Godly Fear Dispels Mortal Fear

Now'd probably be a good time for me to give you those two blog posts I owe you. This is the first of those two.

On April 30, I said that Elder Christofferson's talk was the next one I was going to blog about. I was wrong. It was going to be, but then I saw, on Facebook, a photo Mom had shared that reminded me of another important point to share from Elder Bednar's talk, Therefore They Hushed Their Fears. 

As Elder Bednar said toward the beginning of his talk, the world we live in is a frightening place.

In our daily lives, endless reports of criminal violence, famine, wars, corruption, terrorism, declining values, disease, and the destructive forces of nature can engender fear and apprehension. Surely we live in the season foretold by the Lord: “And in that day … the whole earth shall be in commotion, and men’s hearts shall fail them” (D&C 45:26).

However, Elder Bednar went on to say that "godly fear dispels mortal fears." Through faith in God, we can overcome any mortal fear, including the fear of the dark, the fear of death, and the fear of not being able to measure up to God's standards or our potential. Because of what God has taught us, and the peace that His Spirit brings to our hearts, we know that we do not really need to worry about anything, as long as we're trying to live righteously. We may not be able to measure up, but we've been taught how the Atonement makes up for that. Death will come to each of us eventually, but we have faith in an afterlife, and especially pleasant and glorious afterlife, if we strive to keep God's commandments. And what can darkness, or even the devil himself, do to us, if God is on our side?

God is great and powerful. He can be frightening if we think He has something against us, but God only ever fights against us when we are already fighting against Him, and sometimes, not even then. God loves us, and He always wants what's best for us. Always.

And the same universe-creating, mountain-moving, city-destroying power that the wicked may have good reason to be afraid of will be on our side if we are on God's. As Romans 8:31 says, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" Will God helping us, strengthening us, protecting us, and supporting us, what could we possibly have to fear? The only thing I can think of a truly god-fearing person being afraid of is themselves, and the Atonement can help us overcome that fear as well.

All of God's blessings are contingent on righteous living. God's favor and protection can be ours, but only if we're living righteously enough for Him to bless us. The one weakness of the armor of God is how easy it is to accidentally, foolishly, recklessly take off. God's power can protect us, but it won't prevent us from distancing ourselves from Him and giving up that protection.

But even then, through the power of God, there is hope and healing and even some protection against that threat. God's Spirit can warn us when we start to stray from the straight and narrow path. He can guide us into making right decisions and avoiding sin - the one thing that could overcome God's divine protection. As I wrote in my earlier blog post about Elder Bednar's talk, the fear of God includes obedience to His commandments. When we have that, there is nothing to fear. And when we lose it, there is still hope. Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can be forgiven of any and all of our sins. The armor that we may have foolishly damaged or lost can be repaired and replaced when we repent. As long as we are striving to keep the commandments, including the commandment to repent, we literally have nothing to fear.

God is awesome. The power and wisdom and goodness of God are all so great that it literally fills me with awe. And it should. Godly fear is a feeling that "encompasses a deep feeling of reverence, respect, and awe." It's not that we should be afraid of God's infinite power, but that we should have faith that that power can get us through all of the troubles of life. That power has already gotten me through more than one difficult situation. I'm beginning to think that I have faith that God can get me through anything.

When Life Gives You Lemons...

When Cave Johnson, the fictional former owner of the equally fictional Aperture Science company, became deathly ill, he initially decided to make the best of it, to take lemons and make lemonade, but he quickly changed his mind. Eventually, a frustrated Mr. Johnson said:

All right, I've been thinking. When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons! What am I supposed to do with these?! Demand to see life's manager!

. . . And so on.

When I first heard this rant some years ago, I didn't think much of it until recently, I considered who life's Manager is.

When a person is frustrated and angry, especially at circumstances that are outside of anyone's control, there's a temptation to lash out at God. However, anger at God is never the proper response to anything, even our sorest trials. Being antagonistic toward God would only serve to tempt Him to be antagonistic against us. Furthermore, it would solve nothing. A wise parent knows the folly of giving in to the demands of a child throwing a tantrum. God is nothing if not a Wise Parent. And we are nothing if not children of God.

Getting angry at God for letting bad things happen isn't going to solve anything. I know because I've tried it, and that experience taught me a valuable lesson. God knows what we really need, and His plans are perfect. Sometimes, challenges, even painful, life-threatening challenges, are a necessary part of God's perfect plan for our ultimate happiness. When God gives us lemons, it's not because He likes watching us suffer, it's because He loves us enough to give us what we really need, even if it's unpleasant.

