Faith to Make Sacrifices

In his talk Prayers of Faith, President Henry B. Eyring unsurprisingly spoke about faith, a trait I could stand to develop further. Greater faith can help me develop greater motivation to keep the commandments, even to the point of making the sacrifices I blogged about last night. Faith in God includes faith in is promises, including His promises to grant blessings to those who keep the commandments. 

The more faith I have in the certainty and value of eternal blessings, the more willing I'll be to make sacrifices for them. Serving my employer can be seen as a small sacrifice of time and effort, but the money that comes as payment for such service makes the "sacrifice" worthwhile. Similarly, giving up some of that money can be seen as a small sacrifice, but when I expect to get a valuable product or service in exchange for that monetary sacrifice, I'm happy to make the exchange. 

God makes us a similar offer, without the monetary intermediary. God asks us to sacrifice some of our time and effort in service to Him and His children, in return for which, He offers us "products" and "services" in the forms of various blessings. I willingly engage in monetary exchanges because I have faith that the money will be worth my time and that the products I buy will be worth my money. With enough faith, I could actively engage with the Gospel for similar reasons. When I trust that the blessings I expect to receive are worth the sacrifices God asks me to make for them, I am more willing to make those sacrifices.

So I suppose it all comes down to faith. How much faith do I have that God will (at least eventually) grant me those promised blessings and that those blessings will be worth the sacrifices I make for them? Honestly, I'm not sure. Some of God's greater blessings don't actually sound that hot to me, and some of the sacrifices He asks us to make seem pretty great. Yet, there are some blessings I want, and I must admit that I'm not going to get those blessings without making a few sacrifices. Whether those blessings are worth those sacrifices depends on a lot of subjective evaluations. I should give those evaluations a lot more thought before I pass any definitive judgments, but for now, I think I'm willing to say that they're probably worth it.

It takes faith to make sacrifices, and it takes sacrifice to secure blessings. The greater the blessings are, the greater the required sacrifices will be, and the greater the sacrifices are, the greater faith one will need to be willing to make them. To get the greatest blessings, one has to make great sacrifices, which requires great faith. I'm not sure I'm there yet. But I think (and hope) that I have enough faith to make the sacrifices required to get the blessings that I currently want.

Sacrifice

When Douglas D. Holmes spoke about how to get the Gospel Deep in Our Hearts, the last and arguably most important bit of advice he gave was "Finally, to get the gospel of Jesus Christ deep in our hearts, we need to engage in it—to give our time and talents to it, to sacrifice for it." This is something I'm reluctant to do, or even blog about, because I'm not a big fan of making sacrifices.

I don't like having to make sacrifices, even for such a good cause. Sacrifice, by its very nature, is hard. Sacrifices are painful. That's part of why they're so powerful; God rewards sacrifices greatly partly to compensate us for the great deal of will-power it takes to make them. The greater the sacrifices God asks us to make, the greater the blessings are likely to be. It only stands to reason that the greatest gifts God offers us also require the greatest sacrifices.

So perhaps I should try to be willing to make sacrifices in exchange for God's blessings. Sure, sacrifices are difficult and painful, but the results are usually worthwhile. Besides, I need those blessings. Painful or not, I have little choice but to pay the price for them.

I don't like making sacrifices, but sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven. If I want those blessings, I need to be willing to make some sacrifices for them.

Recording Spiritual Thoughts

In his talk, Spiritually Defining Memories, Elder Neil L. Andersen advised us to record our sacred experiences. Fortunately for me, I generally have a pretty easy job of that, since I'm able to record some of my insights and spiritual moments on my blog. And, even when I don't feel comfortable sharing a particular spiritual experience with the entire world, I usually don't have much trouble writing my thoughts down elsewhere. I'm pretty lucky that I have a habit of writing down my thoughts, or at least my spiritual thoughts. Along with Elder Andersen, I too would recommend writing down some of your spiritual thoughts and experiences, even if you don't share them with anyone. I, personally, have found it useful to be able to go back and revisit some of my past thoughts and insights. Perhaps you would get some use out of that as well.

Another Kind of Indestructibility

As I work on my spiritual defenses, of course I'd like to become indestructible. I'd like to have impenetrable armor and an impervious shield, so I could fend off all attacks flawlessly. After all, one way to make sure you win a fight is to make sure you never even get injured. However, that's not entirely practical. No one makes it through life unscathed. Everyone slips up occasionally. Everyone sins. We all frequently need the healing power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

Yet, that may be the key to another kind of indestructibility. The main thing that makes Wolverine and Deadpool so impossible to kill is that they heal so fast. In D&D, the party healer usually spends a few rounds during and/or after each fight making sure everyone in the party has plenty of HP. And in a mobile game I play from time to time, it's not uncommon for the main character to end a battle with more HP than he had going into the fight.

