Facing Physical Limitations

Today, my brother and I went for a bike ride. It was nice, except that it was hot and sunny, and I got sunburned and overwhelmingly tired. Since then, I have rested somewhat, but I still need a good night's sleep (or more) before I feel ready to take on any more physical challenges.

Our bodies are amazing, but they have their limits. I appreciate how much I can do with and for others, but I look forward to the day when I never have to work about sunburns, leg cramps, or exhaustion ever again. Having a perfect body will be really nice.

In the meantime, I will work with what I have, do what I can, and respect my body's limits. My body can do great things, and I'm thankful for that. But for now, so long as my body is mortal, I need to respect its limits and give it the rest it needs to recover.

Omni-Present Imperfection

Nothing is perfect. No one is perfect. Every individual, group, nation, organization, notion, philosophy, religion, cause, etc., every everything has its pros and cons. Sometimes, there's a lot more of one than another, so we can judge someone or something as being mostly good or mostly bad, but it's never perfectly good or completely bad. Everyone and everything has a mix of good and bad traits (and we might not even agree on which traits are "good" or "bad" traits anyway).

And that's okay. People don't have to be perfect yet. Though we should all strive toward perfection, none of us are ever going to get there in this life, yet, at the same time, even the most depraved people are children of God who, at at least one point in their premortal lives, were on the side of Heaven'y Father and Jesus Christ. No one's pure good, but no one's pure evil, either. And the same thing goes for anything any human being has ever touched.

We should learn to accept the world and the imperfections of everyone and everything in it. These imperfections can be frustrating at times, but they can be endured. Naturally, I'd like the world to be different, perhaps even perfect, but to be perfect is to be without human influence, and I'm not sure I want to live in a world like that. Every human has imperfections, and those imperfections spread to everything we effect imperfectly. That's something we just have to learn to live with, regardless of how much we'd rather that things and people were perfect.

Life's as Good as We Are

Today, I got a reminder that life is, at least to some extent, what we make of it. Those who make poor choices and make themselves and others miserable are going to have a miserable life, regardless of how blessed their life was at the start. Conversely, those who strive to be righteous and promote the happiness of others are likely to live a fulfilling life, even if they have very little in the way of other blessings. Granted, people's life circumstances, can make certain actions and attitudes harder or easier to maintain, but still, our lives are about as good as we decide to believe they are and as we decide to be. The better we are and the more righteous we are, the better our lives will be.

If that's true, then I choose to try to be good and to try to believe that my life is good, too.

Doing the Right Thing

Today, I saw someone do the right thing. They went out of their way to do it, even though they could easily have done otherwise and only a handful of mortal souls would have known the difference. This person has already faced some consequences of doing the right thing, and they are almost certain to face more. They knew about the potential consequences when they did the right thing, yet they did the right thing anyway. I have a great deal of respect for this person, and I can only hope that I have the moral courage to follow their example.

Calling Dibs on the Higher Shelves

Today, I was part of a group of people who were called upon to clean a kitchen. Being one of the taller of us, I "called dibs" on cleaning the higher shelves. But that wasn't where I was needed. Being also one of the younger of the volunteers, I was the one who would have the least difficulty getting down to clean the lower shelves. It wasn't glamorous or appealing work, and it wasn't the work I wanted, but it was the work that was needed of me.

We don't always get the assignments we want or feel most qualified for. Sometimes, God has other plans for us. All of the work needs to be done, and there are going to be times when the less-pleasant work falls to us. Naturally, I would rather have cleaned the higher shelves, and I even said as much, but that wasn't what was needed. I needed to clean the lower shelves, so I did.

We can ask for whatever blessings and assignments we want, and sometimes we get them, but at other times, we are given other, less desirable work to do, and it's still our responsibility to do it, regardless of what we wanted. I would have rather cleaned the higher shelves, but I'm glad that I was still willing to clean the lower ones, despite calling dibs.

