Obedience and Agency - Choosing to Obey

As you may have gathered by this point, I somewhat struggle with the concept of obedience. Specifically, I falsely view obedience as a loss of agency. We have all been given agency, the ability to make choices for ourselves, but obedience seems to demand that we give up that gift. When we obey someone, we let them make our decisions for us, effectively surrendering our agency to them, or so I thought. However, I know in my mind that the act of obedience is not a surrender of agency, but a use of it. Obedience is a choice, one of many we could make.

Every time someone gives us a request, or even a demand, what they are actually giving us is information. The information merely informs us of both the action that the requester wants us to take and the consequences that might follow as a result of choosing to do otherwise. We still have the choice, but now we can make a better-informed decision. Unless I'm mistaken, this is true in the case of every request and demand, but it is especially true with God's commandments.

God knows every choice we could possibly make and what will happen as a result of those choices. He knows which results are most desirable and which choices will lead to those results. And, because He loves us and wants what's best for us, He informs us of the best choices we can make, or rather the best rules we can live by, because He knows that, if we follow those rules, the eternal net results of our choices will be immeasurably positive.

However, with or without any requests, demands, or commandments, all of our options remain open to us. Even without commandments, we could make all the right choices by some coincidence or accident. There's nothing stopping us except our lack of knowledge that we're supposed to do it. And, even in the face of the strictest demands, we can choose to do otherwise (and then face the consequences of that choice). Demands and commandments neither restrict nor expand our options; they just tell us what some of our options are and why we may or may not want to choose a few of them.

Obedience is not a sacrifice of agency. As we choose what to do and whom to obey, we retain our ability to choose. We can change and make up our own minds, regardless of what choices are presented to us and what choices we've already made. Obedience is a choice, not a surrender of choice. We can choose whether to be obedient or not, and as long as we're obeying God, who doesn't try to trick us into forming compulsive habits, that obedience will still allow us to retain our agency and our ability to choose.

Obey out of Love

There's another thought I had about commandments during church yesterday. I thought about how the first great commandment is to love God and how we can show our love for God by keeping His commandments, even the ones we don't understand. Sin separates us from God. We cannot live with God eternally if we live in sin now. When we resist temptation, we show that we choose God over sin and that we love God more than we are tempted by sin. So, one reason to keep God's commandments is to show that we love Him enough to want to live with Him again (and maybe get Him to answer a few of our questions). That's a pretty good reason to try to keep a given commandment, even when it's the only reason I can really think of.

Keeping Commandments I Don't Understand

One of the speakers in my ward's Sacrament Meeting today spoke about faith. At one point in her talk, she asked us to ask ourselves what faith meant for us. I knew my answer almost right away. For me, faith means being willing to keep God's commandments, even though I don't know the reasoning behind some of them.

I like to know the reasons for things. When I was taking my Algebra classes, I always wanted to know how each mathematical formula worked. Often, the teacher would patiently explain the proof of the formula, but there were some times what the professor had to tell us that the math that explains the formula in question went well beyond our level. We could easily memorize and use the formula, but it would be much harder to explain how or why the formula worked. At those times, I just had to take the formula on faith. And, since the professor didn't mind explaining most of the formulas, I found it easy to forgive him for not explaining the few others he couldn't.

I ought to offer God the same forgiveness. God gives us lots of commandments, and He explains His reasons behind most of them. Often, the commandments are meant to alleviate or prevent suffering and to help us show love for God and others. I get those ones. However, there are a handful of commandments that aren't quite so clear to understand. There are a few commandments that I, for the life of me, can't figure out. Yet, I know that I should keep those commandments anyway, just as I memorized and used the formulas whose explanations I didn't understand.  I don't have to understand everything about a formula or commandment in order to use it or keep it. I can trust God and His commandments just as I trusted my Algebra teacher and his formulas.

I would still love to know why these commandments are commandments, and I;m sure I will someday. In the meantime, I need to be patient and obedient and to take those commandments on faith.

Before You Ask For What You Want...

Toward the beginning of this month, I found a Facebook post that said "Before you ask God for what you want, first thank God for what you have!" When I shared that post, I noted, "The second half of this post is not where I thought it was going. I thought it was going to say 'Before you ask God for what you want, ask God what He wants.'" Both of those thoughts are at least somewhat blogworthy, so I'd like to write a bit about each of them.

The first one is a classic lesson about gratitude. Of course, we can always think of things we want and don't have, but it's often harder to notice the blessings we already have. Just by the fact that you're reading this blog post, I know that you have great blessings that others would envy. Firstly, reading this blog post proves that you can read (or that you have a good friend or computer program to read to you). Accessing this blog post at all means that you have access to the internet. And having access to the internet implies that you also have access to electricity. A tragically high number of people have to live without those three blessings. Yet, we often take those blessings for granted. We should try to be mindful of the many blessings we have, especially before we ask for new ones.

The second "quote" is a lesson on wisdom and acceptance. Of course, we want things. We will always want things we don't have yet, no matter how thankful we are for for the blessings we have. Yet, the blessings we want may not always be what's best for us. God seems to prefer to give people what they need, even if it's not something we particularly want. We should try to learn to trust God and His wisdom and timing and put His wants before our own.

It's only natural to want and to ask for blessings. In fact, the scriptures even encourage us to ask for what we want. But before we do, there are a few things we should consider, including God's will and the blessings we already have. That wisdom and gratitude will serve us well in life, and it will help us be content with what we have while we wait, pray, and work for the blessings we want.

