Hidden Gem - The Kingly Virtue

How many excellent and exceptionally valuable gems of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in the archives of the records of our church! In July, 1978, Melecio Vir. V. Emata (and no, I have absolutely no idea who that is) wrote about Self-Control: The Kingly Virtue. I find it hard not to highlight most of his article, but I'll limit myself to sharing the following paragraph:

Self-control, whether we like it or not, is an all-embracing and paramount consideration in the life of every Christian. For the ultimate reward for obedience through self-control, and ultimately self-mastery, is kingship over cities, dominions and principalities. No one, absolutely no one, can qualify in the eternal realms to be a king exercising control over others unless he has completely mastered himself. That is why unless we now practice self-control, we cannot hope to be worthy of the reward so high and forbidding yet not a necessarily unreachable, impossible dream. Jesus Christ did it. He said we can do it. So, it can be done.

In order to fulfill our full potential and become all that our Heavenly Father wants us to be, we must first learn to control ourselves and keep our impulses, emotions and desires in check. With great power comes great responsibility. To receive the power (and responsibility) that God wants to give us, we must first prove that we can handle that responsibility by showing that we can manage the responsibilities God has already given us by giving us the power to govern ourselves.

It's also worth noting that the lofty goal of achieving self-mastery, along with obtaining all the blessings that go with it, is not an unreachable goal. "Jesus Christ did it. He said we can do it. So, it can be done." Impossible though it may seem sometimes, we can learn to gain total control over ourselves and ultimately master all of our impulses, emotions, and desires. It is a quest of the utmost difficulty and of the highest possible reward, yet it can be completed successfully, making it a perfect life-long quest for a Paladin or for any of us. It will certainly take us a lifetime or longer, but pursuing the goal of self-mastery is a wholly worthwhile endeavor, and one that I'm going to continue working on for the rest of my life, if not longer.

Preparing for Scout Camp

I mentioned yesterday that I'm going to go to Scout Camp this next week, and I'm wondering what that'll mean for this blog. Naturally, I won't be able to blog while I'm at camp, yet I've made a commitment to blog every day, and I want to keep that commitment as well as I can. One idea is to bring plenty of note-paper to camp with me and to, every day, write down the kinds of things I would write on my blog. Then I'll probably post them online when I get back. I think I'll even take some church materials with me - scriptures, of course, and perhaps an Ensign or two - just in case I don't find enough inspiration at camp, though I'm sure I will.

I've got this theory that God and nature are often close to each other. God may spend some of His time in nature, and nature follows closely the patterns given to it by God. Nature is beautiful - just the way God made it. I'm going to enjoy my time there, and it'll probably help me draw closer to God.

In the meantime, I need to pack. I'll need plenty of clothes and some Scouting Basic Essentials, but surprisingly, that may be mostly it. The camp is covering our meals, a supply of fresh water, access to First Aid, and even a few cots for the leaders. I still plan on bringing some trail mix and band aids, but I don't think we'll need anywhere near as much equipment as I usually bring on camp outs. Not having to worry about food and water has really lightened the list of things I need to worry about in preparation of this outing, so that's quite a blessing.

One issue that remains is transportation. To get up at the campsite by 6 or 6:30 (I forget which one we're aiming for), out Troop will be leaving at 3-3:30 AM! It won't be much fun getting up that early, and I'll have to secure a ride from someone else who's going so Mom doesn't have to get up that early, too, but it'll be worth it. I haven't been to Scout Camp in a long time (and never in a leadership position), so this'll be a good experience.

I'm looking forward to next week, even if it means I won't exactly be blogging during that time. It's going to help me grow, spiritually and as a leader, and I think it'll be loads of fun.

Double-Dipping

A friend of mine recently gave me an interesting piece of advice. She encouraged me to look into Personal Progress. For those of you who don't know (assuming there are any non-Mormons or recent-converts among us, Hi!), Personal Progress is a set of activities young women in our church are encouraged to do to help them develop Christlike virtues that are fitting, and even essential, for a Christian young woman to have in order to better face the challenges of our day. The activities of Personal Progress are split into the following groups: Faith, Divine Nature, Individual Worth, Knowledge, Choice and Accountability, Good Works, Integrity, and Virtue. These are called the Young Women Values, but I challenge you to find anyone in our church who said that these values were meant only for young women!

When I heard my friend's advice, I laughed at first, just because the idea was so unexpected, but then I continued to chuckle because the idea is, to borrow a phrase, so crazy that it just might work. There are a lot of values on that list that I could use in greater abundance, and I've acknowledged in previous blog posts that I'm a little bit feminine compared to some guys, so actually, this idea makes perfect sense. I've had lots of experiences in our church's Young Men's meetings and Scouting activities to help me develop my masculine side. Maybe now I need this to help me develop my feminine side.

