*WARNING: STAR WARS SPOILERS!*

I don't know how many of my readers haven't seen Star Wars: the Force Awakens yet. Hopefully, not too many of you. I just saw it yesterday, and there's a moral from that movie that I want to blog about. I'm going to try not to spoil too much of the movie. The only allusions I make will be to things that the movie tells you pretty early on. But if you haven;t seen the movie yet and you don't want to hear any spoilers, or even any hints of spoilers, you might not want to read this blog post just yet.

The title of this blog post is Choosing Light or Darkness.

In Star Wars: the Force Awakens, there are two characters who are brought up in either light or darkness, but who, with some difficulty, choose to follow the opposite side than the one they'd been raised to support. By the way, that's about as much of a spoiler as you're going to get from me. Let me know if you think I went overboard on the warning.

These two characters showed me that, regardless of how we're raised, we each can (and must) choose whether we're going to walk in light or darkness. It is a personal choice. Our parents, teachers, and/or religious leaders may be able to make that choice harder or easier for us, but it is still our choice to make. No one can choose for us.

In one sense, this message can give us hope. If you feel like you were born into darkness, you don't need to despair thinking that there is only more darkness in your future. You can choose the light.

On the other hand, this message can serve as a warning. Even those raised in the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ will have to personally choose to follow Him or they may fall into darkness.

A wise man once said that "the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant; it is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are." Some characters in Star Wars: the Force Awakens made choices that went against their upbringing and forever altered the courses of their lives. We can do the same thing, if we have to, or if we're not careful.

A Good Amount of Trouble

About a week ago, my mom and I heard someone use the phrase "a good amount of trouble," and we had a brief discussion on whether or not such a thing exists. My opinion is that whether any amount of trouble can be good depends on whether you're experiencing it or getting into it.

I think that experiencing a certain amount of trouble or adversity can be a good thing. It's not likely to be a pleasant experience, but it can be a growing experience, and that's a large part of the reason why we're here on earth in the first place. This is very little adversity in heaven, from what I hear of it, so part of God's plan included an opportunity to "rough it" on earth for a while. But while we were meant to experience some trouble while we're on earth, God doesn't necessarily want us to get into any.

The person Mom and I heard use the phrase had said that he had gotten into what he called "a good amount of trouble," but I think he was slightly mistaken to call it that. While it was certainly a learning and growing experience for him, I'm willing to bet that he had done some things that God wished he hadn't done. God doesn't want us to get into trouble with our parents or Him, and in that sense, no amount of trouble is good.

It's my opinion that earth has more than enough adversity inherent in it to meet any person's growing needs. If we're somehow experiencing less trouble and adversity than we need to help us grow, God will fix that problem; we don't need to go and make more problems for ourselves. I'm sure that we'll experience plenty of trouble over the course of our lifetimes, even if we do our best to stay out of trouble. There's no need to get into extra trouble to make sure we get a "good amount."

I Just Coughed

My day has been pretty normal so far. I've surfed Facebook and Youtube for a while, done laundry, watched a General Conference talk that didn't inspire me as much as I hoped it would. Typical Friday. Then, just now, as I was desperately searching for something I could blog about before I have to go catch my bus, I coughed.

Coughing is not normally and unusual or noteworthy occurrence. People cough from time to time. But lately, I had been coughing quite a bit. My throat was sore, it hurt to swallow, and I had to take a cough drop every fit hours to keep myself from going into coughing fits. Eventually, my coughing subsided, my my throat stayed sore and painful until... well, I'm really not sure when.

My throat doesn't hurt right now. I don't remember it having hurt yesterday. Earlier than that, I really can't remember whether my throat hurt or not. Now, this could simply be that I had adapted to the pain or that I was enduring it so well that I don't even remember it, but I don't think that's the case. I think the pain has stopped, and I should thank God for that, but I really didn't notice when the pain stopped. In fact, if I hadn't coughed a moment ago, I still might not have noticed that my throat is feeling alright.

That happens too often in our lives. We experience hardship, and we pray for God to relieve it, but He sometimes does so so gradually that we don't notice our burden being lifted. It's like the boiling frog, but instead of getting into trouble so gradually we don't notice it, God gets us out of trouble so gradually that we don't notice, or fully appreciate, His help.

Thanks to a little tickle in my throat, I have just noticed that my throat is fine, and I thank God for that. If you have ever had a problem in your life, ask yourself whether you still have that problem now. If not, thank God for that. If not, keep praying about it and working on it until the problem goes away. And when it goes away, try to notice it and to thank God for that. Noticing the relief of your trial may be harder than you think.

Having Faith in How to Grow It

So, given that faith is important, both in this life and the next, and that "faith comes not by chance, but by choice," what choices can we make that will increase our faith? Elder Andersen spelled out a few choices we can make that will help our faith grow:

How we live our lives increases or diminishes our faith. Prayer, obedience, honesty, purity of thought and deed, and unselfishness increase faith. Without these, faith diminishes.

Sunday School answers, mostly. Later, he adds that studying the scriptures increases our faith also, which is nothing new to any of us. What's interesting is that he includes honesty, purity, and unselfishness in this list. I wonder how they increase a person's faith.

With the other things, it's easy to see how they increase our faith. The more we pray to our Heavenly Father, the more likely we are to hear His replies and believe in His existence. As we read the scriptures, the Holy Spirit testifies of their truth. And when we obey the Lord and keep His commandments, we receive blessings which show us that His promises are sure. Prayer, scripture study, and obedience clearly help to increase one's faith, but how do honesty, purity, and unselfishness do it?

I suppose they could be part of keeping the commandments, as we have been commanded to be honest, pure, and selfless. Perhaps it's that, as we do those things, we receive blessings which assure us that doing those things which are in line with God's will is a good idea. Additionally, doing these things makes us more like Jesus Christ, which may help us be more in-touch with His character, which may help us feel His presence.

Maybe we just have to have faith that the Apostles of the Lord give good advice that will help us increase out faith in Him, even if we don't understand exactly how their methods work. Maybe exercising faith in the counsel of the Lord's servants is part of how we increase our faith in the Lord. After all, faith is something you can grow by exercising it.

However these suggestions work, I'm sure that they do. I know that doing the things like praying, reading the scriptures, and keeping the commandments bring us closer to God and help us increase our faith in Him, and I trust that honesty, purity of thought and deed, and unselfishness will help, too.

It Takes Faith To Gain Knowledge

While reading Elder Neil L. Andersen's talk, Faith Is Not by Chance, but by Choice, I came across an interesting quote: "Faith is a principle of power, important not only in this life but also in our progression beyond the veil."

You see, I had always assumed that once we pass through the veil again and get back the memories of our pre-mortal lives, we wouldn't really have faith any more, because our faith would have been replaced by certain knowledge. We wouldn't need to "have faith" any more; we would know.

However, the more I think about it, the more sense this quote makes. Just because we would remember our lives before birth and the lessons we learned then, that doesn't mean that we would know everything. We would still have things to learn from our Heavenly Father before we could fully become like Him. And perhaps, sometime along that learning, we would still have to have the faith to accept the truth of something we didn't fully understand.

