Practice makes progress; Jesus makes perfect.

Last week’s blog post about the strength of man vs. the strength of God helps to lay the foundation and context for this week’s message.

Pharaoh dreamed a dream. Joseph, by the power of God, interpreted it. And Egypt became temporally self-reliant during the seven years of famine. And all because Joseph was God-reliant, following the inspiration of the Lord in both preparation and administration of the goods set aside beforehand. Egypt would not have been self-reliant, if Joseph had not been God-reliant. For this, Pharaoh recognized and praised Joseph’s God.

In this Church we are taught to become self-reliant. What does this mean? In the Doctrine and Covenants the Lord gives the Church this phrase regarding its self-reliance: “that the church may stand independent above all other creatures beneath the celestial world” (D&C 78: 14). The Lord wants the Church to be independent of governments, financial institutions, etc., for its maintenance and progress, so that none of these can have claim on the Church to alter its teachings, organizational structure, or policies in order to satisfy the world’s desires or subdue the world’s criticism. Institutions that fail to meet the demands of its benefactors lose the benefits from those benefactors. And it is the same for us as a church, as well as individuals and families. The Lord desires for each of us to not be dependent on governments, financial institutions, outside individuals, or even the Church itself for the ongoing maintenance of our own families. However, while the Church is to remain independent of every creature beneath the celestial world, it must never consider itself independent of those who belong to the celestial world. And so it is with us. We are not to face life independent of God the Father and Jesus Christ, His Son. We are not to go about each day independent of the Holy Ghost. We are not to assume that we are independent of angels and ministering spirits. We are to be dependent upon all of these for all that we are, and have, and do.

“Look unto me in every thought” (D&C 6: 36).

“Yea, cry unto [God] for mercy….Cry unto him…over all your flocks. Cry unto him…over all your household….Yea, cry unto him against the power of your enemies. Yea, cry unto him against the devil….Cry unto him over the crops of your fields….Yea, and when you do not cry unto the Lord, let your hearts be full, drawn out in prayer unto him continually for your welfare, and also for the welfare of those who are around you” (Alma 34: 18-27).

“De we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment…and for all the riches which we have of every kind?” (Mosiah 4: 19).

We are taught to be self-reliant, but we must be so careful to keep this in its proper perspective. There is a natural tendency in the concepts of self-reliance and self-sufficiency to have the focus fixated on self, where, if we enjoy success, pride can grow upon us from day to day (see Helaman 3: 36).

“And it came to pass in the eighth year of the reign of the judges, that the people of the church began to wax proud, because of their exceeding riches, and their fine silks, and their fine-twined linen, and because of their many flocks and herds, and their gold and their silver, and all manner of precious things, which they had obtained by their industry” (Alma 4: 6).

Notice that these people of the Church obtained all these riches by their industry. This wasn’t undeserved compensation. They had not won these riches by luck gambling or participating in a lottery. Neither had they inherited them from a wealthy person who willed them their fortune before dying. Nor had they even stole them. They had obeyed the law of the harvest and were reaping the rewards. But to think that all this prosperity came by their own doing was a huge mistake. We see among other things, that forgetting God’s hand in their progress—and even literal existence—eventually led them to stop assisting the poor, which is terribly displeasing to the Lord. (In fact, Jesus calls those who ignore the poor, “goats” and says at the last day they will be separated from His sheep and set aside on His left hand to await everlasting punishment—Yikes! See Matthew 25: 31-46.)

The Lord desires us to be industrious in order to be useful to Him for good, but to think that we are the source of the prosperity or the good is to forget our place. Yes, we might feel that we are successfully holding up our own little corner of the world, but all the while Almighty God holds us in the palm of His hand. The intellect we have fostered, the skills we have painstakingly sought to develop are a wonderful and essential part of who we are becoming, yet the Lord could take them all away in an instant, suddenly! A freak auto accident could bring on a lawsuit that might bankrupt us. A fall from a ladder or down the stairs could paralyze us or cause trauma to the brain that might render us mentally incapacitated. Or, as happened to a wonderful business associate of mine in his thirties, we could go to sleep one night, never to wake up again. All that we think we have become in the eyes of the world, by our industry, could vanish. All our prospects for prosperity could melt away.

