From Horror to Longing

     I noticed something interesting today as I was reading in the Book of Mormon. One of the writers, a prophet named Alma, was telling his son the experiences surrounding his conversion. Alma had been a rebel, consciously trying to tear down God's church in his day. However, after a miraculous visitation from an angel, Alma describes himself as being "racked with eternal torment...with all my sins." He goes on to say that "the very thought of coming into the presence of my God did rack my soul with inexpressible horror." Sounds pretty intense.
     Interestingly, if you skip down a few verses, Alma then says, "methought I saw...God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels...yea, and my soul did long to be there." That is a dramatic change in just eight verses: from inexpressible horror to longing. When I noticed this, I stopped and asked myself what happened in those eight verses that could do that, that could cause that significant of a change.
     I noticed three things.
     First, Alma called out to Christ. He says that he remembered his father teaching him about a savior that would provide relief from sin; perhaps in desperation as much as budding faith, Alma cried "O Jesus...have mercy on me." I can think of less extreme times in my life than Alma's where my first choice for relief from pain or guilt wasn't turning to Christ. Significantly, I've never been able to find more then just distraction by doing so. Sometimes I can distract myself for a long time, but ultimately when something is wrong, I've only been able to set it right by going to Him.
   Second and third, Alma found mercy and forgiveness. These are similar but I think there is a difference in this story. If you look at Alma's history, he really had been trying to destroy the church of God - probably not the best way to get someone's good side. Despite this, after a comparatively small but still sincere effort, God showed Alma mercy. This reminds me a little of the parable in the New Testament where Christ teaches about a man that owed his master 10,000 talents (a form of ancient currency). Despite the massiveness of the debt, when the man asked for time to repay, the master forgave the entire debt forthwith. Am I that ready to extend mercy so quickly? Something to consider.
    Third, forgiveness. The mercy that God showed to Alma came in the form of forgiveness of his sins and removal of guilt. In his own words, he said "I could remember my pains no more." Guilt to me is the worst feeling in the world, and after the things Alma had done, I'm certain he was being absolutely smothered by it. Yet again, that guilt was removed and replaced with "joy as exceeding as was my pain!"
     After experiencing that, I can see why he longed to be standing in Heavenly Father's presence.
     Last thought: I think this can be a model for how to handle sin or even just guilt. Where do you turn to? If Heavenly Father was so quick to respond to Alma, with all of his sins and history, and give mercy and relief, why not for you and me?
     I hope you don't feel that I'm oversimplifying things here because I realize that life can be complicated. But even with those complications, I believe there is something to learn here about how to handle sin and guilt and the willingness of Heavenly Father to extend mercy and forgiveness regardless of our past.

"Wherefore, my guilt was swept away"

     There are several things in life that I openly admit that I don't like, things like wasps, spiders, needles and peas. There is one that tops the list however and that I don't often admit out loud: guilt.
     To me, guilt is not only a burden that is carried, it is actively oppressive. It attacks confidence and robs you of happiness. Most of all, it destroys ones sense of inner peace and serenity, replacing it with mental torment. You might think I'm talking about guilt over grave and massive mistakes, but for me guilt comes easily with small things - perhaps a side effect of being a perfectionist. Surely guilt has a positive role in helping us to recognize when we're doing something wrong, but what about guilt that goes beyond that, guilt that hinders you from doing what is right?
     Recently, I've reflected on several verses of scripture that have helped me to face and overcome feelings of guilt. The first is Revelations 12:10-11: "And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the lamb." The accuser referenced in this scripture is Satan, and surely there is no better name for him than accuser. This scripture is significant to me because it helps me identify who the source of unhealthy guilt is, and from there it is easier to see where to go to find relief.

     The next scripture comes from Enos in the Book of Mormon. Enos was the son of a prophet named Jacob, the spiritual leader of one of the main groups of people in the Book of Mormon (note, this is not Jacob from the Old Testament). I can only imagine what kind of life a young person would have as the child of a prophet. But regardless, Enos was hunting in the woods while pondering on his father's teachings about Christ. After investing some significant amount of time in prayer and energy in desire, he writes that he heard a voice which said, "Enos, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou shalt be blessed. And I, Enos, knew that God could not lie; wherefore, my guilt was swept away."

     Like Enos, my experience has been that nothing relieves guilt and restores happiness like forgiveness. And for those times when guilt is not the result of sin, the presence of the Holy Spirit that comes by reaching for Christ has invariably brought the peace and serenity I need. Perhaps a struggle that you, like I, have had is when guilt comes from failing to meet what you feel God's expectations are. In those times it can be particularly difficult to turn to Him for relief because it seems as if He is the source. Those struggles have been some of the hardest, and I wish that I could give you an easy answer for coming through them, but I do not know one. What I do know though is that in every struggle that I refuse to turn away from him, somehow the relief comes. Not always quickly, not always easily, but without fail it does. And when it does, it is more powerful, greater in depth and peace than any struggle could ever be in hardship.

