"Thanks for the Light"

A few days ago, I mentioned having said a heartfelt prayer of thanks to God for keeping a traffic light green long enough for me to pass through it. I think I should tell you more about that experience.

As I was biking to school one morning, I was having a mental conversation with God, something like a prayer, but more casual, and I would sometimes hear replies in my heart, just like having a real-time conversation with someone, as if over the phone. In essence, I was simply directing my thoughts to God, and He was directing some of His thoughts toward me.

One of my thoughts that morning was "I hope that light stays green." I wasn't asking God to keep it green. In fact, I think I made a point of telling Him that I wasn't asking for a miracle or anything. Whether the light stayed green or not, I would be okay with it. The light stayed green anyway, and I assumed that it was God's will that the light stay green that long, or maybe it was fate or luck, but I thought that it had nothing to do with my prayer or the blessing that I had made a point of not asking for.

Yet, as I ascended the bridge beyond the intersection, I felt the impression that I should thank God for keeping the light green. I thought that I would remember it in my evening prayer, but then I thought that I might forget about the experience by that night, if I even remembered to say an evening prayer at all (I had been slipping up lately). Besides, why wait? I decided to thank God for keeping the light green for me, while I was still climbing the bridge. Specifically, I said "Thanks for the light."

That instant, the phrase "Thanks for the light" took on a whole new meaning to me. I thought about the light of the Gospel and how much guidance it has given me in my life. I thought about the Light of Christ, and how it has led me away from temptation. I thought of light as symbolizing righteousness and purity, and I had to acknowledge that any righteousness or purity I may have now, I only have because of the influence of God. With these new meanings echoing in my mind, I reiterated my mental prayer of thanks to God. "Thanks for the light."

As we now enter the Christmas season, we will see a great number of lights. Some of them will represent the light that shone over Bethlehem when Jesus Christ was born. That light, I believe, represented the light that shines in our hearts, lighting our path to follow the Savior. This is a light that God gives to all people, so that all of us will have a light to follow that will bring us to Jesus Christ. This is the Light of Christ.

All people are born with the Light of Christ as a guiding influence in their lives. Some people call it their conscience. Whatever you call it, it is that still small feeling inside of you that encourages you to do what's right. It is your moral compass, and whether you know it or not, it points to the Savior. All people, Christians and non-Christians, have a symbolic Star of Bethlehem inside of them, pointing the way to God. All people have at least one reason to pray and tell God "Thank you for the light."

Doffing and Donning the Armor of God

While preparing for my Sacrament Meeting talk, I came across an insightful quote from my May 15, 2015 blog post: "The one weakness of the armor of God is how easy it is to accidentally, foolishly, recklessly take off. God's power can protect us, but it won't prevent us from distancing ourselves from Him and giving up that protection."

I went on to say that, through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, "The armor that we may have foolishly damaged or lost can be repaired and replaced when we repent." What I failed to mention then is that putting that armor back on, or putting it on in the first place, is harder than it is to take it off, and it takes longer as well.

In Dungeons and Dragons, it takes ten minutes to put on heavy armor like plate mail or chainmail, but only half as much time to take off. Similarly, it takes five minutes to put on a breastplate or scale mail, but only one minute to take off. With the armor of God, I believe that the time difference is even more pronounced. It can take quite  some time to build up a resistance to Satan's influence but only a few moments of foolishness to give it up.

We must be vigilant to maintain and strengthen our armor consistently, and we need to be careful not to take it off when we need it most. The armor of God can help to keep us out of danger, but only when we are diligent enough to keep it on.

One of the Many Blessings of Blogging

Last night, I wrote that I had been asked to give a talk using Elder David A. Bednar's talk, "Therefore, They Hushed Their Fears." Actually, it had been last night when I was asked. (The person who had asked me had been unable to contact the person whom he had originally asked earlier in the week.) This short notice might have made the preparation of this talk difficult, but fortunately, I had already blogged about this talk at least twice. I hope not to recycle too much of the material from those two blog posts, but it certainly helps that I had already done the work of studying the topic and recording my thoughts.

I wonder if studying the scriptures could be done in the same way and produce similarly beneficial results. How hard would it be to fill a folder with word documents, with each folder representing a chapter of scripture, and each word document  representing a passage of scripture about which you had something to say? With such a system of files and notes, one could look up a scripture and view their past insights about it any time they wanted to, including at such times as when they wanted to find insights they could share with others.

Because I have already blogged about this talk, and could search through my blog posts for key words and phrases, I was able to quickly find noteworthy thoughts which I can share over the pulpit at church tomorrow. Having insights is good. Recording insights where you can quickly find them again when you need them can be even more helpful.

Green Eggs and Informed Opinions

I've been asked to give a talk in Sacrament meeting this Sunday. The subject is "Fear Not," and I was asked to use Elder Bednar's talk titled "Therefore, They Hushed Their Fears." Knowing that I had blogged about that talk before, I searched my recent posts for "fear," and when I did, I found this. It was a draft of a blog post that I had written, but not completed or posted for some reason. When and almost-fully written blog post just fell in my lap like that, I thought I'd finish it off and post it, so here it is:

On Facebook, I saw a photo showing the cover of Dr Seuess's book, Green Eggs and Ham, retitled as "How Fear of the Unknown Hinders the Development of Informed Opinions." To me, this new title and the book to which it was given seem to imply that fear of the unknown and uninformed opinions are bad things, but I'm not sure how much I agree.

