Prayers of Any Length

One neat thing about prayers is that they can be literally any length. Of course, you can pray for as long as you want about anything you want to pray about, and that can make your prayer as long as you need it to be, but shorter prayers are also valid. It's nice to include the niceties of "Dear Heavenly Father" and "In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen," but these can be abbreviated, or even eliminated. Perhaps it's good to start a prayer of thanks with "My dear, kind, loving Heavenly Father, I thank thee for..." and then list every blessing you've ever received, and close with "in the name of my Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Amen," but it's also good to periodically look up toward heaven and just say a heartfelt "Thanks." Honestly, I'm sure we don't even need words at all. You can send your thoughts to God, and He'll hear them and understand them as clearly as though you had said them all out loud.

We can say prayers with dozens, or perhaps even hundreds of words in them, if we feel the need to, but we can also "say" prayers using no words at all. The lengths of our prayers can be whatever we want or need them to be, whether that's exceptionally long or infinitely short. I'm sure God is just glad to hear from us, however what length our prayers are.

Taking a Moment to Connect with God

To be honest, I had forgotten that seeking spiritual nourishment was one of my goals for today. Serves me right for not writing it down on a To Do list. But when I was reminded of this goal a few minutes ago, I figured that it's never too late to start. I set my computer aside for a moment, clasped my hands together, and, well, I'm not sure if "prayed" is the right word to use, but I definitely connected to God in some way, even if it wasn't a traditional prayer. Most importantly, I felt the Spirit when I connected to God like that, and it only took me a moment to do.

I should try to remember this trick. There are times when I feel frustrated, and I generally try to plow through my problems and anyone who happens to be in my way, but that's not productive, and it certainly isn't Christlike. It would be much better, both for others' sake and for the sake of my own emotional health, to instead take a moment, breathe, connect with God, and then proceed with a serenity born of eternal perspective and Christlike love.

No matter what time it is or how little time we have, we can almost always take a moment to connect with God, and we will be richly blessed if we do. Connecting with God will help us be more Godlike, if only for a few minutes at a time, and it will also help us improve our emotional state and possibly receive inspiration. Great benefits can come from taking a moment to connect with God, and it only take a moment to do it.

Seeking Spiritual Nourishment

Today, when I went to church, I came seeking spiritual nourishment. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. Instead of hearing a message that would increase my faith or help me have the courage and determination to press forward, I got to sit through half an hour of asking for volunteers for various service projects followed by a half-hour lecture on how we're not doing enough home teaching / ministering. Sadly, that's par for the course for Elder's Quorum.

I hate that the church keeps asking for my time and service, but it often fails to offer me what I want in return. I want peace. I want spiritual power. When I go to church, I want to feel the Spirit, not feel pressured to do more service or feel belittled for not doing enough. You can't drink water out of an empty cup. I need to have my cup refilled.

Though maybe I shouldn't look to the church, or at least not to church meetings, for my spiritual nourishment. I can get spiritual nourishment through more independent methods, like prayer, scripture study, and singing hymns. I can get spiritual nourishment by meditating, especially out in nature or at the temple. I have more than one chance, once per week, to gain the spiritual nourishment I need for the week. I'm grateful that there are so many sources for spiritual nourishment, beyond the source that's only accessible on Sundays.

I didn't get much spiritual nourishment today, but that's not a problem. I'll get some myself tomorrow.

Impressions about Perfection

Tonight, for family scripture study, we read and listened to Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's talk titled "Be Ye Therefore Perfect—Eventually." In this talk, Elder Holland talked about perfection, what it means, why we can't achieve it in this life, how we can achieve it eventually, and why we should neither slack in our efforts to achieve perfection nor demean nor vilify ourselves when we fall short. It was an excellent talk, and I'm not sure I can do any part of it justice by blogging about it. Still, I can talk about some of the impressions this talk left me with. Thankfully, those impressions included comfort and hope.

I know I'm not perfect. I am horrendously, monstrously far from perfect. I won't detail my sins in this blog post, but suffice it to say that I have sins that I struggle with. We all do. And yet, for now, that is all God asks of us. He knows we sin; He just asks that we try not to. And when we fail, that doesn't change the plan. He just wants us to keep trying. We don't need to beat ourselves up about being imperfect. Beating ourselves up doesn't accomplish anything. We just need to keep trying, keep learning, and keep striving to improve, no matter how much room for improvement we have.