Obey for Safety

What I posted last night wasn't even the blog post I thought I was writing. I had one thought about The Hunchback of Notre Dame that I wanted to share with you, but as I was building toward that thought, I came up with another one (the problems with cloistering) and decided to run with it. The thought that I was originally planning to share was almost the opposite point. Looking at the analogy from a different angle, Frollo's plan actually makes a lot of sense.

Supposedly, Frollo is trying to protect Quasimodo. During the song I referenced last night, Frollo sings "How can I protect you boy unless you always stay in here, away, in here?" And, admittedly, he has a point. For Quasimodo, going outside is certainly going to be painful, physically and/or emotionally, and it may even be dangerous. However, Frollo ultimately can't stop Quasimodo from going "out there." The only way Frollo can protect Quasimodo from the world and its evils is to convince Quasimodo to stay in the cathedral's bell tower, where he'll be safe.

This is not much unlike God's only real method of protecting us from sin. He can provide shelters from the world's evils, but He can't/won't force us to stay in them. If we choose to, we can walk out of the shelter of the Gospel and walk straight into the face of temptation. Granted, even according to God's perfect plan, we do have to spend some time in this fallen world, but that doesn't mean that we need to partake of this world and its evils. Even while in the world, we're supposed to remain within the safety  of the Gospel. Physically, we are on Earth, but spiritually, we are supposed to be in, or at least pointing toward, the Celestial Kingdom.

So, God gives us commandments, just as Frollo gave Quasimodo rules and instructions. If we obey them, we will be largely protected from from the world. If we disobey and go beyond our bounds, we will be putting ourselves in spiritual danger. It's unfortunate that God's commandments can be seen as restrictive, just as Frollo's rules were, but God has the best of intentions, just as Frollo claimed to. God wants to keep us safe, spiritually, even while we are in the world, physically. To accomplish that, God gave us a set of commandments that will keep us safe, but they'll only work if we obey them. God wants to protect us, but just like Quasimodo, we each have to decide whether or not we'll stay within the safety that has been provided for us.

Come Out Of The Cloister

Early in Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Yes, I still plan to pull a total of at least twelve blog posts out of this movie), Judge Claude Frollo, the villain of the film, tells Quasimodo, in song, that the world is a cruel and nasty and terrible place and that he, Quasimodo, would be better off staying in the cathedral's bell tower, where he'll be safe from everyone else.

Naturally, that's not a valid option for us. We can't just cloister ourselves away from the rest of the world, neither for our sakes or the world's. We need to spend some time in this fallen world. These experiences, unpleasant as they are, are part of our spiritual growth. We have to face opposition in this world in order to become better people.

We also have to face opposition in this world to make it a better place. The world has lots of problems, and we can only fix them by facing them. If we retreat, the problems will persist and worsen. We have to engage with the world in order to improve both it and ourselves.

So, Frollo's plan for Quasimodo's comfort was really only a band-aid solution. Sure, Quasimodo could have avoided ridicule by staying in the bell tower, but he wouldn't have experienced much character growth. And if he stayed in the tower, he couldn't have helped make Paris a better place either. By the end of the film (because it's a Disney film), the people of Paris have become more accepting of Quasimodo than they had been, and he seems set to live happily ever after "out there," like he wanted to. That couldn't have happened if he hadn't built up the courage to go "out there" in the first place.

We need to get out of our comfort zones, both for our own good and for the good of the world. We need the world for our spiritual growth, and the world certainly needs good people like us. It's tempting to try to avoid the world and its problems, but it's much better for everyone if we engage with it and its problems instead.

Hard to Hear

For about a month (in in-game time) and for several months in real-world time, a D&D character's new, magical cloak has been trying to talk to him. Unbeknown to the cloak's wearer, the cloak has been sentient and has been trying to speak with him this whole time, but has been using a voice so quiet that the D&D character had been, until recently, unable to hear it. In this respect, the parallel with the Spirit is uncanny.

For those of us who have been baptized, the Holy Ghost is near us almost constantly, and He frequently tries to speak to people, whether they've been baptized or not. The trouble is that the Spirit speaks with such a still, small voice, it can be difficult to notice that the voice is there at all. Our challenge, and the one the D&D character kept unluckily failing, is to be perceptive enough to hear the voice of our Companion. The Holy Ghost is speaking to us, but, most of the time, we must be listening carefully to even have a chance to hear Him.

There are times when the Holy Ghost speaks loudly enough for us to hear Him even when we're not listening, but most of the time, it takes real effort to hear Him or even know He's even there. That D&D character was unaware of his companion for longer than I would have thought possible, but at the same time, I understand. Some people are quiet, and the Holy Ghost is often especially difficult to hear.

Strength Through Unity

Elder Bednar began his talk by talking about ropes, noting that ropes are made out of individual strands of material bound together. Together, these strands gain strength from each other, forming a whole that is stronger than the sum of the strength of its parts. Similarly, the Principles of the Gospel and the programs of the church work together to create unified plans and practices that strengthen each of us. We, too, can exercise this concept of strength through unity. We are each only individuals, but when we work together, we can accomplish greater things than we could have accomplished working on our own. This is partly why families and wards are so important. When we stand together, we are strong. Like strands in a rope, none of us are impressive on our own. We approach our potential only through the strength that comes through our unity with each other and with the distinct-but-unified members of the Godhead. We can't do it on our own. If we want to achieve exaltation and become our best selves, we'll have to do it together.

Built on the Rock

One of my sister's favorite scriptures (last I checked) is Helaman 5:12.