In the book, Sam-I-Am persistently offers a seemingly unnamed character green eggs and ham, despite sturdy resilience to the unprovoked offers, until the unnamed character relents and partakes of the green eggs and ham. The unnamed character is pleased to discover that the strange food is actually delicious, and he ends up thanking Sam-I-Am for sharing it with him, but what if the offering hadn't been so innocent? What if the green eggs and ham were poisonous or addicting? If Sam-I-Am had been a drug dealer, offering the unnamed character substances that would create momentary feelings of pleasure and then cause his life to spiral out of control, the unnamed character's initial resistance would have been seen as wise. He didn't need to try the green eggs before he could "just say 'no'" to them. And neither do we.

Fear of the unknown may still be somewhat irrational, but we don't need to experiment with something in order to develop an informed opinion about it. We have Prophets and the experiences of others to tell us or show us what things are bad for us. They can help us gain greater wisdom than we could have gained in our own lifetimes. They can help us know to stay away from mind-affecting substances and potentially poisonous foods. Not having experienced something doesn't necessarily mean that our fears about them are completely irrational or that our opinions about them are completely uninformed. We have more sources of knowledge and wisdom than just our personal experiences, and they can help us learn of things that we haven't personally encountered yet, and help us avoid things that would have turned out to be bad for us. We don't need to experiment with everything personally; when we learn about something elsewhere, especially from the prophets, our opinions about those things are no longer completely uninformed.

How to Celebrate the Holidays

This evening, it occurred to me that, despite having the traditional Thanksgiving experience, with the food prep and the family gathering and the parade and, of course, the meal, at no point did I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude. When I realised that, I said a mental prayer of thanks and for thankfulness. That's when I felt what some have called the spirit of Thanksgiving.

We have certain holidays for certain reasons. Thanksgiving is, theoretically, about giving thanks. However, observing a holiday by honoring its traditions isn't always going to fulfil the purpose of that holiday. I did all of the traditional Thanksgiving things, but I didn't feel a real sense of gratitude until I prayed. By some standards, I observed Thanksgiving better earlier in the month, while riding my bike, when I said a heartfelt prayer of thanks to God for keeping a traffic light green for me.

By some measures, I failed to truly celebrate Thanksgiving this year in the way that it was intended. That will not happen with Christmas. This Christmas season, I will make a strong effort to not just go through the motions. While I do the normal, Christmassy things like buying gifts and singing Christmas carols, I'm also going to try to really get into the Christmas spirit, to really celebrate the birth of Christ, rather than just following traditions. I basically failed to celebrate Thanksgiving this year. I'm not going to fail to celebrate Christmas.

A Familial Reception

Before I move on from Elder Holland's talk, I want to point out something that Elder Holland mentioned almost in passing that stood out to me as a confirmation of something that many people I know had already believed:

Now, I am absolutely certain that upon his passing, his mother received my friend with open, loving arms; that is what parents do.

It is my opinion that, when an Apostle says, over the pulpit during General Conference, that he is "absolutely certain" of something, we can pretty much take it as gospel truth, and this particular truth is a pretty cool one. Judging by this, the mother of Elder Holland's friend was met and embraced by his mother at or very shortly after the moment of his death. Assuming that this occurrence wasn't exceptional, we might expect that our beloved family members will be right there with us when we die, that when we pass on, those who have already done so will be there to welcome us to the other side of the veil.

This is a pretty awesome idea, and it's especially comforting for those who have lost people they deeply care about. Thankfully, we now know that this isn't just wishful thinking or something that people hope is true. If the Apostles are to be believed, and I personally believe that they are, this has happened before. We now know that at least one person has gotten a familial reception into heaven. I imagine that most people do.

Blogging at Night Isn't Working

Maybe it wasn't just that one General Conference talk, and maybe the problem wasn't just that I wanted to wait until I could do it justice. Maybe the problem, or at least part of the problem, is that I don't blog in the mornings like I should (and often don't have time to), so I end up blogging at night, before and/or after doing homework, when I'm suffering from a severe lack of inspiration. Maybe that's part of the reason why I haven't had many really interesting blog posts lately.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's much I can do about that problem. I could try to blog in the mornings, but I often don't have time to. I could try to blog as soon as I get home from school. That might work. But there will always be the question of inspiration. My daily life experiences haven't been very blogworthy, and I haven't been able to focus on the things that are. You can't force inspiration to come, so I end up spending hours trying to stimulate it or simulate it. Often, I don't do a very good job. In the future, I'll try to do better.

The Blessing of the Love of a Mother

As promised, tonight I'm going to blog about Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's talk, Behold Thy Mother, and as predicted, my blog post won't be anywhere near as good as the talk itself is or as my mother deserves it to be. I would have loved to have written something about the love of mothers and how Christlike it is, drawing many detailed comparisons, but I just haven't been able to find the right words. So instead, I'll use some of Elder Holland's: "no love in mortality comes closer to approximating the pure love of Jesus Christ than the selfless love a devoted mother has for her child."

To illustrate this, Elder Holland shared the example of a young man who was struggling with a very difficult, deeply personal challenge. The young man eventually overcame many of his struggles, and when he did, he knew exactly who he had to thank for that.

He knows he owes much to many, but he knows he owes the most to two messianic figures in his life, two who bore him and carried him, labored with him and delivered him—his Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and his determined, redemptive, absolutely saintly mother.

I have not yet been delivered from all my ills, and I still need frequent help from both God and others. However, I've discovered that the one thing that gives me the most strength is the love and support I get from my Heavenly Father and my earthly, but still heavenly, mother. Though she may doubt it sometimes, she is a powerfully positive influence in my life and a wonderfully Christlike woman. Everyone that knows her knows that she is a good person. I am blessed to have a mother like her.

Hidden Blessings

As I gave my lesson this afternoon, the conversation around the classroom seemed to focus on the unexpected blessings that President Uchtdorf received from having worked so hard as a laundry delivery boy. When he was hauling a heavy cart around on his bike, he didn't know that the fresh air and exercise he was getting was helping him stave off a lung disease, or that he would need to have strong lungs to pass the medical exams he'd need to take to become a pilot. He later remarked that if he had known that the work he was doing would bring great blessings into his life, it would have made the work a lot easier.

