First and Second Thoughts

Yesterday, I was feeling a bit peckish, so I decided to have some leftover birthday cake. By that time, there was just enough cake left for either one large piece of cake, or two small pieces. My first thought, which I now recognise as being not entirely my own, was to just eat the larger piece, but when I put it on a plate, I realised how big it was and decided to only eat half of it.
This was a small and seemingly inconsequential decision, hardly worth blogging about, expect that I'm sure that I was influenced by both positive and negative forces as I tried to decide how much cake to eat, and not in that order.

A few times, I've heard the advice to "go with your gut," to make whichever decision you thought of making first. The idea behind this reasoning is that a person's instincts are smarter than their mind. We sometimes subconsciously solve puzzles before we consciously know how we did it. If we treat every decision like a puzzle, with the solution being the best possible choice, this suggests that we can sometimes instinctively know what we should do, even before we know why that's the right decision.

But eating the whole cake wasn't the right decision. Having spent a moment reflecting on it, it's clear to me that the inclination I felt at that time was a temptation. If I had "gone with my gut" at that point, I would have foolishly given in to the vice of gluttony (which I do all too often anyway, but that's beside the point). In that case, my first instinct wasn't the right decision, and I'm not even sure it was my first instinct at all.

We are frequently tempted to do things we shouldn't. Temptations to do foolish, and sometimes evil, things enter our minds multiple times a day. Similarly, we are often encouraged by the Holy Spirit to do the right things. Thus, many of the ideas we have for what to do aren't actually our ideas at all. Our job, when it comes to decision-making, is to sort through the ideas we get, and decide which is the best one.

This task is complicated by the fact that these inspirations and temptations often come in pairs. When one spirit offers a suggestion of something we should do, the other spirit usually offers an opposite suggestion. One spirit tempted me to eat the whole piece of cake, and the other advised me to eat only half. If I was following the counsel to "go with my gut," I would have followed the counsel of the first spirit, which would have been the wrong decision to make.

Thus, we can't always count on our "first instincts" to lead us in the right direction, as it's entirely possible that the first thought to pop into one's mind as they approach a decision is actually a temptation. Perhaps a wiser course of action would be to compare the first and second thoughts you have about something, rather than just accepting the first. Since temptations and inspirations tend to come in pairs, comparing the first two thoughts you have about something should give you some idea of which thought came from where.

The first thoughts we have about things may be correct more often than not, but following our first impulses isn't always the best course of action, so rather than simply going with one's first impressions, one should compare their first two or few impressions. The inspired advice may or may not be the first thought that comes to mind, but it'll usually be one of the first few. Likewise, the enemy also likes to throw his two cents in quickly whenever there's a decision to be made, so we should be wary, since sometimes, his suggestions are the ones that come to mind first. We've been advised to never postpone a prompting, but I would suggest that you hold off on following it until you're sure that it is a prompting, and not just the first thought that pops into your mind. One's first thought may usually be the correct one, but I'd suggest at least considering the second thought as well.

Repentance and How Not To Blog

Every time I have trouble blogging, the problem essentially boils down to the observation that I should have blogged earlier, when I was mentally awake enough to write a decent blog post. However, in my defence, I didn't have much of an opportunity for that today. I left pretty early in the morning, I was tired in the afternoon, and I wasn't home at all in the evening. I suppose I could have blogged this afternoon, which would have saved me from having to blog now, but it didn't occur to me that I would be even more tired now than I was then. I even thought of something I could blog about, but by the time I came up with the idea, it was time to go. I'm not sure I could have blogged earlier today.

Still, there are many other days in which I could blog earlier, and on those days, I really should. I used to blog in the mornings, considering a blog post "late" if I posted it after noon, but now, I just try to get a blog post in before midnight. This, of course, is a bad plan. The longer I wait to blog each day, the harder blogging gets.

It reminds me of repentance. The earlier we repent, the less difficult it is, and unlike our daily measurement of hours, we never know at what point it'll become too late to repent. Our lives could end at any moment. If we have any sins we need to repent of, it would be better to take care of them before then. And the increasing difficulty of repentance only increases the importance of repenting as soon as possible.

With blogging, I always know exactly how much time I have left to get a blog post in before it's considered late, but I have no idea how much brain power I'll have with which to blog. For instance, right now, I have an idea of what to blog about. I've had the idea for hours. But I've been having trouble articulating my thoughts, and being terribly tired probably doesn't help with that. I'll blog about getting cake tomorrow morning. In the meantime, the best you'll get from me is this blog post about why this isn't a good blog post and about how we shouldn't follow my blogging habits when it comes to repenting.

The Power of an Invitation

Tomorrow morning, I'm going to go on a 20-mile bike ride, mostly uphill, with my brother, but I'm not entirely sure why I'm going. It's not so I can log a bunch of miles for May Is Bike Month. I haven't been very competitive about that this year. It isn't for the challenge. I've done similar rides before, so I won't be setting any records. I'm not even doing it for fun, because a bike ride that long, on a day that's supposed to get pretty warm, doesn't sound like a lot of fun to me. I suppose I'm only going because my brother invited me.

Any of the aforementioned reasons would be good and valid ones. I'm sure I'll have fun while I'm out there (assuming we complete our ride before the heat of the day sets in), I'll enjoy the challenge, and logging all those miles when I get home will feel like a real accomplishment. At the end of the day, I'm sure I'll be glad I went, even though, if not for my brother's invitation, I wouldn't be going at all.

Invitations to come to church or church activities can be similarly powerful. There are many good reasons to go to such functions, but sometimes, those reasons don't seem like enough on their own. Sometimes, people know they should go to a church event, and they may even know that they'd enjoy it if they did go, but they still might not make the decision to go unless a friend or neighbor invited them.

Going on that bike ride will be an enriching experience, but it took a personal invitation to convince me to go. I wonder what enriching experiences our friends would be willing to join us in, if we were willing to invite them.

Because I'm Supposed To

Sometimes, I do things only because I feel that I'm supposed to do them. My heart isn't always in it. Those things tend to be like chores to me, though that's a bad analogy, because I often find doing chores like sweeping and washing dishes strangely rewarding. I do them partly for the joy of getting the job done.

However, there are other things that, for me, are much more tedious than doing housework. These things, I often do only because I know I'm supposed to do them. Duty is my only motivation in completing these tasks. I don't really enjoy much about doing those things, and I don't think I have much to look forward to down the line, either, except maybe blessings for doing the right thing even when I didn't feel like it.