I've blogged before about how Distance = Speed x Time. Spiritually speaking, perfection is a near-infinite distance from where we are now. At any speed, it would take us an eternity to cover that distance. Thankfully, we have an eternity of potential improvement ahead of us. That's part of what Eternal Progression means. As long as we strive to make progress, no matter how slow that progress is or seems now, we will ultimately reach perfection - eventually.

So, when I fall short of my goals, I'll try not to demean or vilify myself for being imperfect. As Elder Holland reminded us, we are imperfect people living in an imperfect world. The goal is not to reach the goal in this life. The goal is to use this life as an opportunity to make some progress at striving toward the goal.

We aren't perfect, and in this life, we aren't going to be. Our goal now is to get ourselves onto the path toward perfection and to develop the habit of striving to follow it.

Praying for Peace

I need to learn patience. Impatience and frustration are two of my weaknesses. Unfortunately, I have been warned of the dangers of asking for patience. It is said that if one prays for patience, one will receive opportunities to practice patience. Thankfully, I have another idea. I will pray for peace and for the ability to retain my peace, regardless of the words and actions of others. I will pray that the Spirit of Peace will rest in my heart and grant me peace.

They say that the purpose of the church is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. When I lose my patience, it is usually because I'm being afflicted. So, when I am feeling afflicted, I will pray for the comfort I need to practice patience and hold my peace.

Judging by Family

One idea that came up in a conversation I had today is that you can't really judge people based on their family. Case in point, Jesus and Satan are spiritually siblings, as are we. In the pre-mortal realm, we all had a basically similar upbringing. Theoretically, we all should have turned out fairly similar, but we didn't. Despite having the same heavenly parents, we all turned out very differently, proving that there are times when the apple does, in fact, fall far from the tree.

Thus, I think it's foolish to judge anyone based on their family. We can assume a likelihood of some degree of similarity, but we can't say for certain how likely they are to be like their family or how similar they are likely to be. We just can't say. So, instead of judging people by their families, we should judge them by their actions (when it's necessary to judge them at all).

It is unwise to judge anyone by their family. The variety of our spiritual family and the human family proves that.

Gradual Growth

When D&D characters gain experience, nothing changes for a long time. Often, many sessions can go by, with the characters gradually growing in experience, but that doesn't make them any stronger, until suddenly, it does. When the characters gain enough experience to level up, they suddenly experience a significant increase in power, gaining more hit points, spell slots, and abilities. When characters level up, the change is sudden and drastic.

We don't work like that. For us, change and growth are gradual, almost imperceptible, like the growth of a tree. A growing tree may hit a few obvious milestones, like growing or dropping leaves, flowers, or fruit, but its height grows so slowly and gradually, one can hardly observe its growth at all. Similarly, most of our growth comes slowly and gradually, and we often don't even notice it's happening. I consider this unfortunate, because obvious advancement can be encouraging, but it is what it is.

We don't "level up," like D&D characters do. We grow slowly toward the light, inch by inch, year by year, like trees do. So, we should be patient with ourselves and our growth and try not to be discouraged by any lack of obvious milestones. Our growth happens gradually, and daily, as long as we remain diligent enough to maintain it.

How To Rest?

I could stand to learn how to rest. This morning and early afternoon, I did a good deal of physical labor, which wasn't too bad, except that it was exhausting. Later this afternoon, after I had had a shower, I had an opportunity to rest, and I kinda took it. I did hardly anything for a few hours, yet it wasn't exactly restful, and I was still tired hours later. Maybe I should have taken a nap?

I'm starting to think that rest requires more than just doing nothing. There's a technique to it, and I'd like to learn it. I want to know how I can rest effectively, especially if that will help me know how to rest and recover more quickly. 

I don't like how I feel and act when I feel tired and/or stressed. If I could learn how to stop feeling that way, that'd be great.

100/100

I've heard it said that it's not enough for a marriage to be 50/50. If each partner gives what they think is 50 percent, there will be less than 100 percent total, and they will each blame each other for not contributing enough. However, when each partner gives 100 percent, when they each devote their whole lives and souls to each other, then there will be more than enough for both of them.