As a class, we figured that probably most of the work we do has blessings hidden in it, largely because God blesses people for doing good and He helps them use their experiences to improve their lives. Much of the work we have to do seems like drudgery, but with either a focus on the blessings we know will come from that work, or at least faith in the fact that unknown blessings will come into our lives as a result of the work we do, we can motivate ourselves to push forward in doing work that we otherwise might not be motivated enough to do. As we look for hidden blessings, or at least have faith that such blessings will come, we can increase our motivation to do what's right.

Why Work Is Important

The given subject of my lesson is "Why is work an important gospel principle?" and while I plan to spend much of my time talking about how we can make work more enjoyable, or at least more tolerable, I should probably spend at least a few moments answering the actual question. So, why is work important?

For starters, it's necessary. We need to work to make money to survive. For our temporal welfare, and that of our families, we need to work to maintain an income.

Secondly, it takes a good deal of work to progress toward our divine potential. We have to work to develop Christlike attributes and to overcome faults and weaknesses. In order for us to be successful in that endeavor, we need to be willing to work on self-improvement, not only during our lifetime, but throughout the eternities.

And thirdly, on the subject of our divine potential, I'm sure it takes a lot of work to be God. My Mom and I said the other day, not all work is physical. Work includes mental work, social work, and emotional work as well. God's job may not be physically demanding, but I'm sure it takes a lot out of Him, mentally and emotionally. If we're ever going to realize that potential, we're going to need to be willing to put in the work to make it to that point and to continue to work hard when we get there.

Developing a tolerance and a habit of working hard will help us not only succeed in life, but also succeed in our eternal endeavors. To achieve any goal takes work, and that's true for both temporal goals and for goals of a more eternal nature.

Just Write It

While studying for my lesson, I came across a portion of this quoted from President Thomas S. Monson's talk, A Royal Priesthood:

It is not enough to want to make the effort and to say we’ll make the effort. We must actually make the effort. It’s in the doing, not just the thinking, that we accomplish our goals. If we constantly put our goals off, we will never see them fulfilled. Someone put it this way: Live only for tomorrow, and you will have a lot of empty yesterdays today.

 By the way, he was quoting, or at least paraphrasing Professor Harold Hill from The Music Man.

This quote reminded me of a story I read for my literature class, in which a dying character regrets having put off his own writing because he didn't feel like he could write it well enough, only for him to die having not written it at all.

I feel that I needed to hear this lesson. The next Conference talk I wanted to blog about, Elder Holland's talk from this last General Conference, I haven't blogged about because it's about motherhood, and I have an awesome Mom, so I wanted to make sure my blog post about Elder Holland's talk was a good one. Out of my desire to blog about it well, I haven't blogged about it at all. It's time that I changed that.


Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, I'm going to need to finalize my lesson plans, so I'm probably going to blog about that on those days, but by Monday, at the latest, I will blog about Elder Holland's talk. No more putting it off until I feel ready. I'm just going to go for it, and if it ends up being a terrible blog post, at least I'll have written something. Writing about mothers and motherhood, even if the blog post isn't terrific, is better than not blogging about them at all. In this case, something is better than nothing, and I promise that you will have something about Elder Holland's talk by Monday night.

Exericising Mental Work

I think that part of my problem with work is how long it takes and how tired it makes me. I spend so much time and energy working that I get fed up with the whole idea of work.

It's strange that I get tired of school work, but I don't similarly tired of physical work. When I run, climb, clean, or even shovel dirt or rocks, sure I get tired, but I don't get tired of the idea of doing those things. I have to stop to rest sometimes, but I never feel like quitting.

Perhaps that's because I've had enough physical exercise that I can do physical work without getting as tired as social or mental work makes me. I'm strong enough, physically, to do physical work efficiently, which means that it takes me less time and energy to do physical work, so I don't get tired of it as quickly.

It may be that all I need to do to make mental work less taxing for me is to practice it, to exercise it. If I approach mental work the same way I might approach physical exercise, maybe I'll become mentally stronger and faster, so I can do mental work faster and with less effort, giving me more time, and less need, to rest from it.

While I had thought I had been over-working myself, or that I had bitten off more than I could chew, it's possible that I had just burned myself out from a strong mental workout and needed time to let my mental muscles rest. If that's the case, then I don't really need to look forward to a time when I can rest forever. As I grow stronger, mentally, my school work will become less taxing for me, and I'll be able to do it without burning myself out or taking all night and feeling like I want to quit.

The Work-Rest-Recreation Balance

This Sunday, I'm giving a lesson on why work is an important gospel principle. Coincidentally (or not. God plans things, even when I don't), a related topic has been on my mind for the past few days: How busy does God want us to be? How much time does He want us to spend on the things that matter to Him, and how much time (if any) is left over after that? I'm sure God doesn't want us to spend all our waking hours working. I'd be very surprised if God didn't set aside at least a little bit of time for recreation. But what is the recommended balance between work, rest, and play, and how can we find that balance?

This question is especially important to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for two reasons. The first is that, in this church, we are given a good deal to do. We're given numerous callings and assignments to fulfil, countless meetings to attend, and plenty of service opportunities, just in case we weren't already busy enough. The second reason balance between work, rest, and recreation in important to Mormons is that we believe in eternal progression. When a person dies, they don't become stagnant and "Rest in Peace," as the saying goes. Instead, deceased persons are expected to continue to work on their eternal progress and to help others do the same. Our work does not end when we die, which is why it's important that we eventually find a balance that we could literally maintain forever.