I know this isn't the best way to live. In life, there will always be tasks that we have to do, even though we don't enjoy or look forward to them, but there are also always things we could enjoy about them. I could look for the payoff of doing these tasks, and when I find them, I could focus on that. It would give me more motivation and it would help me to have more positive emotions than negative ones. That's a thing I should do, so I should do it, even if only because I'm supposed to.

In the meantime, I hope I get credit for doing good things, even when my attitude about doing them isn't wonderful. Actually, I'm sure I do, but I wonder how much credit I get for dutifully doing things I don't enjoy, compared to how much credit I would get for doing those things if I found something I could enjoy about them. At first thought, I would guess that I would get more credit for doing things even though I don't want to do them. But that means that if I learned to enjoy them, then I would stop getting this much credit for doing them. That would mean trading eternal credit for temporary enjoyment, which is certainly a bad trade. So, if I get more credit for dutifully doing things I don't enjoy than I would get if I did those things and enjoyed it, that means I have an incentive to deliberately not learn to like doing those things. That would mean that it would be better for me, in the long run, to not learn to enjoy doing the right thing.

This seems to go against God's plan. I'm sure that He would rather that I learn to enjoy being righteous, and to do it because I want to do it rather than because I'm supposed to. I'm sure I'll get blessings for doing my duty either way, but if I can find a way to enjoy doing my duty, then I can earn my eternal happiness, and enjoy some temporary happiness as well.

Balancing Temporary and Eternal Happiness

The fact that pleasure isn't the purpose of life, and joy is, doesn't mean we can't have both. Not all pleasures are evil. Not everything that adds to our temporary happiness detracts from our eternal happiness. A person can live righteously and still have fun.

Case in point, today has been and is continuing to be a busy day for me. I've done a lot of good and productive things, both for myself and for my family. I've done laundry, filled our yard waste bin with removed sod, made my bed, and swept upstairs. I also plan on doing some dishes and some grocery shopping (we're low on milk). Even though the day is only half-over, I've already done several hours of good, solid work.

This evening, however, I plan on wasting several hours playing card games, and in my opinion, that's okay.

My mom is fond of encouraging her children to "be good and productive." This is good advice, but while I believe it's important to always be good, I don't think it's necessary to always be productive. We may take time to play and rest. Mom is also fond of encouraging us to find balance, and that, I think, is also good advice. Fun is okay, but work is important, though neither entirely precludes the other. People can have fun while working or after they work, as I plan to do tonight. There is a lot of work to be done, but I believe that people can and should take some time to have fun or enjoy other pleasures as well.

Similarly, we can do everything that we need to do, spiritually, and still enjoy what time we have on Earth. God wants us to keep the commandments and fulfil our callings, but I think He also wants us to occasionally take some time to relax and have fun. He designed the Sabbath to be a day of rest, but if Sundays aren't restful enough to suit our needs, we may need to get our rest, and certainly our recreation, in on other days.

Many people often feel that there isn't time for rest and recreation or that having fun is a waste of time, but I believe that people need balance in their lives. If obtaining balance requires a shift in priorities, I think that's what needs to happen, even if that means that some things don't get done. Finding a proper balance between work, rest, and recreation is important to our spiritual health. Some people play too much and should work more. Some people work too much and should rest more. We all need to strive for balance.

I believe that such a balance can be achieved and that it'll reward us with an optimal amount of happiness. While some people try to maximize their happiness by having as much fun as possible before they die, and other people try to maximize their happiness by being as righteous as possible while neglecting to rest and have fun, I don't think that either method will give a person the greatest amount of happiness they could possibly have. We can maximize our eternal happiness and still have some temporary happiness as well. Finding or making time for wholesome rest and recreation will allow us to have a good deal of happiness now and still allow us to have a great deal of happiness later. God wants us to be happy, both now and in eternity, and I'm sure that if we play our cards right (pun intended), we can.

"Joy Is!!"

According to  that quote from President David O. McKay, "Pleasure is not the purpose of life. . . Joy is!!" But what is joy? How should we define it? And what does this mean in the context of the oft-quoted statement from Joseph Smith, stating that "Happiness is the object and design of our existence"?

I would guess that joy is a more specific, more permanent form of happiness. Happiness can be fleeting and elusive, but joy tends to endure. In contrast, fun and pleasure create a temporary sensation of happiness. Those who go through their lives seeking pleasures try to keep that temporary happiness going as long as possible, but it makes more sense to spend one's efforts creating a lasting feeling of joy.

God wants us to be happy, both now and in the eternities. Because He has an eternal perspective, He encourages us to do things that will contribute to our eternal happiness, our joy, even when they don't contribute to our happiness now. God's commandments are designed for our eternal happiness, not for temporary pleasure.

People who disregard God's commandments and seek pleasures instead sometimes seem to be happier than those who try to keep the commandments, and it's possible that they are happier - for now. Because they're focussed on maximizing their current happiness, they sometimes succeed in doing so. They enjoy many more pleasures than righteous people do, and they seem to have more fun. But though they experience high concentrations of short-term happiness, the total amount of happiness they experience will be much smaller than that of those who keep the commandments.

The reason sinners have less total happiness than righteous people is because the happiness sinners experience doesn't last, whereas the happiness of the righteous lasts forever. Multiplying a great deal of happiness by a short amount of time will get you a certain amount of total happiness, but multiplying a lesser amount of happiness by an infinite amount of time will give you an infinite amount of happiness, and that it what God wants for us.

The purpose of life is to get the greatest possible amount of happiness. If we're only considering this mortal experience, then it might seem that the best way to get the greatest amount of happiness would be to do whatever we want - to have fun and seek pleasures. But when we consider that this life isn't all that there is, and that our eternal happiness depends on our temporal choices, then it becomes clear that the best way to maximize our happiness is to invest in our eternal future. Pleasure-seekers get more happiness in the moment, but God-seekers gain more happiness overall. That's why pleasure isn't the purpose of life, but joy is.

"Pleasure Is Not the Purpose of Life"

This is kind of a dumb picture for this quote. That looks like a rather pleasant activity to me. But I get what this image is trying to say. Not to point any fingers (at myself or anyone else), but too many people are too obsessed with seeking pleasures. They spend so much time enjoying life, or "enjoying" life, that they don't fulfil the actual purpose of life.  They may even be going against it. One of the purposes of life is to become righteous and morally strong, but many of the pleasures of the world fly in the face of those ideals. There are good things that we can take pleasure in, but there are also things that give us pleasure that are not good for us. And spending too much time seeking pleasure, even wholesome pleasure, can be bad for us eternally.

