Does Our Media Meet God's Standards?

Sister Linda S. Reeves, Second Counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency, listed some of Satan's tools, most of which involved media, and warned us that "We cannot play with Satan’s fiery darts and not get burned. ...When we are involved in watching, reading, or experiencing anything that is below our Heavenly Father's standards, it weakens us."

This makes me wonder which movies, TV shows, books, songs, and games meet our Heavenly Father's standards and which ones are tools of the adversary? The latter half of the question is easier to answer. Satan could use almost anything, even some good things, as a weapon against us, by using them to distract us from the things that really matter. For example, a card game or a movie might distract us from doing our schoolwork, and focusing too much on our schoolwork might distract us from reading our scriptures and cause a level of stress that is harmful to our spirits. It's no wonder that Sister Reeves urged us to be careful when Satan has so many tools at his disposal.

On the other hand, what are God's tools? What media meets His standards? Or, in other words, if God Himself were to watch a movie or TV show, read a book, listen to music, or play a game (if you can imagine a God that plays games), what might He choose to watch, read, listen to, or play? Certainly, it would almost have to be something uplifting - something that teaches eternal truths, inspires Christlike feelings and aspirations, or in some other way pleases the Spirit. It would be something that helps make the receiver of the media a better person.

Recently, I watched a Let's Play of The Legend of Spyro, A New Beginning. It's a 3D combat and platforming game where the player collects gems to level up their elemental attacks. On the surface, it's a long and dull series of combat encounters, which a person might play just to take their minds off other things. Naturally, that's not why I watched it. The story of the game centers around Spyro, a young dragon who was separated from his family before his birth, and thus escaped a genocide that destroyed the rest of his generation. Once he learns of his great potential, Spyro sets out to reclaim his homeland, rescue a council of elder dragons, and defeat the forces of a being called "the Dark Master."

Through it all, Spyro's optimistic and positive attitude, his perseverance, and his commitment to doing the right thing, regardless of how intimidating or difficult that was, was kind of inspiring. Every time Spyro died in the video game, he would respawn saying something encouraging like "Let's try again," or "I think I have the strength to go on" which I believe was sometimes more of a positive affirmation than an honest self-inspection, but it was usually probably both. Even though his challenges were great, he never let his circumstances defeat him mentally, even when they defeated him physically. It made me think, if I had that kind of attitude, what could I accomplish? What dreams could I achieve, what goals could I reach, if I followed Spyro's example of perseverance and optimism?

Looking at that game both ways, it could be an encouraging story or a mindless distraction. Like many things, it could be good or bad, depending on what we take from it and how much time it takes from us. This is why it's important that we evaluate the time we spend with games and media, to make sure that the time we spend seeking uplifting media doesn't take too much time away from other uplifting things or from things that are important. Even if a thing is good, it might not be good enough to meet God's standards.

Evaluating our media based on whether or not it meets God's standards means that we're going to have to cut back on some things. Spending too much time with any media, even the best kind of media, is a bad thing. Since our time on Earth is limited, we should also limit the amount of time we spend watching movies and playing games. And when we do watch movies and play games, we should try to make sure that they're uplifting enough to be worth the time they take.

No Hobby Time Tomorrow

Being a college student keeps you busy. Being a college student with a part-time job and a hobby keeps you even busier. But what really keeps you up late, working on writing assignments that are due at midnight, is not knowing how to manage your time. I know I could have blogged earlier today. I also could have studied for the two quizzes I'll have to take tomorrow. But that would have meant taking time away from the things I wanted to do, and in the heat of the moment, I lacked the wisdom to do that.

Thankfully, I think it'll work out. I got my writing assignment done, I've done the reading for the first quiz, and I'll have a few hours to study up before I take the second. I should be alright. But tomorrow, I'm going to have to make up for the work I should have done today, which means that I'm going to read my textbook, take my quizzes, and work on my essays - no matter what else I'd rather be doing.

Inherent Value

In her talk, Discovering the Divinity Within, President Rosemary M. Wixom said:

Our divine nature has nothing to do with our personal accomplishments, the status we achieve, the number of marathons we run, or our popularity and self-esteem. Our divine nature comes from God. It was established in an existence that preceded our birth and will continue on into eternity.

We were all born with that divine nature already within us. We each have inestimable value, if only because we have infinite potential value. This principle tells us that no matter how worthless we may sometimes feel, we have worth greater than we could imagine - not because we're amazingly righteous or because we've done incredible things, but because we are children of God.

There are some who might say "So what? I may be a child of God, but so is everyone else. Saying that everyone is special is another way of saying that nobody is."

But I'm not talking about being special. I'm talking about our inherent value as children of God. As a child of God, you have divine potential. And sure, that's nothing special compared to everyone else, but that's okay. In fact, it's wonderful. You belong to a family of people, some untold trillions strong, who all have the potential to become like God. With your brothers and sisters, you can rise to the height of divinity and achieve the ultimate goal of moral perfection. Some of us might reach that potential sooner or later than others. Some of us won't reach that potential at all. But whether or not you grow into the divinity within you is not at all affected by whether or not others do, and your glory will not be diminished by other peoples' glories being just as great or even greater. I've heard it said that one flower doesn't compare itself to another - it just blooms.

Sister Wixom said, "We come to this earth to nurture and discover the seeds of divine nature that are within us," and that's something we all can do. The more people nurture the seeds of divinity within them, the bigger the garden will be. And no individual flower will be any less beautiful by being part of the biggest, most beautiful garden that ever existed. Our inherent value may not make us any better than anybody else, but it makes us all priceless.

Two Tools to Help You Learn From General Conference

Even though it's not October yet, the October 2015 General Conference has officially begun, starting with the General Women's Session, which took place last Saturday night. I didn't sit in on that Conference session, though I probably should have. Experiencing the session live (or nearly so) would have been a good experience. Still, given the resources I have now, listening to the talks and benefiting from them should still be fairly easy.

For starters, each of the talks have been posted to youtube by LDS General Conference as individual videos, with each video's being the name of the person who gave that talk. For example, if you wanted to watch the first talk of this General Conference, Rosemary M. Wixom's talk, "Discovering the Divinity Within," you could go on youtube and search for "LDS General Conference Rosemary M. Wixom," and you should find said video fairly quickly. From there, you can watch the video repeatedly, pausing whenever you want to, replaying parts you want to listen to again and again, and thus pick up the exact wording of the inspiring quotes you heard the first time you heard the talk.