Finding this balance may be a process for a lifetime, but thankfully, the steps you have to take to find that balance are simple and easy to follow. First, you observe your behavior and determine whether you're pending too much or too little time and effort in any one area. Then, when you've identified the aspect of your life that's most out-of-balance,  you can take steps to bring it into balance. Once you've gotten that aspect of your life back into the balance, you should try to find another aspect of your life that's out-of-balance and fix it, too.

At this stage of my life, and particularly at this moment, I think that my life is out of balance in that I spend many of my nights staying up late, working when I really should be resting. I'm sure God doesn't want me to do that. Work is important, but rest is important, too, and I haven't been getting enough of it. That's something I should really work on: trying to manage my waking hours well enough that I can get my work done in time to get a decent amount of rest. I don't think that happened today. That hasn't been happening most nights lately. But now that I've identified the problem, I can take steps to fix it. I won't be able to fix my imbalance overnight, but I'm sure that if I continue to work on it, I can get my work-rest-recreation balance into a stable position.

How to Live a Christ-Centered, Ordinary Life

Last Sunday, our Home Teachers talked with us about how we can live Christ-Centered lives, even when we are doing non-religious things. We can do this by praying frequently throughout the day and by trying to do things the way the Lord would have us do them. For example, I tutor English. There's nothing essentially Christlike about that. However, if I try to teach English the way Jesus taught gospel principles, with compassion and wisdom, then even something as simple as teaching someone how to correct a coma splice can become as spiritual as rendering loving service. I haven't had much practice applying this principle yet, but I plan to change that. I want to be a Christlike person, even when the things I'm doing aren't inherently Christlike things. Life makes us do mundane things more than we would like it to, but if we try to follow the Savior in everything we do, even the simplest things can help to bring us spiritually closer to God.

What Is Sadness's Purpose?

I just finished watching Disney/Pixar's Inside Out for the second time, and now that my Mom has had a chance to see it to, I feel free to blog about it. The trouble is that many of the blogworthy thoughts inspired by the movie are complicated. For example, the movie is about emotions, and Joy introduces the cast by telling us what each emotion's job is. Fear keeps us out (or at least cautious) of dangerous situations, Disgust keeps us from getting poisoned, and Anger tries to keep things fair (mostly by complaining about unfairness). However, Joy couldn't think of what purpose Sadness might have, and I'm surprised to find that neither can I.

In the movie, and in real life, one of Sadness's talents is expressing compassion, which sounded like a pretty good purpose to me, until I realized that the purpose of compassion is mostly to help someone overcome or at least cope with the sadness they feel. If the purpose of sadness is to inspire compassion, then it could be said that the purpose of sadness is to help reduce sadness, which seems contradictory. There must be another purpose for sadness.

Perhaps one purpose for sadness can be found in the dichotomy between sadness and joy (which drove much of the plot of the movie). There are a few scriptural references to the relationship between joy and sadness in the Book of Mormon. The first one that comes to mind is 2 Nephi 2:23, which suggests that experiencing joy wouldn't be possible without also experiencing misery. This could make sense, given that we can't truly appreciate something unless we've experienced it's opposite.

However, I still wonder if sadness may have another purpose than just helping us reduce sadness and feel more joyful in its absence. Perhaps I'm being sentimental, but I think that Sadness must have some positive, productive purpose. There has got to be something good that sadness does for us, beside helping us console others and appreciate experiencing joy. But if sadness has that kind of purpose, what is it? Is there a proactive reason we experience sadness, or is helping us reduce sadness and enjoy joy supposed to be reason enough? I wish I had an answer to those questions, but I unfortunately don't. If sadness has its own purpose, I don't know what it is.

Not Just a Back-Up Plan

 In response to a recent blog post, my mom said that spending time with God shouldn't just be our back-up plan. Spending time with God should be our primary plan as well. It should be what we do, not just when things go wrong, but before things go wrong. When we spend time with God, He can help us overcome our problems as we face them, and He can help us enjoy life more, whether our lives are particularly enjoyable at that time or not. We should all try to spend time with God, no matter what else we're doing at the time. God wants to do more for us than just be the one we turn to when we have problems; He wants to be with us always.

Body and Soul

You may have noticed that I didn't blog yesterday. This isn't the first time this has happened, and I don't feel bad about it. (Though, that might be a blogworthy and sobering lesson about the risk of repeated infractions, but that's not what I want to blog about this morning.) The reason I don't feel bad about not blogging yesterday is that I didn't really get much of a chance. I left home before I had time to blog. I brought my laptop with me, but the only time I had a chance to use it, I was babysitting. By the time I got home, it was 1am, so instead of blogging, I just went to bed.

A large part of the reason I blog is because it's good for my spirit, but a person's spirit is closely connected to their body. Anything that affects a person's body will also have an effect on their spirit, and usually, the effect is similar in that an event or action that's positive for one will likely be positive for the other, and an event or action that's negative for one would likely be negative for the other. Blogging is good for my spirit, and it might be good for my body, too, but last night, staying up any later was definitely going to be bad for my body, which would have reduced, if not counteracted, whatever positive effect I would have gotten out of blogging.

I feel like I still owe you and God a blog post for yesterday. Thankfully, I was given another blogworthy thought I might share, so I'll probably blog about it later today, but for now, I need to quickly get ready for church so I can be on time for choir.

A Good Bad Day

Today, I am living proof that even a day that involves cleaning a filthy bathroom can be a good day if you have a good attitude and spend at least part of the day spending time with people you love. I had one or two strongly unfortunate moments today, but I had some really good moments, too. And I have my family to thank for that.