In my algebra classes, I was taught formulas: equations that make it easier to find a missing number using what information you have. Formulas are useful because you can just plug in the numbers the formula needs and solve the formula, and the formula will give you the correct answer. You don't need to understand a formula in order to use one, but I always wanted to, so I would always ask the professor how each formula works, and he would usually show the class the "proof" of the formula, a set of equations that explain a formula using basic math. However, he wouldn't always give us the proof of each formula. For some formulas, he told us that the proof used math that was too complex for us to understand at our level, so we would just have to memorize the formula and trust that it would give us the right answer, even though we didn't know how the formula worked.

Perhaps, in our post-mortal education, there will be times like that. As we're learning basic physics from our Heavenly Father, He may tell us things about the properties of certain particles, and we'll just have to trust that that's the way it is, even if we don't understand yet why the particles are like that. At the very least, we'll have to have faith to trust that God knows what He's talking about and that all of the information He gives us is correct, even if it goes over our heads sometimes.

Even after our memories are restored, we still won't know everything. There will still be, and some theorize that there will always be, something more to learn, and as long as we're learning from a teacher, we will have to exercise some faith to trust that what the teacher is teaching is true. This is why faith will continue to be important, even "in our progression beyond the veil." It may be that we will always need to have faith in our Heavenly Father, which is part of why it's important that we build a strong faith in Him now.

The Very Accessible Atonement

The Sacrament hymn of that Sacrament meeting was Hymn #197, O Savior, Thou Who Wearest a Crown. Much of this hymn is much like any other Sacrament hymn, talking about the pain that Jesus experienced and the great love He had and the duty we now have to love Him, but the second verse goes a step further, sharing additional insights and spiritual truths that are also important to consider.

No creature is so lowly,
No sinner so depraved,
But feels thy presence holy
And thru thy love is saved.
Tho craven friends betray thee,
They feel thy love's embrace;
The very foes who slay thee
Have access to thy grace.

 I don't often think about how far-reaching and unconditional Jesus' love for us is. Jesus loves everyone, no matter what they do or have done. He even loves those who are the worst sinners that have ever lived. And because of His great love, everyone, and I mean everyone, enjoys certain blessings, including the opportunity to repent and be forgiven.

I don't know hardly anything about you. I don't know what sins you've committed or what the circumstances were. I don't know where your heart is in relation to that of Jesus Christ. But I do know that Jesus loves you. No matter who you are or what you've done, Jesus loves you with all His heart, and He dearly wants for you to turn to Him and to come unto Him so He can heal you and welcome you home. Jesus' love extended even to the people who tortured Him to death; it certainly still extends to you.

Jesus Christ is easily the most loving and forgiving person who ever lived. No one else who ever walked on this earth has been as kind or as charitable as He was and is. Because He loves all of us with a purity and intensity we can scarcely comprehend, He loves and wants to forgive even those who have hurt Him badly, even those who have broken His heart, even us.

I know that I have broken the heart of my Savior on more occasions than I could count, but I haven't always kept count of those occasions, and I know that He hasn't either. Justice and repercussion are not as important to Jesus Christ as mercy and healing are. I'm sure that He would love to forgive, and would gladly forget, every sin that was ever committed against Him and would willingly welcome all of us sinners back into His loving arms, if only we would go to Him and ask Him to forgive us. I can hardly imagine anyone having such an incredible amount of love, but He does, and He is willing to extend His infinite love and forgiveness to literally everyone.

On Having or Being Bodies

During Sacrament meeting at my sister's ward, I had two more insights that relate to things I had blogged about recently. One of them came from the Sacrament hymn, and the other came from one of the talks. I'll blog about the talk first.

The talk was about the death of the speaker's father and the comfort that comes from knowing that your family is eternal. I could blog about that, I suppose, but the part that really stood out to me was when the speaker said "I went to where my father's body was." Note that it was his father's body that the speaker went to, not the speaker's father himself. The speaker's father was elsewhere. He had "passed on," or, like another hymn we sung that morning said, he had "gone ahead." This phrase reminded me that, at least after death, our identities are not linked to our bodies, but to our spirits. When the spirit is gone, the person is gone. The person is the spirit.

Yet, in mortality, we often describe our bodies in terms of ourselves. Instead of saying "my body is tall" or "I have a tall body," we say "I am tall." Why is that? Is it just to shorten the phrase so it rolls off the tongue easier? Is it to be politically correct and not start long, confusing arguments with people who don't believe in spirits or souls? I don't think so. I think it's that we consider our bodies as being part of our identities, at least while we're alive. And, considering what I've learned about the multiple definitions of the word "soul," that makes perfect sense.

While we're alive, our spirits and bodies are connected to form a dual-entity called a soul. When we die, our spirits and bodies are separated from each other. Our bodies stay on earth, and we live on as beings called spirits or souls, as we had before we were born. Eventually, our spirits and bodies will be reunited, and the dual-being that results will again be called a soul. Throughout the many stages of our eternal existence, we (or the part of us that is most fundamental to our identities) remain with our spirits, or rather, we remain spirits, and whether our spirits are connected to bodies or not, we can accurately be described as souls.

While we're mortal, and after we're resurrected, we do and will have bodies, and those bodies are and will be integral parts of our mortal or eternal identities. If our bodies are brown- or white-skinned, we can say that we are black or white, because the nature and condition of our bodies are an important part of our identities. Yet, between our death and resurrection, our bodies will be no longer part of us, and therefore, no longer part of who we are. We are not our bodies, but we do have bodies, and as long as we have them, they are and will be part of who we are.

Sustaining a Stranger

Yesterday, I attended my sister's ward because I was helping watch my sister's kids while she was out of town. While I was there, there was some ward business, including calling someone to a position of responsibility and asking the congregation to sustain (or support) them. I was hesitant to participate in this ward business, because it was really none of my business. I couldn't sustain this person in their calling because I wasn't going to be attending their ward, at least not for very long.

However, this situation, and a following family conversation about it, reminded me of a time when I was attending a different sister's ward and a similar situation occurred. I was part of a small group that was asked to sustain an individual whom I didn't know and whom I wouldn't be around very long. However, this situation was slightly different because this person I pledged to sustain when I awkwardly raised my hand when everyone else did, gave a lesson just after being called into his new position, and I did my best to support his teaching by participating in the conversation that went along with his lesson.

What I learned from this experience was that you don't have to live in someone's geographical area, or even visit that area very long, in order to support them. As I understand it, all that is asked when we are called upon to sustain each other is to help each other in whatever ways present themselves to us. We may not have such an opportunity, but by raising our hands to sustain each other, I believe that what we're really promising is to take the opportunity to help if we can.

I can't recall who the person I sustained yesterday is or what his new calling is, but I can still make good on my promise to support him however I can by being a helpful, supportive person in general. By always trying to be helpful, I can be sure that I'm supporting the people I pledged to support, whether I remember who those people are or not. Naturally, we can't always help everyone. Those who try quickly find themselves overwhelmed. But what we can do is develop a supportive attitude, so that whenever we do have an opportunity to support someone, whether or not we remember having promised to, it will be our natural inclination to do so. By being supportive, we can keep our promises to sustain others, whether or not we remember them.

He Helps Us Endure

Yesterday, I failed to blog mostly because there were too many other things going on, and I simply didn't have the time. Thankfully, one of the things that kept me busy yesterday was going to church, where I listened intently for blogworthy insights, and heard a few. Now, I have a small handful of thoughts I can blog about, including this quote from Elder Oaks' talk, Strengthened by the Atonement of Jesus Christ:

Sometimes His power heals an infirmity, but the scriptures and our experiences teach that sometimes He succors or helps by giving us the strength or patience to endure our infirmities.