And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

In his recent General Conference talk, Elder Ronald A. Rasband shared another scripture (D&C 6:34) that expresses a similar thought, though a bit more succinctly: "Therefore, fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail."

In both verses, the message is mostly the same. When we build upon the rock of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, no force of earth or hell can destroy us. Sure, the powers of earth could literally destroy us, but that won't affect our spirits. And the powers of hell can try to shake our spirits, but if we continually exercise the principles of the Gospel, our eternal welfare is secure.

This is part of the reason the concept of building on the rock is so well-known in the church, found in everything from a parable to a Primary song. It is essential that we build our foundations on on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There are many forces arrayed against us, but through the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the power of His Atonement, we can overcome them all.

Expressing and Requesting Love

Expressing love to my family today might be easier than I thought. In fact, I might do it regularly. There's a quote I've heard, though I can't now remember or find the exact quote, but it basically says that everything we say either expresses love or expresses a desire for love.

This seems unbelievable, but if you broaden your idea of love and consider the motivations behind what people say, I think the saying holds true. When people greet each other, they express love for each other. When people discuss the weather, they are either expressing love in wanting to share useful information, or they are expressing a desire for love by requesting that information. Sometimes, when people talk or yell, they just want attention. That attention is a form of love.

Even this blog is an expression of love and a desire for love. Sometimes, I express love by sharing insights that I hope will bless people's lives, and sometimes, I express a desire for love, hoping that at least some people (including God) like my blog posts.

In everything we say and do, whether we are showing kindness or whether we hope others are kind, we are either expressing or requesting love. So, in a sense, we express love to each other rather frequently, though we should still express our love explicitly by saying "I love you," because though we may express love frequently, those expressions are often subtle enough to require some interpretation and an open definition of love.

One Good Piece of Familial Advice

When I heard Elder Bangerter's talk for the first time, the piece of familial advice he gave that stood out to me most was to "never leave [y]our home or end a telephone conversation without saying, 'I love you.'" This strikes me as good advice for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that one never knows which "goodbye" will be your last, but even if it isn't your last goodbye, it makes sense to end it by expressing love. We should frequently express our love for each other. Sharing love is one of the many purposes of families. And when you're saying goodbye is as good a time as any to make sure your family knows that you love them. So, I'm going to try to put this good advice into practice. I'm going to make a point of saying "I love you" to every family member I see tomorrow, if only when saying goodbye. And I hope to make saying "I love you" a more regular part of my daily routine, because I do love my family, and I should regularly tell them that.

Good and Bad Traditions

Elder Steven R. Bangerter's recent General Conference talk speaks about family traditions, especially the types of traditions that bring families closer to Jesus Christ and each other:

Consistent, wholesome family traditions that include prayer, scripture reading, family home evening, and attendance at Church meetings, though seemingly small and simple, create a culture of love, respect, unity, and security. In the spirit that accompanies these efforts, our children become protected from the fiery darts of the adversary so embedded in the worldly culture of our day.

This protection is important largely because of other traditions, often social or cultural traditions, that tend to tend to do more harm than good. Many societal practices are common in modern society, but violate God's commandments, drive away the Spirit, and do incredible spiritual harm.

Take drinking for example. Drinking is an incredibly common practice in most cultures, but it has a terribly negative impact on those who engage in it. Drinking alcohol weakens people's self-control, making them easy targets for temptation. Drinking is certainly one of Satan's many fiery darts.

Society has many bad habits like that. Smoking, gambling, body modification, casual sex, and abortions are all fairly common in today's society, and they all cause people to turn away from God. Satan uses bad habits to influence people and pull them away from God. If we want to resist and maybe even reverse that trend, we need to defend ourselves and our families with good habits and strong, positive family traditions.

Raising a family in today's world is a frightening prospect, but we can protect our family from the evils of our day by using good traditions to counteract them. That has, to a large extent, protected me from many of the world's evils. I don't drink or smoke or engage in extramarital sex, and I'm sure that's at least partly because I was raised as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Later-Day Saints. I'm sure that I would have at least tasted alcohol by now if I wasn't a member of the Church, and, social awkwardness aside, who knows what my dating life would have been like if I were following the world's standards instead of God's? I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm sure I would be a much worse person if I hadn't been raised in the Church. These traditions have protected me from much of the world's influence, and they can protect others, too.

When it comes to habits, practices, and traditions, we can fight fire with fire. We can fight the bad habits of society with good habits of the Gospel, and we can counter the wicked traditions of the world with the good traditions of the Church.

Reducing Unfairness

In my last blog post, I said that life isn't fair and that it's never going to be. I'm afraid that what I said in that blog post could be interpreted in some fatalistic way, as though the fact that life will never be perfectly fair is a valid excuse for being unfair. For the record, I don't think that the unfairness in life is a good thing. It may be necessary, in that it's impossible to eradicate all unfairness, but it's not good. But while it's not possible to eliminate all unfairness, it is possible, and good, to reduce unfairness.

Now, I don't mean to say that we should steal from the rich and give to the poor. We should only do one of those things (and I don't mean the former). Stealing, besides being against one of the ten commandments, is also unfair. Instead, we should acquire what we can fairly and then share what we can spare voluntarily. Charity is good; making it mandatory isn't.

And I also don't mean that we should tear people down. Taking advantages away so that all people are equally disadvantaged is nowhere near as good as giving people advantages so that we're all equally advantaged. Of course, true equality, even just equality of opportunity, may be impossible, but creating an abundance of opportunity is a worthy goal to strive for.