I believe that the same is true for our relationship with God. God is 100 percent devoted to us and our eternal welfare, but that alone is not enough. To achieve salvation and eternal life, it's not enough for Him to be 100 percent devoted to us. We must also be 100 percent devoted to Him.

This is one of the many concepts I've blogged about that I have struggled with and sometimes continue to struggle with. I am reluctant to let myself be or become 100 percent devoted to anyone or anything, at least not unless I know what I'm getting in return. I tend to reserve full commitment until I know what blessings are promised in return from my commitment. Essentially, I've been trying to have a 50/50 relationship with God.

Naturally, this doesn't work. Withholding commitment from God deprives us of some of His choicest blessings. And besides, a half-commitment is hardly any commitment at all. If we want our relationship with God to work out, we need to show Him as much devotion as He shows us. We need to give 100 percent to God, the same as He gives 100 to us. As we do so, we'll strengthen our relationship with God and hasten our progress toward living with Him again.

Trying to have a 50/50 relationship with God doesn't work, so far as I've tried it. The only way a relationship like this can work is if both parties give 100 percent.

Focus and Feast

I should find out what the purposes of church are and how to fulfill them, because I'm pretty sure I haven't been doing that. Today, I physically attended church for the first time in a long time, but I'm not sure I got much more out of it than I get out of attending church virtually. It didn't feel any more real, more impactful, or more powerful than virtual church does.

I think my problem is that I wasn't focused. I wasn't really listening to the speakers or thinking about what they were saying. I wasn't feasting on the word of Christ. I'm not sure I was even snacking on it. I was too distracted, thinking about other things.

I plan to do better tomorrow. I have some plans for tomorrow, so I can't spend all day focused on the gospel, as I arguably should have today, but I can at least spend a solid hour focusing on the scriptures, the gospel, and/or any other spiritual matter I decide to focus on. Frankly, I should make that a daily habit. It would be good to spend an hour each day really feasting on the word of Christ.

I didn't really focus of the gospel today, like I should have, but I will tomorrow.

Enduring and Learning from Afflictions

I'm a little worried. It's so hot where I live right now, and yet, it's not even Summer yet. I'm not sure how hard this Summer is going to be, and I'm not looking forward to it.

Still, I suppose that afflictions, including uncomfortable amounts of heat, are a part of life and an essential part of our spiritual progression. We came to earth partly so we could experience afflictions and the growth that they can bring.

I suppose I should look forward to the coming Summer and the growth experiences I'll have during it. After all, we were excited to come to Earth. Perhaps I should consider myself fortunate that I get to experience some of life's character-building experiences, including heat waves.

Thankfully, I know I'll get through it. I've been blessed with a good deal of comfort and resources that will help me endure the heat of the current heat wave and the coming Summer. I hate to think about how hard this Summer will be for those who aren't as fortunate.I'd like to help them. Maybe I'll manage to think of a way in which I can.

In the meantime, I'm going to try to keep my chin up. Yeah, we're dealing with some unpleasantness right now, but that's life. You endure it, learn from it, and move forwards. Here's hoping that this heat wave and the heat of the Summer might give me something to learn from and help me become a better person.

Team Robarts

When my family attends social events and stays long enough to see the cleanup crew starting to get to work, we usually join them. We've gotten pretty good at it. We take out garbage, clean up messes, and put away tables and chairs. We tend to be fairly diligent about it, and all we need in return is the fuel we need to keep going. We're the best free labor that refreshments can buy. We are Team Robarts. We do good and do it well. And frankly, I'm proud to be a part of the Team. It's work, but it's good work, and I'm proud that we're happy to do it.

Missing Hymns

Today, I was reminded how much I love singing hymns, perhaps not so much in a church setting, but just on my own, where I can sing whatever hymn(s) I feel like singing and take the time to think about the lyrics. I used to sing hymns a lot when I went to the Temple, but I stopped doing that around the time I started to write down my thoughts instead. Frankly, until today, it had probably been several months since I had sung hymns and really meant what I was singing, with maybe one or two exceptions some time in the last few months. The hymnal is full of important messages, both to say and to hear, and I've been missing them.

