Unless You Really Try

"If you think you've blown God's plan for your life, rest in this. You, my beautiful friend, are not that powerful."

Never in my life have I been so glad to be weak.

Yet, this anonymous picture quote still doesn't comfort me as much as it could, because I know it's not entirely true. While I think that God's plan for each of us is well-thought-out enough that none of us could upset His plans by accident, and He certainly wouldn't allow anyone to throw His plan for the world and for the human race as a whole off the rails, I believe that God grants us enough freedom to reject, and thus thwart, God's plan for us, if we actively choose to.

Satan did that. I don't think God's plan for any of His children involved them completely turning against Him and banishing them to hell. Lucifer probably had a bright future planned for him, but by his choice, he threw it away. I'm sure God allows us the freedom to do the same.

God's not going to force any of us to follow His plan for us. We can opt out. However, I do understand, and agree with, the basic idea of this picture quote. We can't thwart God's plan by accident. As long as we're willing to try to follow God's plan, as long as we're willing to work with Him, no mistakes we could make along the way could permanently keep us off of God's path. Unless we are actively trying to foil God's plan for us, we're not going to.

I take some comfort in that. While I know it's still possible for me to reject God's plan, I'm sure that I haven't. And even if any of us do reject the idea of God's plan, His offer to help us will stay open to us for as long as we live, so even if, in a moment of darkness, I told God that I didn't want any part of God's plan, I could still change my mind and start following His path again now. God's perfect plan allows for repentance, and it certainly also accounts for the mistakes that we make, which is fortunate, because we make a lot of mistakes.

But despite all the mistakes that we make, God's plan for each of us remains intact and on track. God's plans aren't easily unravelled. It would take active effort on our part to effectively reject His plan for us. But I kind of like that we have the option. We're not so strong that we could thwart His plans without trying to, but we are powerful enough to say "no" to His plan, if that's what we truly want to do.

In my case, rejecting God's plan for me is not something that I actually want to do, so I'm grateful to hear that derailing God's plan for me is not something that I could do by accident.

Thy Faith Hath Made Thee Whole

Several weeks ago, in Sacrament Meeting, a man spoke about how special the Sacrament is. He had suddenly developed some problem with his ear. I can't remember now whether it was pain or hearing loss or both. But acting on either an impulse or inspiration, he put a little bit of Sacramental water in his ear, and shortly thereafter, his ear was healed. Something I wanted to say, and wish someone had said, was that it wasn't the Sacrament that healed him. The healing could have been natural, but personally, I think he was healed because of his faith.

There is at least one other person who, through their interaction with an ordinary object, received an extraordinary healing blessing. The New Testament tells of a woman who had an issue of blood, who touched the hem of Jesus' robe and was healed. I am certain that it wasn't Jesus' magic healing robe that cured her. I'm sure that His clothes had nothing special about them at all. In fact, just after the healing took place, Jesus identified the power behind the healing when He told the healed woman "Thy faith hath made thee whole."

The Sacrament doesn't have any magical healing powers. There is nothing special about that bread and water except symbolism. The bread and water itself remains regular bread and water. The special power behind the man's healing wasn't the blessed Sacramental water, but his faith. Just as with the woman with the issue of blood, he had the faith that he would be healed, and he was healed.

When Moses created the brazen serpent that healed at least some of the children of Israel from their snake bites, it wasn't that he had created a magical anti-venom staff. It was that those who were healed had had at least enough faith to look. I might even go so far as to say that even consecrated oil doesn't any inherently magical healing qualities. When people are healed by Priesthood Blessings, I don't think it's the oil that's doing the healing, but their faith.

My opinion is that the oil, the water, the robe, and the brazen serpent are and were similar to placebos. The healings happened because those that were healed believed they would happen, not because of the objects or substances themselves. Faith is powerful, especially when it is strong enough to persuade someone to act, even if the action is as simple as touching some cloth or putting some water in your ear. It is a test of faith, to see if a person's faith is strong enough to follow their prompting, even if they suspect that the action itself won't heal them. If their faith is strong enough to convince them to perform the action, then the action itself won't have to heal them; their faith will. In the case of every healing I know of, it wasn't the special objects or substances that healed them. It was their faith, and their acting on their faith, that made them whole.

True Conviction

I've been thinking a lot about faith lately, thinking about how the shield of faith wards against temptations and deception, about how faith can bring blessings, including the blessing of forgiveness, and how faith requires more than just belief; it requires conviction.

In Bonnie L. Oscrason's talk, Do I Believe?, she shares the story of a mother whose two-year-old son had a nearly fatal case of pneumonia. While the child's life still hung in the balance, the mother thought of the temple and of the promise that families can be together forever, even if they are temporarily separated by death. She had grown up knowing and teaching that truth all her life, but at this moment, she discovered that she didn't just know it; she also believed it. With true faith, she thanked God for the knowledge that she could be with her son for eternity, and she put her present fears and pain to rest, knowing that her son's life was in good hands and that, even if he died, they would be together again.

I need faith like that. I want faith that goes beyond mere knowledge or belief to actually influence my attitude and behavior. I want to believe in the reality of God and heaven and hell to such an extent that I act as though every choice I make affects my eternal destiny. I want to constantly remember the truths I've been taught and have my conviction of those truths to be one of my defining characteristics. I don't want to just believe that these things are true. I want to have enough faith to act on those beliefs.

Faith is not meant to be a passive belief, but an active force that shapes the decisions we choose to make. If we act in faith, we will make choices that won't make sense to the secular world, but that will show God that we truly believe and trust Him. Our faith can even affect our attitudes and emotions, even about the death of a loved one, if it is strong enough. I want my faith to be that strong. I want my faith to be strong enough for me to know that I can be with my family forever and for me to have enough conviction to make the decisions I'll have to make to qualify to live with them forever. For our faith to be strong enough to carry us through the tests and trials of life, we have to have more than just a passive belief. We need to have a true conviction of the truths that we've been taught.

Blessings for Everyone

Today, I have been involved in more Priesthood blessings than I have on any other day in my life. This morning, I stood in a circle of Priesthood holders as we gave a blessing to my youngest nephew, and this evening, I corrected my mistake of not getting a blessing at the start of the school year. My brothers gave me a blessing, my brothers and I gave our mom a blessing, and one of my brothers and I gave a blessing to another of my brothers. It was a day filled with blessings.

I am grateful for the Priesthood in my life. I'm grateful that my family members are always there for me and that I can be there for them. It is such a blessing to have family members who are willing and able to give me Priesthood blessings when I need them, and it's a privilege to be able to offer Priesthood blessings to them.

I know that not all people can give Priesthood blessings, and that is unfortunate, but I find it comforting that anyone can get a Priesthood blessing if they want one. Those who don't have family members who hold the Melchizedek Priesthood can turn to their home teachers or to their Bishop for a blessing. Those who aren't yet members of this church can turn to their local missionaries if they want a blessing. There are fortunately few people who are beyond the physical reach of Priesthood blessings. And for those few, I'm sure that God is willing to grant them equivalent blessings, if they are faithful.