This is probably not what anyone wanted to hear. When I go to the Lord with a problem, I'm typically hoping that He will fix it somehow. At the very least, I hope that God would give me the strength or wisdom I need to solve the problem quickly. However, that's not always what happens.

In life, we need to face adversity in order to, among other things, develop the attributes that God wants us to have, including patience, meekness, and empathy. As such, we sometimes need to continue to face adversity, even after praying for that particular trial to be removed, so God does not always solve our problems, or give us the power to quickly solve them ourselves, even when we pray for Him to.

What God does do in those situations is help us endure the challenges that we must unavoidably face. Instead of giving us the strength to overcome our challenges immediately, He may give us the strength and patience to endure them while we must. Sometimes, we will find ourselves in situations where there are no miraculous solutions to our problems. Sometimes, there are no quick fixes. The good news is that, in the eternal scheme of things, our problems already are relatively brief, and the even better news than that is that, if we strive to be righteous and ask for God's aid, God will help us endure the problems that can't be solved right away.

I don't like the idea of having to face long-term problems and afflictions, but I'm grateful that I will never have to try to face them alone, and I look forward to the time when I can look back and think that my afflictions, while painful, didn't really last all that long. In the meantime, I'm grateful to my Heavenly Father for being wise enough and kind enough to give me the help I need, even if it's not the kind of help I asked for.

The Accessible Atonement

As Elder Dalin H. Oaks gave his talk on Christ's power to succor us in our afflictions, he addressed the question of whom Christ's Atonement can help:

Because of His atoning experience in mortality, our Savior is able to comfort, heal, and strengthen all men and women everywhere, but I believe He does so only for those who seek Him and ask for His help. 

The power of the Atonement, both the cleansing power that saves us from our sins and the strengthening power that helps us through our afflictions, is available to all. Anyone can access the power of the Atonement. But not all people do. Whether a person is Christian or not, divine help comes, and only comes, to those who strive for righteousness and ask for aid. Believing in Christ isn't enough by itself; we also have to pray for His help. And not believing in Christ may not be an impassable barrier, as long as the non-Christian is on the path of righteousness and at least prays to God in some way. God wants to help ALL His children, so He has ensured that the blessings of Christ's Atonement are available to everyone, on the condition of prayer. As Elder Oaks says later in the talk, "We have only to ask."

"And Thus the Lord Caused Stones to Shine..."

This evening, in Family Scripture study, I came across a scripture that I'm sure I've read and overlooked dozens of times, but that struck me with a particularly deep and important meaning tonight.

Ether 6:3 And thus the Lord caused stones to shine in darkness, to give light unto men, women, and children, that they might not cross the great waters in darkness.

There's a lot of symbolism about light and darkness. Mostly, it's the light of the gospel that gives us guidance through this dark and troubling world. But as I read this scripture, what struck me most was where this light was coming from.

Stones.

Sixteen stones; clear and white, transparent as glass and molten out of a rock by a prophet (Ether 3:1), but otherwise ordinary stones. And I thought that if God can make stones shine in darkness, He could probably do the same with us.

I don't consider myself an extraordinary person. I'm certainly not a spiritual giant, like you'd expect a person who (barely) maintains a (semi-)spiritual blog to be. In terms of my level of spirituality, I consider myself to be at about the same level as everyone else. As Christians go, I'm about as common and as ordinary as a stone.

Yet, God can do great and miraculous things with stones. He caused a stone to yield water for the Israelites. He used a single, slung stone to drive back an entire army. He can even make stones give off light. And if God can make heatless, flameless torches out of a handful of rocks, He can probably make some use out of me.

None of us are worthless, no matter how common or ordinary we feel. God has infinite power and He sees infinite potential in us. With His power, and our consent, He can turn us into miraculous instruments for good. We can even be like the stones that shine in darkness, giving light to others who are also crossing the great waters of life.

I don't consider myself a bright person, or a great source of spiritual light, but I know that no matter how dull I am, if I let Him, God can shine His holy light through me. I may be just like any other rock, but if I let Christ's spirit touch my soul, I can be a stone that shares His light.

Bed Beats Blog

I would blog, but I'm tired and possibly sick, and I think that resting would be a better thing for me to do than for me to stay up late trying to come up with or remember something blogworthy. I'll (continue to) owe you a blog post for now, and I'll make it up to you later.

In the Hottest Forges

Many Magic cards have flavor text, which is a few words or sentences written in italics at the bottom of the card’s text box. This flavor text doesn’t usually affect the game at all; it’s just there to make the cards more interesting and to give the players a glimpse into the world of magic. When it appears on a creature card, the flavor text usually either describes the creature or is a quote from the creature. In the case of one of my favorite creatures in my new Ally Deck, Resolute Blademaster, I’m not sure whether the flavor text is a quote from or about the creature. Either way, it’s worth sharing.

“Great steel is born in the hottest forges. Great soldiers are born in war.”

In my opinion, Resolute Blademaster is a great soldier, and from what I know about him, this sounds like something he might say.

I don’t know much about metal, and I know even less about real war, but I feel like I know a little bit about spiritual war and about the symbolism of the refiner’s fire. The basic idea is that we must be refined to remove our impurities. As with metal, the fewer impurities we have, the stronger we will be. Unfortunately, the refining process is not always pleasant; in fact, it’s usually uncomfortable or even painful, like being in a hot forge. I’m not sure if there’s a link between how hot a forge is and how pure the refined metal gets, but I do know that difficult trials can strengthen us, and just like a difficult workout, the tougher our challenges are, the greater strength we can gain from them.

God often throws difficult challenges at His us because He knows that they can make us stronger against temptation and more committed to becoming and remaining pure. To His toughest soldiers, He gives His hardest battles, because He knows they’re up to the challenge and that taking on that level of challenge will help them grow even more. As we grow stronger, God will give us harder challenges, hoping to purify and strengthen us until we become as pure and as strong as His is. So, let’s try not to resent being challenged or afflicted. God wouldn’t give us hardships if it wasn’t for our gain. Instead, let us strive to use our challenges to help us become the great soldiers God knows we can be. You can’t make a sword without subjecting it to insufferable heat, beating it with a hammer, and grinding it against a rough stone. Maybe God can’t make gods out of us unless He puts us through a similar process.

Allies

I will now post two blog posts inspired by my newest Magic: the Gathering deck. If I had posted them last night, as I had intended, I would have squared away all the blog posts I owe you, assuming that I'm holding to the one-blog-post-per-day rule, which I am. As it stands, even after I publish these next two blog posts, I'll still owe you one for today. Thankfully, I'll have all day to find something that's blogworthy besides my newest Magic: the Gathering cards.

One of the gifts I received for Christmas this year was a new Magic: the Gathering deck. This deck is a White/Red Ally deck, meaning that it uses both White and Red mana and that its core strategy is about summoning Ally creatures.

In Magic: the Gathering, "Ally" is a creature type, just like Dragon or Soldier. Many creature types refer to race, such as Elf or Goblin, and many others refer to occupation, such as Shaman or Soldier. My Ally deck has creatures of many different races and occupations in it. Most of the creatures in the deck are Humans and Kor (which are kind of like Elves), but there are also a few Giants, Minotaurs, and Angels in the deck. Also, most of the creatures are either Soldiers, Warriors, or Knights (though most decks don't mix those three kinds of fighters), but the deck also has Scouts, Shamans, and Wizards in it. There are very few cases in which one creature in my deck shares both a race and occupation with another creature in the deck, yet they all work together very well, mostly because they all decided that they would. Each of them has decided to be a team player, to coordinate their efforts with others, even if their Allies are different from themselves. Despite their differences, they work well together because they each know that they're all on the same team.