The same can be true for me. Sure, I can't always prevent myself from ever getting injured in the first place, but I can make sure I heal those spiritual injuries as quickly as they occur. As long as I repent every time I sin, I can retain a remission of my sins. Of course, that doesn't mean I'm justified in letting myself commit sin; I still need to resist temptation as hard as I can, but I have a solid plan in place for if and when I slip up. I'm going to avoid injury as much as I can, but when I fail, I'll seek healing. And between how difficult it is to injure me and how quickly I recover from those injuries, I believe that I can become virtually indestructible.

Physical and Spiritual Exercise

This afternoon, I went for a short hike. Actually, I walked nearly five miles with the aid of two walking sticks. Now, one might rightly say that the Sabbath isn't the best day to take a hike, but I had a specific purpose in mind. I went to have a walk and talk with God. Normally, I would go to the temple for that, but in lieu of a temple, Nephi would often go to a mountain, and in lieu of a mountain, I went for a walk in the park.

I won't share everything that was discussed, but I will say that we discussed the similarities between physical and spiritual exercise. In order to gain physical or spiritual strength, we have to practice doing things that require such strength. For example, I can strengthen my legs by hiking, and I can strengthen my faith by praying. It requires some leg strength to walk, and it requires some faith to talk to a God whom we can't see, but the more we do those things, the stronger our legs and our faith gets. In fact, since the body and spirit are connected, the connection between physical and spiritual exercise may run deeper than mere similarity.

I want greater strength, both physically and spiritually, and I know that there's only one way to get it. Exercise takes diligence and discipline, but it's the only way to gain the strength I need. Naturally, I'd rather not need that strength. I'd rather not be tempted or required to do strenuous physical work, but we don't always get what we want. This is a fallen world, and in this fallen world, we need to do physical work and resist temptation. And if we want to get good at either of those things, we need to exercise.

730-Day Streak

One year ago today, I blogged about the 365-Day Streak I had apparently gotten in a game on my phone. At the time, my plan had been to use that game to remind me to read my scriptures and say my prayers every day for a year, so that today I could blog about my 730-Day Streak.

Unfortunately, I missed a few days. If I had to guess, I missed about two months worth of days because right now, my phone game says I'm going strong on a 671-day streak. I don't think it knows what a "streak" is. But I suppose that's for the best because, if it did know what a streak is, I would have broken it 60-ish disappointing times by now.

Still, I probably shouldn't kick myself too hard for that. What I really need to do is to pick myself up, dust myself off, and keep trying, just like another game I've started playing recently: Alto's Odyssey.

In Alto's Odyssey, the sequel to the snowboarding game Alto's Adventure, the player "snowboards" down an infinite sand dune, jumping over rocks and chasms to keep sandboarding as long as possible. When the player crashes or falls into a chasm, they can revive, but they can only revive a few times each run, so far as I've learned.

However, the game does have a Zen Mode, where the player can keep the run going as long as they want. The Zen Mode still has rocks and chasms, but the player can revive as many times as they want.

It's a lot like life. It lasts a long time -- so long that we're bound to make several, if not countless mistakes along the way. Yet, our run doesn't end every time we trip over a rock. Instead, we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and keep going.

I suppose this is all to say that which has already been said so succinctly: "It doesn't matter how many times we fall. What matters is how many times we get back up." Maybe it doesn't matter that I broke my "730-day streak" about five dozen times. Maybe what matters is that I said my prayers and read my scriptures about 300 times, and counting. Prayers don't need to be consecutive to be beneficial.

So, no, I didn't pray and read my scriptures every day for the past year, but what I'm going to do is pick myself up, dust myself off, and keep going.

Piercing Turbulence in Wisdom and Order

Probably my favorite verse of the whole King Benjamin address right now is Mosiah 4:27:

And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order.

I particularly like that the Come, Follow Me manual asks: "How can you apply verse 27 to your efforts to be Christlike?"

So far, I have not been doing things in wisdom and in order. Instead, I've been trying to run as fast as I reasonably can. I thought I was pacing myself. I thought I could keep up a light jog. In fact, I felt like a slacker for not sprinting.

I was a fool. I probably still am, if I'm being completely honest, but I hope to be a little less of a fool going forward. And today in particular, I hope to be a little less of a fool about how I go forward.

Lately, I've been experiencing burnout. I haven't been myself lately. In fact, depending on who you ask and how you're measuring it, I haven't been myself in quite some time. I want to change that, and I think I know how, but I'm afraid of being (and being accused of being) a slacker.

I think I need to slow down. President Uchtdorf, back when he was still "President Uchtdorf," gave a talk in which he spoke of turbulence and how planes often reduce their speed to the "optimum turbulence penetration speed that will minimize the negative effects of turbulence." I think I should do the same.

Of course, this speed reduction shouldn't be permanent, only until I get through this turbulence and/or my legs get stronger. And this temporary speed reduction doesn't change my direction or destination. I'm still going to the same place, and it's still going to take me an eternity to get there; it's just that now I'm willing to acknowledge and accept how long it's going to take instead of insisting I try to get there as soon as possible and burning myself out to the point where it looks like I'm not going to get there at all.

