person that tinkers on the piano occasionally, and now that I've learned how to sort-of read sheet music, I've been able to learn how to play some hymns correctly, and it's actually sounding pretty good.

I don't mean to toot my own horn here. I'm just trying to illustrate the point that succeeding at things can make people happy. Sometimes things take a lot of practice and hard work, but the resulting feelings of competence and success are totally worth it. If you want to boost your happiness, and you know something that you're good at, go ahead and do that thing, then step back and appreciate the job well done. Alternatively, if you don't know what your talents are yet, develop one. Until this week, I would have told you that I'm not really very good at math, but I'm catching on pretty quickly. Until I became a scout leader, I believed that I served best in a following position and that my leadership skills were sub-par. And before I learned the tricks for finding the right notes on a piano, I could only sound them out one at a time, which sounded pretty lame.

Whatever talents you have or would like to have, it's worth spending a little bit of time and effort developing them. Becoming good at something is exciting and satisfying, as I've been fortunate to experience. Often, you'll need someone to help teach you the tricks, and you'll certainly need to invest some time in practicing the needed skills, but I think you'll find that the results are worth it, especially if you sometimes struggle with your self-worth. I sometimes do, or did, but knowing that I'm competent at some things, and that I can develop competence in areas where I previously had no skill, helps me feel that I have value and potential that I simply couldn't see before. A beautiful painting is obviously beautiful, while a blank canvass, by comparison, seems bland. But beautiful things can be painted on a blank canvass, just as a person without obvious talents can develop talents during their life.

So, find something you're good at or that you'd like to be good at, practice it whenever you get the chance, and then try to appreciate how competent you've become at that thing and see how good that makes you feel. It certainly makes me feel good to know that I have a talent or two that I didn't have before.

The First Two Rs of Choice

I found this on Facebook yesterday. It's pretty powerful.

In a way, this is encouraging. In another way, it's discouraging.

It's encouraging to know that Satan cannot overpower us, that we are strong enough to successfully resist every temptation we face. On the other hand, it's discouraging to think of the times when we could have made the right choice, but we didn't.

This quote came from a talk titled The Three Rs of Choice. The three Rs are the Right of choice, the Responsibility of choice, and the Results of choice. This quote deals with the first two Rs. We have the right to make our own choices, and neither God nor Satan can take that right away from us. But with that right comes responsibility. Because no one can force us to make certain decisions or make decisions for us, we are the only ones who are responsible for every choice we make. Others can pressure us or encourage us, but ultimately, we are the ones that make our decisions, and we are the ones who solely responsible for those decisions.

But because I try to keep this blog mostly positive, I'm going to try to put a positive spin on this. Of course, it's awesome to know that no temptation can overcome us as long as we have a firm resolve. Satan can't make us do anything. We will always have enough strength inside of us to say 'No!' As long as we remember to tap into that strength and to put our foot down, Satan can't move us. That's pretty cool.

Also, taking sole responsibility for your own choices can be a good thing. Suppose you make a good decision. YOU were the one who made that decision. YOU were the one who did that good thing. God may have encouraged you through the influence of His Spirit, and there may or may not have been some positive peer pressure going on at the time, but if I may paraphrase a word or two, "No [encouraging], no pressure, no enticing can overcome [you]" or force you to do anything that you don't choose to do. YOU made the right decision, and you get the full credit for that. There may have been forces pulling for you, but there were also forces working against you, yet neither force had the ability to take the power of choice out of your hands. YOU made the decision, and you made the right decision. So good for you! You did good. You should be proud of yourself. I'm sure God's proud of you.

What I learned from all of this is that we're strong. We're strong enough to make good decisions, no matter what influences are present. With that strength comes the responsibility to use it. We have the power and responsibility to resist temptation every time it appears. But with that responsibility comes credit. When we make good decisions, it's all on us. Yes, God had an influence, and we should be grateful to Him, but we are the ones who make our decisions, and we can be justly proud of ourselves when we make the right ones.

Moving Forward Toward Your Dreams

There's an article featured on LDS.org called Defy Gravity: Go Forward with Faith. It talks about riding a bicycle, and it mentions the wondrous physics of how a bike maintains balance, defying gravity, as long as it keeps moving. This reminded me of an old blog post of mine, Riding the Bicycle, in which I said something similar.

In order to stay afloat amid the storms of life and not sink into despair, we have to keep moving in a positive direction. The good news is that if we can keep moving forward, life won't be able to drag us down so easily. There's a lot to be said for having ambitious (even unrealistic) goals and putting a considerable amount of effort toward achieving them. Even if their lofty goals are never reached, those who try to do the impossible often accomplish more than those who strive for, and achieve, what we might consider a more normal level of success.

Perhaps one of my biggest personal problems is that I'm not very ambitious. Despite the Tangled song's claim that everybody has a dream, I'm not sure that I do. And if I do have a dream, I'm not sure what it is, and I certainly don't know how to pursue it. My biggest problem with the concept of moving forward is that sometimes we don't know which way forward is. Those with dreams and goals can figure out ways to pursue them. They know which way they want to go because they have a guiding star that they can follow.

Theoretically, so do I. I have a desire to become more like Jesus Christ. I guess you could call that a dream. It gives me a whole list of Christlike attributes to develop, and I could easily make a bit of progress toward obtaining those attributes, but what I'm really worried about is real life. I'm in school right now, taking general education classes for a well-rounded education, and English classes because I'm good at them. I don't know what I want to do for a living, or how my skill at English could translate into any kind of job. I don't have any "career goals," like so many other people my age have. They have dreams about what kind of job they want to have, what kind of house they want to live in, and what kind of family they'd like to raise, and I don't.

I know I like helping people. I love making people happy. I actually enjoy cleaning things sometimes. It's something of a pet peeve of mine when I see something out of place in a supermarket, and I get a little bit of personal satisfaction out of putting things back where they belong. All of these traits add up to the possibility of excelling as a courtesy clerk, but that's not really much of a "dream." Nobody dreams of working at a grocery or outlet store, except maybe me. It'd make a great job for me for now, but what about the future? Could I work my way up the ranks in management? I can lead people, but could I learn how to run a store, to make business decisions? I'm not sure. Working at a grocery store would be a great step in the right direction for me, but where could I go from there?