Why can't we be like that? People come from many different races and backgrounds, we each have different hobbies and occupations, but I believe that we have many things in common as well. We are all human. We all have the same basic kinds of emotions. We each have a similar sense of right and wrong. Our individual creeds and nationalities may differ, and we may have different perspectives and priorities, but I'm sure there are some things we can all agree on. For example, we all want this world to be a safe and peaceful place to live in (at least, most of us do. There may be a few groups that don't, but I wouldn't consider them allies of humanity). If we all acted on that desire by living peacefully, then there would be a lot less violence in the world. I try not to be hateful and intolerant of others, and I try to be understanding and forgiving toward those who bother me. If we all did that, if we all tried to live together rather than focussing on the things that drive us apart, I think that we all could work together to make this world a safer, more peaceful place.

I may not be the same race as you, and I'd be surprised if we had the same occupation. We probably don't agree on everything, and if we all wanted to focus on our differences, I'm sure we could all find things we could argue about, but why should we? Why would we want to argue with each other and fight against each other when we could work together? Why would we want to be enemies when we could be allies instead?

Perhaps this is all just wishful thinking on my part. Maybe people can't really work together, at least, maybe not everyone, but I still think that we can all choose to be civil with each other, and we can all live together, even if we can't manage to work together. We may not be able to all be each others' allies, but we can at least not be each others' enemies. I think that all of humanity could all learn to live together, despite our differences. At the very least, I think it's worthwhile to try.

Imperfection ≠ Failure

Imperfection ≠ Failure

I had a blog post all lined up this morning, but at Institute, I heard a quote that I want to blog about even more:

Remember that one of Satan’s strategies, especially with good people, is to whisper in their ears: “If you are not perfect, you are failing.” This is one of his most effective deceptions, for it contains some elements of truth. But it is deception nonetheless. While we should never be completely satisfied until we are perfect, we should recognize that God is pleased with every effort we make—no matter how faltering—to better ourselves. One of the most commonly listed attributes of God is that he is long-suffering and quick to show mercy. He wants us to strive for perfection, but the fact that we have not yet achieved it does not mean we are failing.

- Gerald N. Lund

Maybe I should just leave the quote here and call that my blog post, because I'm not sure how I could improve upon it. The quote came from the August 1986 Ensign, in a section titled I Have a Question, in which several Gospel-related questions were answered, including "Are we expected to achieve perfection in this life? If so, how can I avoid becoming discouraged with myself as I try to achieve it?"

The short answer is "No, we don't have to achieve perfection in this life." We should strive for perfection, which means at least setting it as our eternal goal and trying to progress toward it, but we don't have to reach the goal of perfection before we die, which is fortunate, because we weren't going to be able to manage that anyway. None of us are perfect. None of us are ever going to become perfect in this lifetime. And that's okay. God knows that we are not, and cannot become, perfect in this life. That's part of the reason He sent His Son to atone for our sins, so we could become perfect in Him. In the meantime, we don't have to beat ourselves up about having imperfections. We all have plenty of flaws to work on as we strive toward godliness. Overcoming our imperfections is a work of a lifetime, and it will take longer than one natural lifetime to do it. While we should constantly strive to overcome our failings, we can take comfort in knowing that being temporarily imperfect is not one of them.

Courage to Strive

One thing that I would like to add or emphasize is that it takes courage to continue striving for perfection, given how imperfect we are. If we set a goal to eventually become perfect, we can easily get discouraged when we realize how far we need to go to reach that goal. Given the difficulty and apparent impracticality of striving for perfection, it's not hard to see why some people are tempted to give up on the idea of becoming perfect. It's a lot harder to continually try to rid ourselves of all flaws and failings than it is to learn to be content with being human.

The trouble is that we won't be human forever, and we have the potential to become Gods. Knowing that we have an eternal lifetime ahead of us and that we have infinite potential, it seems unthinkable that we could let our future slip through our fingers because we find the task ahead of us too grand or too difficult to attempt. I certainly don't want to give up eternal life because I decided that mortal life was too challenging.

So here we are, stuck in a predicament. We can strive harder than we feel like striving, trying to accomplish a goal that we sometimes feel is beyond our grasp, or we can give up, missing out on our eternal potential because we lacked the strength to fight for it. I think that we all know what we have to do. The hard part is building up the courage to keep fighting, even when we fail.

Unfortunately, I don't have any ideas for how to gain that kind of courage other than to remember that we're doing better than we think we are and that God's help is never far away. God knows that we're not perfect and that we're not going to become perfect any time soon, but He also doesn't want us to give up on the idea and He's willing to help us every step of the way. If we ask Him, I'm sure He'll give us the courage to continue to strive for perfection. God hasn't given up on any of us yet, and He certainly doesn't want us to give up on ourselves. As long as He's still pulling for us, and He always will be, I think that we can dig deep and find the courage to keep pulling for ourselves.

On Having Or Being Souls

A few days ago, I heard one person tell another "You are a kind soul." My first thought was that that wasn't quite correct. A person has a soul, not is a soul, right?

People often use the terms "soul" and "spirit" synonymously. We know that we lived as spirits before we were born. We were spirits, but then we got bodies. Spirits don't have bodies, so what are we now?

As it turns out, we were and are and will be souls. LDS.org speaks of the term soul as being used to describe people in many stages of their eternal existence, including the stage in which we are now, having both a spirit and an eternal body.

I wonder, though, if it's more accurate to say that we are spiritual beings that have bodies or that we're physical beings that have spirits (or souls). I'm inclined to think that we are physical beings who have souls, because that's how people generally describe it,  but is that really the way it is? If we lived as spirits before we gained bodies and we'll continue to live as spirits without bodies after our bodies die and before our resurrections, then wouldn't it make sense to say that we are spirits (or souls)?

Physical bodies seem to be a temporary part of our identities. Eventually, we'll be resurrected and our bodies will become permanent parts of us, but until then, our bodies seem not to be a defining part of who we are. Perhaps it is that we are souls that have bodies, and not the other way around.

This is all somewhat confusing to me, partly because there are multiple definitions of "soul" and partly because people usually talk about people as having spirits rather than as being spirits that have bodies. I suppose that, when we cross over into the spirit world, using the correct phrasing will feel more natural. Then, we won't be people with spirits. We will be spirits that don't have bodies anymore. Things will get complicated again at the resurrection, of course, but hopefully, by then, we'll have learned enough about what we are that we'll be able to talk about ourselves with the proper terms.

Until then, I'm going to try to remember that we either are souls/spirits that have bodies or that we are souls, with "souls" meaning "combinations of spirits and bodies." It'll be difficult to keep it all straight, especially when most of the world seems to have gotten it backwards, but I'll try. It still feels more natural to say that we have souls than to say that we are souls, but feeling natural doesn't make something right. I'm sure I'll get it right eventually.

Act and Achieve

While shopping earlier today, my Mom commented on the strength with which I picked up some groceries. I replied that I am strong partly because I act like I'm strong. Mom said that that sounded like something I could blog about, and I believe that she was right.