We can't completely eliminate inequality, but we can and should reduce it, not by force, but by choice; not by tearing people down, but by building people up. My hope is that we can improve the lives of everyone on the planet. We may not be able to get everyone onto the same playing field, but we can raise the playing field for everyone. To some extent, we have already done this, but we can always do more. My hope is that those of us who have advantages will choose to help others, reducing inequality and making life better for everyone. That may be a pipe-dream, but in my opinion, it's less of a pipe-dream than hoping to make life perfectly fair.

Unfair

This evening, I caught a bus. This is a fairly normally event for me. I catch a lot of buses. It's not usually blogworthy. But this bus-boarding was blogworthy for one reason: It shouldn't have happened.

Life isn't fair. Spurred mainly by political thoughts, I've been thinking a lot about the unfairness of life. Some people are born rich while others are born poor. Some are born healthy and others ill. Some people are born in the United States of America, and others are born in countries far, far from here, physically and/or economically. There are a lot of things that are unfair about life, and there are many people who devote their lives to trying to make life fair. But I wonder, is that even possible?


Let's take wealth inequality as an example. Given that life is currently unfair in that some are born rich and others poor, it will take some correction to make life fair again. However, as we make the correction, we will have to be careful not to over- or under-correct, or life will still be unfair. And to even come close to achieving fairness in wealth distribution in the first place, we will have to accurately evaluate, and constantly re-evaluate, the arbitrary, subjective, and constantly fluctuating values of everything. If the value of dollars rises, those who own dollars will gain wealth. If property values fall, then those who own property will lose wealth. And so it goes with every other commodity on Earth. So, if we want to maintain fairness in wealth distribution, we will have to constantly re-evaluate and potentially redistribute virtually all wealth on the planet, or life will always be financially unfair. And that all assumes that involuntary redistribution of wealth is actually "fair" at all.

Thankfully, we do have some assurance that, even though life is unfair now, it will become fair later. Preach My Gospel tells us that "All that is unfair about life can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ." I'm not an authority on this subject, but I take this to mean that, in the Final Judgment, we will be compensated for every hardship we suffered unfairly, perhaps including wealth inequality and a variety of other social ills.

However, it is my opinion that, at Final Judgment, such compensation will be the last thing on our minds. When we are brought before the bar of God to be judged according to our deeds, we will pray for God to be anything but fair. We all have more skeletons in our closets than we can dig holes for, more sins in our past (and present and future) than we can ever repent of, and even though repentance is an option, that doesn't mean that it's fair. By rights, we have all disqualified ourselves for the Celestial Kingdom by proving, time and time again, that we are not always Celestial. We don't deserve mercy. We don't deserve forgiveness. We don't deserve to live in the Celestial Kingdom, but we hope for it anyway, and as many people as strive for it will get it, whether we deserve it or not.

This evening, I was wrapping up a game with my friends, and I saw a bus arrive at my stop. Fortunately, the stop was right outside the building I was in, so I was able to rush out to the bus as others were boarding it. That, in itself, was luckier than I had any right to be. If others hadn't been waiting for that bus, I would have seen it drive right by me. Still, they bought me a few seconds, and I actually managed to make it to the bus, but by the time I did, the bus driver had closed the door. Had the bus driver driven off at that moment, that would have been totally fair (or at least "fair enough," as I often say). By rights, I had missed the bus. I hadn't even been waiting at the bus stop when the bus came. I didn't deserve to catch that bus. But the bus driver let me on anyway. It wasn't fair - nothing ever is, but it was merciful, as God often is.

There is very little, if any, fairness in life. Some people have advantages; some people have disadvantages. Some people catch buses; others don't. We all have sins that disqualify us from heaven, but many people go to heaven anyway. It is all terribly, wonderfully unfair. The bus driver was not fair to me tonight, and God never is, and I thank God that he wasn't and He isn't! God is not fair. He is more than fair.

Why Ask "Why Me?"?

 After President Nelson and Elder Cook spoke of the new church meeting schedule and related topics, President M. Joseph Brough, Second Counselor in the Young Men General Presidency, spoke about doing hard things.

Frequently, our first reaction to hard things is “Why me?” Asking why, however, never takes away the hard thing. The Lord requires that we overcome challenges, and He has indicated “that all these things shall give [us] experience, and shall be for [our] good.”

Asking "Why me?" is rather pointless. For one thing, as President Brough said, it doesn't make our challenges go away. For another thing, the answer is simple: Because we're human. Being human, experiencing trials, and facing hard things are all (thankfully temporary) parts of God's eternal plan for us. As President Brough would say later in his talk, "Everyone faces hard things." If the question is "Why do I have to face hardship?", the answer is "Because everybody does."

However, sometimes when we ask "Why me?", what we are really asking is why we had to face this particular trial, as opposed to some other, less challenging one. But if we reflect on the infinite wisdom and love of God, the answer becomes clear enough. Often, the trials we face are exactly the trials that we need to face. God knows what's best for us, including which challenges would best help us grow. And when our trials aren't direct acts of God, they are often the result of a poor use of agency, in which cases, God often respects our agency and that of others and lets the consequences follow.

Whatever their cause, our trials are often tailored by God to fit our needs. That, or we get tailored by God to fit the challenges that are ahead of us. Either way, we and our trials are often perfect fits for each other, and we have God to thank for that.

We face challenges because everybody has to, and, thanks to God's influence, the challenges we end up facing are often the perfect challenges for us.