As an additional study guide, or if you don't have the time to watch an eleven-minute, nineteen-second Youtube video, you could check out the talk summaries, which highlight the key points of the talks and reveal the talks' titles. Using the summaries, you can begin thinking about the topic and coming up with related questions to ask yourself while you watch the video and listen to the talk itself.

One thing I love about General Conference is how easy the Church makes it to enjoy and benefit from the General Conference talks. The talk summaries and the individual videos posted on youtube are just two of the tools we can use to get the most out of General Conference, and these tools became available the day after the talks had been given. General Conference is not a series of talks that you listen to once and never think about again. With these tools, and many more to become available soon, we can study these talks and learn from them as many times as we want. I haven't yet listened to any of this session's General Conference talks from start to finish, but I plan on listening to all of them more than once, and the tools that the LDS church provides makes it wonderfully easy to do so.

Capitalizing "Christlike" - How Spell-Check Showed Respect

The other night, I blogged about our need to develop Christlike attributes. When I did, I sometimes neglected to capitalize the word "Christlike." Thankfully, spell-check corrected me. "Christlike" literally means "like Jesus Christ," We capitalize "Jesus" out of respect, and because it's a proper name, like Andrew or Sacramento. We capitalize "Christ" because it's a title, like "king" in King George, or "president" in President Monson. Yet, we don't capitalize other adjective that mean "like a person holding a certain title," like "kingly," "presidential," "prophetic," or "apostolic." I wonder if "Christlike" is capitalized out of special respect to Jesus Christ, or out of the mistaken idea that "Christ" is Jesus' surname.

I choose to believe the former. Jesus is a God, after all. He is certainly worthy of a great deal of respect. That's why we capitalize not only His name and title, but also the pronouns we use to refer to Him and the word that means "as He is." Capitalizing "Christlike" is just one of the ways we remind ourselves to show Him proper respect. I'm grateful that my spell-check reminded me of that the other night.

How to Get Blessings

 
There are a lot of Facebook photos that tell those who see them that if they share the photos, presumably to prove that they're not ashamed to publicly declare their Christianity, then God will bless them. Of course, that's not really how God does things. Sharing those posts will have very little effect on how much the Lord blesses you. If you really want to get blessings, here are a few practical things you can do that actually will increase the extent to which you are blessed.

1. Pray

It's amazing how many blessings God is willing to give us, if only we would ask. Or rather, it's amazing how many blessings we pass up simply by forgetting to ask for them. It's not rocket science. If you want God to bless you, you could always simply ask Him to. Of course, He might want you to do some things for Him, too; you shouldn't expect to get something for nothing, but it couldn't hurt to ask.

2. Keep the Commandments

Whether God is rewarding us for obeying His rules or telling us how to gain the blessings we seek, keeping God's commandments is an excellent way to get more blessings. I've heard that every blessing is connected to one commandment or another, and that whenever we receive any commandment, it's because we were obedient to the commandment to which that blessing was attached. I'm not sure whether it's that receiving those blessings is the natural result of performing those actions (which would be why God teaches us to do that), or whether those blessings are God's rewards to us for keeping His commandments, thus trading us blessings for our obedience, but either way, to get some of God's greatest blessings, including far more blessings than you have now, some commandment-keeping will have to be involved.

3. Be Kind to Others

I hinted that, in order to get some of the blessings we pray for, we'll have to do some things for God in return. When I said that, I wasn't referring to the commandments, not to all of them anyway. What I meant was that, if we want God to bless us, we should bless others as well. When Jesus Christ was on the Earth, blessings others was practically the only thing He ever did. His opportunities to continue doing that have slightly changed since then. Arguably, He has more power to grant blessings now, and that's mostly what He's been doing for the last 2000 years, but He can't really be there for us in person anymore. That's where we come in. Our task is to bless and uplift others the same way He always did when He was on the Earth: personally. When we put our arms around other people's shoulders, when we console them, give them a shoulder to cry on, or lift their spirits in any other way, we're really acting in the place of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ thanks us for that by granting us blessings.

So, if you really want a lot of blessings, there are a lot of better ways to get them than by just sharing certain posts on social media. Sharing uplifting messages is good, but it's not sufficient. If you want the blessings those Facebook photos promise you, the way to get them is by praying for them, blessing others, and by keeping God's other commandments as well.

No Hookshot Into Heaven

In Institute not long ago, a handful of students, including myself, were taught an analogy about getting into heaven by climbing a ladder, with each rung representing one thing that brought us closer to God. Every gospel principle, every saving ordinance, every character-building experience, was another rung of the ladder, and we needed to grasp each of those rungs to reach the top. One student, who was either trying to be funny or who didn't want to learn the lesson of the analogy, asked "what if I had a hookshot (a grappling hook used by Link in the Legend of Zelda games)?" In essence, he was asking if he could skip any of the rungs of the ladder, if he could choose some Christlike attributes not to develop or some saving ordinances not to receive, and still reach the Celestial Kingdom. And the answer, of course, was no.

There are no shortcuts into heaven. Despite the ladder analogy, you can't build or climb or fly your way up there, as the people at Babel had tried, and you can't sneak in through the back gate either, because there isn't one. The only way to get into heaven is the way our Heavenly Father has taught us, and each step is vital. In order to get to heaven, we need to accept all of the saving ordinances. To become like God and Jesus, we must develop every Christlike attribute. Granted, we don't have to develop them all at once - we have time - but we do have to work on it, and eventually, we will have to develop them all. We can't skip any of the rungs on the ladder to heaven.

As much as many of us would like for there to be, there is no easy way into heaven. The only road that will take us there is long and hard, or, to use the scriptural terms, "strait and narrow," and every step is necessary. Some of the steps can be taken in any order, and we have more than one lifetime to get it all done, but none of the necessary qualifications for heaven are optional. We need to grasp every rung on the ladder. There's no easier way to get to heaven. In fact, there's no other way at all.

Commiserating

Talking with other people about their problems can put your problems into perspective. This morning, I got a flat tire on my bike, which meant that I needed to walk to a bus stop and wait until the bus came at nine o'clock, which was when my history class started. Obviously, I was going to be very late.