The scary part was that I hadn't realized I was missing them. Perhaps it was something like the boiling frog, but in reverse. I didn't realize how cold I had been gradually getting until I sang a hymn that warmed my heart. I'm glad this happened. I'm glad I was reminded today of how important hymns are to me, and I'm glad to have them back in my life. I had forgotten how much I need them. Now, I just need to try not to forget again.

Bearing the Standard

Tonight, we read about what an ensign is and about several examples of ensigns, including us. 

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

Matthew 5:14-16

As part of being a light to the world and letting our light shine before others, we should do our best to maintain high moral standards, especially in pubic. This is, of course, far easier said than done, but it's important to try. We can't lead others to the light of the Gospel unless we ourselves are living by it. If we want to help others find the Gospel path, we have to be on it ourselves. Rallying others around the standard of the Church requires us to uphold those standards.

It's important to help others find the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but, to that end, it's even more important to live it.

Deeds and Rewards

D&C 64:11 And ye ought to say in your hearts—let God judge between me and thee, and reward thee according to thy deeds.

The context of this verse was the injunction for wronged individuals to forgive those who have wronged them, trusting that God would reward the wrong-doer(s)'s evil deeds with punishment, but really, God rewards everyone according to their deeds. Those who do good receive additional blessings. Those who do evil are punished. That's justice. Everyone is rewarded according to their deeds.

There have been times when I tried to negotiate with God, agreeing to keep certain commandments or perform certain acts of service only if He would give me certain blessings for doing so. I now realize that I may have been wasting my breath. God always blesses those who do good. I may not have gotten the exact blessings I wanted, but God knows what I need and want, and He was bound to have blessed me with something. I didn't need to negotiate. The fact that I'd be blessed was a given. People are always rewarded according to their deeds. The only exceptions are wrong-doers who repent.

We don't really need to worry about making sure we or others get their just desserts. God's got it covered. Thanks to the Final Judgement and God's granting of various blessings, both here and hereafter, justice is basically a given. All people will be rewarded according to their deeds, whether they be good or whether they be evil. So, let's do good deeds and not worry too much about the past deeds of others. God sees all our deeds and will reward everyone accordingly.

Lifted to Tuna

My brother's cat, Velox, likes tuna, but she doesn't like being picked up, so when the tuna she was looking for was up on an appliance, and she didn't know where it was, she was in a bit of a bind. Fortunately for her, my brother picked her up, despite her protest, and got her to the tuna she wanted, even though that wasn't necessarily how she wanted to get there.

I imagine that this situation plays out fairly often with us. We want blessings, and God knows how to get us those blessings, but unfortunately, the way to get the blessings isn't always as smooth or pleasant as we would like. There are times when, through various afflictions, God helps us get the blessings we want, despite the temporary discomfort we have to experience to get them.

If we really want the blessings we're looking for, we should learn to trust God enough to get us to them, even if the path to our blessings is harder than any that we would willingly choose to follow. We should learn to let God lift us up to the blessings He offers us, even though that means letting our feet leave the ground. We have to give up some of our comfort and control, but what we get in exchange is worth it. In the end, Velox was grateful enough for the tuna to be willing to forgive my brother for picking her up. When we receive our promised blessings, I'm sure we'll be grateful enough for them to forgive God for whatever He had to do to help us get them.

Thank God for Unnoticed Blessings

I didn't stain any of my church clothes today. We were having dinner, and I spilled some salsa on my shirt, and I didn't notice, but I had to go to the bathroom, and that's when I noticed that I had spilled salsa on my shirt, and I was able to clean it up before any stains set in. Naturally, you could call it a coincidence that I had to go to the bathroom immediately after spilling on myself, but I'm not sure that it was. God is very good at being extremely subtle. He can pull strings and work miracles in ways that seem like mere coincidences. Granted, I'm not sure why He does this. Being a bit more open about His influence would make it easier for people to have faith in Him. But I'm sure He has His reasons for making His blessings subtle enough to go unnoticed.

This experience has made me wonder how many blessings God gives me that I don't notice. How many times has He saved me from problems that I never had because He spared me from them? How many times has He worked miracles that seemed like coincidences, luck, or just nature taking its course? How many ties have I failed to thank God for blessings I didn't even notice receiving?