Define Remission (and Cancel)

I recently went to a baptism and heard the phrase "Baptism by immersion for the remission of sin," and I wondered what the dictionary definition of remission was, so I googled it.

re·mis·sion

rəˈmiSH(ə)n/

noun

the cancellation of a debt, charge, or penalty.

This word is an excellent fit for what baptism and repentance do about our sins. Our sins carry consequences in the forms of penalties. Jesus paid those penalties during His Atonement, putting us in His debt. But, when we are baptized and repent of our sins, our debt to Jesus is forgiven and ultimately canceled.

 

Note that the definition of remission does not imply repayment. Almost the opposite, in fact. Specifically, the debt, charge, or penalty is "canceled," with "cancel" meaning either to "decide or announce that (an arranged or planned event) will not take place" or "(of a factor or circumstance) neutralize or negate the force or effect of (another)."

 

Essentially, when we repent, the Lord "decide[s] or announce[s] that [our punishment] will not take place," and the force of mercy "neutralize[s] or negate[s] the force or effect of [justice]." We will still owe Jesus a great debt, as we probably always will, but we will not be penalized for not being able to pay it.

I am grateful for the Lord's mercy in extending the arms of mercy toward us and enabling us to obtain a remission of our sins. We don't deserve it, and we can never earn it, but He offers us forgiveness anyway. I am thankful for His goodness and mercy, and I'm thankful we were given a way to enable Him to cancel our debts.

Humbled by Love

Today, I was released as a Primary Teacher. I had been teaching in Primary for only about two years, but during that time, I formed strong relationships with a few of my students. However, I had no idea how strong that relationship was until this afternoon, when two of my Primary kids hugged me, on the verge of tears, to say goodbye.

I'm not sure what I did to earn that kind of love. In fact, I'm not even sure I did earn it. Children are capable of a level of love that goes beyond any earning or deserving, much like someone else we know.

We can't earn and don't deserve the Savior's love any more than I earned or deserved the love of my Primary kids. Yet, Jesus loves us anyway, with an immeasurable amount of love. I am frequently amazed and humbled by this love. It's difficult, if not impossible, to imagine how much Jesus loves us, just as I couldn't have imagined how much those Primary children love me. I don't deserve that kind of love. I'm not sure I ever will. But I am thankful for it, and I will try to be worthy of it and pay it both back and forward.

I am overwhelmed by the amount of love I have felt, and I know that the Lord feels just as much love for each person who has ever lived. If that's not humbling, I'm not sure what is.

Two Thoughts on Talents

My mom is giving a lesson on talents this week, and I noticed that I have two talent-related observations on my list of ideas to blog about, so I thought I'd share those thoughts with you tonight.

The first observation is that it's easier for many people to see talents in others than it is to see them in themselves. For whatever reason, we tend to under-appreciate ourselves despite clearly seeing the value in others. Perhaps this is an example of the grass being greener on the other side of the fence. We know that everyone has talents, and we should remember that that includes us. We should accept that we have talents, identify them, thank God for them, and try to develop them.

The second observation I had about talents is that God gave them (or at least some of them) so we could use them to bless others. We all have gifts that we can use to bless the lives of others, and God expects us to use them to bless as many people as we can. Our talents aren't just to bless us, though, of course, they bless our lives, too. We are supposed to use our blessings, including our talents, to enrich the lives of others as well.

Perhaps that's part of the reason we don't like to acknowledge our talents. With each talent comes an obligation to help others. Sometimes, we would rather believe we're talentless than admit that we have more work that we should do. We often believe that our load is already heavy enough. But perhaps our loads would be lighter if we used our talents to bear them together. For example, I can use my physical strength to help others with their physical challenges, and they can use their insight and maturity to help me with my emotional challenges. We can each use our strengths to cover each other's weaknesses, making our challenges that much easier to bear.

God wants us to help each other, and giving us various talents and weaknesses is one of the ways He encourages us to do that. So we should try to help each other recognise our various talents and use them to help each other. We all could use help with some things, and we can all help each other with other things. Let's try to recognize our talents and use them to bear one another's burdens that they may be light.

Gospel Learning at Home

Elder Quentin L. Cook's General Conference talk elaborated on a change that was hinted at by President Nelson. Starting at the beginning of next year, our regular Sunday meetings will change from three hours to two hours, and, as has already been announced, the curriculum for the second-hour lessons will change as well, so that just about everyone will have a lesson on the same topic, regardless of age or gender. Both President Nelson and Elder Cook explained that these changes were being made to facilitate Gospel learning in the home, supported by the church. As Elder Cook said, "Our purpose is to balance the Church and the home experiences in a way that will greatly increase faith and spirituality and deepen conversion to Heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."

Personally, I welcome these changes, and not just because we'll get to spend more time at home. Sharing a curriculum will mean that we'll be more able to have deep, inclusive conversations about what we learned in church that day. We'll be able to build on each other's insights and explore each topic without having anyone dominate or be left out of the conversation. I think that this will start a good trend of learning the Gospel together, as a family, in the home. It'll help the home become a more sacred place, and it'll help family members grow closer together. I can see many benefits coming out of this.

Of course, it'll be up to us to make sure that those blessings actually come, or rather that we actually have those Gospel-centered conversations in the home, or all we'll get out of this change is another hour for our Sunday naps or for our family dinners. Those benefits could be nice, but there's a nobler purpose for this change from three to two hours of church. I imagine that God would like us to use that extra hour to draw closer together as a family and form a deeper understanding (and memory) of what we learned in church by discussing it as a family. God could give us all the time in the world (and, in a sense, He does), but it's up to us to make sure we use that time as He intended, to increase Gospel learning at home.