When we face challenges, we shouldn't lash out at God or become angry with Him. We should instead turn to Him for comfort, not demanding that He fix our problems, but asking that He lessen our problems, and/or help us be strong enough to deal with them. Each of our trials has a purpose. Try to learn the purpose(s) of the trials in your life, and you may be one step closer to alleviating them. That doesn't always work, but it's worth a shot. If nothing else, being humble and being willing to learn from your trials and let them strengthen you will make you a better person. That way, your experience can make you a stronger, wiser, more Christlike person, which is practically the entire purpose of life.

In the meantime, pain still hurts, but God doesn't intend to leave you comfortless while you endure it. He wants to comfort us and fill us with His Spirit, but because of our actions, He can't always do that. Despite being omnipotent, God can't always come to us. Sometimes, especially during our trials, we need to go to Him. Thankfully, there's one easy way to do that: through prayer. In a sense, Cave Johnson had the right idea, just with the wrong attitude. When life gives us lemons, we should go to see life's Manager, not to complain to Him, but just to draw closer to Him. There is comfort in being close to God, even if He tells us that it's not yet time for our trials to end. God isn't always willing to remove our burdens, because those are things we sometimes need, but He is always "willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort" (Mosiah 18: 9). Go to Him when life gives you trials, and He will also give you a sweet assurance of His love for you, which will enable you to take life's lemons and make lemonade.

"Acting as Such"

I had almost given up on getting a blog post in tonight. Technical difficulties.

Earlier this evening, I heard that "A prophet is only a prophet when he is being a prophet." After a quick web search, it seems that the actual quote is "'A prophet is not always a prophet' only when he is acting as such." The concept basically is that prophets do not always act in the prophetic capacity. That is, they don't spend every waking minute prophesying and preaching. If a prophet glances up at a dark cloud and remarks "Looks like rain," that isn't the voice of the Lord declaring "There shall be rain."

After I heard the quote, I (naturally) applied it to paladins. "A paladin is only a paladin when he is being a paladin," or "A paladin is not always a paladin; only when he is acting as such." With paladins, this quote takes on a different meeting. This doesn't let paladins off the hook, as it does with prophets. Prophets do not always have to prophesy, but paladins always have to behave like a paladin if they want to remain a paladin. That is what this quote means for paladins (at least, in my opinion). If a paladin wants to retain the blessings of being a paladin, he has to keep acting like a paladin. If he acts against his code of honor, he loses his blessings, hopefully temporarily. Hopefully, the wayward paladin will quickly repent and have his paladinic powers restored. If not, the loss may be permanent, and the paladin may become an ex-paladin. A paladin only retains the blessings of being a paladin so long as he is acting as such.

The same could be said for Christians. If a Christian wants to retain the blessings of being a Christian, he has to keep acting like a Christian. If he acts against the laws of God, he loses his blessings, hopefully temporarily. Hopefully, the wayward Christian will quickly repent and have his Christian blessings restored. If not, the loss may be permanent, and the Christian may become an ex-Christian. A Christian only retains the blessings of being a Christian so long as he is acting as such.

Let's all try to remember this, especially as we're deciding how we want to act. Let us always choose to act as Christians.

The Greater the Challenge, the Greater the Victory

For the longest time, I've wanted to find a good, Latin translation for the phrase "The greater the challenge, the greater the victory," just because it's an inspiring phrase and I think it'd make an awesome Latin battle-cry. As it turns out, Thomas Paine said something much like this when he wrote, "The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph." So, if "The Crisis" has ever been translated into Latin, I should definitely take a look at that.

The reason I find this so inspiring is that it encourages me to attempt and persevere through difficult tasks, knowing that if I succeed, when I succeed, it will be a great accomplishment. After I've done it, I'll know that I've done something I can be proud of - something that not just anyone could have done. Almost two years ago, I blogged about something similar, stating that when we attempt to do difficult things, we really don't have very much to lose. Either we fail at the difficult task, which is normal, or we succeed at accomplishing the difficult task, which is awesome. The greater the task the task we attempt, the more awesomeness we prove ourselves as having when we succeed. The greater the challenge, the greater the victory.

So, if life is giving you a hard time, buckle down and stay strong. Your challenges are great, but you are even greater. And God is the greatest of all. With His help, you can do anything, and it will be really awesome when you do, partly because great things are great, no matter who does them, and partly because God only gives us as much help as we need, which is less than you probably think you need. Through the power of your own awesomeness, plus whatever help God grants you, you can overcome all of the challenges in your life, which is really incredible when you consider that one of the challenges that has been placed before you is to forsake all your sins and begin to become like God.

The ultimate challenge of our lives is to become as God is, and it's also, not coincidentally, the greatest victory I can imagine. Life gives us great challenges so we can have great victories, so face your challenges prayerfully and face them head on. In God's strength, you can do anything. The challenges you face today will be the victories you will celebrate in the future. So take heart and never quit. The difficult conflicts you face now are preparing you for a truly glorious triumph.