I'm grateful for God's willingness to bless us and for the opportunity we have as Priesthood holders to have a hand in blessing others. Through the Priesthood, everyone on earth can and will receive great blessings. I thank God for allowing me the opportunity to be a part of that.

Don't Hide the Footnotes

The other day, my institute teacher asked the class to count the 'F's in 1 Nephi 1:1. It was a trick question, and it was especially tricky for us. There are many 'F's in that verse, but there may or may not be one more 'F' in it, depending on whether or not you count the small, italicised 'F' that marks the 6th footnote in the verse. Most of the class, including myself, looked up the verse in our smartphones, where it's possible, for convenience’s sake, to hide the footnotes. Doing so will remove the many links that you might accidentally tap as you scroll down the page, which would take you away from the verse you were reading and offer you other verses on similar topics. Leaving the footnotes in can lead to frustrating moments when you accidentally touch the wrong part of the screen the wrong way, but hiding them can be much worse in a very different way.

Yes, the linked footnotes can be annoying, but they can also be very helpful. If a particular verse of scripture stands out to you, you can use the footnotes to quickly and easily find other verses that shed more light on the same subject. The footnotes can help you study the scriptures topic-by-topic and uncover insights you might have otherwise have overlooked, but only if you can see them. Because these links can be tapped by accident, some people choose to hide the footnotes. For the sake of convenience, they restrict themselves from the opportunity of even knowing that those footnotes are there. Those people are missing out.

Hiding the footnotes in the Gospel Library app can make it easier to scroll through the chapter of scripture you're reading, but scrolling through it might be the only thing you do. Keeping the footnotes in gives you a way to explore the scriptures in a way that people never could before. With easy-to-follow links built into almost every verse, cross-referencing scriptures has never been easier. In fact, linking from one scripture to another is so easy now that it's possible to do it by accident, but I think that the accidental tapping of links is a small price to pay for the ability those links give us to study the scriptures more thoroughly more quickly. I've made sure that these helpful footnotes aren't hidden from me as I study the scriptures. I hope you do the same.

Why Losing my Sunglasses Was a Win

A few weeks ago, I lost a pair of sunglasses at a church building I rarely visit. I don't expect to ever get those sunglasses back, but that's not a huge loss. In fact, as I told a friend earlier today, that was actually a win.

You see, I know that somebody, someday, is going to find my sunglasses. When they do, either they'll keep the sunglasses, and thus get a free pair of sunglasses, which I count as a win, or they'll put the sunglasses into the lost and found. No one will claim the sunglasses from the lost and found, because they all know that they're not the ones that lost it. Thus, a little part of me will be a part of that church building for a very long time, which I also count as a win. So, really, losing my sunglasses at that church building was a win for me, no matter what happens to the glasses. Plus, the sunglasses proved to be cheap to replace, so, again, it wasn't a huge loss anyway.

My friend said something about this scenario only being a "win" for me because I had a winning attitude, but I'll accept that as a win as well. Having a good attitude and being able to see the bright side of things has helped me to get through some rough times. Notably, once when I found an instructor (understandably) somewhat difficult to work with, I remarked to myself that, if this instructor had been one of the other instructors I had learned from in past semesters, they might have been more willing to work with me. This meant that I knew kind people who knew me to be a good person, which is definitely a win. So, even though things weren't going well for me with this particular person, I was comforted in knowing that there were many other instructors at that campus that I could consider friends.

When bad things happen, it can be hard to look for the good in it. Of course, there are much greater tragedies in the world than losing sunglasses and knowing people who are (with good reason) inflexible. With the greater tragedies of life, it can be harder to see the silver lining, but I believe that there always is one. There is some good in everything, we just have to look for it. And if we can find the good in the bad things that happen, if we have that winning attitude, we can turn any loss into a win.

Great Faith is an Effective Defense

The next talk, the opening talk of the Sunday Morning Session of the April 2016 General Conference, was also given by President Thomas S. Monson. In that talk, he encouraged us to develop strong faith to help us make good choices:

May we choose to build up within ourselves a great and powerful faith which will be our most effective defense against the designs of the adversary—a real faith, the kind of faith which will sustain us and will bolster our desire to choose the right.

 The thought of faith being a defense reminds me of the Shield of Faith in the Armor of God. However, even perfect faith won't protect us from everything. There have been countless people in the scriptures and in modern Mormon history who had great faith, but also great trials. Our faith will not defend us from afflictions. But, then, what will faith defend us against?

President Monson said that "powerful faith . . . will be our most effective defense against the designs of the adversary." Then, what are "the designs of the adversary"? What Satan wants most of all is for us to be miserable and to foil our Heavenly Father's plan. To that end, he wants to keep us out of heaven at all costs.

However, the choice of whether or not we end up in the Celestial Kingdom lies entirely with us. We can choose to keep the commandments and qualify for the Celestial Kingdom, no matter what Satan does to try to stop us. So if he wants to prevent us from achieving exaltation, his only hope is to convince us to choose not to.

One of the tools Satan uses to try to convince us not to choose exaltation is to present us with other choices. We could choose the right, but Satan tries to make it seem easier and more desirable not to. We could maintain high standards, or we could be accepted and popular and have fun. Satan uses deception to try to trick us into giving up Eternal Life.

Strong faith defends us from Satan's tactics by reminding us of the truth. We have faith in the promptings of the Holy Spirit, which warn us of deception and encourage us to choose the right. We have faith that the rewards of eternity are worth making painful, temporal sacrifices. Our faith in the truths of the gospel and in the guidance of the Spirit can help defend us from the temptations of the devil. We may still feel the temptations, but they won't be as strong. Like fiery darts hitting a shield, the devil's temptations may still have an impact that we may be perceptive enough to feel, but they won't be able to pierce us, and they won't burn us either.

Having faith in the Savior, in the Holy Ghost, and in our Heavenly Father's plan won't make our lives painless or easy. We will still have plenty of trials and afflictions, and the choices we'll have to make will still be difficult, but a strong faith can help us by taking the edge off of Satan's temptations and by bolstering our desire to choose the right. Faith won't shield us from afflictions or tough decisions, but great faith is an effective defense against the temptations of the devil.

Can the Priesthood Do That?

In the concluding talk of the Priesthood Session of last General Conference, President Thomas S. Monson shared a story of a friend of his who was serving in the South Pacific during World War II. The man's plane was shot down, but he and a few others managed to parachute safely down to the ocean, inflate their life rafts, and survive. Several days passed. Finally, the survivors spotted a rescue vessel in the area, but it seemed not to notice them. As it sailed away, President Monson's friend felt impressed to use his  Priesthood authority to command the rescue vessel to return and pick them up. He did, and it did, and I wonder, can the Priesthood really do that?

Most of what members of the church do with the Priesthood falls into the realm of spiritual things. We give blessings of comfort and counsel. We perform sacred ordinances. We ordain people to Priesthood offices and set people apart for church callings. Very rarely does a Priesthood holder use their Priesthood to do anything physical.

