Anyone Can Repent

In our scripture study tonight, my family reviewed Mosiah 27, and one of the messages that stood out to me was that Alma the Younger, despite being one of "the very vilest of sinners" (Mosiah 28:4) was capable of repenting and being redeemed. He was "a very wicked and an idolatrous man" (Mosiah 27:8), yet he was, with help, able to turn his life around, 180 degrees.

This is comforting. If there was any hope for him, there is certainly hope for us.

Of course, Alma the Younger was visited by an angel, which certainly would have helped, but I believe that Alma's power to change came from within. Remember, Laman and Lemuel were rebuked by an angel as well, but they chose not to repent. Whether we're redeemed or not depends entirely on whether we repent or not, and the power to repent comes from within.

Elder Holland has taught that "Whoever you are and whatever you have done, you can be forgiven" (source) and that "It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines" (source). If the very vilest of sinners can repent, so can we.

The Enabling Power of the Atonement

Every so often, I'm reminded of how powerful and important the Atonement is. This time, the reminder can through Bishop Gérald Caussé's talk, A Living Witness of the Living Christ, in which he listed several of the "Plain and precious truths about the Savior’s Atonement [that] resound throughout the Book of Mormon," including the following:

Through His Atonement, Jesus Christ not only washes away our sins, but He also provides enabling power through which His disciples may “[put] off the natural man,” progress “line upon line,” and increase in holiness so that one day they might become perfect beings in the image of Christ, qualified to live again with God and inherit all the blessings of the kingdom of heaven.

That's incredible, isn't it? The cleansing and strengthening of mankind, our progress and improvement, including to the point of perfection, are all accomplished through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It sounds almost magical. It's amazing to think that that one act the Savior did for us over the course of a handful of days made eternal progress possible for every person who would ever live. There is a lot of power in the Atonement, and it's exactly the kind of power we need to help us get back home.

A Scripture about Forgiveness

For our scripture study tonight, our family reviewed some of our favorite verses from Mosiah 26, and one of the standout verses was Mosiah 26:30 "Yea, and as often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses against me."

I sometimes need that reminder. No matter how many times I stumble and fall short, God will help me pick myself up, dust myself off, and try again. As long as we're honestly repenting, God will never give up on us. Like the father of the prodigal son, He is always willing to welcome us back, so long as we make an effort to come back.

I want to repent. I know I need to repent. Repentance can be a long and difficult process, but I'm glad to know that there is forgiveness available to everyone who repents.

My Fondest Dream

The other day, I was playing and singing hymn 134, I Believe in Christ, which includes some of the most inspiring, encouraging lines from any of our hymns:

I believe in Christ; he stands supreme!
From him I’ll gain my fondest dream;
And while I strive through grief and pain,
His voice is heard: “Ye shall obtain.”

I find this highly encouraging because there is a lot of grief and pain in life, and yet, there is a good reward for enduring in righteousness, specifically the best reward I can think of: "my fondest dream."

Unfortunately, I don't know if I'm interpreting that phrase correctly. I want it to mean that God will reward me with my deepest desire, if I'm righteous enough to earn it. However, it could mean to say that I, the singer, most deeply desire the rewards that God is going to give me. God has promised us glorious blessings, but I don't know if those blessings include the one I currently want most.

My fondest dream is to experience enduring peace and rest. I want the battle for my soul to be over, permanently. I want to win, once and for all. That's not going to happen in this lifetime. Satan is far too persistent for me to ever let my guard down while I'm alive. But he can't attack me in heaven (or at least, I don't think he can), so my goal, my "fondest dream," is to get to heaven, so I can set my sword and shield down, lay down on a cloud, and get some rest.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that's part of God's plan. God wants us to become like He is, and He is a creator, a Heavenly Father. I'm sure His plan for us includes giving us the opportunity to create countless spirit children and countless worlds for them to live on. I wonder if His plan also includes giving us the option not to. Right now, I don't want godhood; I want peace and rest.

Granted, these goals are all a long way off, and my mind might change by the time I get closer to that finish line. Maybe I will want to become a heavenly father by the time I earn that privilege. Who knows? But for now, my fondest dream is to finally get some inner peace and spiritual rest, and I hope that, for at least a little while, God will let me have it and enjoy it.

When I die, I want the words "Rest in Peace" to be said or written somewhere near my remains, because my fondest dream is that God will let me.