Spiritual Sunburns

This last Sunday, during the Sacrament Meeting Devotional Thingy, someone gave a talk that started by describing the benefits of sunshine and how spiritual light is even more beneficial to us. However, as a redhead with freckles and a tendency to get sunburns, I could hardly help thinking that, just as there are benefits to getting a good amount of sunshine, there can be drawbacks to getting too much. 

From there, I wondered if it was possible to have too much spiritual light, to have too much faith, to spend too much time too close to God. I even thought of a few ways in which that may be possible. Mortal beings can't endure the presence of God without special protection. The sinful can't endure being in His presence at all. Putting too much faith in a mistaken belief can cause someone to make more and greater mistakes. There are rare, specific instances where it's theoretically possible to have too much exposure to spiritual light.

However, that's not a problem that most people have, and it's certainly not a problem that I have or am at risk of having. I am (hopefully) not going to spend time in the presence of God for a very long time (or at least as long as it takes me to repent). And I don't have too much faith in anything. If anything, I have too little. It's theoretically possible to get a "spiritual sunburn," but that's not a problem that I really need to worry about. Other people might have to problem of having too much faith, but I don't, and the possibility of me being burned by God is more of a problem of having too much darkness than of me having too much light.

Spiritual sunburns can, theoretically, happen, but as long as I keep repenting, I don't really have to worry about them ever happening to me.

Faithful Despite Doubts

A lot of my thoughts right now are somewhat blogworthy, but perhaps too weird or doubtful for this blog. It might be interesting to explore the question of whether or not clones have souls, but I don't think it'll give anyone anything practical that they can apply. And I'm not sure whether or not it's wise to dwell on my doubts and questions. Naturally, the faithful answer would be to abandon my doubts and live by faith, but I seriously question any individual or organization that discourages critical thinking. However, that same kind of critical thinking kinda lead me back into having faith. The gospel is either true or false. If it's true, then it's important to live the gospel, and if it's false, then it's just another way to live, not necessarily any better or worse than most other ways to live. Thus, it makes sense to live the gospel, either because it's true, or because living the gospel is just as valid as not living it. Of course, this conclusion may just be me taking the easy way out. I'm continuing to live the gospel, or at least try to, partly because this is how I was raise to live. Had I been born Catholic, I'd have stayed in the Catholic church. Still, I'm a decent person and I'm a member of what seems to be a decent church. Here's hoping God's not going to judge me too harshly for staying on a decent path.

Reasons Not To Give Reasons

I guess we can't always expect God to explain everything. Sometimes, He gives us commandments that don't seem to make sense, and He asks us to trust Him. And He has plenty of plausible reasons to not explain things. Sometimes, the explanation is too complex for us to understand. Sometimes the reasoning is based on information that we don't have and aren't supposed to have. Sometimes, He doesn't explain things because we forget to ask Him to or because we aren't in tune enough to clearly hear His explanations. And sometimes, we just need to exercise our faith. We need to learn to trust Him.

I struggle with this. I wish God would tell me why certain commandments are commandments, why certain things have to be done in certain ways. I want to understand His logic and why e came to the conclusions He came to, rather than simply taking it on faith.

I don't just want to do what God says "because God said so." I want to make my own decisions, and I want my decisions to be wise, well-informed decisions. I want to know what God knows and understand what God understands and make my decisions based on the same knowledge ans wisdom God uses to determine the decisions He says I should make.

I want God to explain things to me, even though I know, on some level, that there are at least a handful of half-decent reasons why He doesn't always explain things.

Attitudes are Contagious

One aspect that's a double-edged sword about attitudes is that they're contagious. This can be a good thing. Having a positive attitude can help others to have a positive attitude as well, helping everyone to have a better time, regardless of circumstances. However, the inverse is also true. Negative attitudes also spread and drag others down. This, I believe, is part of the reason why it's important to try to have patience and a positive attitude, partly for one's own benefit, and partly for the benefit of others. It's good to spread positive attitudes, and it's important not to spread negative ones. 