However, if we instead are focusing on the Lord, the One upon whom we must rely for our sustenance, our salvation and our being made perfect, we find ourselves, by His grace, growing stronger and stronger in our humility and gratitude before Him.

“Are we not all beggars?” (Mosiah 4: 19-23).

My friend, Steve, spoke once about this idea in our Sunday School class, saying: “When we talk about these verses in Mosiah, the discussion almost invariably goes to ‘How much should we give the beggar? How do we know what to do? Do we just give to the city programs? Wouldn’t it be better to teach these people to fish, rather than just give them a fish today?’” Steve then said: “It worries me that we see ourselves as different from these beggars, instead of the commonality of our beggarship.” I love that! …”the commonality of our beggarship.”

“Are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have…?” We speak in terms of temporal things this way, and yet, is it not more so in spiritual things? The Book of Mormon teaches that it’s dangerous for us to believe that we prosper without God assisting us. Well, it also teaches us that we cannot pursue working out our own salvation without relying on the God of our salvation either. While being self-reliant, we should foremost be God-reliant, “relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save” (2 Nephi 31: 19).

(to be continued…)

Practice makes progress; Jesus makes perfect.

“…when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated” (D&C 130: 21).

Curious. The Lord tells us that each blessing received from Him comes as a result of obedience. But He doesn’t specify whose obedience. What I mean is this: We can receive blessings because of our obedience…or—and we must consider this—because of someone else’s obedience. Think of it, our efforts at obedience here can be the catalyst through which the Lord grants blessings to others.

The angel told Alma the younger—who had been anything but obedient—that it was because of his father, Alma, that this angel had been sent by God to bring young Alma to a knowledge of the truth (see Mosiah 27: 14). Now, young Alma could refuse the blessing offered. He could have still rejected the angel’s message and continued on in his ways of sin and rebellion. But he humbled himself and saw in this blessing of divine warning, something he was completely undeserving of—“not of any worthiness of myself” (Alma 36: 5)—but something he would now take advantage of. After three days of the most bitter anguish of soul, he called upon Jesus Christ for mercy. And he received that mercy! And these blessings were offered to him, in part, because of another person’s faithfulness…that of his own father!

Now, looking at young Alma’s father, it was the obedience of Abinadi—allowing himself to be taken by King Noah’s men—that paved the way for blessings to come to Alma, Sr. For he, himself “was caught in a snare, and did many things which were abominable in the sight of the Lord” (Mosiah 23: 9). But Abinadi’s faithfulness and preaching were the means the Lord used to bring father Alma to repentance, and a mighty change of heart; Alma, Sr. then in turn preached to others, “and a mighty change was also wrought in their hearts” (Alma 5: 11-13). How many souls were eventually blessed and saved because Abinadi suffered himself at the Lord’s command to fall into the hands of Noah’s people! (See Mosiah 13: 2-4; 17: 9.)

Or, what of the brother of Jared, whose obedience brought great pleasure to the Lord! When he prayed for his brother, Jared, and their friends and families, “the Lord had compassion upon Jared” and “upon their friends and their families also” (Ether 1: 34-43). These many souls were blessed through the instrumentality of the brother of Jared’s faithfulness—because he was “a man highly favored of the Lord.”

Now, these are just a few examples, but history is filled with accounts where God blesses some individual or group of people because of the obedience of someone else. In fact, we don’t have to look beyond our own lives for such stories. What blessings have you received because of the faithfulness of a family member, or friend, or church leader? What blessings are others enjoying from God’s hand because of your obedience?

Finally, all of these are types of Christ, for ultimately, every blessing and good thing that comes to any one of us comes because of His obedience; “otherwise…there could no good thing come unto [us]” (Moroni 7: 24), and we’ll talk about this in depth at a later time. But for now, how many blessings do we get, because of Jesus’ obedience?

The prophet Zenos declared that the Lord was merciful to him when he prayed in the wilderness concerning those who were his enemies, “and thou didst turn them to me….when I did cry unto thee in my field…thou didst hear me….when I did turn to my house thou didst hear me….when I did turn unto my closet…thou didst hear me….when I have been cast out and have been despised…thou didst hear my cries….and it is because of thy Son that thou hast been merciful unto me…for thou hast turned thy judgments away from me, because of thy Son” (Alma 33: 4-11). Glorious truth! Here, a prophet of the Lord is saying in essence: ‘I deserve the judgments of God to come upon me; but the Father has turned those judgments away from me because of His Son!’