Maybe I should just take life one step at a time, and have faith that God knows how to get me where He knows I should be. It just really stinks to know that He has a perfect plan for my life and I don't have the faintest clue about what that plan is or how to follow it. I'm a terrific follower, if only I could get the directions I need. Without that direction, I'm lost. I can't learn how to move forward toward my dreams simply because I don't have any dreams, so I don't know which way forward is.

Music is Good

This being the first day of school, I'd love to leave as soon as possible to make sure everything is in order and I get to my classes on time, so I'd love to blog about something quick (and probably kind of lame), and get going. In light of that, I'm just going to share a quick message that I've probably shared at least a dozen times before.

I like music, especially upbeat and uplifting music, especially hymns. As far as I can remember, I always have. And I think I'm now beginning to learn why. As I mentioned a few blog posts ago, I like happiness. I like feeling happy and I like making other people feel happy. Happiness is good. Music can make people happy, and I think that's because good music attracts the Spirit. Good music brings us closer to God, and being close to God brings us greater happiness. That's because God wants us to be happy, so the closer we draw to Him, the happier we'll be.

President Boyd K. Packer taught that music has a strong influence on our thoughts. Other Prophets have taught that our thoughts influence our actions and our actions ultimately determine our destiny. Good music can help us have good thoughts, perform righteous actions, and secure a desirable destiny for ourselves. And since these are all things that God wants us to do, He blesses us with happiness as we do them.

You know, for a long time, I thought that the love of music was just a psychological thing. Our brain picks up the patterns in the music and because those patterns are pleasing to the brain, it rewards us by producing whatever chemical represents happiness to our brains, so we listen to music just because it feels good. According to that way of thinking, any spiritual benefits to listening to good music are purely coincidental, or perhaps God created our brains to enjoy music because He knew that music would have that beneficial "side-effect." I'm no psychologist, so I can't really say. What I can say is that I no longer think that we like music just because it "sounds nice." It's not just pleasant patterns stimulating desirable chemical reactions somewhere in the backs of our minds. Now I think that if such reactions do occur, God intended that to happen mostly so we'd listen to music more, so we'd gain the spiritual benefits of music, which may be the entire reason we like music in the first place.

Music is good, and it helps us to be good. Maybe that's why I've always liked it.

Pretend You're Camping

My family just got back from a camping trip yesterday. It was lots of fun. There was hiking, campfires, s'mores, and we even played a few games together. But every once in a while, something would go wrong, and we'd ward off negativity by reminding ourselves and each other to "pretend you're camping." I've thought about that phrase a little bit over the past few days, and I wonder if it might apply to life.

We all came from heaven, where everything is pretty much perfect. Perhaps, on some level, we remember what it was like, and there are certainly times in which we miss it. Sometimes, things go wrong in life, and we could get negative about it, or we could pretend we're on some kind of challenging and slightly unpleasant adventure, like camping. And in many ways, we are.

We left the perfectness of heaven for the imperfection of earth, partly to gain experience, partly to prove ourselves, partly just to get bodies and learn how to use them, but being on earth is only temporary. When it's over, we'll go back home, take showers, wash our clothes, and we'll be back in heaven again, where the beds are soft and warm, everything is fresh and clean, and there's nothing that we need or want that we don't have ready access to.

Earth life can be a challenge sometimes, and sometimes things go wrong. But we can stay positive by maintaining a good attitude. This camping trip isn't permanent, and it can be fun while it lasts. Life is nothing like heaven, but that's okay. Make peace with the imperfection of life and pretend that you're camping

Peaks and Troughs - How to Bounce Back

It's incredible that something I wrote with my own fingers just a few days ago can be exactly what I needed to read this morning. Then again, perhaps it's not so incredible after all. As someone who read The Screwtape Letters a long time ago, and heard it quoted in Elder's Quorum even longer ago, I barely remember a concept that C.S. Lewis shared about peaks and troughs. As we go throughout our daily lives, our spirituality naturally waxes and wanes. We have peaks, when we feel very spiritual, strongly committed to righteousness, and richly blessed, and then we have troughs, when we feel less spiritual, less committed, and less blessed. There are times when we're doing better, and times when we're doing worse.

This isn't a terrible thing, just like it isn't a terrible thing that the tides come in and go out. Waves come and go. The tides rise and fall. But the ocean's overall sea level stays mostly the same. Being in a trough doesn't indicate a permanent loss of spirituality any more than a low tide indicates a permanent loss of sea water. You'll bounce back. The true question is how quickly you'll bounce back, and I've learned a trick to help with that.

In addition to the basic tricks that can improve your spirituality whether it's low or high (reading scriptures, praying, singing hymns, etc), you can set a sort of anchor or bookmark on one of your spiritual peaks. By writing spiritual things on my blog when I'm on a peak, and reading them back to myself when I'm in a trough, I can pull myself out of the trough and back toward the peak where I was a few days ago. I can essentially remind myself of how I felt when I was feeling good and what caused me to feel that way. So when I felt slightly less spiritual and less positive, I was able to pick myself back up. And it gets even better.

If a person keeps pulling themselves out of their troughs sooner and sooner, their overall spirituality will improve. As their low moments become shorter and less low, and their high moments remain just as high and long, their average level of spirituality will grow higher. You can even build on your peaks to make your best moments even better, which will also help to improve your average.

Sometimes, people just endure their low moments. Sometimes they feel okay, and sometimes they don't, and that's just the way life is. But it doesn't have to be that way! Yes, bad things have to happen in life. There's always going to be stress and opposition, but it doesn't have to bring you down. Not far, and not for long. There are things that we can do to maintain or regain our spirituality, no matter what is going on in our lives.

So, in case you're having a bad day, or even just an okay day, know that you can make it better. And once you're feeling better, or if you're feeling good right now, find a way to hold on to that feeling or to record it so you can get it back when you need to. There are still going to be ups and downs, but with a little effort, you can make your up moments even better and your down moments not so bad. I promise that you'll be glad that you did.

The Proper Time, The Proper Way

I have an infection on my finger. I've had it for a few days. It looks horrible - red and swollen. It's kind of painful, too, especially if something touches it. I want to pop it, to drain the puss (and hopefully some of the infection) out, so my finger can return to its normal size, color and level of tenderness, especially before the camp out.

By the way, I'm going camping soon, so if I miss a few days of blogging sometime soon, that's why.