When you have a bad day, try to spend some time with family and/or good friends. They'll make the day much better. Or, when that's not possible, at least spend a moment or two talking with your Heavenly Father, who is both a family member and a good friend. Even if you have no one else to turn to, you can always turn to Him. So, when you have a bad day, reach out to the people who love you. They can turn your whole day around.

Taking Offence and Getting Angry

I've heard that being offended is a choice - that people can choose not to be offended. However, there are many things that people say and do that are genuinely offensive, and I don't think it's just that the people who are offended by offensive people have thin skin.

I think that the choice not to be offended is much like the choice not to be angry. You always have that choice, but sometimes it's a difficult choice to make, especially when other people intentionally make it difficult. I think that, if a person becomes offended, it's not entirely their fault, if someone offends them, just as it's not entirely a person's fault if they get angry when someone else "makes them angry."

Still, the ability to control such feelings as anger and offendedness is a skill that can be developed. With conscious effort, people can grow resistant to offence, though I think that some people simply don't bother to. Some people seem to think that if someone else offends them, they have a right to feel offended. Similarly, I'd guess that other people claim to have the right to be angry if someone makes them angry, but the Lord has spoken against both of those emotions. We should try not to get angry or offended, no matter how much other people offend or anger us. It won't always be easy, and we won't always succeed, but we should always try.

Some people will offend or anger you by accident; don't take your emotions out on them - they didn't mean anything by it. Others will try to offend or anger you on purpose; don't give them the benefit of the ability to influence your emotions - they don't deserve it. I think that taking offence and getting angry are choices - not easy choices, but choices we can control. If we really try, I think we can choose not to get angry or offended, and that's a choice that I think many people should try a bit harder to make.

Unrequested Blessings

I have a bad habit of not praying for blessings before I find out I need them. For example, I just took a history quiz, and I wanted to get a good grade on it. A good time to pray for help on that quiz would have been when I start studying for it. Then, with the blessing of the Lord, I could have been inspired to know what I especially needed to study and remember. However, before I begin studying for a quiz is not when I usually pray for help. I usually pray for help with my quizzes while I'm taking them, or just before I take them, if I remember to pray for help at all.
My purpose in telling you this is partly to remind myself to pray for blessings before I need them, and partly to highlight how generous God is in giving me blessings anyway. As I was taking my quiz this morning, there were a few "lucky" moments when my book happened to be open to the page with the information I couldn't quite remember (it was an open-book quiz). I wouldn't be surprised if those moments were manifestations of divine aid, and I thanked God for them, but it struck me how generous God was in giving me blessings after I had forgotten to pray for them. God is a really generous guy.

This is not to say that we can afford to grow casual in our prayers for help. We should still pray for help (and possibly "bribe" God into blessing us by being extra righteous in return) well before we need the help. I just wanted to point out how generous God was because I feel that He deserves recognition for that.

As you look over your life, and especially the parts that seem to be "lucky breaks," I think you'll find that God gives you many more blessings than you thought to ask Him for. When you notice those extra blessings, take a moment to give God extra thanks for them. Like generosity, gratitude is a divine attribute, and we should be especially grateful for the blessings that God gives us that we didn't think to ask for.

An Assuming, Assisting Invitation

On Sunday, the Ward choir director asked me to join the choir. Actually, what she had asked me was whether or not I needed a ride to choir. At that point, I hadn't been a member of the choir for some time, and the director and I hadn't talked about the notion of me returning to the choir. The question of whether or not I needed a ride seemed to assume that I'd be willing to rejoin the choir, or that I had never really left.

On one hand, this might seem slightly rude. What if I didn't want to join the choir? What if I didn't have time? The choir director didn't ask me if I was interested in joining the choir; she assumed (correctly) that I was. Though this sort of "invitation" may seem rude by mortal standards, God extends invitations to us in the same way. When He invites us to act, He doesn't ask us if we'd be willing to do something, or if we have time for it. He just asks us to do it. The choir director was following our Heavenly Father's example.

From another perspective, the choir director's invitation wasn't rude, but helpful. When she asked me to join the choir, what she specifically asked me was whether or not I needed a ride to choir. She didn't just ask me to do something; she offered me help in doing it. God does the same. Whenever God gives us a commandment, He gives us the power we need to keep the commandment, even if the help we need would take a miracle. God doesn't always make it easy for us to keep His commandments, but He always makes sure that there's a way. The choir director made sure that I had a way to come to choir in the very act of inviting me to come.

I believe that the choir director followed the promptings of the spirit when she extended that invitation to me. I don't think it's always the best method to use when inviting someone to do something, but I have to admit that it worked, and that I'm glad the director asked me to rejoin the choir, and specifically that she asked me that way.

Impossible Potential

This picture is too awesome not to share.

This picture is inspiring. It reminds me of the amazing potential we have as children of God. But what stands out most to me about this picture, besides how pretty it is, kind of throws a wet blanket on the picture's message. You see, that kitten will never actually grow into a tiger. It's biologically and genetically impossible for that kitten to become a tiger. However, in a way, that makes this picture even more inspiring.

Just as cats have biological and genetic limits, humans have those limits, too. God is immortal, and we, as humans, will never become immortal (hard as some people try). Genetically speaking, we can never become exactly like God. At least, not on our own. But the power of God can transform us, can change us from our imperfect state to a perfect state. God can turn water into wine, staves into snakes, cats into tigers, and humans into Gods. We may not know how it works, scientifically, and it's certainly not going to happen naturally, but if we do our part and God does His, literally anything is possible.

Look on the Bright Side

This evening, I had the opportunity to share a spiritual thought with a few families in my ward, and I thought I'd share it with all of you as well.