A Tuesday Chiasmus

A Chiasmus is a literary pattern in which ideas are repeated in reverse order, in order to highlight the centermost idea. Alma 36 gives an example of a chiasmus, and so might my day today. This evening, as I washed a new mug I was given, I recalled that I washed a load of dishes this morning. Then I thought of another thing I did this evening that was similar to things I had done this morning. The more I thought about it, the more parallels I saw. Now I'm wondering where the center of the reflected similarities of my day is, and what significance that moment may have (if any).

My day began with doing some homework for an online class and doing a little bit of singing as I washed dishes. It ended with washing a new mug, after having done a little bit of singing while watching the children of several Relief Society sisters. During each of these activities (and they almost could be called activities), I found some enjoyment in completing tasks that, while still being tasks, were less difficult than I had expected them to be.

Late in the morning and early in the evening, I received guidance and correction concerning actions I had taken, and these experiences, while nerve-wracking, could have gone a lot worse. This evening, one of my supervisors at the SCC Writing Center, where I work as a tutor, watched me tutor a student, and then gave me feedback on how the tutoring session went. Though I was terribly nervous during the tutoring session, the session went pretty well. The corrections my supervisor suggested were minor ones, more like a few tips for how I could do my job better than a list of problems I needed to fix if I wanted to keep my job at all. All in all, the evaluation went well, so I guess I got pretty lucky.

I was lucky late this morning, too. (And this is my first time telling anyone about this, so I extend my apologies to those I should have told sooner.) This morning, on my way to school, I got pulled over. I ride my bike to school. Sometimes, I don't feel like letting my brakes eat up all my momentum, just so my legs can build it back up. Sometimes, I pass through Stop signs without actually stopping. The motorcycle cop informed me that I didn't even check to see if any cars were coming. But, thankfully, the cop let me off with a warning that wasn't so much of a warning of potential punishment as it was a warning of potential injury. I spent the rest of the day riding my bike almost the same way as I would have ridden a motorcycle - stopping for Stop signs, staying off the sidewalk, and even merging into traffic lanes when the bike lane was blocked. It felt more dangerous, but it was probably safer than the way I had been riding before.

Before or after my mild reproofs, I was given gifts. The late afternoon gift was the mug I washed later this evening. It's more like a thermos, really. It's tall, red, lidded, and insulated, and it has a school logo on it. Only Sac City tutors can get a mug like this. it even says "Sac City Tutor" on it. The late morning gift was a T-shirt provided by the Sac City Institute. Every so often (each semester, I think), the Institute provides a T-shirt for each Institute student. The designs change frequently, but they all say "Sac City Institute of Religion" on them. Both of those gifts were given to me by groups I've belonged to for quite some time, and they serve as tokens of my belonging to those groups. I'll be proud to wear my new T-shirt and drink from my new mug.

At this point, I'm approaching the mid-point of my day, and I'm not sure there's anything blogworthy in it. After being given the T-shirt and spending some time at the Institute, I went to the school library to study logarithms for the Math test I'll be taking tomorrow morning, after which I went to piano class, and then went to work at the library. The literal midpoint of my day seems to be piano class, but nothing really noteworthy happened then. I practiced our song for a while, then I performed it for the teacher, and she said I had it down pretty well. I still have to perform it one last time for the final (plus, there'll be a "written" exam, and then the semester will officially be over for me, unless I decide to write a bonus essay for my literature class for extra credit, which I probably won't.

So, the chiasmus kind of failed, but it also succeeded in a different way. While there's not much of interest about my piano class or studying for the math test, looking for the midpoint of my day got me to consider the many other blogworthy things that happened today: having fun even while working (and even finding the work itself fun), learning from correction that was probably kinder than I deserved, and finding out that I'm proud to belong to the groups that I belong to. Had those each been their own blog posts, their morals might have been that having fun, especially by singing songs that attract the Spirit, can make work easier, that God gives us gentle correction because He loves us and wants to see us thrive and not get hurt, and that we should pick good friends and not be ashamed to let people know that we belong to the group called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. In the end, there are many blogworthy lessons to be learned from the day I had today - just not from the middle of the day.

"Some Great Thing"

The second book of Kings tells us that Naaman was "a mighty man," "captain of the host of the king of Syria, . . . but he was a leper" (2 Kings 5:1). A maid of Naaman's wife knew of a prophet named Elisha who could surely cure Naaman of his leprosy.

So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha. 

And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. 

But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. 

Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage. 