I should thank God more often, and I should serve Him more, to partially pay Him back for the blessings He thanklessly gives me. I'm sure I receive far more blessings than I notice. I should make a point to thank God for the blessings that go unnoticed.

Tricky Puzzles and the Tellers of Truth

Life would be so much simpler if liars were incapable of telling the truth. There are a handful of puzzles in which one individual always tells the truth, and another individual always lies, and you have to ask them tricky questions to find out who's telling the truth and whose information you can trust. Unfortunately, life is more complicated than that. Liars can sometimes tell the truth, and truth-tellers can sometimes tell untruths by accident due to having inaccurate information. Figuring out who's lying and who's telling the truth can be incredibly difficult, especially when people can tell the truth when it suits them or say what they believe is true, but still be wrong.

I'm not sure there are any clever questions one could ask to discern who's right and who's wrong in real life. Instead, I think the Spirit of Discernment is needed. God knows the truth, and He tells it through His Spirit, Prophets, Apostles, and scriptures. We can learn what's true by turning to reliable sources, and the most reliable of all sources is God. So long as we're in-tune with The Spirit (and the spirit we're in tune to is The Holy Spirit rather than an unholy one), we can learn the truth about just about anything we could ever need to know, including who's telling the truth.

Unlike in tricky puzzle riddles, real-world liars aren't always lying, and honest people aren't always right. So, we need to be careful, and we need to make sure we get our most important and trusted information from the Ones who are always honest and always right.

Let Them Learn From Us

Today, I was reminded of a fortunately fictional story in which a man erases practically all human knowledge in existence, at least partly to cover up the devastating mistakes he had made. This is, of course, unproductive and ultimately extremely selfish. The man was right to worry about his legacy, but the right thing to do would have been to let others learn about the mistake he had made, in hopes that they would be wise enough not to repeat them. He should try not to be ashamed to learn from our mistakes and help others learn from them, too. Part of the reason we're on this Earth is to learn from experiences and mistakes, both our own and others'. It's difficult to do that if we aren't willing to share our experiences and even our mistakes with others.

We all make mistakes. When we do, it would be wise to try to learn from our mistakes, and it'd be good to help others learn from them as well.

Missionary Work vs Sharing the Gospel

Tonight, we had dinner with the missionaries, and they encouraged us to share the gospel with others. We call this doing "missionary work," but I don't know if we should call it that. Work has a negative connotation, and we should avoid the implication that this role/task/activity is something that is primarily done by full-time missionaries.

Rather, I think we should call it "sharing the Gospel," because sharing is a good, generous thing that people do for the benefit of others, whereas work is an arduous thing that people do because they have to or because they're being paid to do it, and the Gospel should be the focus, not the missionaries. Personally, I'm not keen of the idea of doing missionary work, but I am far more willing to share the Gospel with anyone I think it could help. I may not go around, passing out copies of The Book of Mormon or urging people to get baptized, but I would be much more comfortable promoting the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Naturally, the difference is merely mental and semantic, but it makes sense to me. Sharing the Gospel sounds nice and easy and much more appealing, whereas missionary work sounds a bit too much like work.

Fun "Challenges"

The challenge of a DM is to create fun challenges for their players. Tonight, however, it turned out that several of the "challenges" I had set up for my players were easily solved, causing me to think that I should make these challenges harder. However, the players had fun "breaking" the puzzles I had put before them, and I guess that's all that really matters. I helped my friends have fun, so I'd say that tonight was a success.

At the end of the day, what's really important is that we help each other have fun, be happy, and find joy. Naturally, living the Gospel is the only way to lasting joy, but outside of the scope of the Gospel, there are countless ways to have fun and find happiness. So long as that fun and happiness don't go against the Gospel, just about any way to get it is about as good as any other. Tonight, we enjoyed the fun of easily overcoming challenges. In the future, we may have the fun of facing difficult challenges and barely overcoming them. I suppose the exact nature of the game doesn't matter, just so long as everyone has a good time. Similarly, the exact nature of a person's life doesn't matter, so long as it makes them happy and brings them joy.