As I was waiting for the bus, another man with a bike showed up at the stop, and we started talking. It turned out that he had gotten four flat tires in one week, mostly on the streets that had liquor stores. We commiserated over the conditions of the roads, the difficulty (and illegality) of riding on the sidewalks to avoid the debris on the roads, and governmental troubles in general. Talking about our mutual problems didn't solve any of them, but somehow, it made me feel better.

I don't know whether it was the fact that his four flats put my one flat tire to shame, or whether I was simply comforted that at least one other person has the same problems and thoughts that I do (probably the latter), but hearing that man talk about his problems made me feel less upset about mine. If you ask me, having a stranger to complain to likely had the same effect on him.

As pointless as it seems, I think we really can lift other people's burdens by talking about their burdens or ours in a sympathetic way. Actually, maybe it's not that we're talking about our problems, but that we're expressing sympathy as we discuss our problems. As I said, merely talking about our problems didn't make any of the problems less troublesome, but for one short bus ride, at least we weren't alone.

And thankfully, we never have to be alone. Jesus Christ has felt all of our pains and afflictions. He knows what it's like to be stuck at a bus stop because you got a flat tire on your way to your history class. This morning, I shared my thoughts and feelings with a random stranger, when I could have shared them with Jesus instead.

Next time I have a problem, no matter how unique the problem seems, I'll try to remember that there's at least one person that I can talk to who literally knows exactly how I feel.

The Various Talents of Colored Rectangles

There is a game called Thomas Was Alone in which Thomas, a red rectangle, traverses through a series of platforming puzzles. Along his journey, Thomas meets other rectangles, some taller or wider or bigger or smaller than others, all different colors. Some of them can jump higher than others, and some of them can fit through smaller spaces than others. A few of the rectangles even have special abilities, like being able to swim. Most of the puzzles require the rectangles to work together, with some rectangles forming staircases for those who can't jump very high, smaller rectangles slipping through narrow spaces to activate switches, and swimmers carrying non-swimmers across dangerous pools of water. It's a single-player cooperative game, and watching someone play it on Youtube has taught me a valuable lesson.

We all have our own various skills and abilities. Most of us can do the same things everyone else can do, and some of us are more talented at those things than others. For example, most of us can carry things, but some of us can carry heavier things than others. Most of us can talk, but some of us can speak more clearly or eloquently than others. Even just looking at the basic human abilities, we each have varying levels of skills, and that's part of what makes us each unique.

Some of us have special abilities or talents as well, most of which were gained through study and practice. These talented individuals are sometimes seen as being "better" than others, but those various colored rectangles taught me that everyone has an important part to play, whether they're skilled or talented or not.

I am fortunate enough to be relatively capable. I can run, jump, and climb. I can carry heavy things. I can speak and write well, if I may say so. I can even figure out how to fix things sometimes. I'm lucky. But I wasn't given these abilities so I could gloat about them. I was given them so I could use them to help people. One thing I learned from Thomas Was Alone is that it's those who are most capable who are most frequently called upon to serve.

Another thing I learned is that needing service isn't a bad thing. We each have our own talents and abilities and we each have a place in God's plan. Sometimes, our place is to serve, and sometimes it's to help God teach others how to serve. No matter how few talents a person may have, they have enough to fill their role in God's plan. If you're one of those who don't feel particularly talented or who frequently need help, try to focus on the good that you can do, rather than on the things that you can't.

While some talented people may try to do things on their own, the truth is that we all need help from time to time, and we are each occasionally asked to help others in whatever way we can. We each have skills in different areas, and we often need to work together to accomplish our goals. So, let's look for way we can help each other, and try not to grumble when we find them. Let's try to accept that we're not good at everything, and to develop whatever talents we have. Let's all give and receive service as the Lord would want us to, whether that means giving generously, receiving graciously, or both. We all can help, and we all need help, so let's all help each other.

Why I Love Being a Writing Tutor - Giving Encouragement

A woman came in to the Writing Center this afternoon, asking for help forming an outline for an essay she was writing about the power of encouragement. She told me that she was unsure about taking the writing class she was in. English wasn't her first language, and she wasn't sure she was up to writing essays. She shared her concerns with a classmate, and the classmate shared words of encouragement, inspiring her to take the class and try her best. She told me how inspired and empowered she felt after hearing just a few simple words of encouragement.

As a writing tutor, I have the opportunity to encourage people about their writing every day. I get to tell them what they're doing well, teach them how they could do even better, and encourage them to keep on writing. The people that come to me usually aren't very confident about their writing, but after talking with me for 55 minutes, they usually are. Being encouraged is an awesome feeling, and encouraging others feels really good, too.

You don't have to be a writing tutor to encourage others. In fact, you don't have to be particularly skilled at anything at all. You just need to know how to say uplifting phrases like "You've got this," or "You can do it," Or even just "Keep trying. You'll get there." We all face tough challenges in our lives, but knowing that someone believes in us can give us the confidence to face our challenges and overcome them. Even just a little bit of confidence can make a big difference, and I get to give other people confidence every day.

Why Try to Be Righteous?

Now that I've finished blogging about the last few General Conference talks, I'm free to go back to blogging about The Gift of Grace, or whatever else I want to blog about.

Toward the end of his talk, President Uchtdorf posed an important question. Since we can't earn salvation through our own righteousness, and God's grace can save sinners no matter how unrighteous they've been, why do we bother trying to keep the commandments? Or, to put the question in his own words:

If grace is a gift of God, why then is obedience to God’s commandments so important? Why bother with God’s commandments—or repentance, for that matter? Why not just admit we’re sinful and let God save us?

My answer is that it simply doesn't work like that. God's grace only saves us on the condition of repentance, and repentance is only genuine if includes a desire and at least an attempt to keep the commandment you're repenting of having broken.

But still, even if we have to repent to receive forgiveness, and even if we have to try to keep the commandments to make our repentance valid, couldn't we live in sin for as long as we want to, then "repent" just before we die? If we time it right, we wouldn't have to try to be righteous for long, and then we could go to the same heaven we would have gone to if we had been righteous all our lives.