But they can.

The Priesthood is the power and authority to act in God's name. It is the power by which God created the universe. When God gathered the waters together and divided the light from the darkness, He did so with the Priesthood. And God is not the only one who performed physical miracles with the Priesthood. Arguably, all of the miracle Jesus performed were wrought by the power of the Priesthood, including the turning of water into wine, the multiplication of bread and fish, and the countless healings. And on the subject of healings, modern Priesthood holders also perform miraculous healings through the power of the Priesthood. In some cases, the Priesthood physically removes tumors or disease. Much of the work done by mortal Priesthood holders is spiritual, but the Priesthood has power in the physical world as well.

In fact, the Priesthood has all power. The Priesthood is God's power, and God is omnipotent. There is nothing that God, through the Priesthood, cannot do. So, perhaps I shouldn't be terribly surprised to hear that someone once used the Priesthood to turn a boat around. It's not a typical use of the Priesthood, but it's certainly within the realm of God's capabilities, which means that it's a power that God has and can grant to others. If God can do it, then the Priesthood could do it, so if the question is "Can the Priesthood do that?", the answer will almost certainly be "Yes."

Three Bad Reasons to Reject a Blessing

When asked if I wanted to receive a blessing before the start of the semester, I answered no. There are several reasons for my answer, all of them bad.

First, I thought that I didn't really need one. I felt prepared and confident that I could handle at least the first few weeks of class without extra help from God.

I was foolish to think that. Several times in the scriptures, groups and individuals express confidence in their own abilities, and decry the need for God's help, and when they boast of their own strength, God leaves them to their own strength, and they rediscover how weak they really are. We often don't realize how much God helps us in our lives or how much we rely on that help. I should have acknowledged my perpetual need for God's help by seeking His blessing on my upcoming semester.

The second reason I turned down the blessing was because I felt that the moment was too mundane. Blessings are usually requested and granted in extreme circumstances, when there are great challenges or when a lot is at risk. At least, that's what I thought. The start of a new semester seemed too normal to me to be worthy of requesting a blessing. In my opinion, it just didn't seem right to seek a special blessing for such an unspecial occasion.

But there are no unspecial occasions. Each moment is miraculously given and could contain a decision on which our eternal lives could depend. The start of a new semester may seem routine to me by now, but surprises can come at any time, especially when any kind of changes are made. I've already received a few surprises and felt the need for God's help this semester. I should have asked for His help earlier, so I could have been better prepared.

The third reason is similar to the second. I didn't want to waste the blessing. Asking for a blessing when I didn't think I'd need it felt like a waste of God's time and energy. I didn't think it was worth any portion of God's power to make sure the first few weeks of the semester would go smoothly when I thought they were going to anyway. When a ball is already rolling in the direction and speed that you want it to, and you know that it will continue to do so, it doesn't make sense to spend any time or energy on pushing it.

What I failed to take into account is that God has an infinite amount of time and energy. Even if I had asked God to divert a large portion of His power to making sure I'd have a good semester, and even if He did, He'd still have an infinite amount of power to devote to everything else He wants and needs to do. It is not possible to waste an infinite resource by using it all up. In fact, you might even say that the only way to waste an infinite resource is to not use it at all, which is what I elected to do.

Any way you look at it, I should have requested a blessing. It wouldn't have been a waste of God's time or energy, because He has time and energy to spare. It wouldn't have been too mundane a moment, because there are no mundane moments. And it wouldn't have been overkill to make sure I was extra prepared for what the first day of school would throw at me because it turned out that I wasn't prepared enough. Next chance I get, I'm going to ask for that blessing. Better late than never. And who knows? I may need it even more later than I do now. Since God has offered me access to a portion of His infinite power, it would be foolish of me not to use it, even if I incorrectly think that it would be a waste.

Brought to My Knees

Apparently, I get clumsy when I'm tired. After a particularly trying day, I spilled something, and, in my attempt to clean it up, I was necessarily, and literally, brought to my knees. I usually find irony funny, but this time, I was more annoyed than amused.

I know that it's important to pray frequently, especially when things are going badly and I could use some extra help, but I don't think I had been praying enough that day, which might have been at least part of the reason I was so tired, clumsy, and frustrated.

I need to remember to pray, especially, but not only, when things are going badly. I need more help than I care to admit, and, for whatever reason, God makes many of His blessings contingent on our praying for them. When we don't pray, we're missing out, perhaps even on the blessings we need to get through the day.

I wish I had prayed more earlier, but I can pray now. Hopefully, things will go better in the future.

Scouts Lead the Way

This morning, I was called to be the Scoutmaster for my ward. Shortly thereafter, I was asked to show someone how to get to the Relief Society room, which I did. In doing so, I had the opportunity to practice doing what Scouts do best: lead the way.

Outside of the context of Boy Scouting, a scout is a person who goes ahead of the main body of a force to gather information. Often, scouts use that information to guide the rest of the force.

Inside the context of Scouting, scouts are young men who learn to be leaders. They gain useful skills, including navigation, and are given opportunities to practice leading others, both in the sense of showing them the way to a location and in the sense of showing them the way to live.

Leading others is the role of a scout, and training leaders is the goal of the Scouting program. It is fitting for the leader of our local group of Scouts to be someone who has some experience at leading the way.

No Such Thing as Free Time

I was having a conversation with a friend the other day, and the subject of free time came up. Actually, the term was merely mentioned, but it got me thinking. None of our time is really "free." We have an unfortunately limited supply of it, making the commodity extremely valuable. When a person survives a near-death experience, it is said that they are living on "borrowed time," but aren't we all? We will all die eventually, and most of us could have died some time ago, had fate frowned on us that day, so our time is actually very precious and not to be disposed of freely.

Our time is also valuable in the sense that it can only be used once. At any given moment, we can only be doing one thing. So, to choose to spend our time one way, we must choose to spend that time not doing anything else. Any use of time carries an opportunity cost. When we spend our time in any way, we give up the opportunity to have spent our time in any other way.

In general, I think we should be careful to use our "free time" wisely, but that doesn't mean that we need to work ourselves to the bone. Sometimes, resting is the most effective use of our time. Sometimes (and more rarely), seeking entertainment is. The goal is to find the right balance, which doesn't mean that we give each endeavour an equal amount of time but that we give each endeavour the amount of time it deserves.

We all have obligations to meet, and thus, some of our time is spoken for. We can consider the rest of our time "free" in the sense that we are free to choose what to do with that time. But time is a valuable resource, so it doesn't really make sense to label it as "free." Free time can actually be pretty costly, especially if we waste it or misuse it. Instead, we should consider all our time valuable and use it judiciously, even the portions of time other people might call "free."

