Spiritual Cornerstones

In his talk, A Good Foundation against the Time to Come, Elder Gary E. Stevenson spoke of the renovations underway with the Salt Lake City Temple to make it more resistant to earthquakes, and he encouraged us to examine and perhaps renovate, or at least renew, our own spiritual foundations. It may be wise to ask ourselves what truths form the cornerstones of our testimonies and how strongly we believe in those truths. To this end, Elder Stevenson suggested considering the first four questions that are asked during Temple Recommend interviews:

Do you have faith in and a testimony of God, the Eternal Father; His Son, Jesus Christ; and the Holy Ghost?

 

Do you have a testimony of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and of His role as your Savior and Redeemer?

Do you have a testimony of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Do you sustain the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as the prophet, seer, and revelator and as the only person on the earth authorized to exercise all priesthood keys?

Elder Stevenson sees these questions as "spiritual cornerstones." With these cornerstones in place and with the rest of our spiritual foundations built in alignment with them, we can ensure that our testimonies are built on foundations strong enough to withstand the earthshaking and faith-testing events of our lives.

Our mortal lives are littered with the sorts of challenges that test the strength of our testimonies. If we are to get through those challenges with our testimonies intact, we need to make sure our testimonies are built on solid foundations. To ensure this, we should consider which truths form the cornerstones of our testimonies, and we should make sure those cornerstones are strong. This may require some renovation or renewal on our part, but if a hundred-year-old temple can undergo renovations to strengthen its foundations, so can we. It's never too late to ensure that our testimonies are built on solid ground with good spiritual foundations and sure spiritual cornerstones.

Overcoming and Using Inertia

Something in Elder Benjamin M. Z. Tai's April 2020 General Conference talk reminds me of something I mentioned in a recent blog post, Positive Feedback Loops: Spiritual Inertia. 

Having inertia means that we tend to keep going in whatever direction we're going, or that we'll tend to stay still if we're not moving. If we're heading in the wrong direction, or if we're not moving at all, inertia is a force that may impede our progress; however, Elder Tai said, "By consistently applying the doctrine of Christ in our lives, we will overcome inertia that impedes change and fear that foils action." 

Regardless of which direction we're moving in and at what speed, applying the doctrine of Christ can help us get moving in the right direction and build up our momentum in that direction. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the key to overcoming and using Spiritual Inertia.

Two Reasons to Resist "Good" Feelings

Many temptations, especially physical ones, use the appeal of physical sensations. Junk food tastes good, sleeping in feels good, and alluring images look good. In general, just about all temptations capitalize on how those sensations feel, but we should resist those "good" feelings for at least two reasons.

First, those feelings don't last. The "highs" we experience from yielding to temptation are fleeting. For example, I drank a glass of hot chocolate about ten minutes ago, and it was very tasty, but I already have a sour aftertaste in my mouth. I like how hot chocolate tastes, but it only tastes good while I'm drinking it, and the pleasant sensation fades quickly. In contrast, healthy fruit smoothies also taste good, and I also feel healthier for a good while after drinking them.

The second reason to resist the temptation of good feelings is that the "good" feelings we experience while yielding to temptation are usually only "good." They don't feel great, let alone amazing or wonderful, like some other experiences do. Feeling strong feels great, feeling the Spirit feels amazing, and feeling God's love for me feels wonderful, and those are all feelings we get from righteousness, not wickedness. Sure, sin feels good, but righteousness feels better. Even if all we cared about was physical sensations, we should try to choose the right, because doing so feels so much better than giving in to temptation.

Therefore, we should resist temptation's appeal of "good" physical sensations. Those "good" feelings don't last, and we can get better feelings in better ways. Temptation is only attractive in the moment and in a vacuum. If we think about the future and/or how much better righteousness feels than wickedness, those temptations lose most of their appeal.

I Can't Blog Tonight

I can't blog tonight. The thoughts I've been having aren't fully developed, and I'm not quite ready to share them. I hope you can be patient while I continue to develop my thoughts. They seem promising, and I'm excited to share them when I can, but I'm not quite ready to share them so publicly. That, and I'm way too tired to be able to think of anything else to blog about. I'm sorry.

Lives Given for Life and Freedom

As I read through Elder Dale G. Renlund's April 2020 talk, I came across this quote that seems especially appropriate right now. Referring to the gifts that come to us through the sacrifice of others, Elder Renlund said,

Every time we use, benefit from, or even think of these gifts, we ought to consider the sacrifice, generosity, and compassion of the givers. Reverence for the givers does more than just make us grateful. Reflecting on Their gifts can and should transform us.

At this moment, Elder Renlund was specifically talking about our Heavenly Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ, and he had just finished telling the story of a man who got a life-saving heart-transplant as a result of the death of a beloved family member, but I think the same principle can apply to fallen soldiers as well. In all these cases, the deaths of some made possible the lives of others, and those whose lives were saved should ensure that their lives are also changed for the better.