To that end, when I feel myself having negative emotions, I sometimes try to distance myself from others, so my negative attitude can't rub off on them and/or so their negative attitudes can't continue to rub off on me. Of course, that's not always possible. When I have a negative attitude and have to be around others, I at least try to stay quiet, so my negative attitude doesn't spread.

In contrast, when I have a positive attitude, I try to share it. When I feel good, I try to help others feel good as well.

We should be mindful of our attitudes and whether or not we want them to spread, because attitudes can be contagious, whether we want to spread them or not.

Good Attitude, Good Day

Today was a good day. It's true that a significant portion of today didn't go as planned, but everyone involved maintained a fairly positive attitude and, as a result, everyone had a pretty good time.

I think that attitude is important. With a positive attitude, almost nothing can get you down. With a negative attitude, almost anything can. I have experience with both. For today, I expected it to be a good day, and that expectation and positive attitude helped to make it one.

I'm glad that today was a good day, and I hope and expect that the future holds many more good days, partly because I know that I can make them good.

Prayer > Magic

I'm currently trying to work out the magical logistics of maintaining lines of communication across an enormous dungeon complex. So far, it's been difficult to find the right spells and magic items to make it possible for enough creatures to communicate with each other with great enough frequency to be feasible.

Fortunately, communicating with God is much easier. We don't need to expend spell slots or use magic items to talk to God, we can begin the conversation instantly (as an Action, as it were), and the duration of the conversation is whatever we want it to be. We can pray to God across any distance, which is fortunate, because I don't even know where exactly God physically is, and we can do it as many times per day as we want to.

It's a really perfect system. If only magic were as easy.

Birthday Service

I currently plan to spend part of my birthday doing service for someone I don't even know. And you know what? I kinda love this idea. I like doing service (so long as I don't feel overwhelmed or put upon by it), and I love to feel useful and valuable. The service will be physical work, which I enjoy, and I think the exercise will be good for me. The fact that I'm doing this for someone I don't know is the real cherry on top. I'm not doing this out of a sense of obligation because I have no obligation to whomever this person is. I will grant you, I may be doing this at least partly for the brownie points (I am blogging about it, after all), and it doesn't hurt that a friend of mine will be there too, but really, I'm looking forward to doing some simple, physical work for someone, just because I can.

My birthday is going to be a good day, and doing service for a stranger is going to be a good part of it.

We Need to Help Each Other

In his talk, Poor Little Ones, Elder Jorge T. Becerra spoke of how we all need each other. This can be true in many ways. Those who are more than self-sufficient in certain ways can help those who are less than self-sufficient, but they are not exempt from needing help in other ways, nor does it mean that they couldn't benefit from the help, even if they don't really need it. We all benefit from helping each other in any ways we can, so let's try not to be too selfish to help each other or too proud to accept the help. No human being is completely self-sufficient. We all need help, and we all need to help each other.

Peace in the Gospel

In his Saturday Afternoon Session General Conference talk, Not as the World Giveth, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland spoke, at least briefly, about the peace that is offered by God and that cannot be provided by the world. He spoke of challenging times and afflictions that would befall everyone, even the faithful, and he warned that the practices of the world were more likely to do harm than good, but he assured us that, through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we can each find personal peace, regardless of the afflictions we face in the world. I'm grateful to have such a clear and simple path to peace as following the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I still sometimes struggle, as we all do, but I know where I can turn for help in my struggles, and I know that, through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I can ultimately find peace.

Nothing New About Temples

I've been stuck on President Eyring's talk, I Love to See the Temple, for quite some time now, partly because he doesn't say much in this talk that hasn't been said before. We can receive blessings through the temple. In temples, families can be sealed for eternity. We have to be worthy to obtain and retain the blessings of the temple. Stuff like that. There was very little that was ground-breaking in his talk that morning. But you know, that's probably okay. Not all of my blog posts have been ground-breaking either. Sometimes, a message doesn't have to be new to be inspiring and/or important. Temples are important and often inspiring, but there's little new about them. A message, or a building, doesn't have to be new to be good.