Living by Different Standards

I've blogged about this before, but it's been on my mind lately, so I think it bears repeating. I think that everyone should do what they think is right and not do what they think is wrong. Essentially, I think that everyone should live by whatever moral standards they have. An interesting, and slightly more controversial extension of this thought is that, in at least some cases, I think it's okay for people to do things that are okay by their standards, even if it's not okay by others' standards.

Let me give you an example: My family and I had pork for dinner tonight, and I think that that's okay. I don't consider it immoral for me to eat pork, even though there are others who have moral reasons not to eat pork. Their standards are higher than mine in this particular area, but that doesn't mean that I'm wrong to live by my (lower) moral standards.

For another example, let's take coffee. Drinking coffee is against the Word of Wisdom, a set of divinely-given health rules for members of the church to which I belong. Given that drinking coffee is against part of my moral standards, I consider it immoral for me to drink coffee, just as it would be immoral for a Jew or a Muslim to eat pork. Yet, I don't hold everyone to that standard. For most of the world, drinking coffee isn't a sin but a daily part of life. I don't consider other people "sinners" for drinking coffee because I'm not sure it's a sin for them. God judges us based on the light we have, and the amount and types of light they have don't indicate that there's anything wrong with drinking coffee.

Granted, I'm sure there are some sins that are still sinful, no matter what set of standards one chooses to live by. Murdering a living, breathing, innocent human being is one of the most egregious sins one can commit, no matter how low their moral standards are. Some people may think of ways to "justify" it, but I doubt that such actions would be justified in the eyes of God. Acts that go against the conscience with which each human being is born are all almost certainly sins, no matter what moral standards they follow.

But that said, I don't think God would judge someone as harshly for doing something they think is alright as He would judge someone for doing something they believe is wrong. And regardless, it's not really our place to judge them at all. People live by different standards. Some of those standards are higher than ours in some ways, and some of them are lower in other ways. Just as we wouldn't want others to judge us harshly for not living up to their standards, we shouldn't judge others harshly for not living up to ours. I think that the most important thing, besides not hurting others, is agreeing to live and let live. They're free to live by their standards, and we're free to live by ours. We should maintain our standards religiously, but we should also grant others the privilege to peacefully live by theirs.

Celestial Tutoring

I am a writing tutor. One of the most important lessons I've had to learn as a tutor is to not help my students too much. While I may work with my students to a certain extent, my main job is to help them get to the point where they can do the work themselves.

From my experience, God seems to follow a similar principle. God doesn't seem to help people any more than is good for them. He offers some guidance and assistance, but He mostly seems to follow a more "hands-off" approach, rather letting our attempts and experiences do most of the teaching.

There are times when I wish God would help me more. Sometimes, He even feels distant and uncaring, but I think that's mostly because He knows how important it is for me to gain experience and grow personally, rather than just following His directions. I think He's trying to strengthen me and help me to eventually become more independent, just as a good tutor does.

A good tutor doesn't simple tell their student what to do, and they certainly don't do any of the student's work for them. That would be giving the student far too much help, to the point where they aren't actually helping the student at all. Instead, a good tutor teaches their students correct principles and then gives the students opportunities to apply those principles themselves, just like God does.

There are times when I want more help and feel like God is being a bad friend for not helping me more, but I realize that I might have been asking for too much help, and that, by withholding it, God was really being a good tutor.

Good and Bad Advice

Another lesson I learned from those Better Than Yesterday videos is that advice can be good or bad depending on the recipient and their circumstances. For example, hard work is, in general, a good principle, and it's generally good advice to work harder and not waste so much time, but if a person is a workaholic or is exhausted, "work harder" wouldn't necessarily be good advice for them.

The same goes with literally any advice I've ever given, on my blog or off of it. Sure, they may be good principles in general, but that doesn't mean that it's good advice for you. You are an individual. Individuals are different from each other. What's good and/or important for me might not be good or important for you. We are supposed to learn "line upon line, precept upon precept." If you're on a different "line" than I am in any given area, then the advice I give myself in that area doesn't apply to you.

So, the challenge for each of us is to decide for ourselves whether a particular piece of advice is good or bad advice for us at this time. I need to decide for myself what advice I'm going to follow, and I think that you should decide for yourself what advice you'll follow and what advice you won't follow. Of course, that's just my advice, which may be good or bad for you right now, so you can take it or leave it.