I want to poke my infected finger with something sharp to let it drain and heal, but I know I shouldn't. It's not that it's a bad idea. In fact, I'm going to have it drained later this morning. It's just that it's a bad idea for me to do it right now, using just the equipment I have access to. Doing that runs the risk of introducing another infection, making it even harder for my body to stave it off. It'd be better to have it done at a hospital, by medical professionals using sterilized equipment and effective germ-killing soaps and solutions. It's not that the draining shouldn't be done. It's that it should be done their way rather than mine.

A lot of times, people have their own way of doing things. Usually, people want things to happen sooner than they should. God knows the proper time and place and method for everything, and for things that He wants us to do, He has given us guidelines on how and when they should be done. (He has also given us a list of things that should not be done, no matter where, when, or how we want to do them, but that's beside the point.) Sometimes, there are things that He wants to happen, like for someone to overcome and illness or to come home from their mission, but He wants them to happen at the proper time, and in the proper way.

Waiting for the Lord's time can be difficult. Or, for some things, acting on the Lord's time when we would rather wait or do something else first can be tough. But as always, God knows better than we do. He knows that some things should wait and other things shouldn't, and everything that should be done should be done the right way. Popping my finger myself with a safety pin? Not the right way to do it. It's far better to just wait a few more hours until my appointment to get my finger drained by the right people at the right time and in the proper way.

Coming Home to Happiness

For those of you who aren't on Facebook, or who aren't Friends with my mom or sisters, my brother, Ben, came home from his mission yesterday, and after a little bit of a wild goose chase at the airport, we welcomed him with open arms and tears of joy. I wonder if our final homecoming will be anything like that, minus the wild goose chase. Family and close friends waiting with open arms, tears of joy at the reunion... It sounds nice. But of course, it won't be nearly so joyful if it's clear by your life up to that point that, after Judgement, you're probably headed downstairs. Ben's welcome was so warm partly because we knew he was returning with honor.

In life, a lot of our happiness depends on our personal righteousness. That counts double for the afterlife. Ben's homecoming yesterday was a good experience (a fun experience, a learning experience, and a sweet experience). We can have a similar experience when our missions on Earth are over and we're reunited with our loved ones on the other side, but only if we're righteous.

I like happiness. I enjoy being happy, and I enjoy making other people happy. Maybe that's part of why I blog. When I blog, I try to remind myself and others to be righteous, and if we are righteous, we can have greater happiness in this world and especially in the world to come, or rather, the world we'll be coming home to.

A Life-Changing Experience

Today, my brother comes home from Korea. After two years of working hard to bring souls unto Christ, he's coming home to continue his education, get a job and a girlfriend, and basically start the next phase of his life. I wonder what the first movie he watches after coming home will be. I wonder if he's still going to like the same things he used to like. I wonder how and how much his mission will have changed him. And I now wonder how and how much my mission changed me.

Life changes people. In fact, that's a pretty central and vital part of life. We're put on this Earth, in part, to help us gradually become wiser, stronger, better people. Every experience we have is designed to help us with that goal in some way. Sometimes, we're given challenges to overcome to make us stronger. Sometimes, we're given some of the rewards for righteous behavior or some of the penalties for unrighteous behavior so we'll learn to make better decisions. No matter what life throws at us, God has designed it to change us for the better.

People resist change. I can really only speak for myself, but I think that a lot of people generally don't like it when things have to change. Yet, life is full of life-changing experiences. Ben just had a big one, and I'm sure we've all had several smaller ones back here at home. He is certain to have changed, and we've almost certainly changed a little, too. Hopefully, we've all mostly changed for the better, but it could be said that the family that said "Goodbye" two years ago isn't the same family that'll say "Welcome home" today.

This homecoming is certainly a new beginning for Ben, but it can be a new beginning for all of us. This is a chance for us to more fully become the family we want to be and the people we want to be. This homecoming, along with most things that happen in life, is going to be a life-changing experience. Let's make it a change for the better.

"The Problem Is Not The Problem"

"The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem." - Captain Jack Sparrow

I haven't seen whichever movie this quote was taken from, but this concept is pretty profound. In fact, it almost sounds like something you might hear said at General Conference.

In life, there are plenty of problems. In fact, there are so many problems in our lives that we will probably never solve them all. By the time we've solved one problem, we've probably already gotten a new one to replace it. Some people struggle with many problems at a time, but everyone has at least one problem to deal with at any given time, and that's all part of the plan.

I don't think we're ever meant to solve all of our problems. We could solve any of our problems, and God certainly wants us to work on them, but the idea isn't to solve all our problems so we don't have any problems anymore. The idea is to learn how to deal with problems. Sometimes, we learn how to solve particular problems, and sometimes we have to learn how to cheerfully endure certain problems while we have them. It's a learning experience.

Life's many problems are not the problem. The problem is our attitude toward life's problems. Sometimes, we want to solve the problems in our lives, and we get frustrated when it doesn't work, but sometimes, we can't get rid of our problems because we haven't yet learned the lessons God's using our problems to teach us. It's not about solving problems. It's about building us.

So the next time you have a problem that's giving you trouble, try to have a positive attitude about it. I know that's much easier said than done, but try. Try to find out what lesson(s) God's trying to use your problems to teach you and try to incorporate those lessons into your life. If you can do that, you may find that your problems do more good for you than harm, and if that's the case, then it could be said that your problems aren't really problems at all.

The Various Tests of Life

For your ease of reading, I'll copy the quote into larger text.

The tests of life are tailored for our own best interests. and all will face the burdens best suited to their own mortal experience. In the end we will realize that God is merciful as well as just and that all the rules are fair. We can be reassured that our challenges will be the ones we needed, and conquering them will bring blessings we could have received in no other way.
-Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

 I like this quote because I sometimes consider it odd that this life is meant to test everyone, yet everyone's tests are different. Some are given power to see how well they use it, while others are given weakness to see how well they overcome it or endure it. Some are given everything to see what they'll do with it, and some are given little or nothing to see how well they'll live with it. I wonder sometimes why everyone isn't tested on all subjects, to see how well they do on each of life's tests. Why doesn't everyone in the world experience both wealth and poverty, for example, to see how well they act in each situation?

Maybe we don't need to. Maybe, before we were born, God looked at our souls and said, "I know you're a good spirit, and that you'd do really well if I put you in such-and-such a situation, so I'm not going to test you on that. You automatically pass that part of the exam. There is, however, one part of the test that will really challenge you, and you'll learn a lot from it, so that's the kind of life experience you'll have down there." Maybe God subjects us to the parts of the test that are bound to test us the most, and leaves the other parts of life's trial to those who'd benefit from them more than we would.