Again, it doesn't work like that. Since none of us know exactly when we're going to die, planning to repent just before we die isn't a solid plan. Also, I'm not sure that such a plan, even if we managed to pull it off, would truly get us to the same heaven we'd have gone to if we had been righteous all our lives. I said recently that I believe that we're all going to end up with people who were about as righteous or as wicked as we were. Perhaps I should change that to "as we were, or as we were trying to be." I don't think that spending a lifetime being unrepentantly wicked, then "repenting" at the last second, will get us to the same place that those who spend their whole lives trying to be righteous will go.

No matter how clever we think we are, I don't think we're going to find a way to "cheat the system" that God has established. For one thing, He's smarter than we are. And for another thing, being forgiven and going back to heaven is only part of what we're trying to do here. Another objective we have, and a large part of the reason we were sent to Earth in the first place, is to gain some real character growth. We're here to develop Christlike attributes and grow to become like God. Even if we manage to "cheat the system" and get into heaven on a technicality, we won't have accomplished one of the chief purposes of coming to Earth in the first place. It would be like going to college and cheating on every test and exam. You might get the same degree as everyone else, but you won't have learned anything. Whether we're cheating to get into heaven or to get a degree, we're really only wasting our time.

So, part of the reason we try to live righteously is that it's an essential part of repentance, which is how we obtain forgiveness and salvation. Another part of the reason is that trying to be righteous is how we grow to become more like God and Jesus Christ. Of course, there are more good reasons, including the ones President Uchtdorf gave when he posed the questions that started this conversation, but these two reasons are enough for me for now. Essentially, we try to be righteous because God's plan for us won't work for us if we don't.

Sabbath Reevaluation

At the end of last General Conference, Elder Russel M. Nelson urged us  to "examine [our] feelings about, and your behavior on, the Sabbath day." Thankfully, I already did such a thing at the beginning of the week, so I've got a small head start on applying the lesson I learned from my General Conference talk today. Last Monday, I said that "The Sabbath is certainly a good day to evaluate how well one is keeping the commandments and how they could do better." Evaluating one's behavior is a good use of the Sabbath, and I hope we all take at least a moment or two to do that. Frequently examining my performance and goals is part of what made my mission such a life-changing experience, but you don't need to be a missionary to think about what and how you're doing. Anyone can do it, and we all should frequently, perhaps even weekly, and the Sabbath day is as good a time for that as any and a better time for that than most.

Why Earth Isn't Heavenly... Yet

A wise man I know from church invited a classroom of members and a few nonmembers to imagine how much better the world would be if everyone was perfectly honest. There would be no lying, cheating, or stealing. There would be no need for specific contracts - a verbal agreement would be binding enough. There would be no need to lock our doors and cars because no one would take anything that didn't belong to them - it wouldn't be honest for them to. There would be many problems that would be completely solved if everyone just followed that one principle of the gospel.

I don't know how many of the world's problems are directly caused by unrighteousness, but in his General Conference talk, Elder Joseph W. Sitati said:

The challenges facing human society today, including immorality, pornography, armed conflict, pollution, substance abuse, and poverty, flourish because many in the world have turned themselves over by choice “to the will of the devil and the flesh”15 rather than to the will of God. “They seek not the Lord to establish his righteousness, but every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world.”16

If not most, then at least many of the world's problems are only problems because people choose not to follow Jesus Christ. Much of the violence and suffering in the world could be prevented if we all lived as God intended us to live. I think I've said before that heaven may be so heavenly because so many good people live there. In a similar way, one reason this world is so different from heaven is because so much wickedness happens here.

Granted, there's not much we can do with this knowledge. We can strive to be righteous, and we can encourage other people to be righteous as well, but everyone will still have their agency, and some people will still choose wickedness, either because it's easier, more profitable, more fun, or for whatever other reasons. We can't change the world. Not completely, or at least, not on our own.

Fortunately, we can take heart at the fact that the troubles caused by wickedness won't plague the righteous forever. Eventually, the world will be cleansed of all wickedness, and each of us will live where everyone around them is about as righteous (or as wicked) as we are. Whether that'll be heavenly or not will depend on our own actions, not the actions of others.

Why Elder Zeballos Was Allowed to Be Baptized

At the beginning of his talk, "If You Will Be Responsible," Elder Jorge F. Zeballos shared the story of his baptism. As a minor, he had been attending church for quite some time, but he needed his parents' permission to be baptized. Unfortunately, up to this point, Elder Zeballos' family hadn't been very receptive to the gospel. When the missionaries who were teaching Elder Zeballos asked his father for that permission, his father answered:

Elders, over the past six months, I have seen my son Jorge get up early every Sunday morning, put on his best clothes, and walk to church. I have seen only a good influence from the Church in his life.

Then, and for that reason, he gave Jorge Zeballos his permission to be baptized.

As members of the church, we have the responsibility to show a good example of how the church is a good influence in our lives. As we do so, we will be instruments in the hands of the Lord, helping Him to soften the hearts of others and help them be more receptive to the gospel. I don't know whether Elder Zeballos' family has accepted the gospel yet, but, given the example Elder Zeballos has set for them, I'd be fairly surprised if they haven't.

Let us try to set a good example to our friends and families. Let's show them how the gospel has been a good influence in our lives and how membership in this church helps makes us better, more Christian people. Then, after seeing our example, their hearts may be softened, and their view of the church may become more favorable.

I testify that membership in this church has indeed helped me to become a better person. It has helped me be more service-minded and more pure. It motivates me to strive to improve myself. It helps me to seek spirituality and wisdom. Almost all of the goodness, wisdom, and strength I have now has come through the church. This is a good organization, and more importantly than that, the gospel it teaches is true. It has enriched my life. If you haven't accepted the gospel yet, I invite you to pray about it, and specifically ask God if it wouldn't make your life better. I promise that it will.

The Lord's Hand in Our Lives

Among the main messages in Elder Neil L. Andersen's talk, Thy Kingdom Come, was the idea of seeing the Lord's hand in our lives. Mostly, Elder Andersen spoke about the growth of the church and the promise of the Second Coming, but he also said:

Brothers and sisters, seeing and believing the Lord’s miracles in establishing His kingdom on earth can help us see and believe that the Lord’s hand is at work in our own lives as well. ...As we are spiritually awake and alert, we see His hand across the world and we see His hand in our own personal lives.