Whether we like it or not, God didn't send us to this planet so we could have a good time. In fact, almost the opposite is true. Yes, there are pleasant things in life, and God intends us to be happy, both in this life and in the next, but much of life is unpleasant, and that is an essential element of God's plan. We are meant to grow strength and wisdom through struggle and hardship. That is why we are here. Arguably, there will be plenty of wholesome pleasures in heaven and all the time in the world to enjoy them. But in the meantime, our time on Earth is limited, and God didn't intend for us to waste that time excessively seeking pleasures.

"Look For The Good!"

 There's a lot of good things and bad things in life. We can choose to focus on the good things or the bad things in our lives, and that's what we'll see more than anything else. Sometimes, it's hard to think positive, but when we consider our blessings, we come to learn that we have too many blessings to count. If we focus on those blessings, it won't make the bad parts of our lives disappear, but it will make them seem less prevalent. There is good and bad in everything. If you look for the good, you'll be able to find it.

When We Don't Get Revelation

Yesterday, in Young Men's meeting, we talked about personal revelation. We talked about how to receive it and how to recognise it. We talked about how great a blessing it is. But because God doesn't always grant us personal revelation in every circumstance, we also talked about what it might mean when that happens.

We often go to God with our questions. Often, we're asking for directions for our lives. When we ask God what we should do and don't seem to get an answer, that could mean a handful of things. It could mean that we're not really in tune with God at that moment, and there's something that we need to repent of. It could mean that God has already given us the answer to our question, either directly or through His prophets, and we simply need to look it up. Another thing it could mean when God doesn't give us direction is that He wants us to make the decision ourselves.

God gave us agency, the freedom to choose, and He sent us to Earth to use it. We are here, in part, to practice making decisions and to learn from the decisions we make. This education doesn't come easily when we let God make our decisions for us. We might learn from the "choices" we end up making, but we won't learn how to make good choices for ourselves.

My favorite of the possible reasons why God might not give a person personal revelation regarding an important decision is because He trusts that person to make a good decision. We don't always know exactly what we should do, but as we suffer along not getting divine direction for each decision we make, we eventually learn how to make wise decisions. Eventually, we may even get to the point where we can make decisions that are about as good as our decisions would have been if we had heavenly guidance. We aren't anywhere near that wise most of the time, but in some instances, if we really study a decision out before making it, we may not need to receive personal revelation in that case because we'll be able to make the right decision even without it (though it would still be wise to ask for it).

Personal revelation is such a blessing that we can sometimes feel lost without it, but not receiving revelation isn't always a bad thing. True, sometimes when we don't receive revelation, it's because something is wrong and we need to fix it, but other times, when we don't receive revelation, it means that something's alright, and that God trusts us to make a good decision, even without His help. Often, we put our faith in God by asking for, and accepting, His direction, but sometimes, by withholding His counsel and letting us make our own decisions, God puts His faith in us.

Life is Good

Life is good. It's not perfect, and it's not always pleasant, but it's good. I'm glad I'm still around to enjoy it.

Doing Good and Doing Well

On Facebook, I saw a video of a teacher telling his students to "Do good." One of those students asked "Don't you mean 'do well'?" "No," the teacher replied, "I mean 'do good'."

As a person who teaches English for a living, I can confirm the fact that "good" and "well" are two different words with two different meanings, and I appreciate the student for asking for clarification. As a person who studies the gospel religiously, I can also tell you that doing good is much more important than doing well, and I appreciate the teacher for making that distinction.

In life, there are many things that we must do, and we hope to do them well. These include "good" things, like raising families and giving service. But even if we don't do well at those things, I think we get a significant amount of credit for just doing them at all. The act of doing good or even just attempting to do good has far more impact on our eternal welfare than whether we did well or poorly at it.

A person who does good things poorly will be far better received in heaven than a person who does bad things well. The latter may get more praise from the world, but the former will get more praise from God. Sometimes, I feel like I don't do many things well, but I think that that's okay. While I don't do many things well, I do do many good things. At least, I try to. And so do others who sometimes feel bad for not doing well.

Doing well in school, at work, and in life is a good thing, but in the end, our academic and financial success won't be nearly as important as they sometimes seem. What will matter, when we stand before God, will not be whether we did well in life, but whether or not we did good.

Winning and Losing Games with Grace

The other day, I was playing a game with a few of my friends, and I was rather disappointed at their conduct. The took the game far too seriously, in my opinion. They were so concerned about winning that I don't think they actually enjoyed the game until they won. And when they did win (or lose), they didn't do so graciously. I should probably have a word with them.

In a world where it seems that so many things are critically important and stress-inducing, I would hope that games are among the few things that are considered not to matter, and that people could play them just for the fun of playing, without worrying about who is going to win or who may or may not be cheating. At the end of the day, it's only a game. It really doesn't matter who wins or loses.

What does matter when playing games is how a person behaves. I had almost said that it doesn't matter how one wins or loses, but if a person cheats to win, or acts discourteously when winning or losing, that does matter. How well one plays doesn't matter nearly so much as how well one behaves while playing.

Competition can be a good thing. The challenge to outdo each other can encourage us to do our best. However, it can also encourage us to exhibit behavior that isn't our best. We should try not to get too invested in the games we play. We should try to accept that sometimes we'll have good luck and sometimes we'll have bad luck. Sometimes, we'll play well, and sometimes we'll play poorly. Sometimes, we'll win, and sometimes we'll lose.

In his April 2016 General Conference talk, Elder Kevin R. Duncan said:

Brothers and sisters, in the competitions of life, if we win, let us win with grace. If we lose, let us lose with grace. For if we live with grace toward one another, grace shall be our reward at the last day.

I don't think it's going to matter to God how many games we won or how competitively or even how well we played. What will matter to Him is whether or not we acted like disciples of Jesus Christ, even when our games were or were not going well for us. Games are trivial. Play for fun. Do your best. But always try to play your games as Christ would have you play them, with grace, and with the recognition that are behaviour while playing games is far more important than whether we win or lose.

1 Nephi 3:31 - Laman's and Lemuel's Self-Doubts

In 1 Nephi 3:31, Laman and Lemuel reflect on the impossibility of the commandment they've been given to obtain the brass plates from Laban. I think that they were relatively justified in their doubts. They had already failed two attempts to get the plates. None of them seemed to be particularly skilled at bartering or burglary. And while their brother Nephi had great faith in the Lord, I think Laman's and Lemuel's doubts were centered mainly on themselves.
The exact doubts that they expressed were, "How is it possible that the Lord will deliver Laban into our hands? Behold, he [Laban] is a mighty man, and he can command fifty, yea, even he can slay fifty; then why not us?" The scriptures do not use italics to show emphasis, but if they did, I wonder if the exact quote wouldn't have been "How is it possible that the Lord will deliver Laban into our hands?" Their doubt may not have been whether or not God could do this great thing, but whether or not they could do it. Perhaps they weren't doubting that God could work that miracle, but that God could work that miracle through them.