     I agree with the words of Peter: "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life."

Feeling the Spirit's Voice

     There is a scripture in the Book of Mormon that says, "[A]nd [God] hath spoken unto you in a still small voice, but ye were past feeling, that ye could not feel his words." (1st Nephi 17:45). The context of this scripture is not as important here as the teaching included on how the Holy Spirit speaks to us. This scripture describes it as a still small voice, but one that is felt more than heard. Feeling that voice is one of the greatest comforts and blessings that comes to me from living the gospel of Jesus Christ. I have never experienced anything that can compare to the perfect peace that comes from that divine presence.
     What can we do to invite that presence? I was asking myself that question a few days ago as I realized that I was not experiencing that connection as consistently as I believed God was willing to share it. I offered a simple prayer asking what I could do to invite the Holy Spirit more into my life, to offer both counsel and peace. The answer was not what I expected: write down your thoughts as you study the scriptures. I've taken the time to do that the past few days and in doing so I've spent more time pondering and applying what I read. And doing that has brought the companionship of the Spirit. It is a simple thing to do though not always easy with a busy schedule and plenty of other things to demand my attention. But the peace that comes I would not trade.
     What can you do to invite the Holy Spirit's presence?

God is Love

     Had an interesting experience today, but first a quick explanation of terms. In the LDS Church, we use the word testimony to refer to the knowledge and beliefs that a person holds. We often share our testimonies in our worship services. A person might say something like, "I know that Heavenly Father loves his children" or "I know that Jesus Christ died for our sins." A testimony can be very personal, multilayered, and vary in strength with different aspects of the gospel. For example, a person might have a strong testimony of the power of prayer but struggle with studying the scriptures frequently. Testimonies grow through time and experience, becoming the summation of our lives experiences and interactions with Heavenly Father and his work. 

     With that, one of the areas of my testimony that has always felt a little weaker is knowing Jesus Christ. I believe in Jesus, his miracles, death and atonement, but I have always felt that my personal relationship with him was different - less clear, more amorphous - than my relationship with Heavenly Father. You could say that I don't feel like I know Jesus as well as I do the Father.

     Earlier today, I was reading an article in the Ensign magazine - a monthly publication of the LDS church with gospel messages. The article was written by a woman who shared similar feelings to me regarding her testimony of Jesus Christ. With prayer and study, she felt inspired to serve others, direction that seemed somewhat unrelated to her. But by following that guidance, she came to the conclusion expressed in 1st John 4:16, "God is love." The understanding I gained from her experience was this: we come to know Christ through imitation, by doing what he would do and thus feeling what he feels - knowing him by becoming more like him. 

     "[W]e know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him," 1st John 3:2.

Sleep-Deprived Bliss

     Two weeks ago our son was born! Despite the sleep deprivation and other circumstances coincident to having a newborn in our home, we are loving being parents. While we were in the hospital, I had an interesting experience that I want to relate, though a little background is necessary first.
     In Junior High and High School, I spent a large amount of my time playing video games on my computer. It was the predominant use of my time after school. However, once I left for college (I was barely 17 at the time), I began to feel bad about how much time I spent gaming and the kind of content in those games. I resolved to spend less time playing and to limit my gaming to Real-time Strategy games, which I felt were less violent and often less vulgar.
     By the time I was 21, I had just come back from spending two years as a missionary for my church during which time I hadn't spent any time gaming. I resolved then to stop playing games because I felt they were a waste of time. For the next four years, I went back and forth on this as I experienced times of boredom, stress, acquired new technology such as an iPod Touch, a Wii and other things that were still gaming but not the traditional kind of gaming I was used to. Every time I started getting too involved, I quiet but unshakable feeling came over me that I had more important things to do. That feeling was puzzling at times because it often didn't feel like I had anything better to do with my time.
     Over time, this quiet yet forceful feeling expanded to include the number and kinds of movies I would watch and the kinds of books I would read until it felt as if I was destined to never be able to do anything fun again. It forced me to rethink how I spent my leisure time and to find relaxing yet meaningful ways to occupy myself. I picked up new hobbies including racquetball, family history, non-fiction reading, etc. As I was adjusting to these changes, I thought to myself that God was trying to teach me self-discipline and to be a wise steward over my time.
     Fast-forward now to being in the hospital with my wife and our new baby. It was late at night and both mother and baby were finally sleeping. Due to some complications with the birth, my wife had been unable to get out of bed, leaving me to take care of our son. I was exhausted but I thought to myself, "now I have a chance to spend a few minutes doing whatever I want." I read a few articles on the internet and in the process a silly online game caught my attention and I allowed myself to get sucked in. After about an hour, I realized that it was more important for me to get some sleep so that I could take care of my son when he next woke up. As I shut down my computer, this thought came clearly to my mind in a way that I've learned to associate with God's voice: "This is why I've been teaching you to deny yourself and not get lost in seeking constant entertainment. Now you have the self-discipline to put your wife and your son ahead of yourself."
     I'm grateful for a Heavenly Father that knew years in advance how hard it would be for me to change and began helping me many years ago to start becoming the husband and father that he wants and needs me to be.