Remember: eternal progression. And remember that Distance = Speed  x Time. Given the distance I need to travel, one might think that I should try to move quickly so I can cover the distance in a halfway reasonable amount of time. But I have an infinite amount of time. I can travel at a sustainable rate and still cover the distance. It'll just take me longer than most people. As long as I'm willing to accept that, I think I'll be okay. Those who hike across the country probably don't try to jog the whole way, yet they still go the distance, and so will I.

I'll still run as fast as I have strength, but I'm realizing that that strength is limited, and I shouldn't burn it out. I need to be careful not to hurt myself or anyone else. Of course, I also need to be careful that I don't completely slack off, and that's the problem. It's difficult to find the right balance. It's going to be tough to find my "optimum turbulence penetration speed," but it's important that I do so before I burn myself out and give up on this whole thing.

President Uchtdorf said "it is good advice to slow down a little, steady the course, and focus on the essentials when experiencing adverse conditions." I am experiencing adverse conditions. I think I need to slow down.

Commute

This quarantine is really starting to bother me, and I think I know why: I don't have a commute anymore. The funny thing is that my commute had always been something of a nuisance. I had to plan my schedule around public transportation, only to find trains and buses going off schedule anyway. If I was running late, the bus would come early, and I'd miss it. If I was running early, the bus would run late, and I'd have to wait at the bus stop for ages. Actually, my commute involved a lot of waiting -- waiting for the bus to come, waiting for the bus to get me to the train station, waiting for the train, and so on. My commute wasted a lot of my time. Yet, that time was never really wasted.

During my commutes, I had a lot of time to keep to myself and just... think. There weren't usually a lot of people around, and everyone generally left each other alone. There wasn't much social interaction, and for a significant portion of the trip, there was no social interaction at all. Plus, there was a little bit of exercise, assuming walks that short count for anything at all. My commute used to be even better when I rode my bike. I ought to start doing that again.

One solution I've heard is, to spite the quarantine, to commute anyway. Just get out and bike around the block, or walk to the corner and back. Just get out, move a bit, enjoy the air that's fresher than normal, get some exercise, and take some time to think and shift gears (perhaps literally) before "going to work" or to school or wherever. Many of us may be working as schooling from home these days, but that doesn't mean we can't still commute to home, from home, via any route we choose. It's healthy, mentally, physically, and perhaps even spiritually. I've communed with God over my commutes before. I should do that again, and soon.

Striving for Progress

As I listened to Persident Joy D. Jones' Saturday Morning General Conference talk, one sentence of her talk stood out to me more than any other: "We are always progressing as long as we are striving to follow the Lord."

I strive to follow the Lord, and I sometimes get tired and frustrated with all the striving I have to do, mostly because it often doesn't feel like I'm making any spiritual progress. Yet, partly because of Eternal Progression and partly because of this quote, I know that I am making progress toward my ultimate goal, even if that progress is too slow for my mortal mind to detect.

I sometimes think that we're on a treadmill, like if we're not progressing fast enough, we're actually regressing, and now I think that that's only partly true. It's true that, if we're not moving forward, we are actually regressing, but now I think that almost any amount of forward movement is enough to overcome the regression of the treadmill. We need to be progressing "fast enough" in that we need to be progressing at all. And according to President Jones, all we need to do to make progress is to strive for it. I can, at the very least, do that.

I'm grateful to hear that making spiritual progress isn't as hard as I sometimes make it out to be. Don't get me wrong, life is hard, but it's not as hard as I sometimes think it is. We don't need to be perfect to be successful. We just need to try and to keep trying for as long as we can and to dust ourselves off and try again as often as we need to. If we keep trying long enough, eventually, we will succeed.  It's comforting to know that, in order to make spiritual progress, all we have to do is strive for it.

Constant as the Sun

The other day, I had a thought: God is as constant as the sun. Sure, the sun sets every day, but the sun also rises every day. And some days, the sun is hidden behind thick rain clouds, but it's still there, still shining, still giving Earth its light. The sun is always shining, always keeping us in orbit, always keeping us warm. Even when it's dark and cold and raining, we know that the sun is still up there somewhere, and it's still helping us out.

Similarly, even when God seems distant and His blessings seem sparse, we know that He's still out there and that He's still blessing us in ways that are too subtle or too constant to notice. He's always there for us, even when it seems like He isn't. God is as constant as the sun. We may not always be able to see or feel His presence, but He's always out there somewhere, and just like the sun, He's always pulling for us.

Good and Bad People

There's a truth that makes life much more complicated than it's alternative, and it's one that I wish everyone would accept: nobody is all good or all bad; each person is a mix of positive and negative traits (and we can't all agree on which traits are which anyway). People are complicated. Nobody is pure good, and nobody is pure evil. Even the best person you know has faults, and even the worst person in the world has a good side.