Storms Made to Change Us

"And once the storm is over, you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in." -Haruki Murakami

When I first saw this on Facebook, my first thought was "That's why they exist." The storms of life were given to us to challenge us, to strengthen us, to change us. If we go through life without changing, without any kind of personal growth, we will have failed. God sent us here to Earth so we could become more like Him. That requires us to change from the way we were to the way He is. We have all already experienced part of that change by gaining bodies, but to become like God, our change must go much deeper than that. We must change our very natures. That kind of change isn't easy, and it always requires strong motivation. The storms of life can provide that motivation. Our challenges encourage us to grow strong enough to face them. The greater the challenges we are required to overcome, the stronger we become by facing them.

The storms of life will change us. We must make sure we change for the better. Some people let their challenges drive them away from God. We must us our challenges as opportunities to draw closer to Him. When we return to the Spirit World, none of us will be the same way we were when we left. Hopefully, by the end of our lives, the trials we were forced to endure will have refined us, strengthened us, and made us more like God.

Can Robots Have Souls?

There's a game called Overwatch which features many characters experiencing a futuristic world in which robots have become common and have started causing interesting social problems. These robots (called "omnics" in the game) were deeply involved in an event called the "omnic crisis," a war between the robots and the humans. The humans won, but several robots survived, including a handful who possess some of the best of human qualities. For instance, Zenyatta is an omnic who seeks spiritual enlightenment. He is part of a group of omnics who feel that they have had an awakening and believe that they possess "the essence of a soul" (Overwatch Wiki, Zenyatta). Zenyatta seeks to heal the rift between humans and omnics by interacting with humans, by proving that he's not as "inhuman" as some people believe robots are, and in some cases, by serving as a spiritual leader for some humans and helping them find inner peace. As a playable character, Zenyatta says several proverbial lines that inspired my blog post on proverbs two weeks ago.

The idea of a robot monk is intriguing, but the idea of a robot having a soul is somewhat troubling. I think of souls as a thing that humans have that sets them apart from other things. I'm not even sure if animals have souls. I'm sure that non-living things, like rocks, don't have souls. But could they?

In a video on artificial intelligence, Hank Green discusses the possibility of robots having souls, saying "We have no idea what the process of ensoulment might look like, but suffice it to say, if God could zap a soul into a fertilized egg or a newborn baby, there's no real reason to suppose He couldn't zap one into [a robot] as well" (Artificial Intelligence & Personhood).

I have no good answer to that. The title character of Disney's Pocahontas claimed that she knew that "every rock and tree and creature has a life, has a spirit, has a name," and I've heard that everything on earth was created spiritually before it was created physically. I suppose it's possible for non-human, and even non-living, things to possess souls, though that has some rather troubling implications, and I wonder how God would sort that all out.

However, the question of whether or not robots can have souls may be irrelevant anyway, at least to us. If humankind ever makes robots that have souls, then we should probably treat them the same way we'd treat any other person, but shouldn't we try to be kind anyway? In a short video made by the people who made Overwatch, a group of human punks shown beating and bullying a robot, whom they claim is "just a bucket of bolts." Whether that robot had a soul or not, the behavior of those punks said a lot about the state of their souls.

Asking whether or not a robot or an animal has a soul is a lot like asking whether a goblet is made out of glass or plastic. The only practical reason for me to have asked that question is to know how rough I could afford to be with them while washing them. If I washed them all gently, as though they were all made out of glass, then it wouldn't matter what the goblets were made of. Similarly, if we treat everything kindly, then it won't matter which things truly have souls and feelings and which things don't. If you're kind to a machine that turns out not to have a real soul or real emotions, then you practised kindness for no other reason than to practice kindness, but practising kindness is reason enough.

I don't know whether rocks or animals have souls, and I don't know whether robots will or even could ever have souls of their own. But whether robots ever become real people or not, I'm going to try to treat them like people. In fact, I just might try to treat everything the way I would treat a person, just in case. Kindness matters, but I don't think it matters whether the things we are kind (or unkind) to actually have souls or feelings or not.

Submit Cheerfully and With Patience

As I read from the Book of Mormon last night, I came across Alma 24, in which Alma and his people are persecuted, and basically enslaved, by Amulon and the Lamanites. Alma and his people pray for deliverance, which God promises to grant them, but in the meantime, "the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord."

In life, we will always have afflictions. Sometimes, we can overcome them on our own, sometimes we need God's help to overcome them, and sometimes, we just need to tough it out. Taken as a whole, life itself could be considered a kind of affliction. We are separated from our heavenly home, we experience a long series of trials and afflictions, and we have to work almost constantly on one thing or another about as long as we live. For some people especially, the opportunity to "rest in peace" would be a great blessing, but that's not the blessing we need right now. Deliverance from the afflictions of life is guaranteed, but it's not coming immediately. In the meantime, we need to endure.

As with the people of Alma, we can pray for, and receive, strength to help us get through our affliction. In fact, we can receive enough strength to "submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord." So, that's a goal I'm working on now. There are some aspects of life that I feel that I would rather live without, but they are a part of life nonetheless, and that isn't going to change just because I would like it to. Either I should actually do something about it, if anything can be done about it, or I should learn to endure it with cheerfulness and patience, according to the will of the Lord. The aspects of life I've had the most issues with lately aren't going away any time soon, and since I'm not likely to die soon, either, I guess I had better just get used to those afflictions for now. It's going to take a lot of God's help, especially considering how rebellious I am, but I someday hope to learn to submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.

Resuming Communication

They say that if you want to talk to God, you should pray, and that if you want God to talk to you, you should read the scriptures. I could be doing better at both of those things. I think I could benefit from talking with God more often than I do. I would probably get more insights and other blessings that way, and I would definitely improve my relationship with God, which would be its own blessing.

I'm glad I have this blog to help me reevaluate how I'm doing on the basics. Almost as often as I check, I find that I have room for improvement. I suspect that we all do. So, now might be a good time for all of us to think about our prayers and our scripture study, and consider how we might improve them.

Personally, I could certainly improve the frequency and regularity of my prayers and scripture study. Maybe I'll set some reminders on my phone, but since the times I need to pray (when I eat, when I go to bed, etc) don't happen at regular times, I'm not sure how much setting phone reminders would help.

I guess I'll just try to remember, and we'll see how that goes. I already have a little clock that beeps on the hour, so I could use that to remind me to pray frequently throughout the day. Praying before meals shouldn't be hard to remember, though praying when I wake up might be, and praying before bed has never been a question of remembering, but of being too tired to feel like praying.

Tonight, I will pray and read my scriptures. Tomorrow, I will try to remember to pray frequently, and I'll just try to keep it going from there. One thing I might do is set up a daily checklist, so I can track whether or not I'm managing to pray and read each day. That might help. I'll make that tomorrow. For now, I'm going say a prayer, read some scriptures, and go to bed.

"Not Always"

I just saw this quote on Facebook: "He [God] will not always take your afflictions from you, but He will comfort and lead you with love through whatever storm you face." This quote is from President Thomas S. Monson's April 2008 General Conference talk, Looking Back and Moving Forward. While the quote as a whole is inspiring and blogworthy, I want to focus on two words from it: "not always."

To say that God will not always take our afflictions from us is to imply that He sometimes will. He did this for Nephi at what I consider to be a rather surprising time. Nephi's older brothers had tied him up and were planning on leaving him to die, but he prayed for the strength to burst his bonds, and his bonds fell off of him instead.

