Know Your Religion

My Religion And Me Index

2006-09-10T20:10:00.000-06:00

      **Table of Contents**

Chapter 1 - Your Part In The Lord's Work
Chapter 2 - What Is My Relationship With God
Chapter 3 - Where Did I Come From? - Part 1
Chapter 4 - Where Did I Come From? - Part 2
Chapter 5 - What Is Free Agency?
Chapter 6 - Are There Eternal Laws?
Chapter 7 - Why Is A Family? - Part 1
Chapter 8 - Why Is A Family? - Part 2
Chapter 9 - How Can I Live More Abundantly?
Chapter 10-What (Who) Is Holding Me Back?
Chapter 11-What About The Fall of Man?
Chapter 12-Why A Physical Body?
Chapter 13-Achieving Balance In Our Lives: Am I Lopsided?

Know Your Religion

2005-11-27T00:34:00.000-07:00

Chapter 13
ACHIEVING BALANCE IN OUR LIVES: AM I LOPSIDED?

Pentagonal People

The Pentagon building in Washington, D.C., was acclaimed as a marvel when it was built. People still get lost in its complex mazes. From the air, however, it presents a picture of balance—a five-sided architectural wonder with all its sides the same length and its angles exactly equal. In form it represents an idea for which to aim in our self-development lest we become lopsided or go off on a tangent. If we think of a five-sided figure with each side representing a facet of human development -spiritual, intellectual, physical, emotional, and social—we need to keep all five sides even in order to insure equality of all angles and balance of the figure or life.

If things get out of balance and one ore more aspects of a person’s nature is extended to the exclusion or partial exclusion of any or all of the other parts, the whole pattern is thrown out of kilter.

We should be careful that we do not get the wrong impression from the above diagram, for having a well-balanced life does not necessarily mean that each facet of life has the same degree of emphasis or the same amount of time and effort assigned to its development. Being “off balance” means that one does not have the appropriate or ideal amount of development in one or more aspects of life. This is very different from having the same amount, and lacking the ideal amount of any aspect of life makes for imperfection.

It must be remembered also that each of the five sides of life affects the other four, and only the balanced effect of all make for an ideal life. In practical terms this means that less time may be spent on purely spiritual affairs in life but the influence of spirituality on the other four will be very great.

Take a basketball player who devotes a lot of time to practice to perfect his timing and his shots, increase his stamina, and work out various plays. Might it not be possible that other things would suffer such as his studies, social life, or even church activities? Perhaps this would not be harmful if it lasted only during the basketball season for the years he has in high school, but suppose this exaggerated emphasis on physical development carried over into his latter life as it has for many athletes. Might it not upset the balance in his life?

On the other hand, many teenagers fail to get enough physical activity. There is a generalized resistance to physical education and spectator sports keep many young people flabby. Some overdo in the intellectual sphere and retire to the academic world, where there are no social challenges or threats, no athletic events, no emotional problems to meet head-on, perhaps even few spiritual considerations. Of course, it is an exaggeration to single out any one of these facets of life, because for most people there is some development in all of them. The point is that the gospel plan neglects nothing, but, within the framework of the Church, it allows for the total development of the whole person—in fact, encourages it.

It becomes the responsibility of the Church, the conservator of our religion, to provide means and direction whereby humanity may be led into paths of happiness. This responsibility includes every need of man. Whatever pertains to human welfare must be the concern of the Church. The function of the Church is all inclusive, comprehensive; hence all issues of life must receive its careful consideration. Whatever concerns man is the concern of the Church, whether of earth or heaven, whether of this or a future life. Only on such a platform can the Church meet its responsibilities properly and fully. It dare not shirk any labor by which men may increase in happiness.1

Think for a moment of the opportunities offered to each of you during any given month
of church participation. They include public speaking, singing, athletic activities, dancing, social events, scripture reading, partaking of the sacrament, prayer, testimony bearing, drama, service, and class work. All these are the outgrowth of the Church’s basic philosophy set forth clearly in the thirteenth Article of Faith.

We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

These basic philosophy seeks a “well-rounded” balance and it discourages (leaves no
time for) going off on tangents or getting bogged down in one kind of endeavor.

The Savior’s Life Was Balanced

The Savior is often mistakenly pictured as effeminate, or at least as having somewhat
womanly qualities only. But his life was arduous and demanding and he lived it vigorously and zestfully and set a pattern even in the little we know of him, of all well-rounded (or evenly angled) life.