When you exercise something, it gets stronger. When you practice doing something, you get better at it. the more you use a trait or talent you have, the more pronounced that trait or talent becomes. So if you want to develop a certain attribute, be it a Christlike attribute or any other kind of characteristic, one way to develop that attribute is to act as though you already have it.

This doesn't mean to pretend, but to practice. When I balance and jump around for fun, as I sometimes do, I'm not pretending to be more agile or acrobatic than I am; I'm just exercising, and thus increasing, the agility I really have. If you want to become physically stronger, you should exercise, perhaps with weights, but you shouldn't try to use more strength than you have. It can be dangerous to overwork your muscles. It's also dishonest to pretend to possess traits that you don't actually have. So while you exercise and practice traits that you want to develop, you should try not to give people the wrong impression by pretending to be better than you are.

Yesterday, I talked about getting into the character of Jesus Christ. None of us are perfectly Christlike, and we certainly shouldn't pretend to be, but we should all try to act with patience, honor, humility, charity, and all the other Christlike attributes. The more we act with those attributes, the more we'll come to possess them. Acting with strength and dexterity is helping me stay strong and dexterous. Acting with goodness and love could do the same thing. I am certainly not perfectly Christlike as I am right now, but I know that the more a person acts like Jesus Christ, the more Christlike that person will become.

Getting Into Character

Last night, I wrote about how following the Gospel can be as simple as following the example of the Savior, but how can we do that? How can we know exactly what Jesus would do in any given situation, or more specifically, ours? The answer (or at least one answer) is to follow a role-playing/acting technique called getting into character.

Anyone can read a script and do exactly what the script says the character does, but good actors read between the lines to find out why the character does what they do, to figure out how the character feels, and to learn about the character's personality. Once you know the personality of the character you're acting or role-playing as, you don't have to memorize exactly what they do; you can just sort of feel it. This is what is meant by "getting into character."

So, how can we "get into" the character of Jesus Christ? With other characters, actors and role-players get into them by becoming familiar with, and then adopting, their personality traits. The actors would study how their characters act and talk, until the could talk and act that way themselves. We've all read and heard stories about Jesus. Many of us have also seen films and/or videos that have Jesus as a main character. Many of us, if we really concentrate, can almost picture Him walking around, interacting with others, saying what He would say and doing what He would do. In order to get into the character of Jesus Christ, we should spend some time studying His behavior, as portrayed by the scriptures and good movies about Him, until we become familiar enough with Him and how He acts that we can clearly picture Him in our minds and begin to mimic that behavior.

Becoming like Jesus Christ isn't easy, and sometimes you have to fake it until you make it, but the more familiar we are with Him and His personality, and the more we try to follow in His footsteps, the more like Him we will become, and the easier it'll become for us to act like Him. The better we get at getting into the character of Jesus Christ, the more natural it'll be for us to keep the commandments, which will help us have the Spirit of Christ with us, which will give us more help in knowing how to act. I still wouldn't say that it'll ever become easy, but it is simple, and it can become natural. We probably won't manage to become perfect in this lifetime, but with a bit of study and practice, we can learn to act, and even become, more like Jesus Christ.

Mormon 7:10 - The Simple Gospel

The last words the prophet/historian Mormon wrote in the Book of Mormon are,

...and if it so be that ye believe in Christ, and are baptized, first with water, then with fire and with the Holy Ghost, following the example of our Savior, according to that which he hath commanded us, it shall be well with you in the day of judgment. Amen.

How much would you love for that promise to be realized in your own life (or afterlife)? I don't know about you, but I would really like for it to be well with me in my day of judgement. Thankfully, the way Mormon described it, the way to ensure that "it shall be well with you" is refreshingly simple. It's not exactly easy, but it's simple. We just have to live the gospel of Jesus Christ, and living the gospel is basically as simple as following the example of the Savior. Again, it's not easy, but it's simple.

We tend to overcomplicate things - or at least I do. I tend to think that, in order to qualify as being righteous, I have to do a large number of specific things, and not do many other specific things, but when I get mired down in the specifics, I miss the bigger picture. I'm not trying to memorize infinitely long lists of things to do or not to do; I'm trying to become like Jesus Christ. Righteousness isn't measured by what we do or don't do, but by who we are. It's not about our actions; it's about our hearts. If we set Jesus as our example and set our hearts on becoming like Him, our righteous actions will fall into place.

I'm grateful for the simplicity of the gospel and for the occasional reminder of how simple the gospel is. With all the commandments we're supposed to keep and all the sins we're supposed to avoid, it's easy to get overwhelmed if we think about them individually. But when we think about them collectively, thinking of all the commandments as things that Jesus would do and all the sins as things that He would not do, we can keep all the commandments and avoid all the sins by simply trying to be like Jesus.

It's not easy to be Jesus, but the idea of being like Jesus is easier to remember than the long list of commandments that we should try to keep. If we want to try to list all of the commandments, we could probably come up with a list of hundreds, but as long as "Being like Jesus" is at the top of that list, we really only have to remember one. It's not the easiest commandment we're supposed to keep, but it's a simple one, and it fully encompasses all the others. We don't have to worry about trying to memorize all of the commandments. As long as we're following the example of Jesus Christ, everything else will fall into place, and "it shall be well with [us] in the day of judgment."

A Problem I Have With Divine Magic in D&D

There's something that kind of bugs me about D&D's magic system. Most of the time, you cast a spell for a specific amount of energy and it produces a specific effect. Most of the time, I'm okay with that. After all, if a wizard learns how to produce a magical flame, he should be able to produce a magical flame consistently, as long as he has the energy for it. But what of those who get their magic from the gods? In D&D, divine magic works pretty much exactly the same way as arcane magic. If you've got enough energy, you cast the spell, and then the spell takes effect. What bothers me here is that the gods seem to have no say in the matter. They don't seem to be able to temporarily withhold their power, nor do they seem to be able to grant extra power in addition to the amount normally granted by a deity. If a cleric wants to waste magical power trying to heal someone who wasn't injured, the gods would let him, and if he ran out of magic just before he got seriously wounded, the gods wouldn't help him, no matter how badly he needed their help. I understand that D&D has to have strict rules like that to keep everything fair, and that the DM can intercede on behalf of those deities and bend the rules a little bit, but most of the time, divine magic works just like arcane magic -- predictably, regardless of the will of the gods who supposedly grant that power, and could revoke it or grant more if they wanted to.

Real life doesn't work like that. God has the power to bless His children, whether they ask for it or not, whether they deserve it or not, and whether they have any energy left in them or not. At the same time, God isn't obligated to give us specific blessings, even if we pray for them and have been living worthily enough to receive them. Sometimes, God is wise enough to withhold blessings that we ask for, but don't need or would be better off without. Sometimes, God is generous enough to give us blessings we don't know we need and didn't think to ask for. I'm thankful that God is in control of how He blesses His children. The clerics and paladins in D&D may get away with it, but I don't think it'd be wise for normal people to be given the ability to control the actions of God.

Then again, maybe I'm giving D&D too little credit. Maybe D&D's divine magic system does make sense, and I've just been misinterpreting it. Perhaps it's not that clerics can control gods, but that they can control the small portion of power the gods gave them. Being given an apple and throwing it at someone is different than forcing someone to throw an apple at someone else. Perhaps it's not that clerics can demand blessings from the gods, but that they're granted, entrusted with, a small portion of power, so use as they see fit, so they can learn how to wisely wield that amount of power before they're given more. After all, that's basically what God did when He sent us here, gave us our abilities and the agency to use them as we see fit. God may not grant us extra strength for throwing apples at people, but He won't take back the strength He already gave us unless He has a very good reason to.