There is a light side and a dark side to pretty much everything in life. If you wanted to, you could focus on the negative aspects of life, which would ultimately make you miserable, or you could focus on the positive aspects, which would make you happier and make the world seem like a brighter place. Neither perspective actually changes anything except your own emotions. The world is still going to have its bright side and its darker side, no matter which side you decide to focus on. But if people could increase their happiness by looking for the good in the world rather than focussing on the bad, why would anyone choose to focus on the bad?

Because God wants us to be happy, He slipped a little bit of goodness into virtually everything in though world, even though, for our own personal growth, there also has to be a good deal of unpleasantness in this life. We have to endure and learn from the unpleasantness of life, but for the sake of our own happiness, it would be wise of us to consciously focus on that which is good.

Which Kind of -Ites? - On Descent and Decisions

While we were reading Alma 54 this evening, in which Captain Moroni discusses the exchange of war prisoners with Ammoron, the king of the Lamanites, my brother pointed out an interesting tidbit: Despite being the king of the Lamanites, Ammoron was not, himself, a Lamanite. His brother, Amalickiah, from whom he had inherited the throne, hadn't been a Lamanite either. Amalickiah was a Nephite who had tried to make himself king over the Nephites, even though the Nephites didn't have a monarchy at the time. When Captain Moroni thwarted Amalickiah's plans, Amalickiah went a joined the Lamanites, and used "treachery, murder, and intrigue to become king of the Lamanites" (Alma 47: chapter heading).

The rightful king of the Lamanites wasn't actually a Lamanite either; not anymore. He had been born a Lamanite, but he, his family, and many of his people were converted to the Lord by Aaron, a Nephite missionary. After that, they went and joined the Nephites, and, for all intents and purposes, became Nephites.

So the Nephites were being attacked by an army of Lamanites led by dissenting Nephites, while the true king of the Lamanites had essentially become a Nephite. I'm sure that there are many lessons we could learn from this. One possible lesson is that a person's heart says more about them than their blood does. At that time, whether a person was a Nephite or a Lamanite depended on what they did and who they lived with more than on who their ancestors were.

The same is true today. Our personal righteousness is just that: personal. It has nothing to do with how righteous or wicked our parents were, though having righteous or wicked parents can sort of lean us in one direction or the other. Whether we're one of the "good guys" or one of the "bad guys" depends entirely on whether our own actions are good or bad. Some "good guy" Nephites turned bad and became Lamanites, and some "bad guy" Lamanites turned good and became Nephites. While the terms "Nephite" and "Lamanite" had been used to distinguish those who had descended from one group of people from those who had descended from another, at a certain point, that simply wasn't true anymore. Descent was no longer a deciding factor in whether a person was a Nephite or a Lamanite; their decisions were.

Some of us may have had one or more "Lamanitish" parents, but that doesn't mean that we have to act Lamanitish as well. We have to choose our own place and make our own decisions. Similarly, even if we had "Nephitish" parents, we still have to decide for ourselves what kinds of people we'll be. Nobody is born evil. It may be that nobody is born good, either. Whether we end up being good or evil may be influenced by the actions and attitudes of our parents, but just as the Nephites and Lamanites could choose who they wanted to be, regardless of their parentage, so must we.

The Burden of Ability

(Originally titled "The Curse of Blessings." I liked the new title better.)

One of the challenges of life is using our gifts wisely. The more we're given, the more God expects us to do with it. I am an able-bodied young man of reasonable intelligence and creativity. I'm strong enough to help others, smart enough to figure out how to, and wise enough to know that I have to. I know that God wouldn't be pleased with me if I failed to use the gifts He has given me to bless others. Still, there are some times when I would rather not. I feel, as I'm sure most people do, that I don't have enough time to do the things that I want to do. If I stopped spending so much of my time helping others, I would have more time for myself.

But I wouldn't be myself. Or at least, I wouldn't be the version of myself that God wants me to become. I wouldn't be my best self. God has blessed me with a willingness to serve others, which has made my challenge to serve others easier, but it's still a challenge to me sometimes. I'm convinced that we each have our own personal challenges; the ability and responsibility to serve others is one of mine.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, we are all given some gifts and talents, some strengths and abilities, and God expects us to make the most of them. He expects us to develop our talents and use them for good. I expect that we each have a "calling" in life that's separate from the callings we get in the church. God has a purpose for each of us, and He has given each of us the capacity and responsibility to fulfil our purpose. I believe God wants me to serve others, so He blessed me and cursed me with the power and obligation to do it.

Warned, But Still Tempted

In Alma 52, the Nephites attempt to retake the city of Mulek, a fortress that had been captured by the Lamanites. They thought of just trying to attack the fortress, but because of the Lamanites' numbers, that plan was infeasible. If the Nephites were going to defeat the Lamanites, they would have to get them out of Mulek somehow. They held a war council to try to come up with ideas.

And it came to pass they sent embassies to the army of the Lamanites, which protected the city of Mulek, to their leader, whose name was Jacob, desiring him that he would come out with his armies to meet them upon the plains between the two cities. But behold, Jacob, who was a Zoramite, would not come out with his army to meet them upon the plains. -Alma 52: 20

I don't know why they thought that would work. Not only did their embassy fail, it also warned Jacob that the Nephites were trying to get the Lamanites to come out of the city. However, despite this warning, Jacob fell for a decoy trick, allowing the bulk of his army to be led on a wild goose chase while the Nephites retook the city. But before we criticize Jacob for being a moron or the Nephites for tipping their hands, we should remember that the same tactics work on us sometimes, too.

Satan is often subtle, but sometimes, he forgoes subtlety so he can show us what makes his offers so tempting. If you're on a diet, Satan might tempt you with food that looks and smells delicious. You would know, of course, what was going on. You would see and smell the delicious, but unhealthy food, but you would know fully well that you had committed yourself not to eat feed like that. Still, food like that is very tempting, and sometimes, people give in to that temptation, even when we see it for the temptation it is.