Dread

To dread an event is to suffer twice: first when you dread the event, and again when you experience it. However, there is also a chance that to dread an even is to suffer once, only when you dread it, only to find out later that what you were dreading isn't actually as bad as you thought it would be.

That's what happened today. There were a few items on my calendar for today that I dreaded, but none of them turned out to be as dreadful as I had expected them to be. My dread caused me to ore-emptively suffer for events that didn't even make me suffer when they occurred. Had I been wiser and more in control of my emotions, I could have chosen not to dread these events and thus not suffer from them at all.

I am reminded of the Serenity Prayer:

Lord grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can (and should),
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Had I been wiser, I could have prayed for serenity and then not suffered at all for dreading those not-actually-dreadful events. Granted, I'm very glad those events didn't turn out as bad as I expected. But now I feel a bit foolish for dreading how bad I thought the events would be. Had I been judicious and curbed my expectations, I might not have had to suffer at all.

Struggling to Juggle

They say that when life gets too hard to stand, we should kneel, and that when we don't feel like praying, we should pray anyway. This is probably good advice for me right now. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. I often feel like I'm being pulled in so many different directions (only a handful of which being places I actually want to go), I have no idea at what point I might just snap.

I've been advised to use a single list or calendar for all of my responsibilities and obligations, so it's a bit less taxing to keep track of them all. I know that I should also keep my problems in perspective. Most people have more problems than I have, and many people have more separate groups of obligations. It's not like my challenges are anything special or unique to me. At least a handful of people must have sets of challenges that are similar to mine, but much more intense. So, I'm not complaining. Given the choice between my life and the life of another randomly-selected human being, I'd probably take my life. I'm relatively lucky.

But I still have challenges, and despite my blessings, I still find my trials challenging. In a way, that's kind of the point. Our trials are supposed to be challenging. If they weren't, life would hardly be a real test, as it wouldn't make us stretch or grow as much. Such of the purposes of life depend on the same types of difficulties with which I now struggle. This is something I need to learn how to live with and endure on a long-term basis. Hopefully, that single-calendar idea can take some of the edge off of my current struggle, because having many different obligations and responsibilities hanging over my head at once is probably something that I'm going to have to get used to.

Individual Growth, Individual Responsibility

The text of the talks are up (already! Some of those talks were given only two days ago)! I can now quote President Russell M. Nelson directly: "We are each responsible for our individual spiritual growth." This is a responsibility that I always figured I had, but I hadn't considered the implications of everyone having this responsibility. Usually, when I hear about a bad person, I feel sorry for them, wondering how their life might have turned out if they had had better parents and teachers, but perhaps I had been putting too much weight on the parents' and teachers' shoulders and too little on the individuals'. While parents and teachers can, and sometimes don't, have a profoundly positive impact on people's lives, each person is free to make their own choices, regardless of how they were raised or what they were taught. Some people had the best parents and teachers they could have hoped for and still turned out badly, and even someone with the worst teachers and parents possible still has their own conscience. Ultimately, we are each responsible for our own decisions, including, apparently, our decisions that affect our spiritual growth. We can't blame anyone for anyone's lack of spiritual growth but their own, and we must take care to ensure our own individual spiritual growth, regardless of the influence of others.

"Someone You Love"

Earlier this evening, I saw something that warmed my heart. A student was struggling with self-esteem issues. She was having a hard time with her paper, and she felt stupid and thought her paper was garbage. But a teacher sat or knelt down before her (I didn't have a clear view) and asked her to imagine something.

Imagine if someone you love brought this paper to you, asking for your advice or help. You know that the person you love worked very hard on this paper, but has been struggling with it. What would you tell that person? Would you tell that person that they're stupid and that their paper is garbage? No, of course not. You would never, ever say that to someone you love. So, don't say it to yourself.

There are people I know who need to hear that, and I'm one of them. I don't always feel like my papers are garbage, but I sometimes feel like I am. I've called myself things I've never called anyone else, even those I have strongly disliked. I have been far harsher with myself than I ever am with anyone else. I frequently find that I ought to exercise more self-love, and I am not alone in that.

But another message that's just as heart-warming, if not more so, is that God loves us far more than we love ourselves, far more than we love anyone. There are times when He needs to correct us, and those times happen almost literally all the time, but while He corrects us, He is rarely as critical of us as we are of ourselves. He doesn't insult us or berate us as we berate ourselves. He loves us. When He corrects us, He does so out of love and out of a sincere desire for us to become our best selves and live up to the potential He sees in us. God doesn't call people names or insult their efforts. He loves, comforts, guides, and encourages them. Everyone on Earth is "someone He loves," and His attitude and behavior toward us is a perfect reflection of that fact.

God is not going to be too hard on us, and He doesn't want us to be too hard on ourselves. We are all human, and we all have a lot of room to grow, but we also have plenty of time to work toward perfection, and God knows that we're not going to get there overnight. Thankfully, at least for now, God rewards effort rather than results. If we try and keep trying, God will bless us and keep blessing us until we reach a point where we no longer need His blessings, a point at which we will have become perfect. Until then, God wants to encourage us, not discourage us, and He wants us to encourage, not discourage, ourselves.