This resonated with me, partly because of what I had blogged about yesterday about trials becoming blessings, or at least leading to blessings. We know that God has a plan for the Earth as a whole, but we should also remember that He also has a plan for each of us, and He works miracles in our lives to enable us to follow those plans. It's comforting to know that God knows and cares about each of us, and that He has plans for our lives. His plans may not be as smooth or as easy as any plans we might have chosen for ourselves, but Father knows best, and He has our best possible future planned for us.

So let us try to be "spiritually awake and alert"  so we can see and recognise the Lord's hand in our lives. Let us notice the doors He miraculously opens for us and the spiritually vital lessons we can learn from our trials. Following God's plan for us will not always be easy or fun, but it is possible and will be worth it, and God will be with us every step of the way, to guide us, to support us, and even to work miracles in our lives.

Temporary Trials, Timeless Blessings

In the last (final) session of the las (most recent) General Conference, Elder Rafael E. Pino gave a talk on The Eternal Perspective of the Gospel. In that talk, he shared the following quote from President Spencer W. Kimball:

If we looked at mortality as the whole of existence, then pain, sorrow, failure, and short life would be calamity. But if we look upon life as an eternal thing stretching far into the premortal past and on into the eternal post-death future, then all happenings may be put in proper perspective.

With an eternal perspective, and faith in the principle of compensation, even the greatest tragedies of life can be put into proper perspective and endured well. Right now, there are many tragedies going on, affecting the lives of ten of millions of people. These events are devastating, but thankfully, they won't last. Our trials will someday end and become a memory.  Eventually, they'll become a distant memory. When that happens, the pain we experienced won't matter anymore. What will matter is how we acted during our trials.

When I was younger, I was playing tag with a couple of relatives. Our game included a small thicket, in which a colony of hornets had built themselves a nest. In our running and playing, I accidentally destroyed the nest, causing the hornets to swarm and attack me. At first, I reacted as any child might - I ran in circles, screaming. Eventually, I calmed down, and I was taken into the house and given a blessing. To this day, I cannot remember the pain that I knew I must have felt then, but I do remember the lesson that experience taught me: That God listens to and answers our prayers and that Priesthood Blessings can invoke the powers of heaven.

More recently, my family found ourselves in the custody of a black and white pit bull mix, whom we named Miss Jane Pitman. Over the course of the following few weeks, our lives were filled with complications and challenges. Mistakes were made, hearts were broken, and testimonies were challenged. Eventually, God turned my mistake into a miracle, and that trial turned into a lesson that God's plans are perfect, and that they account for all the foolish mistakes we will make when we try to follow them. I have not yet forgotten the pain I caused during those weeks, but I know that eventually, we all will. What will remain after that are the lessons we learned then.

God gives all of us trials. Some are more severe than others,  but they all have some combination of the same few purposes. They are all meant to teach us lessons, test and strengthen our testimonies, and give us experience. In life, there will be many tragedies, and they can really bring us down and challenge us. Thankfully, they can also raise us up and strengthen us. No matter what trials you're going through right now, please try to remember that the pain won't last forever, but the wisdom, strength, and personal growth you gain from your tragedies can.

Reversing a Cycle with Weekly Recommitment

It would seem that I have unwisely fallen out of the habit of blogging in the mornings, but that's not the only habit I've fallen out of. I haven't been reading the scriptures on my own anymore, or praying as regularly, and I think that those habits are connected. When I don't pray and read the scriptures, I have a harder time feeling and following the Spirit, which is what I rely on when I blog. Since I don't have the Spirit's help in blogging, I end up staying up late to blog, which makes me too tired to feel like reading the scriptures that night, and the cycle repeats itself.

To break this cycle, I'll have to start saying my personal prayers and doing my personal scripture study even when I'm really tired, but if I succeed in doing that, the cycle may reverse. Praying and reading the scriptures will help me to have the Spirit, which will help me to blog better, which will let me go to bed earlier, so I'll be less reluctant to pray and read some scriptures first.

It's tragic how often I need to remind myself to do this. Praying and reading the scriptures are the answers to so many of life's problems, you'd think I'd have made a solid habit out of them by now. Yet, every couple of months, I find that I need to recenter myself and recommit to living the basics of the Gospel. I wonder if God has a program in His church that reminds us to recommit. Would that be the Sacrament, or maybe Fasting, or something else? It's probably the Sacrament, but it seems extreme to recommit oneself to anything as often as once a week. But, actually, if we're talking about a commitment to daily personal prayer and scripture study, recommitting once a week might not be too frequent. Missionaries consider their personal goals once a week. Maybe I should, too.

At any rate, I certainly need a recommitment now, and I may or may not need another one in a week's time. The Sabbath is certainly a good day to evaluate how well one is keeping the commandments and how they could do better. It would certainly be nice to have the Spirit with me more, especially if it helps me blog earlier in the day. If weekly recommitment is what it takes to make that happen, I'll try to remember that next week.

From Day-to-Day to Eternity

There are a good number of quotable phrases in Elder Kevin W. Pearson's General Conference talk, Stay by the Tree, but for the sake of brevity, I'll limit myself to sharing this picture quote.

It's easy to lose track of our eternal destinies as we go through our daily lives. There's so much to do and keep track of, it's hard to think of the future, especially one that's that far ahead. But what we fail to realize is that our eternal destiny isn't something that we won't reach until long after we die; it's something that we're building, bit-by-bit, each day. Eternity is built one day at a time, just as a year is just a series of three-hundred sixty-five individual days. Our destinies are partly determined by how we spend each day because each day is a tiny part of our eternities.

It's difficult to remember the big picture as we go throughout our individual days, but we don't really need to. Let's just try to make each day a good one. Try to practice a Christlike attribute, or give a little service, or deepen your testimony slightly each day. It doesn't have to be much. If each day, in some tiny way, makes you more like your Heavenly Father wants you to be, then those individual days, multiplied by an infinite number of days, will make for an excellent eternity.

A Difficult Decision Regarding Personal Freedom

Looking at the calendar, I think I've been spending a little too much time on President Uchtdorf's talk. As good as it was, and as many blogworthy points it made, I still have an entire session of Conference talks to cover, and I only have a little more than half a month to cover them in. If I can blog about the last session's talks with time to spare, I might come back to this one, but I'd really like to complete blogging about last General Conference before the next General Conference begins.