Still, why not give everyone every test anyway? Wouldn't it be nice to face a test we'd ace with ease every once in a while? Well, one problem with that idea is that it'd probably require reincarnation. It seems impossible to experience every life experience in one lifetime, so in order to face every test that life has to offer, we'd had to experience life multiple times. Yet, we know from modern revelation, or perhaps even older ones, that reincarnation doesn't happen. We each get one life and one life only. Yet, maybe one life is enough.

Everybody's lives have some ups and down. We all have gains and losses. We each have moments of power and moments of weakness. Perhaps we do each face every kind of test life has to offer, all in one lifetime each, but the predominant themes of our lives - the tests we continually face as long as we live - are the ones that we need most. I don't know if there have been any moments in my life when I've been or felt rich and/or powerful, but there may have been moments like that in my past, or there may be moments like that in my future. Only God really knows what my life has in store. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a little bit of everything in everybody's lives, just to see how they would handle such tests, even if the tests best suited to them are the ones they had faced and would face all their lives.

God knows what's going on in our lives, and He certainly has a hand in almost everything that happens. He knows what tests we need to face and which tests, if any, we don't really need to be tested against. In the end, once we've gained the intelligence and perspective He has, we'll see that the tests we were given in our mortal lives were exactly the ones we needed. God knows what He's doing. Let's trust His judgement when He decides which of life's tests we do or don't have to face.

Thoughts on Thoughts and Desires

Just kind of thinking out loud, here. Bear with me.

Our thoughts determine our choices.
Our choices determine our actions.
Our actions shape our character.
Our character determines our destiny.

So, how do we control our thoughts? What things influence our thoughts?

Everything we see or hear or experience influences our thoughts. We'll call those atmospheric influences. We can't always control our atmosphere, but sometimes we can. We can certainly chose what forms of media we read, watch, or listen to. That's a good start.

Can our behaviors influence our thoughts? Can people "fake it 'til they make it"? I think so. Controlling  our actions requires a conscious choice. Our subconscious thoughts can influence our decision-making process, but it's the conscious mind that has the final say in what we do. A person who's angry may feel like hurting people, but they can choose not to. A person who's tired can choose to go to work anyway, even if they feel like going to bed.

Making a conscious decision that contradicts what we feel like doing requires will-power. The more actions we take that go against our carnal or emotional desires, the stronger our will-power becomes. On the other hand, the more choices we make that are in line with what we want to do, the weaker our will-power becomes. Perhaps this is how some addictions start; people give in to what they want so frequently that they start to lose their ability to do otherwise.

Right now, I want to help my Mom move a piece of furniture. But I need to blog. But my blog can wait. Or maybe it's just that I have too little will-power to resist the temptation to take advantage of the opportunity to be helpful.

Somehow, I've gotten off of the topic of thoughts and onto the topic of desires. How are thoughts and desires related? We often think about the things we desire. Or is it that we desire the things that we think about? We can consciously choose to change our thoughts, but can we change our desires the same way? Our desires can influence our thoughts, but is the same true in reverse?

An experiment: I will consciously think I want a taco (not normally one of my more favorite foods), and see if that causes me to want a taco.

I am hungry now, but I'm not sure if I'm hungry for tacos. I can imagine myself wanting a taco, and enjoying a taco, but I don't think I actually want a taco yet. Maybe it takes time.

Why did I conduct an experiment that would make me hungry? I just ate! And it's time to work! I want to help my Mom. That was easy. But I had already wanted to help my Mom before I decided to try to want to eat a taco. The desire was already there.

Right now, what I want is to understand how my mind works, how my thoughts and desires influence each other and how they both influence my actions. I want to learn how to control my thoughts, desires, and actions. After all, learning self-control is one of the main purposes of life.

But I don't have time for that now. I'll try to think of it during the day, while I'm working. Right now, work is more important.

Winning and Losing and Winning Anyway

Look, I know that some of you (okay, maybe only one of you) think I spend too much time thinking about and playing fantasy role-playing games, but if I get a spiritual insight out of them occasionally, that's what I'm going to blog about. I'm sorry I'm not who you'd like me to be. I'm not who I'd like to be either. I'm trying to change that, and I believe these fantasy games are helping.

In past blog posts, I've explained the somewhat ridiculous system of earning XP. In case any of you have forgotten how it works, here's the whole XP system in a nutshell: Kill Monsters. You kill monsters, you earn XP. Simple as that.

Except that, recently, I've learned that there are more ways to earn XP than that. The GM (Game Master), the person who's calling the shots, can give characters bonus XP for almost any or no reason at all. When the four hobbits outmaneuvered the ring wraiths and successfully made it to Bree, they probably earned XP for that. When Merry and Pippin convinced the Ents to go to war with Sauruman, they might have earned XP for that, too. And Frodo and Sam probably earned bucket loads of XP for destroying the One Ring, even though Frodo did hardly any fighting at all. (BTW, Sam is Awesome. He did everything Frodo did, PLUS he took out a bunch of orcs and a large, monstrous spider!)

And even in the combat-oriented encounters, it turns out that you don't actually have to kill the monsters. You just have to "defeat" them. If you can sneak past them, put them to sleep with magic, knock them out without killing them, fight them off so they run away, or maybe even just scare them away, you might get XP for that. So, there are a whole lot of ways to earn XP without killing anything. The trouble is that you still have to win.

If the four hobbits had been captured before reaching Bree, they wouldn't have earned XP for trying to escape the ring wraiths' clutches. If Merry and Pippin hadn't convinced the Ents to take on Sauruman, they wouldn't have earned XP for trying. And if Frodo and Sam hadn't managed to destroy the One Ring, they wouldn't have earn all that bonus XP for completing their epic quest, because they had failed to complete it.

In most RPGs, if you lose, you lose, and you don't get any XP for trying.

So if a role-playing adventure character starts pushing on a rock, and he fails to move that rock no matter how hard he tries, and he keeps trying and failing for the rest of his life, he won't earn any XP for the endeavor, and he will never get any stronger. Thank God real life doesn't work like that.

In real life, if you try and fail, you still get points for trying. If you push on a rock, your muscles get stronger, whether the rock actually moves or not. If you study for a test, you get smarter, whether you pass the test or not. If you make a decision and learn from it, you become wiser, whether you made the right decision or not. In fact, some people say that they gain more knowledge, wisdom, and strength from failure than they get from succeeding, and that totally makes sense. If you push on an empty box and get it to move, that won't be much of a workout, so you won't gain a whole lot of strength from it, but if you push on a boulder, that could be a considerable workout, so you may get a bit stronger whether you get the rock to move or not.