We practice and often fail in our obedience; but in our practicing, we are tutored and taught by the Spirit of the Lord. At first we might think: I’m doing such and such, keeping this commandment and responding to that duty, so I deserve, I deserve! But God is going to eventually get through to us and we will then realize that what we really deserve (because of our sins) is the judgment of God upon us. And yet—glad tidings of great joy!—our all-wise and loving Father has designed and engineered a plan that can bring mercy upon us rather than judgment, and all because of His Son!

Look at Jesus and His obedience. If any one deserves blessings, it is Jesus, who was perfectly obedient. And yet, one of the things that Jesus gets because of His absolute obedience is the power to claim his “rights of mercy” in administering blessings to the rest of us (see Moroni 7: 27). He deserves…so we get.

“Father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, in whom thou wast well pleased…Wherefore, Father, spare these my brethren that believe on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life” (D&C 45: 3-5).

What an overly generous universe we live in, and all because of the Son of God!

(to be continued…)

Thanksgiving…a time to reflect on blessings, such as: a testimony of Christ and His gospel; loving family and friends; a comfortable house to shelter us from the world; delicious food to eat; electricity; running water; a variety of wonderful music, art, and entertainment to enjoy; an income to pay for our needs and even some of our wants…

If any of these are blessings you possess, they are wonderful things to be thankful for! However, these are good things…pleasant, enjoyable things. It is natural that we might be grateful for them. And yet, have you ever noticed that even some good things aren’t cherished by us unless we’ve had to go without? The idea of “an opposition in all things” (2 Nephi 2: 11) is more fundamentally for our good than we might tend to want to believe.

For instance, Jesus promises us “rest” in the next world. Well, frankly, rest wouldn’t mean that much unless it was preceded by work, and the more exhaustive the work, the more delicious the rest becomes to us. If you just sit around and rest all day, without the work, then the rest becomes dull, boring, and even distasteful. And it’s that way with everything…the longer you go without food, the more you enjoy the flavor and satisfaction of eating; the colder you get outside in the winter, the more enjoyable to your body the warmth of your house becomes; and so on.

So now, the big question: Are you thankful for your opposition? Are you thankful for your struggle, adversity, sickness, loneliness, heartbreak, temptation, enemies, poverty, physical limitations, etc.? Are you reflecting on those this Thanksgiving…and doing so with a grateful heart? That’s a much harder thing to do. All of that opposition was unwanted, and even painful. We are usually quite glad to be past any of it. Why would we want to go back to it in our minds and be grateful for it?

Consider this: if Adam and Eve had not transgressed and partaken of the fruit that had been forbidden them, the scripture says, “they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin” (2 Nephi 2: 22-23). Perhaps we tend to think of innocence as being without sin, or untainted by the ugliness of the world. But here, in this scripture we see that innocence means experiencing no opposites. Therefore, if you think about it, a small child can’t be profoundly happy since it has never been excruciatingly sad. It can’t fully, like an adult, rejoice in the love it receives from the humans around it because its undeveloped mind can’t possibly fathom the horrendous heartache of neglect and abandonment.

We are taught and shaped by these opposites. We gain understanding, compassion for others, and a view of the world that puts us all on an equal plane…for all suffer, and all question, and all are without some answers. But as time passes, we come to truly appreciate all the light of our lives because it is opposite of the dark we have known. And God intends to get us through this life, and—if we let Him—give us an abundance of light. I mean…what are the opposites of struggle, adversity, sickness, loneliness, heartbreak, temptation, enemies, poverty, and physical limitations? The opposites are the great and perfect things that our Father and Savior offer us in their kingdom. But before they pour the fulness of these things into our laps, they give us a world full of the things that are opposite…and our souls evolve.

I am a different, more complete person today because of my opposites. And I need to thank my God for that.

Helen Keller said: “I thank God for my handicaps for, through them, I have found myself, my work, and my God.”

To come to be grateful for that which in the past has brought you the greatest adversity, affliction, pain, and self-doubt, is to see the possibility that the magnitude of your current joys might be in direct correlation with your previous sorrows.

Are you grateful for your opposites? I know, I know…easier said than done…

Happy Thanksgiving! :)