Accepting this truth makes it difficult to pass definitive moral judgments on people. We can't just label people as "good" or "bad" and leave it at that. And I think that's a good thing. A lot of our judgments about other people are far too simplistic. We tend to ignore or play down the faults of the people we like (possibly including ourselves), and we also tend to ignore or down play the good parts of the people we don't like (also possibly including ourselves). We try to simplify people in our own minds so we don't have to think of them as being any more complicated than just good or bad people. But it's never that simple. No one is ever that simple.

Even the best of us have our faults, and even the worst of us have some good parts. We should support the good and try to root out the bad. It's just not quite as simple as supporting or rooting out good or bad people. There aren't good people and bad people. All people are good and bad people.

Online Mountains

I recently found a Facebook group called Beautiful Mountains, and I've been loving it. I love seeing what beautiful mountains exist in this world, even though I can't go out and see them in person. It just reminds me how richly blessed we are. God put us on this earth with so much beauty and so many technological tools, and we are free to use them and appreciate them. And, granted, life isn't all good. There are plenty of bad sides to nature and technology, but there's good in them too, and I know which side of them I'd rather focus on. We're happier when we can see and appreciate the good in the world, even while we're working on reducing the bad. Looking at mountains lifts my spirits, and I'm glad I can do that whenever I can go online.

I Am Not God's Enemy

Last night, I was terribly frustrated and even somewhat angry, because after all this time of fighting on God's side, I was crushed and frustrated to think that God might consider me an enemy. But know that I've had some time to think about it, I know that of course He doesn't think of me as an enemy. He loves me. He loves all His children. So, maybe the guide to the scriptures isn't doctrinally canon, or maybe I'm misinterpreting Mosiah 3:19, or maybe one of the other premises upon which I based my logic was wrong. Whatever the reason, I am now willing to accept that I am most likely not considered an enemy to God.

But I know who is. And I know that this individual would use any and every trick he can think of to try to make me an enemy to God as well.

The adversary is the one who is God's real enemy, and mine. The adversary is the one who tries to discourage me, frustrate me, anger me, and turn me against God. And I'm sorry to say that, last night, it worked.

The enemy tries to discourage us into giving up because he knows that as long as we don't give up, we'll win. That's his main playbook: Deceive, Distract, and Discourage. Last night, deceived and discouraged me, and that distracted me from the rest of last night's scripture study.

I won't let that trick work again. I know that, come hell or high water, God and I are on the same team. We may have our differences, and I certainly have my weaknesses, but that doesn't make us enemies. I am not fighting against God, and He is not fighting against me. We are allies, joint forces against a common enemy. And that enemy isn't me.

Am I an Enemy to God?

It may sound like a ridiculous question, but scriptural evidence suggests that the answer is actually "yes."

For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. Mosiah 3:19

Now, I know what you're thinking. I am not "the natural man." The natural man is the carnal side of people, not the people themselves. I'm not an enemy to God; it's the evil inside of me that's God's enemy.

That's what I thought.

But then I read The Guide to the Scriptures, "Natural Man," which defines the natural man as "A person who chooses to be influenced by the passions, desires, appetites, and senses of the flesh rather than by the promptings of the Holy Spirit."

I am such a person. I am a natural man. I am an enemy to God.

Granted, it doesn't always feel like a question of choice. I don't feel like I'm choosing to be influenced by "the passions, desires, appetites, and senses of the flesh." I try to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit. If I fail, when I fail, is that really a choice?

Theoretically, it is. I can, theoretically, choose to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit instead of my own desires.

But in practice, that's easier said than done, and, in my defense, just about everyone is influenced by their own "passions, desires, appetites, and senses of the flesh," but that just means that just about everyone is an enemy to God, including me.

Unless.

...unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. Mosiah 3:19

So, that's it. That's the solution. That's how I can stop being an enemy to God. All I have to do is:

1. Yield to the enticings of the Holy Spirit,
2. Put off the natural man.
3. Become a saint through the Atonement of Christ the Lord, and
4. Become as a child:

• Submissive
• Meek
• Humble
• Patient
• Full of love
• Willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon me.

That's all. That's all I have to do to stop being "an enemy to God."

I have not done all of those things.

Arguably, I have not done any of those things, except becoming as a child, but I don't think being childish is what King Benjamin meant. And I'm sure I've "yield[ed] to the enticings of the Holy Spirit" at least once in my life, so I guess we can check that one off the list, too.

The one that really gets me is number three, "Become a saint through the Atonement of Christ the Lord."

I am not a saint. Far from it.

And yet.

The Atonement of Jesus Christ is powerful, powerful enough to change hearts, perhaps even powerful enough to change my heart. I am an enemy to God, a natural man, "a person who chooses to be influenced by the passions, desires, appetites, and senses of the flesh rather than by the promptings of the Holy Spirit," but maybe the Atonement can change that about me. Maybe the Atonement can make me stop being like that. Maybe the Atonement can help me become a saint.