A Paladin's Personality

I recently got a shirt that says, in golden-ish yellow-ish writing, "Always be yourself, unless you can be a dragon, then always be a dragon." This shirt has inspired me to make a Dragonborn D&D character, especially a gold one, and picking which class the character should be has been easy. Dragonborn have racial ability score bonuses that make them good Paladins, and Gold Dragonborn are, traditionally, morally-aligned to Good.

What I have been trying to work out about this character is his personality and backstory. What sort of adventurer is he, and why did he become an adventurer? I'm somewhat thinking of basing his backstory on ours. He could be of a noble background, sent out into the world to gain experience, develop a host of divine attributes, and prove his worth. It's an odd custom for royalty to have, but he is Dragonborn, and they likely have different customs than human nobility. But, given that background, I have an important question that will greatly affect his personality and behavior during the adventure: How does he feel about having been sent out?

I wouldn't mind having this character be an ideal Paladin: Chivalrous, Virtuous, and Honorable. Lawful/Good, almost to a fault. As such, he would accept the authority of his royal superiors, and he would go out willingly. But would he do so only out of a sense of duty, or would he have other motivations that would make that choice harder or easier to make? How would an ideal Paladin feel about an opportunity and duty to go adventuring? How would an ideal son of God feel about mortality?

I cannot use myself as a model here. I am not a fan of mortality. I am not eager to face many of the challenges I've been asked to face. In fact, I've shrunken away from a few of the challenges I've been asked to face. A Paladin would not have done that.

However, would a Paladin be eager to face such challenges? He would be willing, of course; but would he be eager? I'm not sure. Paladins aren't stupid. They know that the road will be hard. And they're not crazy. They probably don't enjoy facing hardship just for the sake of facing hardship. Yet, mortality isn't just hardship for hardship's sake. There is a purpose. Several purposes, in fact. A Paladin may not enjoy enduring hardship, but he may look forward to the growth that such hardship would foster. He might be interested in proving to others, and perhaps to himself, that he can rise to those challenges. He might be eager to prove himself.

We might have been. When we heard the plan in the counsel in heaven, we shouted for joy. I think we were excited. And maybe my Dragonborn Paladin was excited at first, but many of us are less excited now. Is that because it's difficult to remain excited in the face of hardship or because we are less-than-ideal children of God? Would an ideal child of God be eager to overcome the hardships of life?

No, he wouldn't. Or should I say, He wasn't. Jesus Christ was, apparently, not excited to face the challenges of life. When Jesus had an opportunity and a duty to overcome all of the world's challenges at once, He didn't necessarily want to do it. Perhaps that's an extreme example. How could anyone be eager to suffer what Jesus suffered? But that experience did prove Jesus' infinite purity and monumental spiritual strength. If Jesus was eager to prove Himself, that was the ultimate test of worth.

But Jesus wasn't trying to prove Himself, perhaps because a desire to prove oneself stems, or at least can stem, from pride. Pride, being the universal sin and great vice, is not a good motivation for an ideal Paladin or child of God. Jesus' motivation was much holier: Love. Jesus serves people because He loves people. He performed the Atonement because of His desire for the welfare of our souls. Ideally, we should be motivate by love in everything we do as well. How can a Paladin show that he is motivated by love?

An adventurer's life is often a violent one. There are always monsters to fight and villains to defeat. Jesus defeated villains as well, but when He faced mortal foes, he usually did so with kindness and rarely with violence. Yes, he cleansed the temple once or twice, but other than those moments, I don't think He ever raised His hand against anyone. Then again, that wasn't His calling. That wasn't how He could best serve others. If the best way a Paladin could serve a group of people is to defend them from orcs and goblins, perhaps that is what he must do. A Paladin should seek out peaceful solutions, but when force is necessary, a Paladin should be physically and mentally prepared to provide it.

So, a Paladin, while perhaps not eager to experience hardship, should be eager to serve others, even if that service requires sacrifice and puts them through hardship and/or pain. We should also be eager to do good, despite the difficulties involved, not because we enjoy facing difficulty, but because we love God and our neighbors and love serving Them, even though it's hard sometimes. So, if my new Dragonborn Paladin is meant to be an ideal Paladin, he should be eager to help others, despite the difficulties and dangers involved.

I'm glad I blogged about this. It helped me figure out a bit of what my new character's attitude toward adventuring should be and what my attitude toward mortality should be as well. While we are here to prove ourselves, proving ourselves shouldn't be our motivation. We should focus on loving and serving God and our neighbors. If we do that, our worthiness and nobility will prove themselves.

Preparing to Blog about Conference

As soon as I finish blogging about one General Conference, it's time to start blogging about the next one. Yet, I'm reluctant to begin because I want to have the text of each talk available when I blog about it. For example, I could launch right into something President Nelson had said, something about each of us being responsible for our own spiritual welfare, but I want to make sure I get the wording right and that I don't take what he said out of context, so I'll blog about the talks themselves later, when the talks have been published.

In the meantime, maybe I'll just go over how I plan to blog about Conference this time around. Taking notes in General Conferences has been different for me for the last few years. Before, I would just listen to the talks, and maybe take notes on paper, notes that I would almost never revisit. Now, I take notes on my laptop, knowing that there's a fair chance that I'll return to these notes when I blog about these talks. As such, I'm leaving myself some possible blog post topics for each talk. Most of them are quotes, doctrines, or ideas that just stick out to me and seem like they'd be easy to talk about or interesting to explore. I look forward to discussing them with you, and I especially look forward to already having some idea of what I could blog about when I revisit the talks. That should help streamline the process and make sure I don't get stuck just blogging about whatever comes to mind on the night I revisit the talk.