Failure can be discouraging, but it can also be empowering. Learn from your mistakes and keep fighting. In real life, as long as you keep fighting, you're going to get stronger, whether you ever manage to defeat your monsters or not.

Let's Make Them Birds

I don't remember him doing this. In fact, I don't even remember now who this man is. I remember watching him on PBS a few times. He's a good artist. I didn't know he did that thing with mistakes and birds. It's a good idea, though.

When we were painting our bedroom, we had the idea that we would use darker shades of blue toward the bottom of the walls, and use lighter shades of blue for the upper walls and ceiling, so it'd look like an underwater scene. While painting a wall near where my bed would be, I used a shade of blue that was probably too dark for how high on the wall it was. Rather than painting over the mistake, I continued with a little bit of dark blue paint, and turned my mistake into a fish, which is now my favorite part of our wall.

We make mistakes, and sometimes we try to fix them by erasing them or painting over them. I wonder now if it wouldn't be a better thing to twist our flaws into things of beauty, to convert our garbage into compost (Man, that's a throwback from ages past!), and to use our stumbling blocks to build a foundation for a better life. Rather than covering up our mistakes or attempting to eliminate them entirely, perhaps we can use our flaws to become more perfect instead seeing them merely as things that make us imperfect.

I'm human, and I have several major problems with that. I hate being human. If there was a way to stop being human (that didn't involve serious moral and emotional repercussions), I'd consider it. I'm often disgusted, frustrated, and discouraged at how grotesquely human I am. Yet, being human is completely out of my hands and it's not something that's in my power to change. What I can change is my attitude toward being human and toward all the mistakes that my imperfection causes me to make. Instead of wishing I could erase my human imperfections or paint over them somehow, perhaps it'd be wiser for me to learn how to turn my flaws into birds.

Weaknesses can become strengths, I believe, if we use them correctly. I have what some would consider an obsessive fascination with fantasy, but there are ways I can use that to my advantage. In addition to the obvious, though unlikely-to-succeed career options in the fields of fantasy literature and the creation of fantasy games, there's an opportunity for me to bring about some good in the lives of people like me. My fellow fantasy freaks could probably benefit from the inspirational words of someone with a spiritual background, a talent for words, an intense understanding of fantasy, and a desire to improve his own life and the lives of others. I can speak their language, and if I can tell them ways they can improve their lives in terms that they can understand, maybe I can help them work their obsessive fascination with fantasy into a well-balanced human existence at the same time as I do the same thing for myself.

As a person who spends the majority of his free time in fictional worlds, I don't expect anyone who's firmly rooted in the real world to fully understand me, just as other people like me don't expect most people to understand them. But if I, being one of them, understand them as well as I think I do, maybe I can help them, and myself, find a place in a world that's more challenging than any world any fantasy author could imagine - the real one. Maybe I can turn my unhealthy obsession into the engine that drives me to change my own and other people's lives for the better. In a way, I've already started that by attempting to see myself as a Paladin.

Anyway, I'm two or three paragraphs deep into a worthless tangent. I'd probably better get myself back on track now. We're all human. And since we're all human, we all have aspects to ourselves that we'd love to change. My message this morning is that sometimes we don't have to remove our flaws entirely in order to remove them effectively. If a man can negotiate for peace successfully, he can eliminate his enemies by turning them into friends. A man who can turn his weaknesses into strengths will soon become the strongest man in the world. You don't need to paint over your flaws in order to eliminate them. You just need to learn how to turn them into birds.

No Ideas, No Time

I'm tired. I was up pretty late last night, and not entirely by choice. I don't know what I want to blog about and I don't have much time for blogging anyway. I have to go get ready for church. I'm sorry you don't get a real blog post today. Actually, what I posted yesterday probably doesn't count as a real blog post either. Sorry. Better luck next time.

Aldric's Daily Schedule, And Mine

I've been working on trying to spend my time more wisely, if you recall Experiment Six-to-Six. Last night, I read an article on a Disney blog about a typical Disney prince's daily schedule, which gave me a few ideas of what a paladin's daily schedule might include, which gave me a few ideas of what mine should. This idea isn't new. In fact, a few years ago, I kept to a strict daily schedule as a missionary. I'll use that schedule for ideas, too.

I want to start this off by writing up Aldric's daily schedule. Aldric is my Paladin character in D&D. I figure that I could make a schedule for him using a combination of the Disney prince schedule and the missionary schedule, and then I could make a schedule for myself using the missionary daily schedule and Aldric's schedule. Let's see how this goes.

The missionary daily schedule starts at 6:30, and Aldric's day will probably start pretty early, too. Perhaps at sunrise, or just before. Sunrise is when he prays to his deity for access to his daily portion of divine magic, so he'd have to be up at least that early, and it'd help if he's not still half-asleep at that time. This works out for the missionary daily schedule, since missionaries always start their day with prayer. Also pretty early in a missionary's morning is personal scripture study. I'll combine those two things for Aldric and together they'll make up the first hour of his day.

The first item on the Disney prince's daily list is breakfast, followed by training. This works perfectly with the missionary daily schedule, since they have breakfast and do 30 minutes of exercise right after their morning prayers, so Aldric will follow that same pattern. After breakfast, he'll do sword drills and train with his horse, and basically keep himself in good enough shape that he'll be ready for his next adventure. This only takes 30 minutes for missionaries, but I plan on it taking up most of Aldric's morning.

After training, Aldric bathes, has lunch, and goes out into town. This sort of matches the missionary schedule, except that they go out just before lunch (and after lunch, and again right after dinner), and they preach the gospel to everyone they see. Aldric probably won't do that, but he'll definitely be as Christian as possible, probably sharing some encouraging or at times admonishing words from out of his religious texts (all of the religions in D&D are different from real-world religions, but the one Aldric belongs to is close enough to generic Christianity that I can pretend that he worships the Christian God, using a Christian Bible. Speaking of which, I forgot to list that among his personal affects on his character sheet. I should probably do that sometime because I bet the book weighs at least one pound).