I am an enemy to God, but maybe Christ's Atonement can make me a saint instead.

Justice, Restitution, and the Atonement

In Ensuring a Righteous Judgment by James R. Rasband of the 70, he reminded us that the Atonement "fulfills all the demands of justice," then posed the question "But what exactly are the 'demands of justice'?" He then asked us to consider Alma the Younger, how he, after his repentance or perhaps as part of it, sought to reclaim those that he had led away. I think that's part of the demands of justice: restitution, seeking to undo the damage one did. If someone steals something, justice demands that they give it back. If they can't give it back, then justice demands that they give back something of equal or greater value. Granted, that's not always possible either, but my point is that when we do something wrong, we should do what we can to undo it or at least make up for it.

The Atonement can help us do that. In fact, we may need the help of the Atonement for that part as well as for the part about being cleansed from our sins. (Though actually, come to think of it, making restitution may be part of becoming cleansed from our sins.) Elder Rasband (of the 70) went on to say that Alma the Younger was, unfortunately, unable to bring back everyone that he had led astray. But according to Elder Rasband, President Boyd K. Packer once taught that "Restoring what you cannot restore, healing the wound you cannot heal, fixing that which you broke and you cannot fix is the very purpose of the atonement of Christ.” I imagine that that includes helping us make restitution that we otherwise could not make.

No matter what we're doing, whether we're trying to live the Gospel or whether we're trying to repent and make restitution, all we can really do is do the best we can and leave the rest to God. We can't be perfect all the time, but we can try, and we can repent when we fall short. We can't always make proper restitution, but we should do as much as we can to undo whatever damage we did, and we should leave the rest up to the grace and justice of God. We can trust God to help us fix our mistakes, including helping us make the restitution necessary to fix our mistakes.

A Poem about Salvation

While studying Buddhism for my World Religions class this afternoon, I came across an interesting poem inspired by one of the principles of Theravada Buddhism:

No one saves us but ourselves; no one can and no one may.
We ourselves must tread the Path; Buddhas only show the way.

Replacing the word Buddhas (or Enlightened Ones) with words like prophets or angels, there is some truth to this. We must work out our own salvation, to the extent that we can. We ourselves must tread the path, though we may need and receive help along the way.

Yet, it's not true that we save ourselves. While it's theoretically possible for a person to be so perfect that they are justified according to the laws of justice, all of us fall short of such perfection. Thus, we need to be saved by Jesus' grace and by the law of mercy. Jesus doesn't "only show the way." He opened up the way. In fact, He is the Way.

We know that it's by grace that we are saved, after all we can do. We must do as much as we can, and we may have to do some of it alone, but we can't do it all by ourselves. We need both grace and works. We need to tread the path, but we also rely on Christ to keep it open.

Sending Messengers

During my family's scripture study tonight, someone pointed out that King Benjamin couldn't teach all his people in the temple at the same time, and even as they all listened outside, not everyone could hear him, so he needed to send messengers with written copies of his speech as he was giving it, so if people couldn't hear his voice directly, they could at least hear his messengers. At first, I didn't think there was anything particularly noteworthy about this, but then I thought about the parallels that could (and could not) be made between King Benjamin and God.

King Benjamin was subject to certain physical limitations. His voice could only carry so far. God, however, doesn't have that limitation. He can speak to anyone at any time, or everyone at once. God's voice can reach the four corners of the Earth and everyone on it. Yet, that's where we come in and things get tricky.

Even while God's voice, through His Spirit, can reach everyone, that doesn't mean that everyone can and will hear or listen to Him. Some people have trouble hearing the voice of the Spirit. Sure, God could speak loudly enough to shake the Earth and reach the ears of everyone on it, but He doesn't typically do that. Instead, He speaks most often through His Spirit, and His Spirit whispers. It's not called the Still, Small Voice for nothing.

So, to hear the voice of God, we need to listen carefully, and not everyone is good at that, or is even trying to. Yet, God wants to get His messages out to everyone, preferably without busting their eardrums. So, what does God do? He sends messengers.

In addition to the Holy Spirit, God sends Prophets, Apostles, and Evangelists (Missionaries) to take His message to the four quarters of the Earth. We humans can't always hear God very clearly, but barring certain physical limitations, we can generally hear each other just fine. As long as there is at least one person who can listen to the Spirit reasonably well, they can relay God's message to everyone else. That's what prophets and other religious teachers are for.

Unlike King Benjamin, God can speak to everyone directly, but for various reasons, He doesn't usually do that, so instead, He does what King Benjamin did: He has His Words written down, and He sends them out via messengers.

Hypocrisy and High Standards

Today, I stumbled upon a fascinating discussion on hypocrisy in the comment section of a youtube video, and in this discussion, I found a wise saying of a youtuber called LagMasterSam: "If you're never a hypocrite, you're either a saint or your standards aren't high enough."

