Priorities and Putting Things Off

Between homework and youtube and packing and chatting with my brother, I almost forgot to blog. It's amazing how long we can put something off, practically by accident, just by doing other things instead. And the scary thing is, we each only have a certain amount of time. If we put something off, intending to do it tomorrow, or next week, or within the next few years, we may never get the chance. It makes me think about priorities, and, specifically, of doing the most important things first -- or I might not get to do them at all. I don't plan on dying any time soon, but then again, who does? I should cherish my time more than I do, and spend it better. Thankfully, I already have plans to spend a good deal of quality time with a close friend. Speaking of which, I should probably get back to packing for that.

Faith and Certainty

President Linda K. Burton spoke of "certain women," meaning women who were certain in their testimonies of Jesus Christ and His gospel. However, I'm not sure if such certainty is possible, seeing as the idea of certainty seems to conflict with the idea of faith. Given that the existence and divinity of Jesus Christ is a matter of fact rather than opinion, it is theoretically possible for a person to have a certain knowledge concerning that fact, but I'm not sure if anyone on Earth (except perhaps a select few) would be granted the opportunity to gain that knowledge. After all, God does expect and require the vast majority of us to develop and exercise faith. Yet, if our faith grows strong enough, it may become much like certainty in that we can act on our faith as though it was actual certainty. We may not know what will happen if we follow the Gospel plan, but we can be certain that it will turn out well, and, apparently, some people are. Those people make good role-models, even if their "certainty" is really just very strong faith.

The word "certain" has many definitions, and perhaps it would be wise for us to not get those definitions mixed up. There is a certainty that concerns the absolute knowledge of objective facts and there is a certainty that stems from incredible faith. Few people on Earth right now have an absolute certainty of Jesus' existence and divinity, but many people have certain faith in Him, and that's the kind of certainty we should strive for. We're not striving for a certainty based on knowledge; we're striving for a certainty based on faith.

Holiness is Hard

In Sister Carol F. McConkie, in her talk , The Beauty of Holiness, said the following about what holiness is:

Holiness is in the striving and the struggle to keep the commandments and to honor the covenants we have made with God. Holiness is making the choices that will keep the Holy Ghost as our guide. Holiness is setting aside our natural tendencies and becoming “a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord.”

None of those things are easy. The words "striving" and "struggle" instantly bring difficulty to mind, but making the sorts of choices that will allow us to maintain the companionship of the Holy Ghost can be very difficult, too. The Holy Ghost is easily driven away by impure or unholy thoughts or actions. If we ever think or say something mean about someone, even ourselves, we run the risk of losing the Spirit, and we certainly detract from our holiness. And overcoming the natural man isn't just a challenge; it is the major challenge of mortality.

Every aspect of holiness, as it is defined by Sister McConkie, is difficult, but it is also worth it. There are many perks to being holy, from what I've heard. Keeping the commandments and our covenants can earn us a myriad of blessings, keeping the Holy Ghost with us is a host of blessings in and of itself, and "becoming 'a saint through the atonement of Christ'" may be the greatest blessing of all. Yes, it is challenging, but almost every worthwhile goal is. Holiness is not something one can achieve easily, but it is a trait well worth "the striving and the struggle" to earn.

A "New" Primary Answer

Several questions we ask each other in the church can be answered with the same set of familiar responses. "How can we draw closer to God?", "How can we increase our faith?", and "What do we need to do to be saved?" can all be answered with "Pray", "Study the Scriptures", "Be Baptised", and "Go to Church." There are many other questions to which the "Primary" or "Sunday School" answers apply, and there are many more Primary answers than those I listed, including one I only heard recently.

In the first talk of the April 2017 General Conference, Sister Bonnie H. Cordon of the Primary General Presidency taught us how we can come to know and trust the Lord. In doing so, she used the two most common Primary answers, praying and studying the scriptures, plus a "new" Primary answer, or at least one that I hadn't heard of being used as a Primary answer before: "Give Service."