When I blogged about this three years ago (to the day), I expressed surprise that God didn't grant Nephi the blessing he had asked for. Nephi had prayed for the strength to overcome his affliction, which is the kind of help God usually grants people who pray for it (that, or the patience to endure the affliction). It's not often that He simply takes an affliction away.

On the other hand, God doesn't like to see His children suffering. He usually doesn't allow us to suffer afflictions without good reasons. Afflictions can have many reasons, mostly to teach us and/or to test us. But if an affliction has served its purpose, I suppose there's no reason for it to continue. Nephi had already learned a lot about the Lord's power, and he seems to have passed the test, so rather than leaving Nephi tied to that tree, God decided that his affliction should come to an end.

But I still don't understand why God loosed Nephi's bands rather than giving Nephi the strength to burst them. I speculated about the reasons three years ago, so I'm not going to rehash those same possible reasons, but I will add to them. Maybe God wanted to show us that, sometimes, He will take away our afflictions.

God can solve any problem. He can, and sometimes will, solve the problems that we no longer have to face. Why He wouldn't instead give us the strength or wisdom to solve our own problems in those situations, I'm not sure, but I am sure that our afflictions were never meant to be permanent. Whether God gives us what we need to overcome our afflictions or whether He simply ends them for us, they will all end. It will often require strength and wisdom on our part to overcome our afflictions, but, surprisingly, not always.

"Their Heaven"

A few days ago, I had an interesting conversation with someone on Facebook. She said that "everyone goes to heaven." I misunderstood her at first, but thankfully, she explained:

Heaven is all three kingdoms. Just because you are not the [most] righteous of the righteous, doesn't mean [Heavenly Father] didn't make a place to live happy for eternity. Where you are happy is where you will live. Even the lowest, [Heavenly Father] made a place for them. That is their heaven.

Knowing that there are higher kingdoms, it's hard to imagine the Telestial Kingdom being considered "heaven" to some people, but there's at least one scripture that supports that idea. As one prophet told the wicked:

Behold, I say unto you that ye would be more miserable to dwell with a holy and just God, under a consciousness of your filthiness before him, than ye would to dwell with the damned souls in hell.
Mormon 9:4 

 To say that one would be more miserable to dwell with God than to live in hell is to say that they would be less miserable, one might even say happier, in hell than in heaven.

Of course, it's better to be righteous so we can live in the Celestial Kingdom with our Heavenly Father and be happy there, but it's nice to know that God cares enough about the happiness of His children that He prepared places for everyone, even those who don't believe in Him.

That goes to show how thoughtful and caring God is. Of course, He would rather that we all come home and feel at home there, but He knew that many people wouldn't, so He made places where would feel comfortable and happy for eternity, and though those places aren't quite as desirable as the Celestial Kingdom, those places are still kingdoms of glory, and they will feel like heaven to those who come to live there.

God loves all His children, and He wants them all to live happily for eternity, even if they're happier not spending eternity with Him. God has prepared a heavenly place for everyone. If a person decides that they wouldn't be comfortable living in God's heaven, they needn't worry; there is another heaven prepared for them.

Rules, Consequences, and Freedom

A variation of the all-too popular song from Frozen, Let It Go, was stuck in my head a short while ago, and when I came to the part that says "No right, No wrong, No rules for me, I'm free," I was reminded that I blogged about it two years ago. In that blog post, Let What Go?, I talked about how wrong that line was, and how dangerous is was that people were being told that abandoning moral accountability would lead to freedom. Then I thought about how much my beliefs had changed since then.

I love freedom, but there are rules. Whether they're fair or not and whether you like them or not doesn't matter. The laws of the universe are immutable, and their consequences are fixed. Understanding them and making choices accordingly is an excellent and wise idea. Complaining about them isn't. I may not like all the rules I'm asked to keep, but I don't have to like them. I just have to keep them, or there will be consequences. Sometimes, breaking a rule is worth the consequences, as is the case when breaking a lower law when that's necessary to keep a higher law, but there are always consequences, and even the best blog post about the merits of freedom won't change the fact that we all still have to follow the rules.

I'm starting to wonder how I should define freedom. Theoretically, we all have the freedom to do whatever we want, but I've frequently spoken about how severe consequences limit our freedom. However, knowing about these consequences actually enhances our ability to choose our own path, because we're able to see where our paths lead us. We all know that we can go anywhere we want in life. Knowing about consequences teaches us how to get there.

As my mother reminded me in a comment to my last blog post, the commandments are often given as guideposts, meant to warn us of pitfalls we would rather avoid. A sign that says "Sharks! No Swimming!" can protect us from the potentially fatal injuries we might have sustained if we had simply ignored the sign and done whatever we wanted to do.

Naturally, some rules are less beneficial than that, so we must be wise in deciding what rules we're going to obey and which people we're going to follow, but when it comes to God's laws, we can trust that He's not just trying to boss us around. He's trying to show us the way to happiness.

Some might argue that freedom is better than happiness or that freedom also grants happiness, but I would encourage them to consider the short- and long-term consequences of their actions. We are all free to choose what we do, but we are not free to decide what happens as a result of what we do. Certain actions cause certain results, and some outcomes require certain actions. Just as we must consult a map in order to navigate to a destination, we must also consider the consequences of our options in order to find out how to get the outcome we want.

Rules are a fact of life, and we can't afford to ignore them. It's much wiser to accept the fact that our actions have consequences and use that knowledge to choose actions that will give us the outcomes we want. It's true that, if you don't care what outcome you want, there are no right or wrong answers. But if we want the freedom and happiness God offers us, we're going to have to learn, accept, and choose to follow the rules.

The Justice of Non-Voluntary Obligations

Last night, I wrote a long blog post which I intended to post today, after I proofread it. Reading it over this morning, I found that I was really complaining about nothing. I frequently struggle between the concepts of obedience and freedom. I feel that one person telling another person what to do limits the second person's freedom. Sure, the second person can still do whatever they want, but if they don't obey, there will be consequences, and if the consequences of disobedience are dire enough, is choosing not to obey really still even an option? If someone offers you either a blue jelly bean or a red jelly bean, but tells you that if you take the blue jelly bean, they'll break your arm, what kind of a choice is that?

I'm ranting again.

Anyhow, I was upset at how unfair it all felt, that we were supposedly given freedom, but then we were given rules and consequences for breaking the rules, and I wondered how many of those rules I had agreed to and how many of those rules had been imposed on me by others.

But you know what? It doesn't matter.

Earlier this morning, I was reminded that all that is unfair in life will be made right through the Atonement. We will be rewarded for all the suffering we have to go through and for all the stupid rules we have to obey, whether we agreed to them or not.

Besides, we kind of did agree to them. In the Pre-Mortal council, I'm sure that we were told, and that we accepted, every commandment that we would be expected to obey. I'm sure we were also warned that life would be, or at least feel, unfair, but we all voluntarily went through with God's plan anyway.