Temples are holy, blessed places, and we ourselves will be more holy and blessed for going there. That's not a new message, but it's still an important one.

Unexplainable Struggles

There's a quote on the internet, "Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Don't be judgmental. Be kind." I believe that this is true, even if the person in question has told you about the battle they're fighting. It's often difficult, if not impossible, to fully explain what a person is experiencing. Our personal struggles cannot be explained or understood, except by God.

So I consider it absolutely essential to be kind to others, to give them the benefit of a doubt, cut the some slack, and try to understand their point of view. We may never understand their struggles, but we can understand that they struggle, and we can try to make that struggle easier rather than harder.

We all face challenges. We all want sympathy. We should all be kind. 

Cooperation

I just finished playing a cooperative game called Sub Terra 2, and I am anxiously awaiting my next opportunity to play another cooperative game, Dungeons and Dragons. I like cooperative games because in these games, all of the players can work together and win together. I think life's better when we can cooperate and help each other than when we're constantly competing and trying to defeat each other. Granted, competition has its place. So long as the competition is friendly, the competitors can encourage each other to continually strive to improve, but I believe that improvement happens faster when people work together.

Cooperation is a wonderful thing, and I love it when games and tasks give us the opportunity to practice and employ it.

The Importance of Rubik's Cubes

I love Rubik's Cubes. I love turning the sides with my hands, moving the pieces around, creating disorder, and then creating order again. I like the sense of accomplishment I get from solving the Rubik's Cube quickly or with only one hand. I know that the thing is practically pointless, barely more than a toy, but it gives me some satisfaction.

Many things are similarly unimportant, mere toys or games. Yet, these unimportant, fictional things can have real, important effects on people. The media we consume (including social media and the news), the games we play (with or without such things as boards, cards, or dice), and everything else we do or interact with, has an effect on us. Even if we know that such things aren't real or important, the effects they have on us are.

Rubik's Cubes are important, at least for me, because they help me feel better about myself. Feeling good about oneself is important, and it's fortunate that Rubik's Cubes have the effect on me. I encourage you to think about the toys, games, and other media in your life, and think about what effects they have on you. Some things are surprisingly important. Other things are important to avoid. It's important to know which is which.

Personally, there are several toys, games, and pieces of media in my life that I acknowledge have little eternal significance. Yet, I know that they have effects on me. And so long as those effects are good, the things that have those effects can be considered to be important, at least to me.

Less Judgmental, More Forgiving

In his talk, Elder Gerrit W. Gong spoke of how we are to seek perfection in Jesus Christ:

His is a gospel of second and third chances, made possible by His atoning sacrifice. He invites each of us to be ... less judgmental and more forgiving of ourselves and of each other, even as we strive more fully to keep His commandments.

Nobody is perfect. Even as we strive to be perfect, it's going to take us a long time and many corrected missteps to get there. We're all in the same boat in that regard. Most people are trying to be decent people, at least from their own points of view, so we should all try to give each other some credit and cut each other some slack.

Many people in the world are more judgmental, of themselves and/or others, than is entirely healthy. I'm one of those people. Being too hard on myself and others is something I could stand to work on. I think we could all use more compassion, including self-compassion, and less judgmentalism.

Jesus Christs forgives everyone He can, and we should do the same. Naturally, we shouldn't tolerate, support, or assist in bad behavior, but we should forgive it, and we should try to understand and have compassion for those who engage in it. We're all human. We're all imperfect. We all struggle with various things. I think we should be able to empathize with each other about that.

Recharging

Sometimes, when I'm feeling angry or frustrated, I try to discharge that negative energy. I imagine myself channeling that negative energy into my hands, and when I have it sufficiently concentrated, I imagine myself blasting that negative energy out of my body like a lightning bolt. Sometimes I aim for a car or a streetlight, or I just shoot the negative energy out a window. It helps. But tonight, I discovered something else that seemed to work: discharging, but backward.