Those soldiers died for our freedom, and Jesus died for our freedom from sin. In both of these cases, we should fight to maintain our freedom, because we're as good as dead without it. I hope we appreciate the freedom They died to give us, and even more importantly, I hope we maintain it.

Many people died to give us the lives and freedoms we enjoy. Let's do our best to make sure they didn't die in vain.

Positive Feedback Loops

I've been thinking lately about feedback loops. Feedback loops, according to a GMTK video on the subject, "are systems where the output is fed back into the system as an input." This means that past results will affect future results, either positively or negatively. Positive feedback loops increase the likelihood of getting the same result, whereas negative feedback loops decrease the likelihood of getting the same result.

For example, I invented a game I call Five Dice Clash, and I designed it to have a negative feedback loop, so the winner of one round would be less likely to win the next. In Five Dice Clash, each player starts with one die. At the start of the round, everyone rolls their dice, and the person with the lowest result wins the round. If two or more players are tied for the lowest number, those players "clash" or reroll their dice until the tie is broken and a winner is chosen. The winner of each round gets another die, and they roll both of their dice next round, trying to roll a lower number than those who are only rolling one die each. This goes on for several rounds, until a player wins a round with five dice. However, since each player gets another die to roll every time they roll the lowest number, low numbers get harder for those players to roll, giving the other players a better chance to catch up.

Five Dice Clash has a negative feedback loop. Each victory makes the next victory less likely, and each loss makes the next loss less likely as your opponents load up on dice that raise their totals. If I had instead wanted to give the game a positive feedback loop, I could have decided that whoever rolled the highest number would win the round and another die, making that player even more likely to win the next round.

In life, and particularly in spirituality, there are also positive feedback loops, where each victory makes the next victory more likely, and each loss makes the next loss more likely. For example, when we break a commandment, we drive away the Spirit, so we're less likely to have His help the next time we're faced with temptation. Without the help of the Spirit, the temptation may be harder to resist, making it more likely that we'll continue to drive the Spirit away, forming a "positive feedback loop" with unfortunate results.

Fortunately, positive feedback loops can also work in our favor. When we keep the commandments, we attract the Spirit, who can help us resist temptations and maintain the companionship of the Spirit.

The blessings that come from keeping the commandments make it easier for us to keep the commandments, and the results that follow from breaking the commandments make it easier to fall into sin. Both righteousness and unrighteousness form positive feedback loops that make it easier for us to stay on whichever path we're on. That's part of why it's so important to keep the commandments as much as possible and to resist temptation as strongly as we can. Each little victory makes the next victory that much easier, and each loss makes the next loss that much more likely.

It's important to know about positive feedback loops because this knowledge can help us use positive feedback loops to our advantage. We know that each time we do what's right, that helps us build momentum in the right direction, and each time we do something wrong, we lose some of that momentum and might start building up momentum in the other direction. This all strongly reminds me of the principle of spiritual inertia, which was one of my earliest blog posts. The principle still stands.

Making good decisions makes making good decisions easier, and making bad decisions makes making bad decisions easier. So, try to make some good decisions, even small ones. Those little victories will make it that much easier to earn a few more.

Empathy for One's Enemies

As we read Mosiah 28 tonight, one thing that struck me was how much empathy the sons of Mosiah had, even for their enemies. The Lamanites, for whom the sons of Mosiah had empathy, had been enemies with Mosiah's people, the Nephites, for as long as those two nations existed, if not longer. Yet, despite the Lamanites' hatred for them, the sons of Mosiah had compassion for them and wanted to help them by sharing the Gospel with them.

Now they were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea, even the very thoughts that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble. 

Mosiah 28:3

 Anyone can have compassion for a loved one, and some can feel compassion and love for even strangers, but it takes an entire other level of empathy to have compassion for someone who treats you like an enemy. It's hard to be kind to people who aren't kind to you. It's hard to wish well on someone who wishes you ill. It's hard to be friendly to an enemy. Yet, the sons of Mosiah did it, and, arguably, so does Jesus Christ.

Jesus has compassion for everyone. He served everyone. He died for everyone. He even asked God to forgive the people who killed Him, while they were killing Him. He is an extraordinarily forgiving and compassionate person.

And, of course, we should try to develop that kind of empathy. It won't be easy, but it was possible for the sons of Mosiah, and it's possible for us. We can learn to see the humanity in and our spiritual kinship to literally every who has ever lived, including the people we kinda dislike and who really dislike us. When we really see each other as spirit sisters and brothers, we can feel a familial love for everyone.

As Jesus Christ and the sons of Mosiah have proven, it is possible, if difficult, to have compassion for literally anyone, including one's enemies. We should aspire to having that much compassion.