Fixing Unfairness

Life is unfair. When Elder Dale G. Renlund spoke of life's "Infuriating Unfairness," he said both that "Christ will consecrate the unfairness for our gain [and] will use the unfairness for our benefit" and that we should "try to alleviate unfairness where we find it."

I wonder how this is supposed to work out. If the unfairness of life is, ultimately, supposed to work out for our benefit, why try to fix it? Is the unfairness of life a bad thing that we should try to reduce or a good thing that we should try to benefit from?

Of course, the true answer isn't as simple as saying that unfairness is good or bad. It's a mixed blessing, or a beneficial affliction. According to Elder Renlund, we should try to reduce unfairness, and so we should, and I'm sure God will still make sure that everybody benefits from the unfairness before we fix it and/or from the unfairness that persists, despite all our best efforts.

Life is unfair, and God will make sure that that, ultimately, is a good thing. But still, in the meantime, we should do what we can to make life a little less unfair.

Still Greatly Blessed

When misfortune befalls me or someone I care about, as it sometimes does, I occasionally try to remember that, despite our misfortune, we really don't have it so bad. We suffer setbacks, and we sometimes have to do without some of the comforts and conveniences of modern, first world life, but that's pretty close to the extent of our misfortune. We have enough tasty food that we won't go hungry. We have adequate clothing. We have sufficient shelter to remain comfortable. We even have the luxuries of indoor plumbing, electricity, and access to the internet. Compared to many people in the history of the world, we are incredibly richly blessed, even if we have to go without some of those blessings sometimes.

Someone I love has suffered a setback, but that's all it was. They will soon have regained the blessing of which they are now temporarily deprived, and though regaining the blessing will have cost them some money, it won't have broken the bank. This person was, and still is, greatly blessed, setback notwithstanding.

I am thankful to have been blessed in such great abundance, and I try to be grateful for the blessings I retain, even when others are temporarily lost.

Don't Sweat the Temporal Stuff

One thing we discussed in Sunday School today was some instructions God gave to the early saints. Mostly, He gave them the call to do missionary work, and He told them where to go and instructed them to travel quickly, but He wasn't too particular about how they got there, whether they traveled by road or by river, whether they bought their watercraft or made their own, whether they used horses or mules or wagons or not. He told them where to go and what to do, but He wasn't too picky about how they got there.

As we reviewed these instructions, it seemed clear to me that God seemed more concerned with spiritual matters, like the missionary work moving forward quickly, and less concerned with secular matters, like exact modes of transportation. With His eternal perspective, God may not put so much focus onto things that won't ultimately matter in the long run. So maybe we shouldn't either.

Maybe we should learn to pay more attention to spiritual matters and matters of eternal consequence and worry less about mundane, everyday things. It may not ultimately matter which tie or dress we wear on any particular day. It may not matter exactly how we travel or what route we take. Even some of the bigger questions, like what we study in college and what we do for a living, may not matter much, eternally. Instead of worrying about matter of merely temporal significance, perhaps we should place more of our focus on matters of eternity.

We've all heard the advice to not sweat the small stuff, but we should remember that, from the perspective of eternity, anything that is merely temporal is small.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Is Hellfire Good?

Today, I watched a video exploring the meaning(s) of the fire metaphor(s) in the song titled Hellfire, in Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The maker of the video argued that hellfire exists to punish the wicked, and punishing the wicked is a good (or at least just) thing, so hellfire is, arguably, a good thing. However, I believe that it's possible for punishments to go too far and/or to be executed by someone with the wrong motivations. Satan can be said to punish the wicked, but he does it to watch people suffer, not to purge them of their sins of deliver a just punishment to them.

I believe that there can be such a thing as a cleansing fire, a purifying fire, a fire that burns away the evil in us and leaves the good relatively unharmed. Such a fire would be a good thing. But a fire that merely torments someone, without helping them, regardless of how much or how little they deserve that torment, is almost certainly evil.

Hellfire can be good, if it helps someone repent while they still have a chance to do so. But if it's merely a punishment, then that, in my mind, is a bit harder to morally justify.

A Wrongish Warning

While I was visiting a friend of mine, he had to go do some grocery shopping, and I tagged along with him. While we were checking out, a man ahead of us assumed that we were a couple, and he told us that God hates homosexuals and that we needed to repent or we would go to hell. Despite how wrong he was, I tried not to be confrontational, partly because he was partly right, and I can imagine that his heart might possibly have been in the right place.