The Disney prince schedule encourages social interaction as well, but for different reasons. Not being affiliated with any religion (and often going out of their way to avoid the subject), Disney has their princes hit the town purely for social and slightly political reasons. "A prince’s subjects need to trust him, and believe that he’s the right man for the throne. Mingling with the locals, and putting on some of that patented princely charm, is part of the job." Aldric has similar shoes to fill. While he's not in line for any throne, he is the new guy in town, and he wants to gain a solid reputation as a good guy in the eyes of the community. That includes mingling with the townspeople and being friendly.

Aldric's town-wandering always leads him to the local church, where he volunteers what little healing magic he has to aiding the sick and afflicted. (Actually, his healing magic won't extend to illnesses until he reaches 6th level. In the meantime, he uses his magic to heal physical injuries.) This, naturally, isn't on either the missionary's or the Disney prince's schedules, but missionaries do make time for service every week, though not usually every day.

At this point, the schedules fail me. The missionary daily schedule really only covers the morning routine since missionaries spend all of the rest of their time doing missionary work. And the Disney prince's schedule isn't a whole lot better because it staggers through episodes of falling in love alternating with doing other things. At about mid-afternoon, he meets a fair maiden, which is only natural. If an attractive young guy spends any amount of time mingling with others, he's bound to bump into a young woman who's attracted to him. But then the Disney schedule has him perform "a daring feat of bravery," which is entirely unnecessary, unless there's some kind of emergency, and emergencies don't typically follow daily schedules. Yes, if something bad happens, you drop everything and be a hero, but it's not something you actually plan on, unless you somehow orchestrated the "emergency," which is decidedly anti-heroic.

Anyhow, once the regularly scheduled emergency has been dealt with by our heroic prince, he goes back to falling in love, followed by some "me time," followed by more falling in love. Fortunately for me, I already had my own idea for how Aldric spends his evenings. Once most, if not all, of his healing magic is spent, he goes back to the tavern where many people socialize and enjoy their meals over a glass of wine or mug of ale. At this time, he mostly stays quiet and does some people-watching, keeping a lookout for anyone who might be inclined to start a argument or brawl. If things start to get heated, he encourages everyone to settle down. Once the tavern is quiet enough to no longer need a vigilant peacekeeper, Aldric retires to his bedroom, where he does some letter and journal writing before going to bed. Actually, a better time for letter-writing would be in the morning before breakfast, so he could hand the letters off to the messengers that day. I'll throw that in right after his personal study. He still journals at night, as do I.

To recap:
Dawn - Wake up, Prayers/Study
Early Morning - Letter Writing, Breakfast
Late Morning - Training
Mid-Day - Bathe, Lunch, Mingle
Afternoon - Service
Late Afternoon - More mingling before dinner, if time permits.
Evening - Dinner, People-Watching/Peace-Keeping
Late Evening - Journal Writing, Evening Prayer, Bed.

I'm getting tired just reading all of that. Adapting it to me:

6:00 - Wake up, Morning prayer
Early Morning - Breakfast, Blogging (I guess that sort of counts as some kind of personal study.)
Late Morning - ...It depends.

Right now, if I have time in the morning after blogging, I go to the Bishop's Storehouse, which could count as service and light exercise put together. But school will be starting up soon, and then I'll be spending my mornings there. After that, who knows? There will be some social interaction, I'm sure, but how much? Preferably not too much. I need to schedule specific times for writing and job-hunting. The trouble is that my afternoons are so free that I'm not sure which thing to do first or how much time to give each of them. Also, I should set aside some time for chores and playing piano (I'll put that down as "me time"), but the order in which to do those things eludes me.

Okay, think. I just got home from school, and I'm feeling pretty happy and a little tired from biking. What do I do next? Writing. Okay. After that? Chores (physically active, but mentally restful). Then job-hunting. Then Piano. That way, Mom will come home to find me in a good mood, playing hymns or other nice music. I like the sound of that. My evenings will involve more social interaction with family (unless I have a meeting or something), followed by an hour or so of TV (still with family), then family prayer and scriptures. After that, I'll brush my teeth, write in my journal, and do some personal scripture study before bed, just as I do now (though preferably with less computer-usage between family prayer and actually going to bed).

So, Late Morning - Storehouse or School
Afternoon - Writing, Chores, Job-Hunting, Piano (Still have to work out exact times for those.)
Evening - Dinner, Family Time or Meetings
Late Evening - Family Prayer, Scriptures, Journal Writing, Bed.

Sounds like a full day. Sounds like a good day. I'm glad I finally did this.

Pushing on Rocks

Not too long ago, a friend asked me if I had heard story of a man whom God asked to push a rock. I replied that I hadn't, but that I could probably guess how it went. Here's my version of it.

A man was once asked by God to push a rock. So, he pushed on it with all of his might, but he couldn't move it. He got a branch and tried to leverage the rock, but it wouldn't budge. He kept trying and trying, but he could not move the rock. But the more he tried, the stronger he became, until one day, he actually got the rock to move. It only moved a little, but even a small amount of progress was encouraging at that point. So, he kept pushing and the rock kept budging. Little by little, the man started to move the rock. Then he got it to roll. After that, all he had to do was keep it rolling, and from then on, what had been impossible at first had become easy.

It's an encouraging story, but I got it wrong. In my friend's version, the rock never moved.

So, the man kept pushing and pushing, sweating and straining and wearing himself out, until eventually, God came back and asked the man about his progress. "I'm not making any progress!" the man despaired. "I keep pushing and pushing, but the rock just won't move! I can't do it. I'm sorry I failed you."

"Hold on now," God said. "You haven't failed me. I didn't ask you to move the rock. I asked you to push the rock. You did that. And look at how much stronger you've become because of it! That's what I was really after all along. You've done well, and I'm proud of you."

God has given all of us a bunch of rocks to push on. Some of them, we'll be able to move a little, there may be some that we can move with ease, and there may be some that we just can't move at all. But whether the rocks get moved or not, we become stronger by pushing them, and that's really why the rocks were placed in front of us in the first place. If God just wanted the rocks moved or removed, He could easily do that Himself, but if He wants us to become stronger, we have to be the ones doing the pushing. Whether your rocks are moving slowly, easily, or not at all, take courage in the knowledge that moving the rocks isn't the real goal here. The real goal is for us to become stronger, and as long as we keep pushing, we're doing that - whether the rocks actually get moved or not.