I call this new method "recharging." Instead of focusing my negative energy and shooting it out, I focused on positive energy and pulled it in. Strangely, the energy I imagined still took the form of lightning, and once I pulled it into myself, I felt reenergized. Imagining pulling positive energy in actually helped me feel like I had more energy -- enough to write this blog post.

Still, I know that "recharging" is no replacement for doing things that will actually reenergize me, like getting rest, drinking water, and eating decent food. I should do all those things, too. But in clutch moments, when I just need a little bit more energy, I now know one more way to try to draw it in.

One Day at a Time

We've all heard the advice of taking things "one day at a time," but that advice has never really settled well with me. It seems to me that, in most cases, it makes sense to have a plan that extends beyond the current day, even if the plan is conditional or may need to be adjusted later. It seems to me that planning in advance is usually better than just taking things "one day at a time." But now I think that that may not be what that advice actually means.

Yes, of course it's smart to have a plan for the future. The only trouble is that those plans aren't really actionable in the moment. I can have a plan to do laundry at the end of the week, but there's not much I can do with that plan at the moment. I suppose I could presort my laundry or double-check the laundry supplies, if I think that that would help, but other than that, all I can do is wait.

This condition happens surprisingly often. We make plans for the future, but there's only so much time and energy within any given day. That's why, while it's helpful to have a plan for what you're going to do in the coming days, it's also important to focus on what you're doing today, at this very moment. Really, the current moment is all we have access to, so it makes sense to focus on it and make good use of it.

For me, taking things "one day at a time" means that I'm not spending today's time or energy worrying about tomorrow's problems. I'll spend today's time and energy doing today's work, and if I have any left over, then I'll apply it toward the next day. But otherwise, tomorrow's another day. Tomorrow will have the usual 24 hours in it, and I'll have the energy to face it after I rest tonight. "Sufficient is the day for the evil thereof," or something like that.

I'll use tomorrow's time and energy to do tomorrow's work. In the meantime, I'm going to use tonight's time to rest.

Inherent Gender Traits?

I'm currently writing an essay about some of the strong female characters in the Shakespeare plays I've read, and it has occurred to me that many of them are so powerful because they demonstrate a certain amount of courage and boldness, which is generally considered a masculine trait. I don't think I'll explore this in my essay, but I wonder to what extent gendered traits are social constructs and to what extent those traits are actually inherent to the gendered spirits we had, even before we were born and exposed to any Earthly cultures. 

Courage, for example, seems to be a virtue, no matter what a person's gender is (though perhaps I only see courage as an inherent virtue because I am a man and thus courage is inherently virtuous to me). Granted, I can imagine situations where too much courage can be a vice, consistent with Aristotle's virtue theory of ethics, but I wonder, is that point inherently reached sooner for women than for men? It's normally a man's role to protect women, so a man should rush into battle in situations where women should run to safety. However, this protective role may merely be a societal construction since fewer males are needed to maintain and grow a population. From the perspective of the population as a whole, men are more expendable, and thus better suited to dangerous tasks, like fighting. This may also be part of the reason men are typically stronger than women. Since men are risked in combat more often, the ones that survive are usually the stronger ones, and they're the ones who pass on more of their genes.

However, when we're all immortal, no one will need protecting. Will courage still be a virtue then, for anyone? And whether it's a virtue or not, is courage an inherent trait, already part of our spirits before they're born? If so, is this trait more common in man than in women? Is it an actually inherent trait, or is the apparent link between courage and masculinity just an effect of the societies in which most of us were raised? Are there inherent masculine and feminine traits? If not, what does it mean to say that disembodied male and female spirits are different? Or, if there are inherent masculine and feminine traits, which traits are which?

I may not get definite answers to these questions. I may or may not even keep asking them. But I still wonder, if only in passing, what the differences between male and female spirits are. Are there traits shared by more male spirits than female ones or vice versa? I assume there must have been. Otherwise, what could it possibly mean that some spirits are male and others as female? They must have distinguishable, inherent traits. I'll admit that his is more confusing than it is edifying, and there are so many other factors, it's really hard to tell which traits are inherent and which are learned. And it probably doesn't matter.