In his Sunday Afternoon Session talk, Preserving Agency, Protecting Religious Freedom, Elder Robert D. Hales taught us about the importance of preserving religious freedom. This is not a topic that I would like to spend a lot of time on, partly because I don't like to get political on this blog, but mostly for other reasons.

I'd really rather that this topic wasn't important to cover. If our religious freedom was totally secure, as it should be, we wouldn't need a General Conference talk telling us how important it is to preserve it. I don't like the idea of my religious freedom being in jeopardy, but we keep seeing people getting sued and imprisoned for acting according to their beliefs. Granted, some of them may be abusing their freedom by trying to restrict the freedom of others, but that's really not for me to discuss. I don't know enough about the situation to blog about it.

Which leads me to another reason I'd rather not be blogging about the need to protect our religious freedom: I don't know enough about what's going on. I don't know which laws would protect or threaten our religious freedom. I don't know which bills, measures, and candidates I should be supporting. In general, I don't know anywhere near enough about politics to be qualified to talk about it, especially not on a blog.

I know that religious and civil freedom is important. I, personally, would love to take the stance of "live and let live." I'd love to let everyone act according to their consciences, as long as they don't hurt anybody or society as a whole, but how can I know whether something would be harmful to society? What changes should we allow and promote, and what changes should we resist and prevent? How tolerant should we be? I am undecided about much of politics, but it all seems so important that I know I shouldn't maintain that stance for long.

Part of "living and letting live" is protecting people's rights to act according to their own consciences, but whether that means supporting two people's decision to get married or supporting another person's decision not to get involved in that wedding in any way, is a difficult question to answer. When freedom for some means bondage for others, it can be difficult to know which side to support. But since this is a topic that really cannot be avoided, I guess I have no choice but to deeply consider my feelings and decide which side I'm on. This isn't a pleasant topic to consider, but unfortunately, it is terribly important.

The Sin of Self-Righteousness

On May 17, 2015, I said that there were at least a dozen blogworthy quotes and moments in Disney's animated film, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. One of those moments fits in nicely with the next section of President Uchtdorf's talk.

In the villain's song in the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Judge Claude Frollo  spends a few moments singing about how righteous he is.

Beata Maria
You know I am a righteous man.
Of my virtue I am justly proud.

Beata Maria
You know I'm so much purer than.
The common, vulgar, weak, licentious crowd.

Ironically, he sings this just before proving how vulgar, weak, and licentious he is.

In the Bible, Jesus ate with Simon, who also considered himself a righteous person. Meanwhile, a woman who was known to be a sinner cam and worshiped at Jesus' feet.

President Uchtdorf asked:

Which of these two people are we most like?

Are we like Simon? Are we confident and comfortable in our good deeds, trusting in our own righteousness? . . .

Or are we like this woman, who thought she was completely and hopelessly lost because of sin? . . .

Do we understand our indebtedness to Heavenly Father and plead with all our souls for the grace of God?

While God would never want us to lose hope (and our situation is never truly hopeless), neither should we get too comfortable. We will never be so righteous that we should brag about how righteous we are, and many people are not quite as righteous as they think. Even when we are as righteous as we feel we can be, we shouldn't get cocky about it. Rather, we should confess our faults and weaknesses (and we will always have plenty of faults and weaknesses so long as we live), and pray for mercy and for help to overcome them. Even when we are righteous, instead of congratulating ourselves, we should continue to repent.

On the positive side, when we repent, we are forgiven and our sins are washed away. Ironically, we become clean by confessing how unclean we are. So, if we think we are already sufficiently righteous, we're not, but if we confess that we are unworthy sinners, God cleanses our sins and makes us worthy. It's incredibly ironic, but at the same time, it kind of makes sense. We can never measure up on our own, and when we admit that, God makes up the difference, but if we claim that we can measure up on our own, God lets us try, and that is when we fail.

Let us beware of the sin of self-righteousness and lay hold on the ironic gift of becoming clean by confessing our sins.

God Can Make Us Awesome

To continue quoting President Uchtdorf,

Another element of God’s grace is the opening of the windows of heaven, through which God pours out blessings of power and strength, enabling us to achieve things that otherwise would be far beyond our reach.

We are already pretty capable. We can do some amazing things. What's really awesome, though, is that, with God's help, we can do all things. When we follow God's teachings, we are strengthened and empowered by Him, making us capable of more amazing things than we could already do. But it gets even better! When we are on the Lord's errand, He opens up windows of opportunity for us, making ways for us to accomplish things that otherwise would have been impossible for us, even with super-human abilities. We can even perform miracles, if God needs us to.

This, I'll admit, is part of the reason I want to follow my God and Savior. I'm already a pretty cool guy, capable of us great things. but if I follow Them, They can make me truly awesome.

Walk Through the Gates

President Uchtdorf went on to say that the grace of God opened up the gates of heaven, that through His grace, we could be forgiven of our sins, but that even having an open portal to heaven wouldn't be enough to actually get us to heaven. We still have to walk through the gate. It's not enough to be saved by Christ's Atonement; we must also be changed by His teachings. It's not enough to just trust in His grace; we must also keep His commandments.

As President Uchtdorf said:

If salvation means only erasing our mistakes and sins, then salvation—as wonderful as it is—does not fulfill the Father’s aspirations for us. His aim is much higher: He wants His sons and daughters to become like Him.

That's going to take a little effort on our part. We have to be willing to change our attitude and behavior, and we have to take steps to begin to change. We can't become perfect by our works alone, but we won't become perfect unless we put in some effort.

In the end, we need both grace and works. Through grace, God has opened the gates of heaven up to us, but it'll still take a little bit of work on our part to go through them.

Fequent, But Not Common

This morning, I read and listened to President Uchtdorf's talk, The Gift of Grace, and found many blogworthy thoughts in it. I may spend the next few days blogging about it, section by section, even though I really want to move on and blog about the last few talks from the last General Conference before the next one starts.

Close to the beginning of his talk, President Uchtdorf says something that would be startling if it were taken out of context. "The Savior’s Atonement cannot become commonplace in our teaching, in our conversation, or in our hearts." What he meant by this wasn't that we shouldn't talk about the Atonement too often, but that we shouldn't talk about it too casually.