We who have faith know that nothing is impossible for God, but we who have experience know that many things are impossible for us. Laman had tried and failed to get the plates twice, and had concluded that he couldn't do it. Perhaps he shouldn't have given up so easy, but when a person fails as badly as he had, and nearly loses his life in the process, I can understand them being reluctant to try again. Some might say that he was just being realistic. Humans have their limits. He had felt that he had hit his.

But God is omnipotent. He has no limits. If He wants to do something, He can do it. And as Nephi knew, if God wanted someone else to do something, He would give them a way to do it. President Thomas S. Monson has said, "When we are on the Lord’s errand, we are entitled to the Lord’s help." With that help, we can accomplish anything God wants us to do, even if it would have been impossible otherwise.

Sometimes, we doubt ourselves. We think that we're unqualified for or incapable of the work God wants us to do. But our abilities or inabilities aren't really part of the equation. Our power may be limited, but God's isn't. We may not be able to do something normally, but with God's help, we can do anything. When Laman and Lemuel were relying on their own capabilities, they were right; they could not obtain the plates, but when Nephi relied on God for guidance, God made a way for him to succeed. We may doubt our own abilities, and we may even be right to do so, but we should never underestimate what we can do with God's help.

Right ≠ Easy

This evening's youth activity was a Guess Who Said It trivia game, with each quote coming from a General Authority or a work of fiction. Some of the fictional characters had some surprisingly profound and inspiring quotes. When I discovered that a number of the quotes shared a similar message, I knew I had to blog about it, as much as I would prefer not to.

A few of the quotes in the trivia game said something along the lines of this quote from Grandmother Willow from Disney's Pocahontas: "Sometimes, the right path is not the easiest one."

In fact, it rarely is. The things God asks us to do are often difficult, partly because they require moral strength to do, and partly because God intends us to gain moral strength by doing them.

Conversely, the things Satan tempts us to do are easy. He doesn't have to make us jump through hoops to accomplish his designs. All it takes for evil to win is for good people to do nothing, and doing nothing is a piece of cake. And when he does tempt us to do something, the things he tempts us to do are often aligned with what the natural man is naturally inclined to do. So he frequently tempts us to just do whatever comes naturally, which is often just as easy as, and sometimes easier than, doing nothing.

In contrast, doing the right thing is almost always hard. In fact, in a BYU Address, President Eyring quoted his mother as having said "If you are on the right path, it will always be uphill." This is sometimes discouraging, as it means that any time we're trying to do the right thing, we're going to find it difficult. And even more unfortunately, the inverse is not always true; experiencing difficulty is not always a sure sign that one is on the right path.

The good news is that God will help us find the right path, and He will help us follow it. Following the right path isn't always easy, but one never has to do it alone. Many saints and angels, and Christ Himself have walked that path before us, leading the way, and many saints and angels, and God, Christ, and the Holy Ghost will walk with us as we follow them. Through them, we can obtain all the help we'll need, and we will need help, to follow the right path.

It's an Enjoyable Life

This morning, as I was working in the yard, I thought about the nature of life, and how much work is involved in being alive. At the time, I felt somewhat bitter, complaining that life isn't very enjoyable and that enjoyment doesn't seem to factor in at all in the purpose of life. We're here to experience affliction and grow character, whether we enjoy it or not. In fact, many things that people enjoy doing have been declared as sinful. I suppose life being unenjoyable would be part of a long-term plan - suffer now, find joy later. That is, if it was true at all.

I think God does mean for us to enjoy life, just not by doing all the things the world considers fun. One of my better attributes is that, when I'm not feeling bitter, I can find the fun in just about anything. Finding joy doesn't mean only doing things that are inherently enjoyable; it means finding enjoyment in doing seemingly unenjoyable things. Life is full of such things, such as working for a living at a job one doesn't particularly like, but the teachings of the gospel encourage us to look for the good and to learn how to dance in the proverbial rain.

Life isn't much fun. It wasn't designed to be. It was designed to be hard, and doing hard things is rarely fun. But it can be enjoyable. If we try to keep an eternal perspective, an optimistic attitude, and an eye out for the enjoyable parts of whatever we're doing, we can find them. Life is hard sometimes, but it can be enjoyable.

A Comparison of Covenants

There's a grim, fantasy role-playing game series called Dark Souls that a favorite Youtuber of mine has been playing. In the Dark Souls games, the player can enter groups that the games call "covenants," though I wish they had chosen a different name. Dark Souls covenants work very differently than Gospel covenants. In Dark Souls, covenants grant benefits, but not obligations. They can be entered on a whim, and the terms of the covenants never seem to be fully explained. Similarly, most of these covenants can be abandoned with no apparent ill effects. Basically, Dark Souls covenants are casual and informal, much unlike covenants in the Gospel.

Entering a Gospel covenant is a serious matter, often involving a ceremony which will not be performed unless the officiators are satisfied that the one entering the covenant knows the terms of the covenant and is committed to keeping those terms. The blessings of Gospel covenants are great, even essential, but the obligations of covenants are great, too, as are the consequences for breaking them.

Unlike the "covenants" in Dark Souls, the covenants of the Gospel must not be taken lightly. They should not, indeed cannot, be rushed into blindly, and they cannot be broken without consequences. Certain covenants, such as baptism, are essential to salvation, but salvation isn't for everyone. For example, it's not for those who are unwilling to keep the commandments. If you're not prepared to make and keep sacred promises with God, you shouldn't get baptised yet, and hopefully you won't be allowed to. Entering a real covenant involves a real commitment, unlike in Dark Souls, where they'll let you join any covenant at the drop of a hat. Covenants are far more serious than that, and they should not be made or broken as lightly as the "covenants" in the Dark Souls games.

Gifts Forgotten

On Friday night, I went to my local card shop to play Magic: the Gathering, and my decks did pretty well. One of them was a Standard White/Black/Red Allies deck that I threw together literally only a few seconds before my first game with it. The other one was a Mono-White Commander deck that I had been working on for weeks. Every so often, I look for good cards I could get to improve my Commander deck. Recently, I discovered a few great cards for the deck - among the cards I already owned.