Suffice it to say that men and women complete each other, regardless of which traits allow them to do that and which ones are inherent and which ones are learned.

Non-Monetary Gifts

I have a confession to make. I didn't buy my mom anything for Mother's Day. However, I think that's okay. There are many different kinds of gifts and many different ways to give them. For example, God has never bought me or my mom any gifts, but that doesn't mean that He hasn't given us gifts, and even though His gifts aren't physical objects, that doesn't make them any less valuable. God's gifts to us are intangible, often invisible, but still invaluable. Hopefully, my "gift" to my mom was valuable as well.

I didn't buy my acts of service at a store, and I didn't wrap them, but God doesn't do that, either, and His gifts are still wonderful. I hope my gift to my mom was acceptable, too.

When We Don't Have the Words

I just saw and shared this image on Facebook, and I just wanted to use this blog post to emphasize the fact that God knows every thought of our hearts, even if we don't have the words to express them, and that we should always pray to God, even if we don't know what to say. I'm grateful that God understands us even better than we understand ourselves and the He loves us, no matter what. I'm grateful that we can always reach out to Him and that He will always reach back with love. And I'm grateful that God can help us sort things out, even when they seem hopelessly tangled to us.

God is the best friend we could ever hope for. We can always talk to Him, even when we don't have the words.

"Faithful, One-Hundred Percent"

Tonight, my family and I watched two musicals, both performed by casts of kids, including two of our nieces. One of those musicals was Seussical, in which Horton the Elephant does everything in his power to protect a tiny world and an abandoned egg, despite serious setbacks. As he faces these challenges, he sometimes recalls his promises, saying "I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful, one-hundred percent."

It is difficult to reach that level of faithfulness, and it's even harder to maintain it when setbacks and difficulties occur, but this gives us something to strive for. We should all strive to be perfectly faithful to our promises and covenants. And when we fail, we should repent and strive to do better.

Horton's example of faithfulness was impressive, inspiring, and a little daunting. It's not easy to be that faithful, but we should all strive to be "faithful, one-hundred percent."

The Need For Love

Elder Gary E. Stevenson began his Saturday Morning talk by sharing the story of how a group of rabbits had significantly better health outcomes because they were given kindness and love in addition to their normal care and food. I don't personally know about the health benefits of kindness, but I know that our lives can be improved, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, by sharing and receiving love and kindness.

Case in point, I've been feeling kind of stressed lately. It's finals time, and I've been struggling a bit with my final paper, balancing my other responsibilities, and just dealing with the situation rather poorly. I'm sure my stress has become noticeable because my family has made an effort to show me some extra kindness, and it has really helped me. It's comforting to know that there are people in this world who truly love me, even when I'm not at my most lovable. I don't know what affect this kindness may have had on my physical health, but I'm happy to say that my emotional health has begun to improve.

People need love. It might be a physical need, an emotional need, or even a spiritual need, but whatever kind of need it is, people need love. And, in order for people to feel love, other people have to share it. That's part of why we should always try to share love with others, and perhaps with ourselves as well. Love is essential. The more of it we can share, the better. And, unfortunately, it's when people are the hardest to love that they are likely most in need of it.

So, let's all try to show love and kindness, to ourselves and to each other. We all need it.

Not Healing While Hurting

I've started playing a mobile game called Shootero. It's an arcade-like game where you control one spaceship, and you have to fight your way through waves of other spaceships. As you proceed, you can collect "mods," which temporarily improve your ship's abilities. One of my favorite mods for this game is Regeneration, which lets your ship regain some HP every second, but there's a catch. Regeneration only works if you haven't taken damage within the last few seconds. With Regeneration, if you want to stop taking damage first.

I think there's something profound in that that can be applied to other aspects of life. A knife wound, for example, can't heal until the knife is removed, and no cut would heal if it kept getting cut open during the healing process. So, at least physically, we can't heal while we're still getting hurt.