 Resisting temptation often requires a certain amount of wisdom and perception to recognize the temptation, but even when we recognise it, it takes a certain amount of will-power to resist it. That's why, when Jesus saw through Satan's first two temptations, Satan dropped all pretence of subtlety and made Jesus an offer he hoped He wouldn't be able to refuse.

Sadly, the adversary doesn't always have to trick us to convince us to make the wrong choice. He sometimes gets us just by making the temptations appealing enough to tempt us. Even when we know we're being tempted, we need to be careful. We don't always have to be clever, because Satan isn't always subtle, but when it comes to resisting temptation, we always have to be strong enough to say "no," especially when the temptation is staring us right in the face.

Late Night Ramblings and the Example of Amalickiah

First, a quick disclaimer for yesterday's post: I didn't invent solid flame. The Balrog had solid-flame weapons in the first Lord of the Rings movie (and possibly book), and anyone who has ever used a flaming sword is familiar with the concept of solid flame. In retrospect, with all those shining examples, I'm surprised it took me so long to catch on to the idea of using solid flame.

Also, I'm not sure how it's harder for me to think of spiritual thoughts when I'm tired than it is to ace a history quiz when I'm tired, but it is. I should probably find out why that's true and do something about it. I should also go to bed really soon, which is a thought I had about an hour ago, but I still haven't gone to bed yet because I still haven't thought of anything I could blog about.

I know I've said before that this isn't what God had in mind when He had me commit to blogging every day. I don't think He meant to make me stay up so late. I suppose I wouldn't have to stay up late if I had spiritual thoughts during the day (and remembered them long enough to blog about them), but most of my thoughts have been centered on my schoolwork, and I don't think there are many blogworthy thoughts in my literature or history homework.

There are, however, blogworthy thoughts in the other reading I do every day, and I have no idea why it took me so long to think of this, but my family reads one chapter out of the Book of Mormon every night, and every night, we find something that's worth commenting on. Tonight, the most memorable comment that I made was that while Amalickiah was a bad guy in a hell-bend-on-global-domination sort of way, he was an excellent example of pursuing one's goals. He was diligent in pursuing his desires, but also flexible enough to try new methods when what he had been doing wasn't working for him. He repeatedly faced defeat, but kept on trying, and had a good deal of success before he died. He never really accomplished his goals, partly because his goals went directly against the will of God, but it was amazing how much one man could accomplish. He went from being practically a nobody to being a king! If he could accomplish so much without God's help, imagine how much we could accomplish with God's help and Amalickiah's determination and flexibility. There'd be no stopping us.

And right now, since I've finally managed to produce a blogworthy thought, there will be no stopping me from going to bed.

We Don't Have Dragonhide Gloves

I've been wanting to blog about something nerdy for a while now, not because I've had any blogworthy, nerdy thoughts, but because I wanted to take a break from having to come up with blogworthy thoughts. Besides, many of my thoughts end up being blogworthy, or at lest bloggable, if I spend enough time thinking about them, so maybe this blog post will have something spiritual in it after all. In fact, I already think I know what the spiritual thought is going to be: We don't have dragonhide gloves.

I play Magic: the Gathering, a collectible card game with fantasy-based settings and magic. When I first started playing Magic, I read that, supposedly, each player is a "planeswalker," a being with the ability to travel between different worlds, or "planes," learning new spells (represented by new cards), and gradually gaining incredible magical power.

However, I find that many players don't take this "planeswalker" concept very seriously. They just collect the cards and play the game. Not me. Took the idea and ran with it. I created a planeswalker character for myself, using each deck I have to portray a different aspect of my character's personality or a different chapter in my character's life. I gave my character goals and desires, and a little bit of a background.

Lately, I've been focussing a bit more on my character's background, partly because the main story of the game has returned to the plane that I had decided was my character's homeworld. A person becomes a planeswalker when their planeswalker spark ignites. Before then, they're just a normal person, possessing only as much magical power as any other person on their world might have. I thought about what kind of magic I'd want my character to know before and after his spark ignited. Since I mostly use red decks which revolve around fire and dragons and such, I wanted his magic to be somewhat flame-related, but I didn't want to just call him a pyromancer and leave it at that. I wanted his speciality abilities to be more specific than that. That's when I came up with the idea for something I call "solid flame."

Many sci-fi and fantasy worlds accept the notion of solid-light objects. The Green Lantern of the DC universe makes solid-light objects all the time. In Halo, you can make and cross solid-light bridges. There are solid-light bridges in Portal 2 as well. I figured that if people could magically shape light into solid objects, why couldn't another person do the same with a different kind of energy, like flame? I tinkered with the idea and decided that, in addition to knowing basic pyromancy, my planeswalker character specialized in making solid-flame weapons. (I might change that decision later. I retcon my planeswalker all the time.)

Of course, solid-flame is slightly different from solid-light. Specifically, solid-flame is hot, while solid-light usually isn't. You could normally touch solid-light objects without burning yourself, but that isn't true of solid flame. To handle a solid-flame object would require a certain amount of fire-resistance in addition to the ability to create the solid-flame object in the first place. I decided that that was too much to ask of a non-planeswalker magic-user, and I didn't want to make my character immune to fire anyway, so I decided that he could make the fire-weapons, but to wield them, he would need some special gloves, dragonhide gloves.

With his dragonhide gloves, my character could create powerful, solid-flame weapons and wield them without burning himself, so that he could burn others without getting burned as well. We can't do that. Whenever we handle harmful things with the intention of hurting others, we get hurt as well. Angry, piercing words and violent actions are just as harmful to the attacker's soul as they are to the victims' hearts and bodies. We cannot wish harm on others without causing harm to ourselves. We can't wield solid-fire weapons with impunity because we don't have dragonhide gloves. And God will never give us dragonhide gloves.