This life was never meant to be a time of infinite freedom, where we can do whatever we want without any consequences. This is a time of testing, where we are given a little bit of power in order to prove whether we can be trusted to use it wisely. This isn't playtime; it's go time, and we all agreed to that.

I'm still not keen on the idea of people making rules for other people against their will, but in the end, dictators will get their just desserts, and everyone who has suffered under a dictator will be justly compensated. There are a lot of things that are unfair in life, and suffering consequences for breaking rules we never agreed to keep is one of those things. But there may be fewer of those "non-voluntary obligations" than I had imagined, and God will set everything right in the end.

Life is not always fair, particularly regarding all the rules we have to keep, but I'm comforted by knowing that there's more fairness in life than I realize and that everything is ultimately in God's hands. He will be perfectly fair with us on Judgement Day, and we will all get pretty much exactly the consequence that we deserve, even if we have to deal with unjust rules or undeserved consequences to get there.

What Others Expect of You - Agreeing to Leeches

As I was searching for the exact quote of the "duty" definition I didn't like, I found this. It's an excerpt from Robert Heinlein's book "Time Enough for Love." The reason I didn't share it yesterday is that I wasn't sure how much I agreed with it, and I'm still not sure. Like most things, it has at least some truth in it; I'm just not sure exactly how much of it is true. It's another thing I'm going to have to ponder a while longer before I decide exactly where I stand on it. Anyhow, I found it interesting enough to keep the tab open overnight. Perhaps you'll find it interesting, too.

Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.

Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.

But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad [a thief] than it is to deal with a leech who wants "just a few minutes of your time, please - this won't take long"... Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time - and squawk for more!

So learn to say no - and to be rude about it when necessary.

Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.

This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don't do it because it is "expected" of you.

I think I needed to read this. I probably still need to really think about it and come to grips with the wisdom that's in it. I am, as Heinlein might say, guilty of the vice of agreeing to the requests of leeches.  I need to "learn to say no - and [perhaps even] to be rude about it when necessary." That's a skill that I lack that I feel I could greatly benefit from gaining. It's not useful in all situations. Like Heinlein said, saying no to parasites doesn't mean that you never do favors for friends. But like he said, it should be one's own choice, not a "duty" to do whatever is asked of you. Some people ask too much too often. You do not have a moral duty to do all that such people expect me to do. I do not have a moral duty to do all that such people expect me to do.

What Is One's Duty?

About a week ago, I heard a definition of "duty" that didn't sit well with me. It said that "Duty is what others expect of you, but more importantly, it's what you expect of yourself." I'm fine with the "what you expect of yourself" part, but I don't like the part where it linked a person's duty with other people's expectations.

It's not hard to imagine how this definition could become problematic. Suppose you live in a society in which people are expected to go drinking on their 21st birthday. Does that make it your duty to go drinking when you turn 21? Or suppose you used to be a jerk, and people expect you to act like a jerk. Do you have a duty to live up to their expectations?

Of course not.

So, if your duty is not "what others expect of you," what is it?

Another definition calls duty "a moral or legal obligation; a responsibility." Checking the definitions for "obligation" and "responsibility" exposed a few circular definitions, but I think we get the idea. We have a duty to accept our responsibilities and fulfil our obligations.

But what is one's duty, specifically? What is a person morally obligated to do? What responsibilities does a person have as a citizen of their nation and as a human being?

I think that's where things get really tricky, because people have their own ideas of what people should or should not do. I might say that, out of decency, each person has a responsibility to pick up any trash they find in public areas and throw it away. That seems fair, right? If everyone pitches in and picks up the trash they find, soon enough, there won't be any trash to find. However, some might say that a person doesn't have an obligation to pick up other people's trash. It's not their garbage, and it's nt their job to pick up other people's trash, so it's not their responsibility. I can respect that. It isn't really fair to expect someone to pick up someone else's trash.

It's hard to nail down exactly what one's duty is. Not all people agree on what the laws of morality are, let alone on which laws of morality all people should be expected to keep. Then again, I'm not sure how much other people's expectations actually matter. We are not under any obligation to behave how other people expect us to behave. In fact, we're not even obligated to behave how we expect ourselves to behave. We're allowed to surprise ourselves and exceed our expectations, and sometimes it's okay to fall short of our expectations, too. Expectations often set the bar either too high or too low, so we shouldn't consider ourselves morally obligated to conform to them.

But that brings us right back to where we started. If one's duty isn't based on anyone's expectations, what is it based on? Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer to that question. I'll have to think on it more later. For now, all I can say for sure about it is that it is my opinion that one's duty is not necessarily dependant on any person's expectations.

Hierarchy of Laws

It's my opinion that there's a certain hierarchy of laws. Some rules and commandments are more important than others. When two laws come into conflict with each other, the right decision is to keep the higher law, even if you have to break a lower law to do so. Naturally, it's best to avoid breaking any laws or commandments, but when you cannot keep one law without breaking another, the lower law must yield to the higher law.

Case in point, I just heard a story about a dog who had been abused and neglected for years. Some compassionate people called the authorities repeatedly for years, hoping that they'd come and give help to the poor dog, but for several years, they didn't come. I understand that it's normally morally wrong to steal someone else's dog, and it's certainly illegal to do so, but I wonder if, in that circumstance, stealing (or rather rescuing) the dog and taking care of it might have been the right thing to do. They had tried to help the dog legally, but when that wasn't working, I think it would have been morally right to value the dog's health and safety over the owner's ownership of the dog.

It's the same situation with dogs and children left in cars on hot days. In some states, it's even legal to break into someone's car to rescue a dog or child who is trapped in a hot vehicle. In those cases, those in authority have decided that saving a life is more important than respecting others' property. In those cases, a higher or more important moral law supersedes a lower or less important law.

This concept of higher and lower laws borrows from Asimov's three laws of robotics. In Asimov's fictional world, all robots are programmed to follow three fundamental laws at all times, unless keeping one of the lower laws would involve breaking a higher one. The highest of these three laws is to never harm a human or, through inaction, allow a human to come to harm, the second law is to obey all human commands, and the third is to protect itself. Thus, a robot typical in Asimov's world will always defend itself unless commanded not to or if its self-preservation interferes with the well-being of a human, and it would always obey a human, unless that obedience would allow a human to come to harm. Asimov's robots have their hierarchy of laws pretty well figured out, but we sometimes have a harder time determining which laws are more important.

Recently, a public figure had to choose between keeping a promise he had made and acting according to his conscience. I imagine that it must have been a difficult decision for him, and I don't want to pass any judgement on whether or not he made the right choice, but I will say that, in order to make a choice, he had to choose which was the higher law, keeping his word or obeying his conscience.

We, too, have to make similar decisions from time to time. We occasionally have to choose between being honest and sparing another's feelings. We sometimes have to choose to either help someone with a difficult task or to allow them the opportunity to gain strength and experience by doing it themselves. And no matter how much time one devotes to doing good, one only has a limited amount of time for good-doing, so they must choose which of the good things they could do are the most good things they could do that day.