Learning From a Dumb Mistake

Yesterday, I got water in my ear, making my hearing a little muffled, and I got the brilliant idea to clean the water out with a Q-tip. Turns out, that idea wasn't so brilliant since it seemed to only make the problem worse and my hearing hasn't gotten any better since. At the time, I was feeling pretty negative about everything, so I questioned how loving God could be when He lets people make stupid mistakes and bad decisions, and then suffer from them, sometimes permanently. Since then, my anger has cooled off a little and I've gained some small amount of perspective into the wisdom of letting people make and suffer from their own mistakes. Essentially, God lets people suffer as a result of doing stupid things, basically so they learn to not do those things. Usually, He warns us about things that we shouldn't do, just as I had previously been warned about sticking thing into my ear, but then He respects our agency, gives us the freedom to make mistakes, and turns those mistakes into opportunities to learn the lessons we had failed to learn the easy way.

I know that God isn't punishing me for being human, and He doesn't enjoy watching people suffer from their own dumb mistakes. But He has a very long-term perspective about all of this. He knows that even though I have muffled hearing in one of my ears, and even if I have that condition for the rest of my life, it's not the worst thing that could have happened to me, and at the longest, it's only going to last as long as my mortal life does. Even though it may seem kind of strict for God to let me suffer permanent hearing damage for one dumb move I made, He knows that the damage is not really permanent at all. While I hope I can get the problem cleared up soon, meaning some time this week, God knows that the problem will be cleared up soon enough, meaning some time this century. In either case, it's not really a permanent problem. No physical problem ever is.

In the meantime, I've learned a few things from my mistake. For starters, I've learned to not try and clean out my ear with anything solid. On a wider level, I've learned that I should be delicate with delicate things, like ears, people's emotions, and life itself. Some things are very fragile and should be treated with special care. I forgot that for a moment yesterday, but for now, my impaired hearing will serve as a reminder of that for however long my hearing impairment lasts. And if, even for one moment, that helps me to be more Christlike, to treat people more nicely, or to make better decisions, my lessened hearing will have done enough good for me to have made up for the inconvenience it's causing me now. Yeah, it's a bummer that I made one dumb move and I'll be paying for it for who knows how long, possibly the rest of my life, but if that helps me to avoid making some other dumb mistake, where the stakes are higher than guaranteed-temporary partial hearing damage, then it'll probably be worth it, and I certainly shouldn't get mad at God for letting me make that mistake.

Anger is a Waste of Time

I don't really have anything to blog about today. This morning hasn't been going as well as I could have hoped. I've heard that there are no negative experiences - just learning experiences. I guess what I learned this morning is that it's a waste of time to get angry at yourself or others. It certainly wasted a lot of time today.

Anger is a negative emotion. I don't understand it well enough to know what all causes it, but I know that it doesn't come from God. Instead, from God we get the power to forgive whomever we're angry at, by that ourselves, other people, or God Himself.

We don't really want to feel angry. It doesn't feel good, it clouds our judgement, and it accomplishes nothing. There is nothing beneficial about anger that I can think of. I was about to mention that it can sometimes empower and motivate people, but it really only motivates us to do things that we'll later regret, like spending my whole morning arguing with myself. Anger doesn't really help anyone. It can only hurt people, including those who feel it.

It's better to let go of anger as soon as you can. Forgive people as quickly as possible and, in order to not reopen closed wounds, try to forget what it was that made you angry (after you've learned from it, of course). I might have learned a few things from what upset me this morning, but right now I'm too emotional to tell. Anger is an enemy to wisdom. Avoid it when you can.

Bearing Up Burdens

This morning, I read Elder David A. Bednar's talk, Bear Up Their Burdens With Ease. I like the "with ease" part, but I, like many other people, am not really excited about the part about bearing up burdens. As Elder Bednar correctly stated, I "Sometimes... mistakenly... believe that happiness is the absence of a [heavy] load." I typically think of heaven as a place that's peaceful and relaxing, and I feel closest to heaven when I'm relaxing in a peaceful place. But what I hate to admit is that it takes a lot of work to get there. But really, I should have a better attitude about it, and here's why:

Anyone who reads my blog posts regularly is probably aware that I like the concept of exercise. You do something, you gradually become more capable at it; you stop doing it, you gradually become less capable. That analogy applies to so many things, but it can also be taken literally. The more work we do, the better we get at doing work. We become stronger, more capable, and in general, more awesome. It's worth the amount of effort we put into it. It doesn't even really matter what kind of work we do or whether the work itself produces anything. If nothing else, we are the product the work produces. I saw this on an ad for Deseret Industries. "Whereas most businesses use people to move or build things, Deseret Industries uses things to move and build people." Leland Hardy, director of Deseret Industries.

God uses almost all work that same way. Whether the work we do is just holding down a job, or hunting for one, or going through school, or dealing with life's various afflictions and adversity, any work we do strengthens us, and that makes us more like our Omnipotent and Industrious Heavenly Father. Theoretically, God, immediately after having reached the state of Godhood, could have sat back on some cloud and never have to lift a finger again, but instead, He went to work building worlds, inhabiting them with His spirit children (us), and working countless miracles for our benefit throughout all of recorded history. While He could be relaxing in the kind of heaven I imagine, instead He's working, and trying to get us to do our share of the work, because He knows that working is good for all of us. I'm going to try to convince myself that I believe that, and I hope that that'll help motivate me to do the work I need to do.

God Saw That

You know that thing you you did just now, right before clicking on the link to this blog post? God saw that. Remember that thing you did about a week ago and you thought nobody noticed? God did. You know that secret you've got that's so secret that you haven't even told your spouse or parents about it? God knows about it. God sees and knows everything. That could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what you do when you think nobody's watching you.

First, lets touch on the negative. One of Satan's lies is that "no one will ever know." According to him, you can sin and not get caught. And if you're never caught, you won't get punished. Effectively, according to Satan, you can sin and get away with it because no one will ever find out that you sinned. Of course, this isn't true. God is omniscient. He sees everything that we do, whether we try to keep it secret or not. And even if He doesn't tell anybody (which He might, but assuming He doesn't), it'll still come up at Final Judgement. Even if you and He are the only two people who ever find out what you did, just knowing that He knows what you did is enough to tell you that you're not going to get away with anything.