We should teach about the Atonement as frequently as we can. In fact, I heard someone once suggest that every lesson we teach in the church should relate to the Atonement in some way. As President Uchtdorf said:

In Jacob’s words, “Why not speak of the atonement of Christ, and attain to a perfect knowledge of him?” But as “we talk of Christ, … rejoice in Christ, … preach of Christ, [and] prophesy of Christ” at every opportunity, we must never lose our sense of awe and profound gratitude for the eternal sacrifice of the Son of God.

It may be difficult to maintain proper reverence for the Atonement if we hear about it too often, so we must be careful that, whenever we speak of the Atonement, we do so with reverence and respect. This counsel is especially important to me, because I blog about spiritual things daily, usually including the Atonement. While I speak of the Atonement frequently, I need to make sure I don't treat it casually. But this counsel also applies to anyone who ever teaches in church or who shares the gospel in any other setting. While we should share our religion with anyone who'd be receptive to it, and we should teach about the Atonement whenever we teach about anything in church, we should keep the Atonement sacred and not let it become "commonplace."

This counsel may be difficult to follow. It'll require careful practice. But I know that as we make the Atonement the central feature of our worship, our teaching, and our lives, it will bring us closer to Jesus Christ, as long as we don't cheapen it through repetition.

Not Just Sin and Death

One thing I loved from Elder Holland's powerful talk on the Atonement of Jesus Christ is how universal the Atonement is. It doesn't just help us overcome sin and death, though that's spectacular enough already; it also helps us overcome virtually everything else: all of our pain, sufferings, trials, and afflictions, whether they were caused by sin, foolishness, bad luck, or anything else. No matter what our personal challenges are, the Atonement of Jesus Christ can help us overcome them, whether they have anything to do with sin or death or not. I am very grateful for the infinite power of the Atonement, and the many healing forms that power can take.

A Lesson on Promised Blessings

All this month, the youth of our church have been learning about commandments. I think I'll begin my lesson by listing a few reasons we keep the commandments, and asking the youth to chime in with their own answers. Among the reasons we list (most of which will be better reasons than the ones we'll be focusing on), I'll make sure that we mention a desire to avoid punishment and a desire to receive blessings.

It's my opinion that if God didn't want us sinners to be concerned that we might end up in hell, He wouldn't have told us about it. If He didn't intend to warn us of the consequences of sin, with the intention of those warnings persuading us not to continue in sin, then He wouldn't have. If He didn't mean for the fear of God to literally scare the hell out of us, then He wouldn't have told us what we have to be afraid of.

Similarly, if God didn't intend to use promised blessings as a motivator to help us keep the commandments, He wouldn't have brought them up. Of course, it's not the best motivator. If you had a donkey you wanted to follow you, it'd be so much nicer if it followed you because it loves and trusts you, rather than because you're bribing it with carrots or threatening it with sticks. Still, you will find both sticks and carrots in the scriptures because our righteousness is so important to God that He's willing to motivate us any and every way He can. And while we might be willing to obey God just because we love and trust Him, there's no reason we can't also snag a couple of carrots along the way.

However, the lesson asks a question that approaches the subject of promised blessings from a slightly different angle. It asks why it's important to identify promised blessings, implying that it is important to identify promised blessings, not just "nice" to get a few perks. Once again, the answer is motivation. In a world full of temptations and tough choices, it can be difficult to choose the right. Sometimes, we need all the motivation we can get. God promises us blessings in hopes that we'll want those blessings badly enough that we'll keep the commandment that's attached to the promise, despite being tempted not to. As our youth will learn, if they haven't already, as decisions get tougher, motivation becomes of vital importance.

After we talk for a bit about those first two points, that promised blessings are there to help motivate us and that that motivation can be of vital importance, I'll ask the group what blessings we can get from keeping the commandments. Of course, someone will bring up the generic, but extremely desirable blessing of having the Spirit with us, which we get for keeping the commandments in general, and most especially by praying and reading the scriptures. There will also be mentions of promises for keeping specific commandments, such as good health for keeping the word of wisdom and both material and spiritual blessings for paying tithes and offerings. Eventually, I'll bring up my opinion that, if we keep the commandments throughout our lives and through the eternities, we'll eventually be given every blessing we could possibly receive, even all the Father has.

If we have time after that, we might do an activity where we look for promised blessings in the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet. I skimmed through the booklet just now and found a promised blessing on every other page. I'll also want to bring up the possibility of searching for a blessing you want on the church's website to find out which commandment(s) you can keep to get it. For example, I just search for the gift of discernment and found a list of scriptures about it, including one that said that if a person is filled with light, they'll comprehend all things. From this, I gathered that the more I attract the Spirit into my life, the better I'll be able to discern between the Holy Spirit and the evil one. Finding promised blessings in the scriptures and other church materials can help us know which commandments we should keep to get which blessings, and what blessings we can expect for keeping which commandments.

I'll conclude with my testimony of God's desire to bless us and to encourage us to choose the right. With blessings attached to commandments, God can motivate us to keep His commandments and is justified in blessing us when we do. Whether out of our desire to receive blessings, or to let God act on His desire to bless us, we should strive to keep His commandments. Then, we should pay close attention to our lives so we can recognize when we receive the blessings God has promised us.

Relearning my Lesson

Today was a good, full day, and though I'm sure I had at least one or two blogworthy thoughts today, I currently can't remember any of them. Tonight is one more reminder of why I should blog earlier in the day.

Come to think of it, I don't think learning one's lesson is always a one-time event. Sometimes, we "learn our lesson," or at least think we do, but then we forget and have to learn it again. Lately, I've picked up the habit o blogging pretty much first thing in the morning, and that's worked out much better than when I put off blogging until night time. This morning, blogging first thing in the morning wasn't an option, but I certainly had an opportunity or two to blog earlier than now. I thought I had learned the importance of blogging as early as possible. Apparently, that's a lesson that I still need to learn.

Each commandment is its own lesson that we need to learn over time. For example, one could develop the habit of studying the scriptures daily, and receive great spiritual blessings for that. Still, that person might fall out of that habit, gradually lose those spiritual blessings, forget what he or she is missing out on, and have to relearn about the blessings that come from frequent, regular scripture study.

We all have many spiritual lessons to learn in mortality, but over the course of learning all those lessons, we sometimes need "refresher courses" on lessons that we thought we had mastered. I have learned that it's important for me to blog early, but today proved to be a reminder of why that's important. I'm sorry that I haven't fully learned my lesson yet and that this blog post isn't any earlier or better than it is, as I'm sure it could have been. Tomorrow, I promise to blog much, much earlier.