Charles Edward Jefferson presents this picture of him:
But when we come to Jesus we find ourselves in the presence of a man without a flaw.
He was enthusiastic, blazing with enthusiasm, but he never became fanatical. He was emotional, men could feel the throbbing of his heart, but he never became hysterical. He was imaginative, full of poetry and music, seeing pictures everywhere, throwing upon everything he touched a light that never was on land or was never flighty. He was practical, hard-headed, matter-of-fact, but he was never prosaic, never dull. His life always had in it the glamour of romance. He was courageous but never reckless, prudent but never a coward, unique but not eccentric, sympathetic but never sentimental. Great streams of sympathy flowed from his tender heart toward those who needed sympathy, but at this same time streams of lava flowed from the same heart to scorch and overwhelm the workers of iniquity. He was pious, but there is not a trace about him of sanctimoniousness.2

From its very beginning, the Church has put emphasis on the training and expanding of the minds of its members. Through the Prophet Joseph Smith, on May 6, 1833, the Lord gave a revelation which contained the following:
The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth.
Light and truth forsake that evil one.
But I have commanded you to bring up your children in light and truth. (D&C 93:36-37,40)

From that day to this, the Church has endeavored to carry out this commandment in many ways. Dr. John A. Widtsoe and Elder Richard L. Evans, members of the Twelve, have written concerning some of the teachings and accomplishments of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

Within a year of the organization of the Church, in 1831, provision was made for schools, teachers and schoolbooks. A little later, in 1833, a school for mature men, known as the School of the Prophets, was conducted. This anticipated the present worldwide movement for adult education. In 1842, when the Missouri refugees were building the city of Nauvoo, a university was founded.
On the trek westward, following the expulsion from Nauvoo, school sessions were held in the moving camps. A few weeks after reaching Salt Lake Valley, school was begun in the sage encircled, pioneer log cabins. One of the first legislative acts, after provision had been make for roads in the wilderness, was the chartering in 1850 of a university, the first west of the Missouri River.
Since then the people, despite the toil of compelling a stubborn desert to serve civilized man, have fostered the training of the mind, with all the attendant arts and cultures.3

In the article reference was made to Dr. Edward L. Thorndike’s study on men of science, as follows:
In the number of men of achievement, Utah, on a per capita basis, was the highest and led the nearest state, Colorado, by about thirty percent.4

Currently, the Church maintains Brigham Young University at Provo, Utah, with the
enrollment over 25,000 and Ricks College, a junior college at Rexburg, Idaho, with an enrollment of more than 4,000 students. [Remember this was manual was printed in 1973] Both are the largest church-supported schools of their class in the United States. In addition, the Church maintains the four-year Church College of Hawaii at Laie, Oahu, Hawaii, with an enrollment of over 1,100 students; the Church College of New Zealand (600), the Church College of Western Samoa (1,250); and the Juarez Academy in Mexico for secondary schooling; and many elementary schools in Mexico and parts of South America and the Pacific Islands where only very limited schooling opportunities would otherwise exist.

At over 300 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada, there are adjacent institutes of religion to provide a variety of classes in religious studies for LDS and other interested students. In 1968-69, the institutes served some 36,642 students. Seminary classes for high school students are increasing in number each year. In 1968-69, 125,725 students were taught in the released-time, nonrelease-time, and Indian seminaries in North America. A new home study program for students of seminary age has been instituted in English-speaking countries and is so popular that it is expanding rapidly, especially in England and Australia, and consideration is being given to introducing it in several non-English tongues. Requests have been made for similar home study courses for adults. Money, time, ingenuity, and effort are being poured into educational enterprises on many fronts by the Latter-day Saints, who believe that no man can be saved in ignorance.

There are several reasons why a young member of the Church is encouraged to be vitally interested in his own education.

First, the world needs people who can decide not only between good and evil, but between less good and better. An education that has taught one to reason carefully, analyze, and make decisions, as well as giving one specialized knowledge, will be of critical importance.

Secondly, a person’s work has a direct influence on his community; and his salary (a person who finishes sixteen years of training will normally earn approximately four times as much as the person who finishes only eight), which in turn determines his home, car, vacation time, clothes, insurance coverage, and retirement. His physical health, his children’s schooling, his presence in the home to help with the family, his participation in Church work and hence possibly his salvation all related to the quality and skills of his vocation.