On the flipside, He knows about all the good things you do, too. If you've ever done a random act of secret service, God saw that. The last time you did something nice and good, and you thought nobody noticed it, God did. If you're working on a secret, charitable project that nobody knows about but you, God knows about it also. And He's probably proud of you for it. There are people who publicly announce the good things that they do, hoping to be recognized and then there are those who do good things on a regular basis with very little fanfare about it, and perhaps the only person who truly notices how much good you do is God Himself. But that's okay. Even if the only person who truly understands how much good you do for others is God, it'll still come up at Final Judgement, and He'll make sure you're justly blessed for your quiet service.

God is omniscient and totally just. Nothing escapes His attention, and none of it will slip His mind when it comes time for our Final Judgement. In fact, the only things that WON'T come up at Final Judgement are the sins for which we've adequately repented. So, let's repent of our sins, even the ones nobody knows about, and let's do good, even if nobody notices. God, who knows, notices, and cares about everything, will make sure all the scales balance in the end, and whether that means dispensing blessings for secret service or exacting punishments for secret sins is entirely up to us.

Life Stinks - Here's an Elephant

I found this image on Facebook and I knew I had to share it. It has an interesting and encouraging message, and it gets bonus points for depicting and elephant.

I'm pretty sure that this is a big part of the plan of life. In life, we all start off being weak and foolish. We do a lot of stupid things. We fail at almost everything we try. We get discouraged and frustrated, and at that point, some people blame life itself for being too hard, or blame themselves in a bad way for being hopeless. The wise people, the strong people, or rather, the people who become wise and strong, are basically those that get so fed up with being weak and foolish that they do something about it. They exercise, they keep trying, they ponder their decisions, and they learn. Eventually, they become the kind of people the rest of us look up to and think "If only I were more like them," but they only got to be they way they are by becoming sick and tired of being the way we are now.

I think life is supposed to stink. I think that life is supposed to stink so much that we get sick of how badly it sticks, until we build up enough motivation to do something about it. It starts on the inside. We stink. We experience weakness and foolishness until we get so fed up with being weak and foolish that we decide we'd rather work our butts off to change ourselves than go on being the way we are. So we invest a great deal of time and effort into the hopeless dream of self-improvement until we find, to our surprise, that it's actually working. The more we try and keep trying, the stronger and wiser we become. And that's when we start to stink less, when we decide that we're so sick of the way we are that we're willing to work hard to become better.

Then we branch out. We become so sick of the destruction of the environment, or the suffering in foreign countries, or even the suffering in our own neighborhoods, that we decide that it's worth the effort and the sacrifice to volunteer our time and our money to make the world stink a little less. And if enough people work hard enough to make the world stink less, it's going to stink less and less until it doesn't stink at all. Just like us.

I'm not sure if God made the world stink so we can become more Christlike by trying to make it stink less, or if people made the world stink because people stink. Either way, we've all got a nasty mess to clean up, both inside ourselves and outside. But the more we work to make ourselves and the world around us stink less, the less and less we'll all stink. Until one day, hopefully, neither we nor the world we live in are going to stink at all. I'm looking forward to that. I know that there's a long, hard struggle between this day and that one, but if life stinks enough that it bothers me enough to make me want to do something about it (and I'm beginning to think that it does), I'm going to have all the motivation I need to make myself and the world stink less.

Hope Against Discouragement

In life, there are a lot of reasons to get discouraged. None of us are living up to our full potential, very few people are getting what they want out of life, and there are setbacks and letdowns every step of the way. When you add up everything about life that could make a person miserable, you're going to end up with a depressingly long list. And yet, the purpose of life is happiness. How can we find happiness, or at least peace and contentment, despite all the reasons to get discouraged?

One way is to hold on to hope through the Atonement. Through the miracle of the Atonement, we have been promised that all that is unfair about life will be made right in the end. All of the needless suffering will cease and be compensated for. Sins will be forgiven and the anguish of sin will be wiped away. Ultimately, even though life is rough, everything is going to be okay.

So, that's going to be all well and good, eventually, but how do we counter discouragement now? One way to do that is to attract the presence of the spirit. In addition to helping us maintain the faith that everything is going to work out, the Holy Ghost can lift our spirits and draw our hearts closer to God. Basically, having the spirit with us to help us be happy, despite anything and everything else in life that tries to make us unhappy.

God doesn't want us to get discouraged; Satan does. God wants us to push forward with faith and hope in a brighter future; a future in which bad things don't happen to good people, a future in which we make fewer mistakes, a future in which everyone who ever had any physical or mental disability will be just as quick and sharp and strong and able as everybody else. I'm looking forward to that future, and I'm looking forward with faith.

Modesty

As with most topics that the General Authorities have touched on, I stand with them on this one. They're wise, they have good logic, and what they say in General Conferences has a very good chance of being the express word of God. But recently, I heard a convincing counter-argument against strict modesty that went something like this.

People have the responsibility to control themselves. That certainly includes their actions, but it also includes their thoughts. People, especially young men because they seem to have the most trouble with this, should learn to control their thoughts, no matter what they see, no matter how others are dressed. Forcing young women to dress modestly implies that young men can't control their own thoughts and actions. The idea turns men into mindless animals and shifts all of the responsibility and the blame for any lustful thoughts or actions onto the young women who "should've dressed better."

I agree that people, all people, have the responsibility to learn to control their thoughts and actions, but that's really difficult, especially for young people who haven't yet developed enough discipline to act with maturity. And that's also, probably not coincidentally, the time in their lives when interest in physical intimacy begins to reach an all-time high. Yes, young men are ultimately responsible for the things they do and it's especially important that they restrain themselves from doing anything immoral and/or illegal, but exercising self-control is difficult, and some guys need all the help they can get.

Another thing that bothers me is that our thoughts influence our actions, but we don't have total control over our thoughts. We can drive a thought out of our mind, but we can't stop it from coming in in the first place. If a young man sees a physically attractive, scantily clad young woman, his first thought isn't going to be a good one, and it's going to enter his mind without any fault on his part. Of course, then it's his responsibility to get the thought out of his head, but that might be difficult, especially if the thought keeps coming back. If a thought enters his mind involuntarily every time he looks at how the young woman is dressed, she can't really blame him and his hormones for the thought being there.

By dressing modestly, people can help each other control their thoughts by not planting any bad ideas in each other's heads. If the ideas pop up anyway, which they probably will, then you can blame hormones and a lack of self-discipline. Ultimately, people are responsible for their own actions, no matter how other people are dressed, but if a young woman doesn't want young men to get any bad ideas about her, she shouldn't wear the kind of clothing that suggests those ideas in the first place.