Now, some of what's in Personal Progress isn't going to translate perfectly to my life because, naturally, I'm not a Young Woman, so the parts of Personal Progress that apply exclusively to womanhood aren't going to apply to me, however, there's a lot of good stuff in there that isn't so gender-specific. For example, the "Young Women" Values would be good traits for just about anyone.

The same thing may apply for the Young Men's equivalent program, Duty to God. There are virtues and values taught in that program that would be good for women and men, both young and old. And since both programs have traits and teachings that can apply to people of either gender, I don't see anything wrong with double-dipping. I want to do a little bit of studying of Personal Progress to see what I can learn from it. The trouble is that I'm running out of time. I'll study up on it over the weekend, and maybe print a few things up, but early on Monday morning, I'm leaving for Scout Camp. I'm not entirely sure why, but I find this situation hilariously ironic.

More From Monson's Talk - Behavior Under Observation

When Jabari Parker, well-known basketball player, was asked to share the best advice his father had ever given him, he quoted his father as having said, "Just be the same person you are in the dark that you are in the light." President Monson shared that quote in the same talk I blogged about yesterday, but first, he shared a story about a young man that hadn't been the same person in the dark as he was in the light. In church, the young man "touched the hearts of the entire congregation as he spoke of gospel truths and of the joys of keeping the commandments." Just a few hours later, however, he was found "[walking] down the sidewalk dressed in scruffy clothes—and smoking a cigarette."

I've heard it said that a good way to judge a man's character is to see who he is and how he acts when he's alone and believes that no one is watching him. I think that the word "believes" in that sentence is very important, but I'll share more on that later. When we know we are being observed, we have more of a reason to be on our best behavior. Sometimes, we want to make a good impression. Sometimes we just want to not get in trouble. But if we thought that no one was watching us, if we felt like we could get away with doing whatever we wanted, our behavior might be different than what it's like when we know we're being observed.

President Monson has advised us to be the same people in the darkness as we are in the light - to be the same people when we're alone or with friends as we are when we're at church or at work. Basically, he encouraged us to always be on our best behavior, just as we would be if we knew the Savior was watching us. And guess what. He is.

One of my favorite hymns isn't in our hymnal. Nor, apparently, is it in our Children's Songbook. It's called "If the Savior Stood Beside Me," and it shares the message, "If the Savior stood beside me, would I say the things I say/do the things I do?" The final verse goes:

He is always near me, though I do not see Him there,
And because He loves me dearly, I am in His watchful care,
So I’ll be the kind of person that I know I’d like to be
If I could see the Savior standing nigh watching over me.

In all honesty, we are always being watched by our Eternal Judge, so, even more so than with our friends or even at church, we have a very good reason to behave as well as we possibly can. Because, in reality, there is no darkness - at least, none that the Lord can't see through. We are always "in the light." So it makes perfect sense to follow the prophet's counsel and behave just as well in the darkness as we try to behave in the light.

The Crowd That Shouts Your Name

From President Monson's talk:

The call for courage comes constantly to each of us. Every day of our lives courage is needed—not just for the momentous events but more often as we make decisions or respond to circumstances around us. Said Scottish poet and novelist Robert Louis Stevenson: “Everyday courage has few witnesses. But yours is no less noble because no drum beats for you and no crowds shout your name.”

Personally, I think Robert Louis Stevenson was wrong. It's not that I think everyday courage isn't noble. In fact, it may be even more noble than courage displayed before crowds. When you have a group watching you, you know you have to put your best foot forward, show them a good example, and really impress them. When you're on your own, it's easy not to be the person you know you should be.

But are we ever really on our own? Does any action ever go unwitnessed? Aren't there dozens, if not hundreds of angels watching over each one of us, hoping that we'll choose the right? And don't you think they might get excited when we do?

I personally think that each of us has a crowd of angels pulling for us. If we can remember that in times when we feel alone, it might help us to make good choices anyway. I never hear the angels that cheer for me. A rarely feel their guidance and influence. In fact, I rarely feel that they're even there at all. But they may be. And I'm certain that there's at least one person out there pulling for me and cheering me on. I want to do the right thing for them. They're putting so much effort into helping me. I don't want to let them down.

You may not feel like there are many people pulling for you here on Earth. Sometimes, we can all feel very alone. But never forget that there is a God in heaven who loves you, and there are countless angels cheering for you and shouting your name. You can pray to feel their encouragement whenever you need to. No act is too trivial to attract heaven's attention, and no decision is so trivial that angels do not cheer or weep when it is made. (Well, actually, that might not be true. I'm sure there are some decisions that don't really matter in the Eternal scheme of things, but most of them do.) When we know that there are angels watching us, pulling for us, and cheering for us, it can help give us the courage to be the kind of people we know we should be.