Slow to Anger

Today I had a frustrating morning. Two of my classmates made comments to me that rubbed some salt in a wound which was very upsetting. I spent a good deal of the afternoon at work telling myself to forget about it, to stop feeling angry. Despite this, the comments kept replaying in my mind along with inflammatory repsonses. I'm grateful I didn't actually say any of those things but thinking them kept me in a bad mood. By the time I came home tonight I had mostly cleared my mind.
After dinner I sat down to read in the scriptures for a while. While praying, I remembered a talk given by Gordon B. Hinckley, a leader of the LDS church who passed away in 2008, on the subject of anger. I read that talk tonight and several statements stood out to me, especially this one: "Happy is the man who can brush aside the offending remarks of another and go on his way." Another was a reference to a hymn entitled "School Thy Feelings." I'm grateful for talks like this. They help me to not only control any anger I feel but to do better at choosing not to be angry.
Here is a link to the talk: http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2007/10/slow-to-anger?lang=eng&query=anger

Here is a link to a video of the talk if you can't use the video on the above link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLKBPn9GEVM

Feeling Peace Inside

Last Monday evening my wife and I took a coworker of mine to visit Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. As we walked around the temple and through the visitor's centers, it simply felt good to be there. Temple Square has so much history but was constructed through so much sacrifice that the Holy Spirit seems especially present there. There is a special peace that I feel whenever I visit the grounds of an LDS Temple. It is easier to feel calm and at peace inside of myself when I am there. I know that one of the greatest blessings that I find in the gospel is experiencing peace. It is very easy for me to become busy or to get caught up in the thick of thin things, but keeping the commandments of God, particularly reading his word in the Scriptures and also speaking with him through prayer, fills me with a sense of peace and serenity. There is a prayer whose origin I do not remember but that includes the statement "God grant me serenity." And I believe that he does.

On Sincerity

     We had some friends from our congregation over on Wednesday night and we got on the subject of parenting. My wife and I are expecting our first child soon so the topic comes up frequently. Our guests made the usual kind of comments: "good luck with that," "I could never handle kids," or "I hate changing diapers." In general, it felt like their comments (and similar ones I have made in the past) were negative, flippant and probably didn't reflect how they really felt about children. 
     It seems common in my group of friends to act like this, saying what is expected, sounds funny or fits a stereotype. How often do I do that instead of saying what I really think or feel? My honest opinion is that one of the most important attributes of a parent is patience. It seems easy to skip over that and say something less sincere and less meaningful. I'm not saying that there isn't a place to be funny and make jokes, but perhaps we could all use a little more sincere conversation.

Organizing to Make a Difference

     I need to provide a little background about how LDS congregations are organized in order to explain the topic of this post. Within a typical LDS congregation, there is an Elders Quorum and a Relief Society which are something like a men's and a women's group respectively. One of the main functions of both of these groups is to provide service, and they often work together in accomplishing this.
     Each group has a president who has two counselors and a secretary. I currently am a counselor in my congregation's Elders Quorum. My primary responsibility is to oversee and organize service activities for the quorum. And here we come to the point. Our quorum does a wonderful job at performing "routine" kinds of service. We shovel snow for widows, help people move into/out of their homes, drive African refugees to a Swahili speaking congregation, and other simple, yet meaningful tasks. But my question is what can we do that is outside of the norm? I believe these acts of service our important, and very good in fact; but perhaps they limit my vision as to what we can accomplish because it is what we have always done. What can we do to broaden our vision?

(One hour later...)
     
     And Google comes through again. By searching "community service opportunities" I was able to find quite a few ideas that I hadn't thought of before. Several involve setting up 5K runs for MS or cancer, but there were some other ideas as well. I believe I'm a thinking a little broader than before. Do you have any ideas?

Perhaps be the Means...

     I hope that what I write here will be as much, if not more, about you as about me. I'm don't want to hide that I'm here to talk about my faith and living a Christian life. Where do we talk publicly, sincerely, humbly about our beliefs? Depending on your background, you might talk about your faith frequently; perhaps you don't have a particular faith or you are not religious. Regardless, I believe there will be something in this blog for each of you. 

     I've titled this blog "Perhaps be the Means" based on a verse of scripture. The quotation in full is:

And we have suffered all manner of afflictions, and all this, that perhaps we might be the means of saving some soul; and we supposed that our joy would be full if perhaps we could be the means of saving some. Alma 26:30

     My desire is that here, by relating my experiences of meeting life as a Christian, particularly as an LDS Christian, that you and I will both be blessed and have our faith reinforced. This is a place where I hope that you and I might "perhaps be the means" of bringing our souls and the souls of others closer to Christ.