One of those cards is Celestial Mantle, a card that increases the power (and toughness) of a creature and has the potential to double that creature's controller's life total. If you enchant your own creature with Celestial Mantle, you could possibly double your life total with it. It's an incredibly powerful card, and I even put it on my wishlist, but I took it off the list when I discovered that I still had a copy of the card. I thought I had traded it away.

Another few cards I was thrilled to find were Riot Control, Crusader of Odric, and Sphere of Safety. Sphere of Safety and Riot Control are cards a player can use to protect themselves from other players' creatures, and Crusader of Odric is a creature that can be fairly powerful under certain circumstances. I was tempted to buy Sphere of Safety because its effect was that good, but I noticed that its art looked familiar. Years ago, my brother gave me those cards, and a few others, when he returned from his mission in South Korea, but since all of those cards were printed in Korean, I had little idea what they were. I had planned to look them up eventually and build a deck around them, but now I know that they would fit perfectly in, and greatly improve, a deck I already have.

I wonder how often that's the case in real life. We have many blessings, including gifts, talents, and opportunities. I wonder how many of those blessings go unused because we forget we have them or failed to recognise them when we received them. This especially makes me think of the Priesthood, the "Celestial Mantle" that can bring great blessings down on our heads or those of our loved ones, but only if we remember to request or offer them. It also makes me think of all the other blessings God is willing to grant us, but has made contingent on our asking for them through prayer.

Let's not let these blessings go to waste any longer. Let's try to make note of them, so we can remember them and make use of them when we need them most. I definitely plan on adding these four cards to my Commander deck (with printed reminder sheets for what the Korean cards say in English). I should also look for, and make use of, the other blessings I've been given and have forgotten that I have.

Never Impossible

The D&D, the core mechanic of the game is the "check." To "make" or "roll" a check, one rolls a twenty-sided die, adds and/or subtracts numbers based on their character's stats and the circumstances, and compares the total against the DC, or difficulty, of whatever they were trying to do. For example, if you wanted to climb a tree with a climb DC of 10, and you get +3 to the check because you're better at climbing than most people are, you would need to roll a 7 or higher because 7+3=10.

Given that the die only has twenty sides, and a character's modifiers provide only a limited bonus, it's entirely possible for certain tasks to be impossible for certain characters. For example, if the character with +3 to climbing tried to climb a sheer wall with a climb DC of 25, they literally would not be able to do it, because even if they rolled the highest number they could roll, 20, their total, 23, would be less than the DC, 25.

This makes sense, because in life, there are some things that are also literally impossible. A person couldn't jump across the English Channel or the Grand Canyon, no matter how good at jumping they are. Their modifiers could not be high enough to successfully make that check. Thankfully, we'll never have to.

God will never ask us to do anything that is literally impossible. He will only ever ask of us what we are capable of doing. Society, our inner perfectionists, or even leaders in the church may ask us for more than we can do, but God won't. What God asks is never impossible, no matter how impossible it may seem. This is partly because only God knows the exact difficulty of what He asks us to do, and we tend to overestimate it. He also knows exactly what we're capable of, and we tend to underestimate ourselves. But, I'll admit, it's also partly because when our best effort isn't good enough, and what He wants us to do is important to Him, He adds enough of a circumstance bonus to make up the difference.

Just as the +3 climber could climb up the DC 25 wall if he got a +2 circumstance bonus and a really lucky roll, we also can do anything that God asks us to do, and luck won't have anything to do with it. In life, the main variable isn't luck; it's effort. When God asks us to do something, it will always be worthwhile to put in the effort, because God will never ask us to do anything that is literally impossible to do.

Blessings We Don't See

This is a lot of text for a picture quote, and it isn't even attributed to anybody, but I just love this message. I've blogged about this concept once before, when I blogged about Prince Philip's escape from the Forbidden Mountain in Sleeping Beauty. During that escape, the three good fairies completely nullified three or most obstacles that could have killed him, but they removed those obstacles so thoroughly that if Philip hadn't been paying attention, he might not have even noticed them.

I wonder how much God does that for us. How many problems does He shield us from? How many hardships do we end up never having to face? We face plenty of hardships, sure. That's kind of the point of being here. But I wonder how much harder life on earth would be if God stepped back completely and didn't help us at all.

I don't want to find out.

So, even though life feels hard sometimes, I am going to thank God that it isn't any worse. I'm sure that He has always been pulling for me and helping me more than I could ever know. I'm sure that He has given me far more blessings than I deserve or even know about, and I should thank Him for them. Like much of the work that most Moms do, I'm sure that a lot of God's work goes underappreciated. So I am going to make an effort to appreciate the good things in my life, including the ones I don't notice.

"Winners" and "Losers" in the Game of Life

Having blogged about what it means to be a loser, I've been thinking about what it means to be a "winner." For this blog post, "winner" won't mean "someone who feels like a winner" or even "someone who wins" or "someone who possesses traits that increases their chances of winning." For this blog post, I'm going to use the term "winner" to refer to people who are winning the game of life.

Life is much like a game. It has rules and players, it has a clear "object," and the purpose of life is happiness, just as the purpose of games is fun. To win a game, a player must complete the object of the game. In this case, the object of the game of life is to become like God. Thus, a "winner" is someone who is becoming like God.

Strangely enough, I've been using the words "winner" and "loser" in this sense since long before I started thinking about this. Previously, I used the terms "winners" and "losers" to mean "nice people" and "jerks," respectively. If a man is rude to his girlfriend and she dumps him, it could be said that she dumped him because he was a "loser."

Come to think of it, there's another way in which being a "loser" means "not becoming like God." Becoming like God takes a lot of progress, a lot of growing up. If a person isn't really growing up, if they're choosing not to take responsibility for themselves and their actions, if they're not a diligent and productive member of society, it can be said that they are a "loser." Though perhaps, when using the word "loser" in this sense, I should not be too judgemental.

If life is a game and the object of this game is to become like God, I most certainly want to be a "winner." Being a "winner" in this sense takes a lot of work, more work than winning most games or convincing oneself to feel like a winner, but the prize for winning the game of life is well worth it. And when the alternative is being a "loser," both in the eyes of society and in respect to our goal of becoming like God, I would really like to avoid that.

What It Means to Be a "Loser"

Not long ago, I felt like a loser, and I pondered for a little while about what that actually means. What makes someone feel like a loser? I don't think it's simply losing. A person can win and still feel like a loser, or lose and still feel like a loser. I think that whether we feel like a winner or a loser depends on our attitude, and it mostly reflects how we respond to winning and losing.