I love this quote, not only because it illustrates that great wisdom can come from the mouth of practically anyone, but also because it reminds me that our standards should always be on a higher level than we are. We aren't perfect, but we should aspire to be perfect. We should uphold ideals higher than we ourselves can currently reach. Of course, we shouldn't hold others to higher standards than we hold ourselves; quite the opposite, in fact. We should hold ourselves to higher standards than we hold others, even as we acknowledge that we don't yet reach those standards.

The goal is to continually make progress, and we can't do that unless we strive to become better than we currently are. We need to set lofty goals and ideals for ourselves so we always have something to strive for. We aim high so we can always improve. If our personal standards are no higher than our current habits, then we need to raise our standards. We can do better and be better, but only if we aspire to do and be better.

Unstoppable

To me, the most comforting message in Easter is that we can keep going and/or start again. Through repentance, we can overcome any sin, and through resurrection, we can overcome death, so neither sin nor death can stop us from making eternal progress,so long as we continually decide to start again and keep going whenever we hit a rough patch, stumble, and slip up. No matter how many "second chances" it takes, Jesus Christ will help us make it happen. As long as we don't give up on ourselves, neither will He. Sin and death are formidable obstacles, but through the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can become unstoppable.

Fun and Sacred

I am sometimes bothered by the traditions surrounding Christmas and Easter. These are sacred holidays (literally holy days) that should be respected, yet the observance of Christmas and Easter get tangled up with reindeer and wrapping paper and bunnies and eggs. Now, there's nothing wrong with exchanging gifts or dyeing eggs. These are perfectly acceptable activities. Yet, the days that commemorate the two must important, most sacred events in history are probably not the best two days for getting sugar highs from eating far too much cheap, holiday chocolate. There has to be a better way. There must be a way to respect the sacred nature of these holidays and still have some holiday fun. Thankfully, there is.

Years ago, my family adopted the tradition of having a special, sacred dinner each Christmas Eve, where we would eat the kinds of food Joseph and Mary might have eaten (mostly bread, cheese, and fruit), and we would think about the birth and importance of Jesus Christ. The following day, Christmas day, we could exchange gifts, eat treats, and have fun, but Christmas Eve is sacred.

Splitting the holiday up into the fun day and the sacred day works even better for Easter, since Easter is always on a Sunday and the day before is always a Saturday. Easter Saturday can be a fun day with a bunch of eggs and chocolates, and Easter Sunday can be a sacred day, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Of course, these dates aren't etched in stone. For some families, it might make more sense for Saturday, reflecting the Saturday between Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, to be a somber, holy day, and for Sunday to be a more fun and joyous day. Or maybe Easter's fun day could be the Monday after Easter (if one's school schedule permits that), so as to keep Holy Week holy. Or the fun day could happen early in Holy Week so as to keep the last few days holy. I don't know. Do whatever works for you. My main point is to make the fun holiday and the holy holiday different days so we can keep the holy day holy and still set some time aside for fun.

Naturally, it's probably too late to apply this advice this Easter, but I hope that you still manage to make this Easter both fun and sacred. I know this Christmas will be, even if we need to schedule the fun and the worship for different days.

One Reason Why God Might Prolong the Pandemic

Part of the reason I'm kinda okay with the Covid-19 situation is because I know some good will come of it. In his April 2020 talk, "Shall We Not Go On In So Great A Cause?", President M. Russell Ballard spoke of the suffering endured by Joseph Smith, his brother Hyrum, and the rest of the early saints. In this talk, he said, "I have often wondered why Joseph and Hyrum and their families had to suffer so much. It may be that they came to know God through their suffering in ways that could not have happened without it." Perhaps the same is happening with us. Maybe the coronavirus is supposed to teach us lessons that we wouldn't have learned otherwise.

Now, I don't know what lessons those are. I don't know whether or not we've already learned those lessons or even whether or not there are lessons for us to learn at all. It could be that there are no lessons to learn or that we've already learned them, and there's no vital reason for the pandemic to continue. If that's true, then I hope the problem ends miraculously soon.

However, if there are still lessons humanity needs to learn from the coronavirus, then I hope we all collectively learn those lessons, and, once again, I hope we do it soon, because I doubt this pandemic will end before we do.

In Case This Doesn't Work

By the time you read this, assuming you read my daily blog posts daily, it will be the day of the Worldwide Fast to end the Coronavirus. I have mixed feelings about this. I think it's great that humanity is coming together (figuratively speaking) to fast for an end of the pandemic and its related issues, and I certainly hope it works, but I also don't want to put too much stock in it, in case it doesn't work.

Don't get me wrong; I know that miracles can happen. I just don't think that they can be depended on to always happen on demand. God rewards the prayers of the righteous, but not always with the blessings they ask for. Just in case this virus situation lasts longer than we hope it might, I don't want any of us to take that as a sign that God isn't listening or that He doesn't care. Jesus Christ suffered all of the pain, illness, discomfort, and inconvenience that the coronavirus is putting us all through right now. He knows how we feel, and He doesn't want us to suffer any more than we have to. Yet, sometimes, some suffering is necessary. Of course we can pray for this burden to be lifted, bur maybe there's strength that we still need to gain by carrying it.