I'm grateful for my angels. I let them down far more often than I would like to, but that's partly because I forget that they're there. I'm going to try to do better at remembering, and I'm going to try to make them proud.

A Need to Study More Diligently

...You will need to study diligently. Do not become so absorbed with trivial things that you miss learning the doctrine and teachings of the Lord. With a solid, personal doctrinal foundation, you will be a powerful source for sharing vital truths with others who desperately need them. 

—Richard G. Scott, "I Have Given You an Example"

I love teaching the gospel, especially to those who, like you, already believe in it. I have been blessed with the ability to easily gain insights and share them. However, I have also been cursed with a particular challenge - that I sometimes "become so absorbed with trivial things that [I] miss learning the doctrine and teachings of the Lord." That's pretty much what happened this morning. My mind was elsewhere, so I had trouble focussing on my blog, and I ended up turning to LDS.org's Daily Messages for a quote I could blog about, just so I could blog about something. I'm guessing that there may have been some spiritual insight that I might have gained this morning, if only I had been better able to focus.

But there's not much purpose in saying "if only" or wondering what might have been. Instead, I can try to move forward. Yesterday, I felt the spirit more strongly than I had in a while, and I think that had a lot to do with the amount of time I spend pondering on the things I was learning. I feel like the time I spend studying the scriptures has waned again, so I'll try to do better at that again, and maybe I'll be better able to focus on blogging for the next few days. Also, I should go back to blogging about General Conference talks. Those are always spiritually insightful. The next one up is Be Strong and of Good Courage, by President Thomas S. Monson. I'll probably blog about it tomorrow.

Who Goes to Heaven?

There are only a handful of times when I've been late in blogging, and most of those were due to technical difficulties or other circumstances beyond my control. This time, I'm glad that I was prevented from blogging this morning. What I was going to blog about was probably going to be dumb, but now I really feel like blogging about a theme I picked up in church today - a theme which had nothing to do with the talks or the lessons - which I might have forgotten if I wasn't about to blog about it right now.

Sinners go to heaven.

This seems to contradict several teachings in the scriptures, including all those that warn about the consequences of sin and speak of the immutability of Eternal laws. Yet, it must be true, or heaven would be an endlessly desolate place. Besides that, we have scriptoral evidence of some people having died and gone to heaven, and if anyone (besides Jesus) went to heaven, that group certainly included its share of sinners.

We are all human. Being human, we all make mistakes and bad choices, including sins. We are all sinners. And yet Jesus, in His infinite mercy, invites us to Come Unto Him anyway:

Come unto Jesus, ye heavy laden,
Careworn and fainting, by sin oppressed.
He'll safely guide you unto that haven
Where all who trust him may rest.

Come unto Jesus; He'll ever heed you,
Though in the darkness you've gone astray.
His love will find you and gently lead you
From darkest night into day. 

Hymns 117, verses 1 and 2

 Although we've all gone astray and wandered onto paths of darkness, our Savior is more than willing to welcome us back and earnestly invites us to come as we are. We're not perfect. None of us are. But heaven isn't a place full of perfect people who have never done anything wrong. It's a place full of people who may have done a lot of things wrong, but who did at least one thing right: They repented. They got down on their knees, told their Heavenly Father they were sorry, and vowed to make a sincere effort to not repeat their poor choice. Maybe they kept their vows, and maybe they didn't. Maybe they slipped up again. But if they did, they must have repented again, and God must have forgiven them again. Even though they were sinners, God forgave them and welcomed them back into their heavenly home.

When Jesus prayed for us in Gethsemane and died for us on Calvary, He didn't just suffer for our sins. He "bid the prison doors unfold," and "called upon the sin-bound soul to join the heav'nly throng" (Hymns 182, verses 3 and 2). That song, We'll Sing All Hail to Jesus' Name, was the song that got me thinking about this. Even though I'm a sinner (a generally good person, but yes, a sinner) and I know that I'm not worthy of the great blessings God offers to His faithful followers, this gives me hope that He may extend those blessings to me anyway. And that makes me want to keep His commandments - not to earn my salvation (it's a little bit too late for that), but to show my thanks for His mercy.

I typically think of heaven as a place with saintly and angelic people in it, and I thought that, if I were there, I'd feel a pang of guilt, remembering my sins, and I'd think that I didn't deserve to be there. Now I'm wondering if it's not the case that everyone there will have those same feelings. It's funny that the people who believe that they're wonderfully righteous often aren't as righteous as they think, and the people who truly are fairly righteous are willing to humbly admit that they aren't righteous enough. I think that we'll find a lot of people like that in heaven. In fact, we'll probably be among them.