My sister has a T-Shirt with a short phrase encouraging its readers to "Find a defeat in every victory and a victory in every defeat." Finding a victory in every defeat makes sense to me. When things go badly, it can be comforting to reflect on what you did right. Finding a defeat in every victory made less sense to me, initially. The way my sister explained it, even when things go well for us, there is always room for improvement. Even when we win, there is always something we could have done a little bit better. If we strongly care about improving ourselves, we can look for those things and work on them.

I'm not sure "winners" do that. (And at this point, I should probably clarify that I'll be using the terms "winners" and "losers" to refer to people who feel like winners or losers, respectively, regardless of both whether or not they actually win or lose and whether or not they have what a personality that facilitates winning. For this blog post, "winners" are those who feel like winners, whether they are actually winners or not, and the same is true for "losers.") When "winners" win, they celebrate their victory rather than looking for room for improvement. Conversely, "losers" hardly have to look.

With "losers," the "defeat in every victory" is all too visible. A "loser" can hardly ever experience a victory without feeling like they've been defeated. While finding a defeat in every victory is a helpful tool for self-improvement, that's not really my issue. "Losers" like me already know of hundreds of ways in which we could improve, having learned them from the countless victories and defeats we've experienced over the courses of our lives. What we need to look for, to keep our morale and motivation strong, is victories.

"Losers" often look for victories in their defeats as a coping mechanism for feeling like losers. Many of us have gotten good at that. What we're not always so good at is seeing the victories in our victories. No matter what goes right, we fret about what we could have and think we should have done better. I think that many "losers" like me could benefit from not doing that so often, and instead allowing our victories to remain victories. We'll still see the defeats in them; that's part of our nature. But we'll be happier if we make the effort to see the victories in them, too.

The Child and the Iron – Hiding From God

You can probably guess how this story is going to go, just by the title of this blog post, but I'll tell the story anyway because the ending is pretty profound.

In the March 2016 Ensign, Katy McGee shared a handful of parenting experiences that taught her gospel principles. One of these experiences involved an iron. Sister McGee was ironing while her three-year-old daughter, Lucy, was playing nearby. Sister McGee had to step out of the room for a moment, but before she did, she made sure to warn Lucy not to touch the iron.

"I was sure Lucy understood," Sister McGee wrote, "so I quickly slipped out of the room. I returned a moment later, and I heard a whimper from behind a chair." Of course, we all know who was whimpering and why.

At first I was confused that she hadn’t heeded my warning. Then I felt heartbroken that she would hide from me after making a small mistake, afraid she had lost my love and confidence. I knew she was powerless to take the pain away, and only I could help her burned finger feel better. I comforted Lucy, and as I rushed her to the bathroom sink to ease the pain, the Spirit whispered to my heart: “This is how Heavenly Father feels when His children fail to heed His warnings and won’t allow Him to ease their pain when they need it most.”

Like Lucy, we all sometimes foolishly, childishly, disregard the warnings we've been given, and we often get burned as a result. When that happens, we sometimes turn away from God, forgetting that His love will always exceed His disappointment and that He would always rather heal us than punish us. We have no reason to hide from God. Even if we wilfully, rebelliously, deliberately disobey God, there is no reason to try to hide from Him. First of all, it wouldn't work. God is omniscient; we cannot effectively hide from Him. And second of all, even if we could hide from God, we'd probably be worse off if we did. Hiding from her mother wasn't going to heal Lucy's finger, but returning to her loving arms did.

God knows that, over the course of our mortal journeys, each of us is going to touch the iron. When we do, we have a decision to make: Will we turn to God for help and healing, or will we try to hide ourselves behind a chair? When we foolishly forgo God's warnings, I hope that we will at least be wise enough to confess our sins and have them forgiven instead of covering them up and keeping the wounds they've caused us. God wants to heal us, but He can't do that unless we come to Him. To get healing for all our ailments, including the ones we've caused ourselves through sin, we need to not try to hide ourselves from God and instead come unto Him, repenting. God loves us, and He is eager to heal us, and He certainly doesn't want us to continue to suffer needlessly as we pointlessly try to hide from Him.

I Love the Women of my Family

There are many wonderful women in my family. One of them, we celebrated yesterday, and one of them, we will celebrate tomorrow. Both of them are strong and faithful women who do all they can to do what's right. They both regularly inspire me and encourage me to do good, and they each give me many opportunities for service, for which I'm thankful. I am blessed to have these two wonderful women, and my other wonderful sisters, sisters-in-law, nieces, and cousins, in my family. They each contribute much to our family, and I'm thankful for each and every one of them.

Legislating Morality

One of the questions I wrestled with when I had too many half-thoughts to blog about was whether or not a Christian should use their power to vote to try to enact laws according to their own moral code. This is a riddle I haven't solved yet, and I'm not sure which side of the argument I should try to present first. Let's start with the "pro" argument.

There are several reasons why Christians should enact laws according to their moral codes, the most important of which is probably that the soul of our nation depends on it. As Christians, we believe that certain blessings follow from keeping the commandments of God, and certain curses follow from disregarding them. Many people, not just Christians, are worried about the direction this nation is headed in. I think that that may be because we've drifted so far from our country's original ideals, and we are no longer as blessed as we were when the majority of Americans could say "God bless America" with a fervent belief that He would.

This reason is especially important for Latter-Day Saints, who believe that this land is a Promised Land which can only be inhabited by those who worship God. As a Latter-Day Saint, I fear that if we, as a nation, become too depraved, we will be removed from our place here, and a more righteous people will ultimately take our place.

As for the morality of voting to enact laws that match one's moral beliefs, it's only fair. I believe that each person must do what they think is right, and if that means voting for or against a measure that you believe is morally right or wrong, that, I believe, is what a person must do. The atheists are certainly doing it. Those who disagree with certain moral standpoints have been fighting fiercely against those who stand by their principles. I think that Christians should consider themselves free to fight back, legally, as long as they don't betray their conscience in doing so. I think that believers should be free to act according to their conscience, even if that means "discriminating" against certain groups of people. It may be rude for them to do so, and it'll certainly cost them some business, but it should be their right to do what they think is right.

Then again, a similar thing could be said in rebuttal. Though it may be considered a "sin" by certain other individuals, I think that, within certain limits, it should be a person's right to do what they think is alright. Who are we, as believers, to tell other people what they can or can't do? Who made us the "Moral Police"? What right do we have to force our principles on others?

This country was founded on the principle of freedom. If we claim the privilege of worshipping according to our own consciences, then we should extend that privilege to others as well. They, too, should be free to act according to their consciences.