I like how D&D helps me think about how God works His magic in the real world. Unlike in D&D, God maintains His right to grant and withhold blessings as He sees fit, but He has already seen fit to grant us each at least a little bit of power, just to see what we would do to it. It's sobering to think of God giving someone any amount of power and complete freedom over how to use it, but that's basically how the Plan of Salvation works. God gave us a certain amount of power and absolute authority over how we use it. Now it's our responsibility to learn to use it well.

Still Blogging

I was hoping that I'd see or experience something I could blog about while running errands today. That didn't happen. I should pick up the habit of sharing blogworthy picture quotes on Facebook so I could grab them off of my profile page when I run out of other ideas, but I haven't really been doing that much either. Also, I should get into the habit of blogging in the daytime, preferably in the morning, so I could go to bed at a reasonable hour, and maybe read some scriptures before bed, so it's more likely that I'll be able to come up with something to blog about. I wonder how many of my blog posts are, or at least start with, apologies for not being better at blogging.

But hey, I'm blogging. There was a Facebook photo I saw recently and cant' find now that basically says "No matter how slowly you're going, you're lapping everyone on the couch." Several times, I've proven that I really stink at blogging. Sure, a few of my blog posts turn out okay, but that's mostly because I have churned out so many blog posts, over a thousand by now, that a handful of them were bound to be gems, no matter how bad at blogging I am. That all sounds pretty negatively, but looking at it positively, I've had some success. Even though I'm a really slow learner, and even though many of my blog posts haven't actually been blogworthy, I've written at least a handful of decent blog posts, mostly because I never stopped writing blog posts.

I blog every day. I didn't quit when I went to Scout Camp and couldn't blog for a while. I didn't quit when I didn't get a blog post in before midnight and technically missed a day (that's happened several times, actually). And I didn't quit when I actually did miss a day through no fault but my own. I still blog every day, even when I have nothing good to blog about, and that tenacity has given me some measure of success. I've written a few good blog posts. I've written countless mediocre blog posts, too, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that I keep at it.

The chance of a person rolling a Yahtzee in one roll is 1 in 1296. That's about a 0.07% chance. But that's assuming that a person only rolls once and then gives up. As long as a person keeps rolling for that Yahtzee, and doesn't quit until they get it, their odds of getting that Yahtzee increase to 100%. It may not work for everything, but for many things, if you keep trying long enough, eventually you succeed. You might have to roll the dice well over a thousand times, but eventually, you will roll a natural Yahtzee.

So here I am, at 11:53 PM, blogging about nothing for the umpteenth time, knowing that, even though this blog post wasn't worth the time you invested in reading it, if I just keep blogging every day, occasionally some of those blog posts will be good ones. And I'll make you a promise right now: If you keep holding out for those good, blogworthy blog posts, so will I. I don't know when I'll stop blogging. I suppose I'll have to eventually. But until then, I'm going to keep posting blog posts every day, partly because I promised God and myself that I would, and partly because I know that at least a few of those posts will be worth reading.

He Knows You Can Win

If there's any question as to the truthfulness of this statement, consider this: God doesn't give anyone more than they can handle. If God gives you a challenge, that means that you, with God's help, can handle that challenge. The tougher challenges you can handle, the tougher challenges God can throw at you. While I still don't know if it's strictly true that God gives His hardest battles to His toughest soldiers, I know that He wouldn't give you a battle unless He knew that you could win it.

A Million Dollars and a Chocolate Cake - The Ultimate Personality Quiz

This afternoon, in Gospel Essentials class, we briefly talked about why it was necessary for us to be born, and specifically why it was necessary for us to forget our pre-mortal lives. I forgot the exact words that were said, but as I recall, the idea was something like this: Part of the reason we're here is so we can prove whether or not we'll do what's right under various circumstances. It's a test of heart. We're frequently faced with tough moral decisions. Naturally, we're supposed to do what's right just because it's the right thing to do, but we also have another reason to choose the right. Blessings are given to the righteous. If we could remember for sure that heaven is a real place and if we could remember how wonderful it feels to be there, that would provide a powerful incentive to be righteous. But would that really be righteousness? If a person chooses to be righteous just so they could get a reward, that's not so much righteousness as it is selfishness. If you give a person two options, but they know that they'll get a million dollars and a chocolate cake if they choose Option A, that makes the decision a lot easier, and not much of an actual test.

God means to actually test us. He wanted to give us the opportunity to prove that we would choose the right, so to make this a real test, He withheld our memory of what we'll get if we pass it. Of course, we've got a vague idea that heaven is worth jumping through a few hoops, even if that's not what we'd normally do, but without our memory of heaven to contrast against the world we have here, I don't think we really have any idea of what we're missing out on while we're down here, and what we'd miss out on permanently if we choose Option B.

Because we don't really know for certain what results our actions will give us, that makes this life a true test of what we would choose to do. While we are influenced by promised blessings, I think that that influence is carefully balanced against the temptations of the world, so which option we choose is more a reflection of our personal choices than of which set of rewards is more attractive. The blessings of heaven are definitely far better than anything we could stand to get here, but as long as we can't really remember that, we'll only swayed by it about as strongly as we're swayed by worldly temptations, and the decisions we make will say more about our character than about which choice we think will get us a better set of rewards.

A Pep Talk in Every Drop(TM)

One of the things that got me through the day yesterday was Halls cough drops. They suppressed my coughs, soothed my throat, and helped me breathe more easily. They also had another surprising benefit. In addition to the cough drops' medicinal benefits, the wrappers had encouraging phrases printed on them, such as "Be resilient," "Go for it," "Flex your 'can do' muscle," and "Get back in there, champ!" These phrases were amusing and at times uplifting. I believe that these phrases, working alongside the cough drops themselves, of course, had a psychological effect that helped me feel better and get better.

The great thing about this is that it didn't cost them much more money to go the extra mile to encourage me to feel better. They had to print their logo on their wrappers anyway. With just a little bit of extra ink per wrapper and a one-time investment of time to think of a number of encouraging phrases, they were able to include empowering words which I interpreted as a kind and thoughtful gesture.

We can each make similar gestures. It doesn't take much extra time or energy to say a kind word to someone, to encourage them, comfort them, or let them know you care. Like Halls, we regularly have opportunities to improve lives, and thanks to Halls' example, I think I'm going to take more of the opportunities that come my way today. For both giving me encouragement and for giving me an idea for how I can bless others, I'm thankful to Halls for putting "A Pep Talk in Every Drop."

Pray to See the Good in Them

Just this morning, I shared Brittany Olson's blog post, How to Love People Who Are Hard to Love. The main point that I took away from her blog post is to pray for them. And not just to pray for them to change, or even to pray for the patience to love them despite their flaws, but to pray to be able to see them the way God sees them, to see the good in them. And when you see the good in them, pray to God in appreciation for that person's positive traits, especially when you pray together with them. If you do that, God will help you focus on the good. He will help you feel more positive and content. He will help you to look beyond the traits that make the person difficult to love, and that will make you more able to love them.