Giving service to others is an essential element of the teachings of the Savior. He spent and gave His life in the service of others, and we can hardly call ourselves His disciples unless we are willing to serve others as well. Through service, we attract the Spirit and many other wonderful blessings, including inner peace, a sense of perspective, and an awareness of God's love. Service is such an integral part of the gospel and a source of so many great blessings, I'm surprised I hadn't heard it used as a Primary answer before. Perhaps I simply wasn't listening well enough before. At any rate, I certainly consider it a Primary answer now, and I consider it a "new" Primary answer, even though it probably always was one.

Post-Conference Thoughts

The weekends always feel pretty short, but that's especially true when it's General Conference weekend. We essentially spend the whole weekend listening to the prophet and apostles and other church leaders, leaving very little time for anything else, and we still aren't able to absorb all of the lessons those leaders tried to share with us. With any luck, we each had one or two things that really stuck out to us, that stuck with us all the way home and stayed with us, even through the semi-annual ice cream parties we always have. Hopefully, those messages stuck out to us for a reason, and maybe those are the messages that we really needed to here, so the Spirit brought those thoughts to our hearts and kept them in our remembrance so we can remember to act on them later. Of course, it could be that our brains latched onto those thoughts for no real reason at all, but I would like to think that, after such a spiritual meeting, the Spirit would help us know what we most needed to learn from it and would help make sure that those are the messages we remember, even when the others fade. With any luck, these post-Conference thoughts can help guide and direct us over the coming months. Still, since I'm sure we've missed and will forget many of the valuable lessons from Conference, it would still be wise to review the talks. But in the meantime, it's a good idea to act on the Conference lessons that we actually remember. It's entirely possible that they stood out to us and stuck with us for a reason.

Review for the Newcomers

One thing that immediately stuck out to me during the first session of Conference today was how much of it sounded like something you might hear in Gospel Essentials class. But as I think about it, that makes a lot of sense. General Conference attracts a good number of visitors (or so I hope), and it is one of the few regular meetings we literally broadcast out to all the world. Conference could easily be a person's first real exposure to our church, so it makes sense that we should spend the first few hours of Conference explaining some of our basic beliefs. I don't know how many non-members tuned in to Conference this morning, but those that did learned a lot more about the basic tenets of Mormonism than they may have heard elsewhere, and they heard it straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak. In fact, far from being bored / annoyed by the review, I wonder if it would make sense to start Conference with a recitation of the Articles of Faith, just in case anyone within earshot is hazy on the subject of what we believe. Reviewing the basics periodically is a good idea anyway, and twice a year is about as "periodically" as you can get. So, while I may have zoned out once or twice during the first few talks, I'm glad they included as much about the basics as they did. Not everybody knows this stuff yet, and it's so important that it wouldn't hurt for even lifelong members to here it again.

Failing to Forsake

The final talk of the October 2016 General Conference was Repentance: A Joyful Choice by Elder Dale G. Renlund. In this talk, Elder Renlund quoted D&C 58:42-43, which reads "Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more. By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins—behold, he will confess them and forsake them." I understand how and why confession is an essential part of repentance, and I can almost understand it with forsaking, but there's just one problem: By evil design, sin can be terribly addicting, so forsaking one's sins can be very difficult, which could make repentance almost impossible.

Imagine a smoker who decides that it's a sin to smoke and who tries to repent of smoking by confessing the sin and forsaking it, but not long after he or she makes that decision, he or she gets a strong craving and gives in to the temptation to smoke a cigarette. Does that mean that they didn't truly forsake their sin earlier? Does that mean that they didn't truly repent?

Personally, I don't think that God would be quite so strict. He knows that habits can be hard to break. He's probably fairly lenient with those who make an honest effort to repent. We must try to forsake our sins, but I hope that God won't be too hard of those who have trouble with that. We might have difficulties forsaking our sins, but that doesn't necessarily mean that God will forsake us.

Repentance means change, and change often comes over time, in steps, and there may be some missteps along the way, but I don't think those missteps invalidate the first steps toward repentance. Forsaking sin is the result of the repentance process, and it is the ultimate goal of repentance, but it is a process. I certainly hope that failing to forsake a sin cold turkey isn't actually as detrimental as some interpretations of D&C 58:43 make it sound.b