And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean? (2 Kings 5: 9-13)

Ultimately, Naaman did was and was made clean, but I'm not sure we're being fair to Naaman when we say that it wasn't a "great thing" that was asked of him. He was a commander of armies, a VIP, and yet, he was hardly shown the respect a man of his stature might have expected. He had travelled a long way to see the prophet Elisha, yet he was met by a servant of Elisha instead. And the task that the servant of Elisha had given him was to wash in the river Jordan - a river that would later have historical significance, but that was arguably inferior to other rivers in terms of cleanliness. Naaman had already shown humility by taking advice from his wife's maidservant. Now, he was being told by another servant to bathe in a river that was, it seems, less clean than the rivers of Naaman's own land. No, Naaman hadn't been asked to do "some great thing," like to scale a mountain or slay a dragon. He had been asked to demonstrate a great deal of humility, which was probably a much greater task.

For many of us, expressing humility is a "great thing." I know it shouldn't be, but it is. Those who have the ability to let go of their pride, an attribute described as "the universal sin, the great vice," are stronger than most people. And those who are humble enough to follow the prophet's counsel, however simple it sounds, are wiser than most. I think Naaman did a very great thing by washing in Jordan seven times - he overcame himself.

We each have vices to overcome, and some of us have different vices than others. While, for some of us, it's easy to be humble, or generous, or forgiving, or diligent, it may not be quite so easy for others. While it may appear to be a simple thing to wash in a river a handful of times, I think it may have been a great accomplishment for Naaman to overcome his pride. So, let's not belittle the challenges or achievements of others. What's an easy thing for you may be a "great thing" for someone else. We should also not be too hard on ourselves. Things that are easy for others may be great challenges for us. Each person has different sets of strengths and weaknesses, so it really isn't fair for any of us to compare ourselves to others or to compare other people to us. We all have our own challenges, and while one person's challenges may not be such a "great thing" for another person, I'm sure it's "some great thing" for them.

1000th Blog Post and Lesson Outline

I have some exciting news, and a reason why that news isn't actually all that exciting.

THIS IS MY 1000TH PUBLISHED BLOG POST!!!

However, that figure includes blog posts from before, during, and just after my mission, not just the blog posts I've written since I've decided to blog daily. If we include only the blog posts after and including "Blog," this is my 892nd published blog post. However, there are plenty of other post-mission blog posts that are pretty blogworthy, such as Happy Father's Day and Battle for Freedom, which I should probably add to the 892 "recent" blog posts. Though, having reviewed my post-mission blog posts, it seems clear to me that not all of them make the cut. For course, not all of my post-"Blog" blog posts have been bloweorthy either. If I subtract those from the total, and add the blogworthy, pre-"Blog," post-mission, blog posts, the math gets a lot more complicated, so I'm not going to deal with all of that. This is my 1000th blog post, and that's pretty exciting.

Given that I only have a few hours left before I give me lesson, I think it's time I wrote an outline for it. The manual starts by talking about the Great Apostasy and the Restoration of the church. My lesson will start there, too, but I'll put more of an emphasis on how much of a miracle it was that the Restoration was even possible. Religious freedom was not something that was universally available at the time of our nation's founding, and we had to win a difficult war to earn it.

Then, I think, I'll transition to the three main things that we got back during the Restoration and that set us apart as a church today: Modern Revelation, Priesthood Authority, and Restored Truths. I'll talk about how much we need modern revelation to guide us in circumstances and conditions that differ greatly from those described in the Bible. Revelation is an expression of God's love. As long as He still loves us and we're still listening to Him, He'll keep speaking to us, both through His Spirit and through living prophets.

I may transition to Priesthood authority the same way I did on my blog, by saying that even a perfect knowledge of saving ordinances wouldn't help us much without the authority to perform those ordinances. I'll explain (for anyone who may not already know) that the Priesthood is passed from one person to another by the laying on of hands, and can only be given to those who are worthy and ready to receive it. In the latter end of the early years of Christianity, we started to run out of people like that, and eventually those who held the Priesthood died before they found someone they could pass it to, and the authority was lost from the earth. Thankfully, God restored it through John the Baptist, Peter, James, and John, Joseph Smith, and Oliver Cowdery. The authority was passed from Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery to others in a line (more like a chain, really) that extends to every worthy, ready, male member of this church.

The trouble is that it'll be difficult to transition from Priesthood Authority to Restored Truths. Maybe I'll use baptism for the dead to make the connection between the Priesthood and things that are taught in this church (and in Jesus' original church) but not in others. If there are converts in the class this afternoon, and I'm sure there will be, I'll invite them to share teachings that were new to them that they learned while investigating the church. Depending on what and how many responses of that kind I get, we may also look at the brief list provided in the manual.

I'll conclude with my testimony that the church is true, that it was a miracle that it was restored, and that I was blessed to have been born in it. I'll express my gratitude for modern revelation, Priesthood authority, restored truths, and all other blessings that we get from the church that we couldn't get anywhere else. This is a great church, and we receive great blessings as members of it. We should try to share those blessings more frequently than we do.