God does not hate homosexual people. God doesn't hate anyone. God loves all of His children, even those who don't always listen to Him. However, God does hate sin, and there are certainly consequences for committing sin. If the man ahead of us was genuinely concerned for the welfare of our souls, then perhaps warning us of those consequences could be seen as an act of kindness rather than close-mindedness. God warns us of the consequences of sin, and there are certainly times when we should follow that example, if that's what that man thought he was doing, then blessings on him. However, even while we warn others of the consequences of their actions, we should always be kind.

In a way, I'm almost glad that this stranger was brave enough to warn us against the sin he thought he saw. He was acting on his convictions, and I respect him for that, even though I think I would have approached the situation a bit differently, if I reacted to it at all. Personally, if I saw a pair of people that I thought were gay, I don't think I'd even say anything. Any warning against the sin of sexual impurity would be more likely to ruffle feathers than change minds or hearts, and it's more likely to lead to a discrimination lawsuit than to repentance. Frankly, I don't think I'd bother. Sure, I'd warn a friend about the consequences of such a sin, but I don't think that that warning would be as effective coming from a stranger in a checkout line.

There is are good times, places, ways, and reasons for warning others about the consequences of sin. I'm pretty sure that man failed on at least three of those counts, but I respect him for trying, regardless of how wrong he was.

Judgement and Directions

Tonight, in our family scripture study, we read some advice to use both "judgment and the directions of the Spirit" (D&C 62:8). I believe that it's important to be able to follow either. There are times when God trusts us to follow our own judgement, and there are times when we need to trust God and follow His. We need to learn how to hear, recognize, and follow the voice of the Spirit, but we also need to learn how to make our own decisions in the absence of God's guidance. Both skills are essential for good decision-making. We can't always trust our own judgement, and we can't always count on God to tell us everything that we should do. When either our own judgement or the directions of the Spirit are lacking, we need to be able to lean more heavily on the other. Each for their own reasons, neither of them are always completely reliable. To make it safely through life, we need to be able to confidently follow either of them, so we need to learn how to trust them both.

Beneficial Opposition

This afternoon, I ran a game of D&D for others for the first time in several months. As the DM, it's my job to create obstacles for the characters to overcome. These obstacles include monsters, riddles, traps, puzzles, and environmental hazards. All of these things are meant to be challenging, and many of them can be harmful, or even deadly, but that's just how the game works. The tougher the obstacles the characters overcome, the stronger they become, allowing them to tackle even greater obstacles and gain even greater strength. That's how D&D works.

It's how real life works, too. God gives us challenges in the forms of afflictions, commandments, and even temptations (or at least allows them to happen), at least partly so we can gain experience from those challenges and grow into stronger people. So, even though God puts afflictions into our path, that doesn't mean that He's trying to destroy us or stop our progress. In fact, it's quite the opposite; God give us challenges so we can grow. Like a good DM, God tailors our challenges to our individual needs and abilities. God is not an antagonist. Rather, He's helping us become the best we can be.

In D&D, the DM is not fighting against the players, even though the DM is the one controlling all the villains and monsters. Those villains and monsters exist to help the characters become stronger, and in that way, these obstacles actually help the characters improve. Similarly, in real life, God is not fighting against us, even though He's the one creating many of our afflictions. Those afflictions exist to help make us stronger, and in that way, those afflictions actually help us.

God would be a good DM for many reasons, and one of them is that He is already a master of providing beneficial opposition.

Joy and Happiness

I was looking through some old papers of mine today, and one of them reminded me that the purpose of life is joy. We are on this Earth to find true joy and pure happiness and to share it with as many people as possible. I know that I certainly feel a lot better when I'm able to be happy and make others happy, and it's really just a more pleasant way to live. Some people don't care to try to bring others joy, and some people feel like they can't be happy because of their circumstances or because they haven't reached a certain goal yet, but I'm confident that joy and happiness can be found in almost any circumstance and is most likely to be found when sharing it with others.

Joy and happiness are some of the greatest blessings we can have in this life, so one of our top priorities should be to find true happiness through the gospel of Jesus Christ and share it with as many people as possible.