God has commanded us to love and serve pretty much everyone we meet, but some people are easier to love and serve than others. Yet, God loves everyone. Maybe it'd be a good idea to ask God what He sees in the people we don't like. As long as we ask sincerely and look for those people's positive traits, He can help us see them. And when we see what God loves about those people, that will make it easier for us to keep the commandment to love them as well.

Striving Versus Arriving

I shared this image a few days ago on Facebook, but I thought I'd share it here as well, partly because I'm not feeling particularly inspired this evening, and partly so I can emphasize the part of this quote that stands out to me every time I read it.

Why is it that "striving can be more important than arriving?" What is it about striving that makes it worth the effort, even if you never reach the goal that you were striving for. The answer is simple: Striving makes us stronger.

To illustrate this, let's say there are two people, neither of whom are especially affluent. The first of these two works hard and earns some money, some of which he saves and some of which he invests. However, despite his efforts, he hits some bad luck on the stock market, loses his job and has to live on his savings for a while, and ends up being no richer than he was at the start.

Meanwhile, the second guy hasn't been working very hard, hasn't been earning very much, hasn't been saving what he earned, and for the most part, has neither been growing richer or growing poorer. However, at about the same time the first guy's bad luck begins, the second guy hits some good luck, wins the lottery, and spends a portion of his winnings going on an adventure vacation with his rich uncle. On this adventure, they find an ancient, hidden treasure worth millions, but before they make it back, the second guy's uncle contracts an infection which eventually kills him, and in his will, the late adventurer leaves everything to his nephew, including his entire estate and his share of what they found on their vacation. The second guy ends up with millions upon millions of dollars (even after taxes), but here's the question:

Which of those two people do you think knows more about how to properly manage money? Which of them better understands the principles of how to acquire, maintain, and cultivate wealth? If we were to fast-forward another several decades, which of these two would you expect to grow richer than they are at this point in the story, and which one would you expect to grow poorer?

Naturally, it was the first person who learned more and gained more wisdom, which he could use to make wiser investment decisions, and once again make more money. Meanwhile, the second guy, having arrived at wealth without having to strive for it, wouldn't appreciate the value of what he had, and would likely spend a good deal of his wealth on expensive things he doesn't need.

Fortunately for both of them, I like happy endings, so the first guy ends up at the head of a successful investment company, whom the second guy trusted with what remains of his fortune after he became concerned when he saw it dwindling from year to year. The result was that the second guy's fortune stopped shrinking and started growing again, and the first guy's profits and savings grew tremendously as well. But I'm getting off the subject.

Most of us have goals in life. Some of those have been lifelong goals, and some of them may have been made only about a week ago. Regardless of when we set our goals, striving for them can help us grow into stronger, better people, even if we never actually reach our goals. For example, if you set a goal to lose weight,  you could gain greater will-power and personal fitness, even if your weight doesn't change. If you set a goal to improve your relationship with someone, you could learn skills to help you strengthen your other relationships, even if your relationship with that particular person doesn't improve. There are many goals that, even if we don't achieve them, can help us improve by giving us something to strive for.

I have a personal goal that I'm working on, and I hope to reach that goal someday, but this quote reminds me that, even when I suffer setbacks and don't seem to be making any progress toward my goal, as long as I strive for that goal, I'll be making progress in one way or another. And as long as I don't achieve my goal, I'll have something to strive for, which will motivate me to keep becoming better and stronger. I still want to reach my goal as soon as possible, but in light of what I've learned, I'm now okay with it if that takes a while, because now I know that striving to reach a goal can be just as beneficial as actually achieving it.

Compensatory Light

In Elder Stanfill's General Conference talk, he shared the following, encouraging, quote from a speech Elder Neil L. Andersen gave at BYU:

As evil increases in the world, there is a compensatory spiritual power for the righteous. As the world slides from its spiritual moorings, the Lord prepares the way for those who seek Him, offering them greater assurance, greater confirmation, and greater confidence in the spiritual direction they are traveling. The gift of the Holy Ghost becomes a brighter light in the emerging twilight.

In a world that seems to get darker by the day, it's comforting to know that God is granting additional light to those who still strive to follow it.

In D&D, the Dungeon Master usually tailors the difficulty of the adventure to match the abilities of the characters. For example, if the group is a party of 3rd Level characters, the DM will prepare a dungeon with encounters suitable for 3rd Level characters. The encounters in that dungeon would be difficult enough to be interesting for the players, and perhaps even to challenge them, but they wouldn't be likely to overpower them.

In real life, God doesn't adjust the difficulty of life's problems to match our abilities; He helps us improve our abilities so we can meet life's challenges. This means that in a world where it's becoming increasingly difficult to be righteous, God will grant us additional power with which to do so.

I'm grateful for the knowledge that God never gives us anything that we can't handle. Frequently, we need God's help to tackle our challenges, and some times, we'll need more help from Him than at other times, but with His help, there is nothing we'll face that we can't handle, and I find that very reassuring. With the challenges I face and the wisdom and will-power I know I'll need, it's comforting that God will grant me all the help I need. I'll definitely need to ask for it, and I may need to do a few things to prove I'm worthy of it, but I know that when I really need God's help, He will help me, no matter how much of His help I need.

Sharing Light

In Elder Stern P. Stanfill's talk, Choose the Light, he shared an experience he had biking with a small group of friends and family members. They knew their ride would take them through a dark tunnel, so they had prepared themselves with lights. However, many of their lights proved inadequate, so they stayed close to each other, relying on the combined power of their lights and on the particularly strong light of one of their members to get them safely through the tunnel.

This, I believe, is one of the main functions of the church. We gather together each Sunday in part to share our light and to gain light from each other. When we stand together, sharing our insights and ideas, we all see more clearly.

My blog is somewhat similar. Yesterday, I had many questions, but since I posted my concerns yesterday, two of the most spiritual people I know shared their beliefs on the matter, and my life has been enriched by their wisdom. Every day, I post something vaguely spiritual on my blog. Every once in a while, someone comments that a blog post of mine was interesting or insightful. By coming here to share our thoughts with each other, we all gain greater light together.

By banding together, we can help each other grow in the gospel, increase in wisdom, and become more like Jesus Christ. I think I blogged recently that parents can help their children by sharing lessons learned from their life experiences. We can all help each other the same way. No matter how little light we may individually have, we can use what light we have to increase the collective light of the group. By sharing our light with each other, we all have more.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to reach out and share what light I have with you each day, and I'm more grateful for those of you who reach back and share your light with me. I've learned far more from this blog than I've ever taught, and I've gained more light than I've been able to emit. I look forward to continue sharing the light that gathers here. By sharing our light with each other, we each have become blessings to us all.

How Far is Two Miles?

Elder Hugo Montoya's General Conference talk, Tested and Tempted -- But Helped, mostly focussed on how we can help each other overcome our trials and temptations. Much of what he says is, I believe, good advice. However, his first suggestion, go the extra mile, has me feeling a bit concerned.

What does it mean to go the extra mile for someone? Elder Montoya quoted the Lord: "The Savior said, 'Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.'" Does that mean that, to be good Christians, we need to do everything that is asked of us, and then some? What if (and this is purely hypothetical, of course) a person has a relative, friend, or acquaintance who asks a good deal of them - perhaps even more than they can provide? Is a person morally obligated to provide twice as much service as is asked of them? There are people who would be in very serious trouble if that were true.