In this, Latter-Day Saints can look to God as their exemplar. When He created the earth and placed us on it, He gave us each free reign over ourselves. We are all free to basically do whatever we want to do, and He won't do a thing to stop us. Yes, there will be consequences for misbehavior, and He frequently warns us of those consequences, but that's all He does - warn us. We are completely free to disregard those warnings.

How this analogy plays out in the political arena, I'm not entirely sure. Should we allow all people ultimate freedom to do whatever they want (including rape and murder each other), trusting that the eternal consequences, in which many people do not believe, will be enough of a deterrent to prevent such wrongdoing, or should we "play God" by enacting such laws as He has and meting out justice and punishment for disobedience, as He ultimately will? Both suggestions seem ridiculous and morally wrong to me. I would guess that the answer, as usual, lies somewhere between the two extremes.

But where, exactly, should we draw the line? Which moral laws should we enforce and which sins should we permit? I think that many of us agree that stealing, killing, and raping are wrong, so we'll find little opposition if we seek to establish and maintain moral laws against those sins, but what of hairier issues, like abortion? Balancing the sanctity of life against the freedom of choice is not a simple task, especially when even those who believe in the inherent value of human life don't always agree on exactly when that life begins.

On the question of we should legislate morality, the easy answer is that everyone should do what they think is right, but that's just the problem: I don't know what the right thing to do is. Should I enforce righteousness or allow freedom? Should I encourage virtue or condone sin? My problem is that it seems to me that what I do personally and politically should be different. Personally, I should warn everyone I know about the consequences of sin, as God would, but politically, I should allow all people to act according to their conscience, as God does.

However, I'm worried that, if I do that, there will be serious consequences for individuals, the country, and perhaps even for me. We are becoming an increasingly amoral and immoral society, and there are and will be consequences for that. And I don't want to have to stand before God and admit that I did nothing to fight against that trend. Then again, I don't want to "play God" or appoint myself as some kind of "moral police," either. I believe in freedom. But I also believe that I should do my duty to my country and the children I hope to have. I don't want to see America turn into a God-cursed cesspool of sin. But I don't want to dictate the tenets of religion, either. I am in a predicament. I hope I can sort this riddle out by the time I have to vote again.

Life's Not Fair

Elder Dale G. Renlund's talk, “That I Might Draw All Men unto Me” touched on many topics, but the topic that repeatedly stood out to me was the unfairness of life. Life is not fair, but we often think it should be. We feel that we don't deserve the trials and affliction we get, and that we instead deserve more blessings than we think we get. My theory is that that may be the case - by divine design. I think that God sometimes gives us more challenges than we deserve to face, and sometimes withholds blessings that we deserve to receive.

Of course, we would all like to have more blessings and fewer challenges, but that may not be what's best for us. We came to earth to gain experience and grow moral fiber, but that takes longer when life is easy. If we are sufficiently righteous, we may deserve certain blessings, but it might be better for our spiritual development if we don't get them - yet.

The good news is that "All that is unfair about life can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ" (Preach My Gospel, 52). Though life often isn't fair, the afterlife will be more than fair. Ultimately, we will be given every blessing we have ever earned, including those we receive in compensation for undeserved suffering, and then some. The unfairness of life often works against us, but in the eternities, the unfairness will be for our blessing. As Elder Renlund reminded us, "If life were truly fair, . . . you and I would never be able to stand clean before God. In this respect, I am grateful that life is not fair."

Too Many Half-Thoughts to Blog About

I was having trouble blogging this morning, so I went to the list of Daily Messages on LDS.org, hoping to find a quick quote to blog about. That didn't happen. Struggling to find an idea simple enough to blog about, I almost gave up on writing a good blog post today, but then I saw a quote from Elder James B. Martino's talk, "Turn to Him and Answers Will Come."

"Your answer will come…It may not come as quickly or in the format you desire but the answer will come. Do not give up!"

A few pages of quotes later, I saw a quote that read, "Brothers and sisters, living the gospel doesn’t need to be complicated." and another that read "Too many people think Church leaders and members should be perfect…They forget that the Lord’s grace is sufficient."

That was my answer.

Too often, I think that my blog posts aren't good enough, and that if I can't fully explain a unique idea in an interesting and inspiring way every day, I've failed somehow, but that's not why God asked me to blog. Another quote, which I lost a few pages back and am not going to go back and hunt for it, said something about how our progress is God's ultimate goal. Sure, it's nice when I can inform and inspire others through my blog, but that's not really the point. At least, it's not the only point. God asked me to blog daily so I'll have an reason to ponder something every day, so I'll keep my mind on spiritual things, so I'll develop a stronger closeness to the Holy Spirit. Sharing fully developed spiritual thoughts is a side effect; having spiritual thoughts is the cause.

I'm going to try to remember this, going forward. Sometimes, my blog posts aren't very good, and I sometimes feel bad about that, but the quality of my thoughts aren't as important as the nature of my thoughts. I may not always be able to communicate what I'm thinking, but as long as I'm thinking about things of a spiritual nature, I'm accomplishing the goal of my blog. Sometimes, and maybe again sometime soon, I'll share some of the half-thoughts I tried to blog about this morning, if only to discuss the questions with you and keep the topic fresh in my mind. Maybe we'll find the answers together. At any rate, I still have a lot to think about, and that's a good thing, even if not all of those thoughts can become what I consider good blog posts.

Don't Resent the Guardians

A while back, I was listening to the ambient music of a game titled The Talos Principle. The Talos Principle, as a principle of philosophy, is unfamiliar to me. I may try to research it later. As a game, The Talos Principle is a puzzle game in which you  have to navigate mazes, use items to open doors, and evade floating mines that hurt you if you get too close to them. Meanwhile, you occasionally hear the voice of a being who calls himself Elohim who has taken it upon himself to guide you through this series of puzzles. This Elohim character is obviously playing the role of God in this game, and though he cannot speak for the real God, he does say many things that the real God would say, including this one snippet that I thought was especially blogworthy:

"The guardians of this land may harm you, but do not resent them, for they are my servants, and they challenge you only so that your faith might be strengthened."

I wonder how true this is of the challenges we face in real life. I don't think strengthening our faith is the only reason they exist, though that may depend on what it means to "strengthen one's faith." Still, regardless of what purpose(s) our challenges serve, if any, I believe that there's wisdom in choosing not to resent them.

For one thing, resenting our challenges won't do us any good. Just as getting angry or frustrated in the game won't help you solve its puzzles, getting upset at the challenges we face in real life won't make them go away either. Our resentment would serve no purpose and would just be a waste of energy.