God doesn't want us to perform hurtful actions. He loves all of His children, and He doesn't want us to get hurt, but He especially doesn't want us to hurt each other. The damaging consequences of hurting others are meant to dissuade us from hurting others. As much as God would like to protect His children from all sources of harm, He knows better than to make us immune to the consequences of trying to harm others. If we purposefully hurt others, we will always get hurt in return.

So maybe solid-fire isn't as cool as I thought it was. Maybe I'll have to think of some other fire-related speciality for my planeswalker character. Or maybe I'll use solid-fire as a starting point and have my character gradually learn magic that's less violent. I am also fond of white magic, which is the color of goodness and protection and healing. Maybe I'll have my character start red and gradually transition to white. I'll keep my options open for now, but I'd like to think that my character will have become a better person as a result of his experiences, just as I hope to become a better person as a result of mine. If nothing else, my character just taught me of how bad of an idea it is to intentionally wish harm on anyone, no matter how I feel about them. My character may be able to wield solid-fire weapons without burning himself, but I know I can't, and even if I could, I know God wouldn't want me to. It's better for us not to use red fire magic, but to use white healing magic instead, which is why God will never give any of us a pair of dragonhide gloves.

Alma 49:28 - Thanking God for Our Accomplishments

Captain Moroni is probably my favorite hero in the Book of Mormon, partly because he had a lot of passion, and partly because he knew how to win a war. When he was made the commander of the Nephite armies, one of the first things he did was he gave the Nephites armor, which was a new invention to their civilization. After his armored Nephites defeated an army of half-naked Lamanites, Moroni had the Nephites fortify their cities, so when the Lamanites came back with armor of their own, the Nephites were still able to defeat them, despite being outnumbered by them. I would give Captain Moroni credit for the Nephites' victories, but they didn't.

In Alma 49:28, we read that "the people of Nephi did thank the Lord their God, because of His matchless power in delivering them out of the hands of their enemies."

Captain Moroni and the Nephite army put a lot of work into their military victories. Armor doesn't make itself, and neither do fortifications. And even with these advantages, the Nephites still had to put in a little bit of elbow grease. They did all the work, and Moroni had all the ideas, and yet, when they won battles against the Lamanites, they thanked God for delivering them.

Perhaps that makes sense. After all, Moroni's ideas had to have come from somewhere; They might have been inspired. And the Nephites might have been strengthened or aided as they were building the fortifications. And of course, there's always at least some element of luck on the battlefield. God almost certainly had a hand in helping the Nephites win.

In life, we may sometimes feel like we've earned things ourselves. For example, I would love to take credit for writing consistently half-decent blog posts and for getting good grades on my essays, but I know that I can't take all the credit. God helps us more than we may realise. He gives us strength and ideas. He helps me (eventually) think of things to blog about. If nothing else, He gave us the minds and bodies we use to do everything we do. The only reason we are able to accomplish anything is because God gives us the power to do it, so whenever we accomplish anything, even when it takes a lot of work on our part, we owe at least some thanks for that to God. The Nephites seem to have understood that principle, and now, thanks to God, so do I.

Constant Connection

I recently got a used laptop. It works great; I've been using it for weeks, but it has one slight problem. The laptop doesn't have an external battery. It has an internal battery, which is strong strong enough to make sure the computer doesn't forget what time it is while it's unplugged, but the internal battery isn't strong enough to actually run the machine, even for a second. I proved this when I accidentally unplugged the laptop once while using it; it shut down instantly. What this means is that when I want to use my laptop, I need to keep it plugged in, which means I need to stay within a certain distance from an electrical outlet.

In recent General Conferences, the General Authorities have spoken about our need to "plug in" to sources of divine power to "recharge" our "spiritual batteries." The talk of "recharging" our batteries shows a fundamental difference between us and my laptop. When you recharge something, it means that you used it for a while without it being connected to a source of electricity. Thus, its battery ran down, and you need to recharge it. My laptop doesn't have the capacity to function without being plugged in, but we do - sort of.

We can function as human beings without being constantly connected to a flow of divine power and guidance. Some people live their whole lives that way. It's not the best way to live, but it's doable. We can also function reasonably well, spiritually, by functioning under a power we sometimes call a "spiritual high." That is, we can go to church, have a spiritually replenishing experience, and let our newly recharged "spiritual battery" carry us for the rest of the week.

Theoretically.

I don't know about your devices, but if I don't plug in my phone every single night, it dies on me. And I'd guess that most laptops can't go more than a few hours without plugging in, let alone a few days, or a whole week. If we treated our spiritual connection the same way we treat our cell phones, we'd want to recharge it daily, if not constantly. Thankfully, maintaining a spiritual connection is more convenient than finding and sitting by an outlet. We can connect to God at any time through prayer, and we can maintain that connection even while we're doing other things, even while we're travelling, whether we're anywhere near an electrical outlet or set of scriptures or not.

We have been counselled to recharge frequently, but why settle for that when we can stay plugged it all the time? Do we ever want to disconnect ourselves from our source of spiritual power and guidance? Of course we don't, and we don't have to. While our daily and weekly spiritual rituals are still important to maintain and improve the strength of our connection, we can keep connected to God constantly through prayer. By maintaining an attitude of prayer throughout the day, we can ensure that we never lose our connection to the Lord and that we never have to try to live without His power and influence in our lives, even for a second. Sure, we could live off our "spiritual batteries" for a while and "recharge" them afterwards, but when staying "plugged in" constantly is not only possible, but wonderfully convenient, why would we ever try to live any other way?