Whenever a person has a choice to make, one should consider all of the moral and local laws involved, and rank those laws in order of importance, if they can. If there's an option that allows you to keep all moral and temporal laws, that's usually the best choice. But if, given the options available to you, you have to break one law or another, it's important that you determine which laws are more important than the others, because those are the laws you must keep, even if it means breaking the others.

As I understand it "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is ranked pretty highly in the hierarchy of laws, and I imagine that passively allowing a creature to die constitutes breaking a similarly high-ranking law. Breaking someone else's car window is usually illegal and immoral, but if breaking the window must be done to save a life, then it must be done.

There may still be consequences, in this world or the next, for breaking lower laws to keep higher ones, but there would be greater consequences, in this world or the next, for breaking higher laws to keep lower ones. Simply walking away and letting a dog suffer and die would almost certainly have stronger emotional and spiritual repercussions than those you would have to deal with if you had to break a law to save the dog. Similarly, there are consequences to both breaking one's word and betraying one's conscience, and if you have to choose between one or the other, what you're really choosing is which set of consequences you would rather face.

Personally, I would rather be responsible for a broken window than the death of an innocent. Choosing between my word and my conscience is tougher, and it may depend on the situation, but I think I would choose my conscience over my word, if I have enough moral courage to do so. As for the other moral laws we're supposed to keep, there are too many of them for me to rank them all in importance right now. I suppose I'll have to decide which laws are most important to me when one law or another has to be broken.

Life is full of tough decisions, and sometimes, there are no right answers. In those cases, one should consider carefully which moral laws are most important to them, and, in light of that hierarchy of laws, choose the option that, in their eyes, is least reprehensible. It may not be a good decision, but breaking a lower law to keep a higher law might just be the right decision.

Three Ways to Choose Happiness

In President Uchtdorf's April 2016 Priesthood Session talk, he said that he's fond of the following quote from Abraham Lincoln: "Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." This quote has prompted me to ask myself "how does one make up his or her mind to be happy?" Certainly, a person's natural optimism has a strong influence on their happiness in any given situations, but there are some choices we can make that will facilitate our happiness. Here are a few choices we can make that will make it easier for us to choose to be happy.

First, we can practice love. It is important for us to learn how to love one another, but it is just as important for us to learn to love ourselves. When we love ourselves and our fellow man, we can be more comfortable, both with ourselves and with others, and that will help us have an inner peace that will allow us to find happiness.

Second, we can surround ourselves with people who bring us up more than they weigh us down. Spending time with loved ones who contribute to our happiness will help us achieve and maintain happiness, no matter what situations we find ourselves in. Having good friends around us will help us to be happy, just as being friends with ourselves will.

Third, we can make wise choices. It is sometimes difficult to make good decisions, and stressing about what decisions we should make can certainly detract from our happiness, but making good and wise decisions can help us avoid pitfalls that would detract from our happiness even more. Furthermore, as I learned yesterday, making good decisions can lead to receiving blessings and other positive consequences that can positively add to our happiness.

This is not a conclusive list of things a person can do to choose happiness. I'm sure that there are many methods a person can choose to make up their minds to be happy, most of which would probably fall under the category of making wise and righteous decisions. My point is that though happiness is more a matter of attitude than circumstances, our happiness can be affected by or circumstances, and our circumstances can be influenced by our choices. If we make wise decisions, including choosing to love ourselves and others and to surround ourselves with people who love us, we can place ourselves in circumstances that make it much, much easier to be happy. Presidents Uchtdorf and Lincoln are right: we can choose to be happy, but part of choosing to be happy lies in making other choices that make it easier to choose to be happy.

Helmet Hair

I almost broke the law and endangered my life today. I always, always, wear my helmet when I ride my bike, but this morning, I was going to ride my bike to church, and I had just styled my hair, so I was tempted to bike the short distance without my helmet so my hair wouldn't be messy when I got to church. But I knew that there was a chance that my nieces and nephews would see me, and I did not want them to see me riding my bike without a helmet. So I put a comb in my pocket and put my helmet on, planning to fix my hair when I got to church. As it turned out, I needn't have worried. When I got to church, I went into a restroom and looked in the mirror, only to see that my hair looked fine. I counted that as a little miracle for having made the right choice.

It's important to make good decisions, especially when others may be watching, which is always, because angels are always watching us. When we make good decisions, God rewards us with blessings. They may not be the blessings we expect or hope for, but there are always blessings for choosing the right. And in my case, my blessing for wearing my helmet was getting a surprisingly good case of helmet hair.

Bossiness ≠ Leadership

I'm going to blog about leadership again, because that's I topic that I am TOTALLY qualified to blog about (Note: I am being sarcastic.), and I just found a post on Facebook that says "I want every little girl who is told she is bossy to be told she has leadership skills." Now, I have no problem with women being leaders. I know many women who have excellent leadership skills. The problem I have with the Facebook post is that "Bossy" is not a leadership skill.

There are big differences between a boss and a leader. In fact, there's a whole list of reasons:

Being a leader means more than bossing people around, even if you're good at it. Being bossy is not a leadership skill because bossing people around is not what good leaders do. Good leaders work with their team, not just tell their underlings to work.

Now, there are cases where employees have different jobs than their bosses, so those bosses have to say "you do this" rather than "let's do this," but even in those cases, both the boss and the employee should be working toward a common goal, and they should both be working  toward that goal. In my opinion, those who do not work are not fit to lead, especially when that leadership involves asking others to work.

While it's important to foster positive traits in others, we should be careful not to condone negative traits or to confuse negative traits with positive ones. A bossy individual my grow to become a great leader, but their bossiness would have been an obstacle to that progress. As a person who is trying to grow into the role of a leader, I should be careful to ensure that I do not become too much like a boss.

Pondering Proverbs

I've been thinking a bit about proverbs lately. Not the book Proverbs in the Old Testament, but the idea of proverbs in general. I've decided to do a little bit of research to try to nail down exactly what a proverb is and why some wise (or seemingly wise) people use them.

According to the Wikipedia, "Defining a 'proverb' is a difficult task." One definition, which sounds almost like a proverb itself, states that "A proverb is the wit of one, and the wisdom of many,” but I'm not sure whether or not wit is or should be a defining characteristic of a good proverb. I don't think a saying has to be witty to be a proverb, though may good proverbs do have some wit to them. I agree, however, that a proverb must have wisdom, and I would add that it should probably be short. It should be vague enough to force one to think for a moment or two to grasp its meaning, but not so vague that it has no meaning at all. The purpose of a proverb, in my opinion, is to convey wisdom in such a way that a person must practice wisdom to understand it, thus increasing the hearer's wisdom both through the teaching of the proverb itself and from the exercise by which they came to understand the proverb.