In fact, overcoming our obstacles, both in puzzle games and in real life, will be much easier if we don't resent them. Resentment clouds our judgement and saps our energy, but if we have a positive attitude instead, we can face our challenges with courage and optimism, which will help us discover and implement solutions to the problems. While a good attitude alone won't make our troubles go away any more than a bad attitude will, having the right attitude can make a big difference.

I am personally inclined to believe that most, if not all of our struggles were given to us to help us. Sometimes, obstacles help us by steering us away from things that would hurt us, and sometimes, obstacles help us by giving us challenges to overcome. Overcoming such challenges is how we can grow in spiritual strength and ultimately become like God. We need those challenges to help us strengthen our spiritual muscles, just as the game needed those puzzles to help it test and sharpen the players' minds.

While there may be other reasons for our challenges, other than strengthening our faith, I consider opposition in mortality a necessary thing, and though I'm not always glad we have it, I am glad we have a God who's wise enough to give us exactly what we need to help us become more like He is, even if what we need is obstacles to overcome and challenges to solve. God knows what He's doing, so I'll try not to resent the obstacles He sends us to help us become like Him.

Infiltration

Today, I learned about how intrusive the devil can be. He doesn't just stand on our doorstep, waiting for us to invite him in. He comes in uninvited, by any means we leave open to him. He'll walk in the front door, if we let him, but if the doors are locked, he'll try the windows, and if the windows are barred, he'll try the chimney. He is relentless, and if we are not constantly on guard, he will find a way in. When that happens, what we need to do (after driving him out) is to find out how he got in, and then plug that hole. If we do that, our spiritual defences will gradually grow more secure. Ultimately, we may eventually improve our spiritual defences to the point where the enemy can't get in at all. But until then, we need to stay on our guard, knowing that, if there is even the smallest opening, the enemy will find it and break in.

Two Hands

Today, I mused on how the fact that we have two hands allows us to get one hand dirty while keeping the other hand clean. You could pet an animal or pull weeds with one hand and still eat or brush your teeth with the other hand. It may not be the safest thing you could do, but you could still do it safely.

However, our spirits don't work like that. We can't sin with one hand and expect the other hand to still be clean. If any part of us touches sin, our whole soul is tainted by it. God won't be fooled by clever tricks. He knows when any part of us is dirty, even when the rest of us looks clean. We can't sin with one hand and accept the blessings of the faithful with the other hand. If we want to receive such blessings, we had better keep both hands clean.

Ponderize - Mosiah 4:30

Mosiah 4:30
But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of Christ, even until the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, remember, and perish not.

My memorization was not perfect. I said "Christ" instead of "our Lord," and "until" instead of "unto," and I probably added or left out a comma or two here or there, but for the most part, I think I did alright.

There is something that I think I would add to this verse, at least in how it applies to me, though what I would add is probably implied by "watch yourselves, and your thoughts, . . . and your deeds." The phrase I would add to this verse for my personal application is "and your time," or perhaps "and how you spend your time." I don't know where I'd put it, but I think the admonition to keep better track of my time would be helpful to me. I'm sure I'm not the only one with the bad habit of surfing the internet and losing track of time. Wasting time seems to be a problem that this generation especially is going to have to deal with.

So, what strategies can we use to "watch our time"? One method is to literally keep track of how we spend our time. I've tried that for a while. Each hour, I would write down how I spent that hour. None of the apps I currently have on my phone seem to be good for that. I could try my note-taking app, but the input system is less convenient than just writing things down, though typing on my phone is probably less inconvenient than carrying a pencil and a pad of paper everywhere.

Another, more proactive way is to schedule out your day, down to the hour. Missionaries do that. Each person who does this will have to decide how strictly they'll keep to their schedule, and will have to try to plan ahead, knowing that their schedules may have to change, depending on unforeseen circumstances. A person never plans to spend half an hour changing a flat tire, but it still happens. Sometimes a new task takes priority over a planned task, so the schedule will have to be at least somewhat flexible. Also, since planning takes time, a person would have to evaluate whether their planning saves more time than it takes.

I don't know if I'll make myself a daily schedule; at least, not until the semester ends. My school and work schedules give me enough structure that I don't feel like a need much more. All I really need is to make sure I'm using my non-school, non-work time efficiently, and keeping track of how I spend each non-school, non-work hour will probably be sufficient for that.

There are almost certainly other ways to "watch your time," but keeping track of each hour, like I did for my Experiment Six-to-Six, will probably be a good start. Of course, I'll want to adjust the hours, probably to Seven-to-Eleven, to account for the hours I spend in the evening either doing homework, blogging, or wasting time, and to account for the fact that I almost never get up promptly at six anymore.

I'll start keeping track of time on my phone, probably with my note-taking app, and we'll see how that goes. Hopefully, it'll help me get more done and do things earlier. I know that it's important for me to "watch my time," and now I have once again been reminded to do that. We'll see how long it lasts this time. I'm not sure it'll become a habit. I don't think ponderizing has. But even if I don't keep Experiment Seven-to-Eleven up forever, it should be beneficial to me for as long as it lasts, and as Finals Week approaches, I could definitely use that.

Humility - An Essential Virtue

Elder Steven E. Snow's Conference talk, "Be Thou Humble" talked about both the value of hymns and the importance of humility. I love hymns, but right now, I think I'd rather blog about humility, partly because it's the opposite of pride.

President Ezra Taft Benson famously described pride as "the universal sin, the great vice." President Uchtdorf went on to say that "every other sin is, in essence, a manifestation of pride." With pride being such an important sin, its opposite, humility, must be an important virtue, and it is.

In his Conference talk, Elder Snow taught us that "Humility is essential to gain the blessings of the gospel. Humility enables us to have broken hearts when we sin or make mistakes and makes it possible for us to repent."

These are rather stunning statements. According to Elder Snow, repentance would be impossible without humility. Without humility, we won't be able to change for the better because we won't be able to admit the need to change. If we are not sufficiently humble, we won't be able to make any progress at all.

This would, of course, defeat at least one of the fundamental purposes of our existence: becoming like God. It is humility that lets us accept that His ways are better than our ways. Unless we are humble enough to accept His teachings and counsel, we will forever remain about as ignorant as foolish as we are now. Ironically, unless a person is humble, they will never become great.

We would do well to be humble and teachable so we could learn what we need to learn and do to become better. The proud may boast of having great traits, but the best traits take humility to acquire. We need humility in order to become Christlike, and we need to become Christlike if we ever hope to become perfect. When we are perfect, maybe then we will have some license to take pride in our accomplishments, but until then, we would do well to be humble enough to learn how we can improve.