I will fast for the pandemic to end quickly, but if it doesn't, I'm going to try to be okay with that. I know that God wants what's best for us. If "what's best for us" includes a prolonged pandemic, I'm sure He has His reasons, and I'm going to try to trust Him enough to accept "no" as an answer.

Repent and Receive - A Question of Control

When President Nelson told us that "Our ultimate quest in life is to prepare to meet our Maker," he also told us how to do that:

Our ultimate quest in life is to prepare to meet our Maker. We do this by striving daily to become more like our Savior, Jesus Christ. And we do that as we repent daily and receive His cleansing, healing, and strengthening power.

So, in order to prepare to meet our Maker, we are to become more like Jesus Christ by repenting daily and receiving His cleansing, healing, and strengthening power. At first, I thought it was odd that President Nelson listed receiving Christ's power as a thing we need to do, since we have little control over that. We can only receive what we're given, so if Christ doesn't offer us His cleansing, healing, and strengthening power, we can't receive it. Yet, the more I think about it, the more control I think we have.

Firstly, while it's true that Jesus could withhold His blessings from us if He wanted to, that's not what He wants. He offers cleansing, healing and strength to everyone, on the condition of repentance. He has already decided to give us those blessings if we do our part to qualify for them. As long as we repent, which is something we can mostly control, Jesus will offer us His great gifts.

Yet, that doesn't mean that we'll necessarily receive those gifts. Even when we qualify for blessings, we won't always accept them. Christ may forgive us, but will we forgive ourselves? Christ may cleanse and heal us, but we might regain the old stains or reopen our old wounds. And Christ may give us strength, but what good is having strength if we don't use it? Jesus Christ offers us great blessings, but it's up to us to use them.

Essentially, we need to change. Change is the central element of repenting and of making good use of the power Jesus offers us. To repent means to change our behavior. There are a few more steps than that, but change is the biggest one. And the cleansing and healing Jesus offers us won't last long unless we change our ways and stop doing whatever we did to make such cleansing and healing necessary. And the strength we receive from Jesus Christ increases our ability to change.

But of course, the choice of whether we change or not is ultimately up to us. If we choose to repent and change, God will help us to do so, but even then, we have to choose to accept His help and to keep and continue the changes we choose to make. It's all up to us. Whether we choose to change our not, whether we accept God's help of not, and whether or not we ever change back, is all up to us. We control our destinies, including our eternal destiny. The choice of whether we repent and receive God's blessings or not is almost completely in our control.

Our Ultimate Quest in Life

In the Opening Message of the April 2020 General Conference, President Russell M. Nelson said that "Our ultimate quest in life is to prepare to meet our Maker." This is interesting, since, if you had asked me previously, I would have said that our ultimate quest was perfection, yet perhaps the phrase "in life" is important here. Perfection may be our ultimate long-term goal, but that's not practically attainable in this life. Preparing ourselves to meet God is. We don't have to become perfect to be able to honestly say that we are good. Perhaps that's good enough, at least for this life.

Naturally, God wants us to make as much progress as we can in this life, and that progress will continue through the eternities until we attain perfection, but for now, it might be enough to reach the point where we can stand before God without fearing His judgment. That goal sounds lofty enough, in my opinion. And yet, I think it's also realistic, so long as I'm realistic about how much progress God and I can expect of me. I'm an okay person now, maybe even a good one, but I think I can become a very good person before I die. I'll still be far from perfect, but I can at least be good.

Will I be good enough? That's hard to say. Right now, I don't like the idea of going to meet my Maker. I'm not ready. I have a lot of progress I want to make before I'm ready to face Him. So, that'll be my new quest. I still have the plan of getting there through Prayer, Hymns, and Meditation, but now the goal isn't just to draw closer to God but to prepare myself to stand before Him.

Slow Progress

Today, I had a conversation that helped me realize a few things about progress, particularly the timescale on which one can expect it to happen. During that conversation, I realized that I'm basically the same person as I was several years ago, spiritually speaking. I still have many of the same thoughts and struggles that I had years ago. I haven't made much spiritual progress over the years, and that's fairly discouraging. Yet, in the same conversation, I also realized that that might not be as big a problem as I fear. Sure, I haven't made much spiritual progress in the last few years, at least not as far as I could tell, but I have more than a few years worth of time in which to make progress. I have an eternity of progress ahead of me. What matters isn't my rate of progress, but my consistency. As long as I continually get better, no matter the rate, I will eventually reach the goal of perfection. Any [Positive] Speed x Infinite Time = Infinite Distance. So, I shouldn't get discouraged if progress seems to take forever. Instead, I should embrace that and keep making progress forever. Life isn't a sprint; it's a marathon. The goal isn't to have quick, flash-in-the-pan results, but to make real, eternal (albeit slow) progress.