There are many people who, out of either a need or a want of help, "compel [others] to go a mile." Are all those others obligated to not only answer their every call to service, but to exceed even their benefactors' great expectations? I doubt it. Just as there are limits to what a person can do, there are limits to what God expects us to do. I'm sure God doesn't expect us to provide twice as much help as anyone ever asks of us. Some people ask too much for that to be practical. But then, what does God expect from us? How much service is considered the first mile, and how much is considered the second? If there are people asking you to do the service-equivalent of going four or five miles, is it still counted as "going the extra mile" when you do only a fraction of what they asked? "The Savior said, 'Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain,'" but what does that really mean for us?

Naturally, it means that we need to do service for others. God expects us to love and serve each other, to help each other bear our burdens, and so on. But where do you draw the line? When can a person say, with a clear conscience, "I know that you need help, but you're asking too much of me"? When does a person gain the moral right to say "no" to a request for service? Does a person need to be pushed to their physical or emotional limit before they can say that, or is God more practical and merciful than to expect that much of us? How much service does God expect us to do?

I wish I had the answers to these questions. I wish I knew how much God expects of me and how great His expectations are compared to that which is asked of me. I'm happy to serve others most of the time, but at a certain point, I have to say that enough is enough. I just wish I knew how much service, in God's eyes, counts as "enough."

Sharing Experience

In Elder Bradley D. Foster's October 2015 General Conference talk, It's Never Too Early and It's Never Too Late, he shares a story about a young man name Pablo. When Pablo was nine, his father pulled him aside and told him,

Pablo, I was nine once too. Here are some things you may come across. You’ll see people cheating in school. You might be around people who swear. You’ll probably have days when you don’t want to go to church. Now, when these things happen—or anything else that troubles you—I want you to come and talk to me, and I’ll help you get through them.

 When Elder Foster met Pablo and heard what Pablo's father had said, he went home and arranged to meet with his children, some of whom had grown up and had children of their own. He told them something similar:

Your mother and I want you to know that we were your age once. We were 31, with a small family. We have an idea of what you might encounter. It might be a financial or health challenge. It may be a crisis of faith. You may just get overwhelmed with life. When these things happen, we want you to come and talk to us. We’ll help you get through them. Now, we don’t want to be in your business all the time, but we want you to know that we are always in your corner.

One way parents can teach their children is by sharing their life experience and by being able to relate to their children's problems and feelings. Parents don't need to know everything to be good parents, they just have to be willing to share what they've learned.

Elder Foster concluded with his testimony of Jesus Christ, who lived a mortal life so He could say "I’ve been where you are, I know what comes next, and I’ll help you through it." I add my testimony that I know that Jesus knows exactly what we're going through and how we feel. He has experienced it all Himself in the garden of Gethsemane. Our Savior knows what we're going through because He's been through it Himself, and we can always turn to Him for help and to learn from His experience.

Flynn and Skyler, Don't Read This.

Seriously. Don't.

Flynn and Skyler are the two guys I play D&D with, and this morning, I'd like to blog about D&D. This blog post will contain spoilers for the adventure we're currently playing, which is why I don't want them to read it.

If it wasn't important to make sure Flynn and Skyler don't read this blog post, or even to find out what I'm actually blogging about, this blog post would have a different title: Free Resurrection.

In D&D, there are spells that can bring people back from the dead. However, for whatever reason, spells like these always require expensive materials to perform the spell. For example, to cast Reincarnate, the caster must treat the body (or what's left of it) with "rare oils and unguents worth at least 1000gp, which the spell consumes." The cheapest life-restoring spell is Revivify, which can revive a creature that died no more than a minute ago by channelling magical energy through "diamonds worth 300gp, which the spell consumes." 300gp is a lot of money, especially to anyone who isn't a noble, an adventurer, or a remarkably successful merchant. In most cases, resurrection spells are prohibitively expensive.

However, I believe I've found a one-time-only loophole that could allow a person to cast a certain resurrection spell for free. If Flynn and Skyler search a certain area, they may find a Scroll of Revivify. In D&D, scrolls are used to store spells for later use. If you find a scroll hidden in a chest or book somewhere, you can try to read it. "If the spell is on your class's spell list, you can use an action to read the scroll and cast its spell without having to provide any of the spell's components." That means you don't have to provide the spell's material component(s), which means that casting the spell from the scroll is free. The material cost of the spell still needs to be paid, but it's paid by whomever makes the scroll when they make it. Essentially, the maker of the scroll casts the spell (providing all of its components to do so), but instead of having the spell take effect immediately, it goes into the scroll, to be withdrawn later, perhaps by another caster.

In real life, resurrection works in a strangely similar way. Jesus Christ paid the cost of resurrection by completing the Atonement with His own resurrection, which made resurrection free for all of us. We don't need to provide hundreds or thousands of gold pieces worth of oils or diamonds to be resurrected. Jesus already paid the cost. Everyone, from the wealthiest noble to the poorest commoner, will be resurrected for free.

I'm grateful for Christ's Atonement and Resurrection, which makes it possible for us to have a better life and to be restored to life when we die. I'm thankful that Jesus paid the price, not just for my resurrection, but for my sins as well. The blessings He offers us are incredible, and far beyond our ability to repay Him, but He doesn't ask for repayment. At least, not in the traditional sense. What He wants in return for these blessings isn't oils or diamonds, but our hearts. He wants us to serve Him and each other, to love Him and one another, and to be righteous.

But even if we're not righteous, even if we curse God and everyone we meet, even if we sin as badly as we possibly can, we will still be resurrected. Resurrection is a free gift from Jesus. We don't need to earn it. We don't need to pay for it. No matter what we do or what we've done, Jesus Christ will grant each of us the gift of resurrection for free. I don't know about you, but that sounds like an incredibly good deal to me.

The Similarities Between Christmas and New Years'

This blog post is for yesterday. Even after posting this one, I'll owe you another for today.

I was thinking yesterday of the similarities between the first Christmas and New Year's Eve. Obviously, New Year's Eve marks the end of one year and the beginning of another. If nothing else, that means everyone has to update their calendars. The same thing happened in response to Jesus' birth. I'm not sure when the decision was made or by whom, but some time after Jesus was born, we started using the year of His birth to count what year it is. The year is 2016 because 2,016 years have passed since Jesus Christ was born. The change from B.C. to A.D.is a bigger change than that from one year to another, but they're roughly of the same kind.

The birth of Christ and the start of a new year are events that were and are looked forward to with excitement and anticipation. I joined millions of others in counting down the seconds to the new year last night. While only a few people were there for the birth of Jesus Christ, there were many who looked forward to it. The prophesies of Jesus' birth date back to the days of Adam and were spoken and read by prophets and kings in every age of the earth since then. The birth of Christ was a quiet event, but a great number of people were excited about it.

The most important way in which Christmas and New Years' is similar is in how they both represent a chance to start over. On New Years', people make resolutions to improve their lives. The birth and atonement of Jesus Christ make that possible. Because of Jesus Christ, we can repent of our sins, overcome our faults, and begin again whenever we make mistakes. Christmas and New Years' mean that we can change, not just our calendars, but our lives. We can break old habits and form new ones. In many ways, we can become new ourselves.

I'm looking forward to continuing to grow and change in 2016. I know I have a lot of changes to make in my life before I can reach my ultimate goals, and that most of those changes can come only after months and years of trying to change. A person can't change overnight, even if that night is December 31st, but because of the child whose birth is celebrated on December 25th, anything can change.