Proverbs are useful for teaching wisdom is the same way Jesus Christ taught doctrine through parables. When we're taught doctrine, and we understand it, God expects us to accept the doctrine and act on it, but some people aren't quite ready for that. So Christ taught doctrine in a way that required understanding, so those who didn't understand, and didn't want to, wouldn't be under a sacred obligation to apply what they had learned, because they wouldn't have really learned anything. On the other hand, I'm not sure if people are morally obligated to apply the wisdom they learn from proverbs, so perhaps this reason for using proverbs isn't as valid as I had thought.

Another reason some people use proverbs is so they can appear wise, even if they aren't. If you ask a supposedly wise man a question, he might answer with a meaningless phrase that sounds like a proverb, so he can sound like a wise teacher even when he didn't actually teach anyone anything. Plus, it'd be difficult to prove that the so-called wise man isn't actually wise because the problem may be that we aren't wise enough to understand the meanings of his proverbs.

Those who are actually wise and who truly desire to share their wisdom with others might use proverbs to help others learn and practice wisdom, or they may simply impart their wisdom in plain terms. Proverbs are interesting, and they can be useful, but they can also be confusing. A good and wise teacher wouldn't want to confuse his students when he could simply teach them instead. On the other hand, a wise teacher wouldn't want to just give his students nuggets of wisdom when he could lead them to discover the wisdom for themselves instead. Proverbs invite their hearers to ponder their meanings, and to thus discover important truths that might not otherwise have been given the amount of thought they deserve. Maybe there is wisdom in using proverbs to share wisdom, but only when the proverbs themselves are used wisely.

The Greatest Value Will Be in the Small Acts

In President Henry B. Eyring's talk about Eternal Families, he said something that stood out to me:

In our home and in our priesthood service, the greatest value will be in the small acts that help us and those we love work toward eternal life. Those acts may seem small in this life, but they will bring everlasting blessings in eternity.

This reminded me of another quote:

Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check. But that is not what I have found. I have found that it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. - Gandalf

There are many other quotes that share a similar message. Things that seem small now, like kind words and generous service, can have great importance in the lives of others and in our own eternal lives. I think that many good people tend to underestimate themselves and the amount of good they do. This may be because the world places different amounts of value on different things. The world cares more about huge humanitarian efforts than about kindly touching individual hearts. With God, I think it's the opposite. Of course, it's important to help people, and it's good if we help many people in big ways, but lifting their spirits can be bigger, in God's eyes, than improving their temporal circumstances. If we can do both, we should, but some people lack the resources to contribute to large humanitarian efforts. Those people shouldn't feel too bad if all they can do is touch a few hearts here and there.

We can't always do big things, but big things aren't always the things of greatest value and importance, in the eternal scheme of things. Doing small acts of kindness can have just as much eternal value for ourselves and others as doing great acts of charity. We should all do what we can to help others, and if all we can do is serve them and/or lift their spirits in some small way, that's alright. As President Eyring said, "Those acts may seem small in this life, but they will bring everlasting blessings in eternity."

The Link Between Charity and Pride

A few years ago, I studied President Ezra Taft Benson's legendary talk, Beware of Pride, and heard a quote that I shared the other day: "Pride is the universal sin, the great vice." By that time, I had been taught that charity was "the greatest of all [virtues]," and I wondered if there was some kind of link between pride and charity. I knew that they weren't opposites; the opposite of pride is humility, and the opposite if charity, selfishness. But I felt that there was some kind of connection. I just didn't know what the connection was.

Now I do.

In President Uchtdorf's recent talk, In Praise of Those Who Save, he said that "The great enemy of charity is pride." So, pride and charity are connected in that they are enemies. And that makes sense, when you think about it. Charity is defined as being "the pure love of Christ" (Moroni 7:47). Arguably, it is Christ's defining attribute. And President Uchtdorf went on to say that "if charity is the pure love of Christ, then pride is the defining characteristic of Satan." He described pride as being "short-tempered, unkind, and envious," all traits that I'd consider quintessential to the characteristics of Satan and entirely antithetical to the characteristics of Jesus. And it follows that just as Jesus and Satan oppose each other on every hand, their defining characteristics and core attributes are also directly opposed to each other.

And this opposition works well with the opposites I had mentioned earlier. President Benson said that "Selfishness is one of the more common faces of pride," and in another talk, Pride and the Priesthood, President Uchtdorf said:

So how do we conquer this sin of pride that is so prevalent and so damaging? How do we become more humble?

It is almost impossible to be lifted up in pride when our hearts are filled with charity. . . . When we see the world around us through the lens of the pure love of Christ, we begin to understand humility.

So we see that charity and humility go together, just as do pride and selfishness do, and pride and selfishness both go against charity and humility, and vice versa.

Charity and pride are opposing forces, each with strong links to each other's opposites. They are the core attributes of the divine and the diabolical, respectively. They can be considered each other's "great enemies," and I would venture to guess that the more you have of one of them, the less you have of the other. President Benson spoke of how pride tempts us to "elevate ourselves above others and diminish them," and President Uchtdorf said "It is almost impossible to be lifted up in pride when our hearts are filled with charity."

So let us try to develop charity and keep our pride in check, bearing in mind that these two traits are opposed to each other in such a way that increasing one of them will almost certainly increase the other.

Record to Remember

The worst part about not having any ideas to blog about right now is that I know that I've had several blogworthy thoughts and experiences today, but I didn't write any of them down. Perhaps that can be my message for the day: When you get inspiration that you can't act on immediately, write it down so you don't forget it. In fact, even if you can act on it right away, you might want to write it down anyway. The Holy Ghost is famous for being able to "bring all things to [our] remembrance," but in my experience, God isn't fond of repeating Himself. He usually only gives a specific prompting or blog idea once, so it's important to recognise and honor that prompting by acting on it immediately and/or recording it so we can remember to act on it later.

Make it Last

There's a saying regarding thriftiness: Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without. It's a good rule of thumb to help a person stop throwing away things they can still use and buying replacements they don't really need. But after having listened to President Uchtdorf's talk In Praise of Those Who Save, I feel like adding another line to that saying: Make it Last.

President Uchtdorf spoke about how many things in our society today are seen as disposable. We use things for a short while, and then, when they start to wear out or we just get tired of them, we throw them away. "We do this," Uchtdorf said, "with cell phones, clothes, cars—and, tragically, even with relationships." President Uchtdorf went on to say that certain things, especially temple marriages and families, were made to last, and they should be carefully maintained rather than carelessly abandoned and replaced.

Of course, this is easier said than done, and it almost always takes effort on the part of more than one person to maintain a relationship, but I guess that's why President Uchtdorf felt the need to speak about it. If maintaining things like relationships was easy, more people would do it, and there would be less reason for President Uchtdorf to touch on the importance of making things last.

This is both a temporal and an eternal principle. Part of being wise with one's own stewardship is making sure you make the most of what you're given. This is probably implied in the "Use it up, wear it out" part of the saying I quoted earlier, but to get the maximum use out of anything, you need to make sure you don't use it up or wear it out too quickly, especially with things that might not have to wear out at all. "Make it last" might not fit into the saying without ruining the rhyme or meter, but it's certainly worth bearing in mind, especially when we're talking about things that can literally last forever.