"Yes, All of Them"

My mom and I went to the temple last night. during part of the temple ceremony, Adam says that he intends to obey all of God's commandments. Is that even possible? Theoretically, God never gives His children commandments that they can't keep, but keeping all of God's commandments is incredibly difficult. Thousands, if not millions, have tried; only One has ever succeeded. In fact, we're told in scripture that we won't succeed. "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:26). How, then, can God expect us to become perfectly obedient to His commandments?

Becoming perfectly obedient to the commandments is only possible because God gives us all the time we need to practice doing it and because Christ Atoned for the mistakes that we would make along the way.

I am taking a piano class. The first time I'm told of a song I'm supposed to learn to play, of course I can't play it perfectly. Theoretically, by reading the music and following all the directions exactly, I could potentially play a song perfectly, despite having never seen it before, but it is practically impossible. However, as I practice playing the song, I become better at it. Gradually, I make fewer and fewer mistakes. Eventually, I become so well practiced at playing that song that I can do it perfectly. With enough practice, I can learn to play it perfectly consistently. Then, I might say that I had mastered that song.

None of us have mastered keeping the commandments yet. And no wonder; we've only been practicing for a few decades. Some of us, not even that long. Perfection isn't attained overnight, or even over the course of a human lifetime. It will take centuries to master keeping the commandments we've been given so far, and the better we get at keeping the commandments, the more commandments we're given to master. Will we ever reach the point where we not only learn all of the commandments, but actually master them all?

Yes, we will, so long as we continually strive for that goal, and that begins today. While we are still mortal, we can begin practicing the commandments and we can make the decision to never stop. When Adam said that he intended to keep all of God's commandments, that might not have been a practical goal at the time that he made it, but it was something he could strive for, and it wasn't too soon for him - or for any of us - to start.

We are not perfect today, and we won't become perfect tomorrow, but we can eventually become perfect if we commit to continue to try. We may not be able to keep all of God's commandments perfectly now, but as long as we never stop trying to keep the commandments, we will eventually master them all.

"All of Them"

I've been asked to substitute teach a Sunday School lesson to the youth of our ward. The lesson's title is "What blessings does Heavenly Father promise if I obey the commandments?" The short answer to that question is the title of this blog post: "All of them."

I truly believe that, if we obey all of God's commandments, there won't be any blessing that God would withhold from us. Of course, there are some blessings that God withholds from even His most righteous children for now, but I think that's mostly because, if He gave us such gifts right now, they wouldn't be good for us. There are some blessings that we're just not ready for, but I'm sure that God'll give them to us when we are.

Also, there are some things that we may want that will never be good for us to have. God would not give us those "blessings" as a reward for being righteous, mostly because they aren't really blessings at all. In fact, it would be more of a blessing if God kept us away from such things.

But when it comes to real blessings, things that are actually good for us, I don't think that God would continue to withhold those from us once we've proven that we're ready and worthy to receive them. It may take an eternity to achieve that level of readiness and worthiness, but we're a people that believe in eternity, so that's not really a problem. As long as we continue to make progress toward our goal of becoming perfect, there won't be any blessing God has that He wouldn't be willing to share with us.

The Real Test of Charity

I was going to share this on Facebook, but I realized that I had enough to say about it that I might as well share it here.

 
I disagree. Helping a stranger is easy (once you get past the awkward "why are you helping me? You don't even know me." part). The real challenge is helping someone you don't particularly like.

I just disagreed with a prophet, didn't I?

Perhaps which scenario is the "real test" depends on exactly what you're testing. If we're testing how much we love our fellowmen, helping a stranger is the real test because it means you saw a random person who needed help and your first response was "that person could use my help. I'm going to go help them." That shows a good deal of love for someone, even when you don't know them.

If what you're testing is how committed you are to helping others, even when you don't want to, then perhaps the "real test" is helping someone you'd rather not help. You don't need to love a person in order to help them. Just ask a sales clerk. Sometimes, you are or feel obligated to help someone, and that sense of duty convinces you to help them, despite the absence of brotherly love. Helping someone doesn't necessarily prove that you have charity for them.

However, I can see how if you neither like nor dislike someone because you don't really know them yet, and if you have an opportunity to help them, though you're under no obligation to, then whether or not you help them would be based almost entirely on how much charity you have for them. Helping someone you don't like isn't charity. Loving someone you don't know is.

Accepting the Principle of Free Will

For many thinking creatures, alignment is a moral choice. Humans, dwarves, elves, and other humanoid races can choose whether to follow the paths of good or evil, law or chaos. According to myth, the good-aligned gods who created these races gave them free will to choose their moral paths, knowing that good without free will is slavery.  - D&D 5e PHB p.122

That paragraph, shamelessly copied without the copyright holder's permission, highlights a principle of the gospel that's relevant to the General Conference talk I just listened to. Even though God knows the path that leads to happiness and desperately wants us to follow it, He gives each of us the freedom to go our own way; and not He nor the devil nor anyone can prevent anyone else from acting according to their own will.

In his General Conference talk, Waiting for the Prodigal, Elder Brent H. Neilson shared the story of his sister, Susan (after having gained her permission). Susan had been raised in the church, but she became "disenchanted with the Church and some of its teachings," to use Elder Neilson's words, and she eventually left the church. Elder Neilson's family loved her and wanted desperately for her to return to the gospel and to receive the peace and joy that only the gospel can offer. But it was always her choice. For years, the Neilson family continued to love and support Susan, to invite her to family gatherings and birthday dinners, to keep in touch and to make sure that she knew that they loved her. "Although we could not embrace all of her choices," Elder Neilson wrote, "we could certainly embrace her."

After a long time away from the church, Susan eventually returned, but it wasn't because anyone forced or pressured her into doing so. She came back because, after years of being away from the church, she realized how much of a difference it had made in her life, and she made the choice to come back. The decision had always been hers to make.

To paraphrase the plagiarized paragraph above, the good-aligned god who created this universe gave us the free will to choose our moral paths, knowing that good without free will is slavery. God will not make slaves out of any of us. Satan tries, but our will can overpower his. Despite the strength of our will, we should not attempt to force our will on others. We each have to make our own choices and let others make theirs, no matter how much we wish they'd choose differently.