I wonder if this applies spiritually as well. Naturally, we can't repent of a sin while we're still committing it (except perhaps if we're trying to stop). Repentance doesn't work like that. Repentance means change. If we're not changing our behavior for the better, then we're not really repenting.

But might this apply emotionally as well? It could be that our hearts can't heal until they stop getting broken. Maybe we can't effectively de-stress until the distress stops. I don't know; I'm not an expert. Anyhow, stopping the continuation and/or repetition of the problem is, generally, an important step in solving the problem. Before things can get better, they need to stop getting worse.

So, if you need to, turtle up. Focus on defense. Do what you can to slow the problem down, or even stop it, if you can. Then you can focus of rebuilding and repairing what was broken. Healing can't begin until the harm stops. So avoid harm as much as possible (both causing it and receiving it), take a breather, and relax. Once the hurting stops, the healing can begin.

Trust the Living Spirit

In Star Wars, characters are sometimes reminded to trust in the Force, particularly in the living Force, and from there, it's not much of a stretch to say that we should have as much trust in the living, Holy Spirit. We should learn to listen to Him and follow His prophetic promptings. Just as the Force can guide Jedi to accomplish great, impossible, and miraculous things, the Holy Ghost can guide us to accomplish seemingly impossible miracles as well. To do that, we need to have faith in the Holy Spirit, to listen for His promptings, and to act on them in faith. We need to trust in the living Spirit. And if we do, there's no telling what amazing feats we could accomplish.

Accountability Based on Control

I am somewhat comforted by the belief that we will only be judged based on things that we can control. For example, we can't control whether or how we are tempted, so we won't be judged for experiencing the temptations we face. However, we can control (and will be judged based on) how we respond to our temptations. Similarly, we cannot control the actions of others, but we can almost always control our own actions, so we will only be judged based on our own actions, not the actions of others. No matter what other people are doing, we should try to do what we believe is right.

We can control quite a bit, and thus, we are responsible for quite a bit, but I'm grateful that we won't be held accountable for things that are outside of our control.

We Need Each Other

Last night, I stumbled upon a song titled Each Other, by and artist called Notaker, and it hit me pretty hard. The song spoke of hardship and difficulty and of needing someone, but the refrain of the song speaks of needing each other. I know that I need God's help, especially when times are hard, but does God ever need mine? I think so, for one very important reason: He's not here.

God has a physical body, and wherever that body is, it's probably not on Earth. At the very least, it's not everywhere on Earth at once. Ditto for Jesus. The Holy Ghost can be everywhere at once, but, not having a body, there are some severe limitations on what He can do. If God wants something done, like delivering cookies or flowers to people, He either needs to perform a rather significant miracle, send an angel or some other celestial being to do it, or ask us to. So, God doesn't really need us, but He could definitely use our help.

And when it comes to our personal decisions, He definitely needs our help. What we struggle most with in this life is temptation, and while it's true that we sometimes need God's help in resisting temptation, He also needs ours. Even with all His miracles and angels, He can't make our decisions for us, and even if He could force us to make the right decisions, doing so would thwart His aims. We need His strength and wisdom to have the power to make he right choices, but He needs us to actually make the decisions ourselves.

And so, when we get right down to it, we really do need each other. We need God to lend us His strength and wisdom, and He needs us to exercise our agency. Neither He nor I could thwart my demons on our own. We need each other's help. I'm comforted in the knowledge that God and I are in this together and that we're both essential parts of this partnership. It's nice to feel needed. And it's impressive that, as much as we need God to do His part, He needs us to do ours.

I already knew that I needed Him, but last night, that song taught me that we need each other.

Here to Help, Happy to Help

I've known for a long time that helping others is part of the purpose of my existence, yet I sometimes struggle with it. I do it, but I don't always have the best attitude about it. I need to work on that. I should try to figure out how one can adjust one's attitude so I can try to make myself happier about working to serve others. I can't apply practical repentance to this, because I don't know, specifically, what I need to do, and, at the moment, I don't want to, but I know that helping others is the part of the purpose of my existence, so I might as well learn to have a half-decent attitude about it.