General Conference is a fantastic spiritual resource, but just as water that overflows out of a bucket falls wasted to the ground, so too do most of my thoughts about Conference slip away from me almost immediately afterwards. However, as I keep notes and revisit both the notes and the talks they refer to, I might be able to recapture of the thoughts and impressions I had the first time I heard the talks. At least, that's the plan.

This Conference has been really good so far. I can't wait for the text to come out so I can blog about each talk individually.

Pressing On

In President Nelson's concluding remarks last Conference, he quoted a verse of "Let Us All Press On," stating that it "summarizes our renewed resolve, our challenge, and our charge going forward." Of course, he's right. For those of us who have already accepted the Gospel and are already striving to live it, our challenge and our charge consists almost entirely of "pressing on" or, to use a more scriptural term for it, "enduring to the end."

So much of the gospel depends on persistence. One great act of service isn't enough; we must form a life-long pattern of service. Repentance isn't something that happens only once, but continually as we keep finding areas to improve in and keep finding ways to improve ourselves. And God doesn't expect us to keep each commandment once; He encourages us to keep each commandment consistently throughout our lives, or at least to keep them as consistently as we can, starting from the moment we learn about them. Clearly, we have a long way to go.

However, God seems not to be terribly concerned about where we are now or how long it takes us to get where we're going. What He cares about is that we're heading in the right direction. Remember, we will be continuing to make progress for all eternity, if we develop a habit of making progress now. We must "Press On," and keep putting one foot in front of the other. They say that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, but it also consists of steps. The journey may seem daunting, but we can take it one step at a time. All we need to do is keep taking those sometimes small steps toward becoming like our Father in Heaven. It may take us an eternity to make it to that point, but we will make it, so long as we keep pressing on.

Urgent Preparation

Elder Quentin L. Cook titled his most recent talk "Prepare to Meet God." In his talk, he spoke of several things we can do, individually and as a church, to prepare to meet God, but I don't think he adequately stressed the importance and urgency of doing so, at least as individuals. The church will be fine. It won't be destroyed prematurely, and it'll live through the Second Coming, guaranteed.

We individuals, on the other hand, might die. In fact, we will die. The only question is when. We can hope to live through the Second Coming, but we have no idea whether we'll live long enough to even see it. So, knowing that meeting God is inevitable, we would do well to make sure that we're ready at a moment's notice, because we may not even get that much. We have no idea how soon we can expect to meet God, which is why it is urgent that we prepare for it.

This Post is Late Because of Internet Politics

This evening got away from me, mostly because I spent too much of it on Facebook. Political conversations are sometimes important, but most of these are not, since they're unlikely to change minds, and even when they do, they only change one vote at a time. It's probably not worth it, especially when one's personal habits suffer as a result. I should stop, or at least cut back on the amount of time I spend engaging in arguments on Facebook.

The Process of Baking Bread and Building a Relationship

Today, I helped a student use baking bread as an analogy for forming and maintaining relationships, and it went remarkably well.

The recipe she found started us off with sugar, yeast, and warm water. The sugar and warm water could represent the warmth of friendship and the sweetness you might expect from a dating couple or newlyweds. The yeast was harder to place, but we decided that, since it would have to be active yeast, it could represent activities like dating and courtship.

The recipe then called for salt, which represented emotion. Strong emotions, especially sadness and happiness, can lead to the shedding of salty tears. The recipe also called for oil, but we couldn't think of how to use oil in the analogy, so we might skip that part.

One especially tricky but essential ingredient was the flour. I knew we needed flour, but I had a hard time thinking of what flour could represent in a relationship. We determined that, if the flour is "whole grain," it could represent being open and honest enough to show our partners our "whole selves," not just the parts we show off on social media.

The dough needing time to rise easily represented the time relationships take to develop, and the yeast became useful again in this later part of the baking process. This time, the yeast represents hardships, including the mere passage of time. Hardships can eat up the sweetness in a relationship and, if I'm right about what makes sourdough sour, potentially sour a relationship. That's why it's so important to work through our relationships, like kneading the bread.

Relationships take a good deal of time and effort to form and maintain, just like bread does. There are a handful of gaps and stretches, but mostly, it's a fairly decent analogy. I'm glad my student had that idea and shared it with me so we could develop it together.

The Holiness of the Home

Near the end of one of the last few General Conference talks of the most recent General Conference, Presiding Bishop Gérald Caussé said the following:

Ours is not just a Sunday church. Our worship continues each day of the week, wherever we are and in whatever we do. Our homes in particular are “the primary sanctuaries of our faith.” It is most often in our homes that we pray, we bless, we study, we teach the word of God, and we serve with pure love. I can testify from personal experience that our homes are sacred places where the Spirit can abound—as much as, and sometimes even more than, in our formal places of worship.

Personally, I've felt the Spirit stronger in nature and near the Temple than I've felt it at home. Maybe home is too normal to me. Still, I have to admit that Bishop Caussé makes some excellent points. Perhaps it's mostly due to the sheer amount of time we spend at home, but I can't think of any place where we pray, bless, study, serve, or love more than we do at home. Home is the location of our regular personal and family prayers and scripture study. Homes are the dwelling places of those we frequently bless and serve and love. In general, I'm not surprised that, of most of the things we do that are sacred, we do them most of all at home. Home may be an ordinary place where we do ordinary things, but it is also a holy place where we do holy things. Perhaps that's part of the reason our homes can compare with Temples in sacredness; like Temples, our homes are also dedicated places where holy things happen frequently.