Pausing and Repeating Conference

One thing that's great about watching General Conference online is that you can pause it, rewind it, rewatch some sections, and then watch it at an increased speed until you catch up with the live stream. This allowed me to quickly rewatch some parts to help their messages sink in, pause whenever I wanted to refill my water bottle or get more snacks, and even take a walk in the middle of a session. It was super convenient. In fact, I may do that again in the future, even when we can meet up again and watch Conference at the same time. Being able to repeat certain parts of talks and pause to take notes really enhanced my experience, and it was also great to be able to pause Conference entirely and go out to process some thoughts. It was a great experience, and as technology permits, I may repeat it.

The Long Countdown to Conference

Conference kinda sneaked up on me this year, possibly because of all the disruption from the COVID-19 quarantine situation. Since we were already doing church from home, attending General Conference (also from home) didn't involve much of a change, so the fact that this week was General Conference didn't stand out to me very much.

But there's another factor that probably had an even bigger impact on me not anticipating Conference this weekend: I didn't blog about the previous session's Conference talks. I didn't lead up to this Conference by spending the last six months blogging about each of the five sessions of last General Conference. Blogging about Conference was a good habit to develop, but I just sorta dropped the ball and was too lazy to pick it back up.

That changes this month. This month, I'm going to blog about every talk from the Saturday Morning Session of the April 2020 General Conference. Next month, I'm going to cover the Saturday Afternoon Session, and so on. And in September, I'll spend at least a few blog posts preparing for the October 2020 General Conference. By keeping Conference in my mind during the intervening six months, I plan to not let next Conference sneak up on me like this one did. Now, I may have to skip a talk here or there if I can't think of anything to say about it and it looks like I'm going to fall behind schedule, but by and large, I plan to cover almost every April 2020 Conference talk before the October 2020 General Conference starts. I let the last Conference fall by the wayside. I'm not making the same mistake with this one.

On Needing Encouragement

This morning, I spent quite some time trying to figure out whether I needed something (or at least thought I needed it) or merely wanted it. Specifically, I was thinking about encouragement.

I want to be encouraged. I want to be told "you can do this." I want to be reminded what I'm capable of. I want people to believe in me to the point where I start to believe in myself.

But do I need that? Do I need people to believe in me? Will I fail if they don't? And if I do fail, is that someone else's fault for not encouraging me, or is it actually my responsibility to do my best, regardless of the actions of others?

Of course I bear the full responsibility for my successes and failures. Others may help or hinder me, but in the end, it's all on me. Sure, encouragement would be nice, but I shouldn't rely on it. I don't need encouragement.

At least, I shouldn't. I shouldn't need encouragement. I shouldn't need help. I should be able to succeed on my own with no help from anyone, But what if I can't? What if my own abilities aren't enough, and I need a little encouragement to give me the extra push I need to succeed? Is it possible to literally need encouragement? Or is this whole blog post just me trying to rationalize "needing" something because I want it?

I'm not sure anymore. Actually, I was never sure to begin with. I don't know whether I really need encouragement or whether I just want to think I need encouragement because I actually merely want it. It's tricky. I certainly want encouragement, but I'm not at all sure whether I actually need it or not.

Otter Envy

Today, a friend and I traded video recommendations, which led to me watching videos made by a person with a pet otter. I remarked on how cute the otter looked and sounded, with its long body and little ears. I admitted to being a little jealous. Yet, there were two caveats to my jealousy. First, I had a feeling that caring for an otter isn't easy. He looked cute, but he also looked like a handful. Second, my family already has a posse of pets who, despite their flaws, make fine companions.

I realized, as I watched those otter videos, that I was looking at the grass on the other side of the fence. Why should I be jealous of an otter when I already have a big, warm furball purring in my lap? Sure, I would rather that she not claw through my pajamas, but to that end, I can wear pants with thicker fabric. I imagine that the downsides of owning an otter can't be allayed as easily as putting on a pair of pants. Yes, the otter was cute, but why should I be jealous of someone else's pet when I already live with a handful of nice pets?

Watching those videos helped me remember that counting one's own blessings leads to a happier life than daydreaming about someone else's. God has already blessed me with a good life that includes good pets. I know better than to be jealous of someone else's.

The Transformative Power of the Atonement

Tonight, for family scripture study, we read the experiences of some people who, despite once being wicked, were able to be redeemed through the power of the Atonement.The Atonement's power consistently impresses me. Through the Atonement, any amount or severity of sin can be cleansed away, so long as the sinner is sincerely repentant. No matter what a person has done, God is willing to help them turn their life around and repent, and they can repent and be forgiven. Many of the people we read about completely changed their lives after their experience with repentance. Many of them became missionaries. At least one of them became a prophet. And all of them became good people. We can all experience such transformative power. We can all repent and change the course of our lives significantly. We can all become completely different people, and the Atonement is the power that makes it possible.