In the words of the First Presidency in a letter to Church leaders, April 1, 1966:

The Church has long encouraged its members, and especially its youth, either to obtain a college education or to become well trained in some vocation in a trade school. In our fast growing industrial society, this becomes almost a necessity, for unless our young people are well educated, or well trained, they will not be able to obtain proper jobs or positions in the future. The jobs that require no education or training are decreasing from year to year and soon will be practically non-existent.

Third, nearly everyone wants to have the repeated thrill of intellectual accomplishment,
whether it be gained in repairing a car, baking a cake, walking through the woods, or reading a book. Much that we feel and love depends exclusively on what we have learned about the world in the process of training. Each member of the Church is urged to study diligently from the time he learns to read until he can no longer do so and to share his leaning with others both within and without the Church.

If a person had no formal schooling after he learned the three R’s, other than what the Church provides, and if he took full advantage of that, he would be encouraged to learn on his own and would be guided in how to do it. Probably he would cease to be satisfied, too, with only an elementary education and would seek greater intellectual growth. The Church is in the process of lifting great numbers of people to a higher level of life and appreciation of it through education.

Emotional Stability

Much that is important to our success depends on our emotional maturity. If we will be happy, we must not always be thinking of ourselves and what we can get out of everything, but rather we must turn our thoughts and actions outward to others. We must stop looking for friends and start being a friend ourself.

Consider what an effect such Christlike attitude would have on all concerned. Everyone is drawn to an outgoing young person. His parents find him cooperative, pleasant conversation becomes the rule, duties are done swiftly and well, and all different kinds of people are blessed from associating with him. His friends, teachers at school, even perfect strangers—all treat him with respect and love.

Employers have much more difficulty with people who cannot get along with other people than with people who cannot do their jobs. Good interpersonal relationships depend on the degree of emotional maturity in the people involved. Someone looking for slights, imagining hurts; someone militantly defending his “rights,” resenting authority; someone sulking over disappointments, worrying over things that never happen—in a measure, all such “someones” are immature emotionally. Like babies, they have a sense of being at the center of the universe, either solicitous or hostile, and they demand attention and seem to think that all things begin and end with them. Few are entirely free from emotional prejudices, and everyone’s behavior is colored by feelings. What, then, is emotional maturity? How do you know whether your are grown up?

Our emotions can be controlled, and wven more significantly, they can be channeled into worthwhile pursuits. We can learn better ways to meet everyday life. One of the best things a person can learn is to express his feelings in socially acceptable ways instead of letting them “fume and fester” inside, producing an eventual explosion. Learn to talk things out calmly instead of resorting to bursts of profanity, throwing things, or fighting. Learn to listen. Try to see the other person’s side. There will be need for this kind of control wherever you go.

A related concern for youth is handling disappointments. During the teen years, these may seem to come too ofter. It’s an experimental time, starts and stops, high excitement, and bitter frustration. Gradually, the violent ups and downs level off, and the person who maintains his equilibrium through them gains considerable maturity.

The gospel here too helps people maintain their equilibrium with opportunities to work with other people in many types of activities; to receive counsel; to attend classes where much can be learned about emotional maturity and how to achieve it; to have the companionship of the Holy Ghost; to pray, and to study of others who have weathered such storms as now we know, and how they did it. Like a gyroscope, the gospel at the center of our lives will keep us on course steadily; unlike any earthly gyroscope, however, it helps us to grow and develop emotionally so that we do not lose our balance.

Perhaps above all else, the young member of the Church today needs to have courage; to be almost fearless. In times past, many young people have had to face grave dangers and master their fears, sorrow, hate, even happiness and love, for the sake of a cause. They had to have courage, faith, and knowledge.

The present and future times will be no less demanding. The young member of the Church today is asked to take a firm stand against indulgence in drugs, immorality, and breaking the Sabbath and the Word of Wisdom. Many may be asked to stand against godless, atheistic, and satanic forces at the cost of their lives. In the days of persecution they will be asked to show love toward their persecutors. At a time when selfishness seems so prevalent, they are now asked to give generously of their time and talents, and in doing so gain a stability for later turbulent times.

Physical Fitness

Physical fitness is a complex term including such items as oral hygiene, dental care, medical examinations, vaccinations, proper diet, sufficient rest, and exercise. Exercise is only a part of physical fitness, however, an essential part.

A sixteen to seventeen year old should, if in good health, be able to chin himself at least three times, do at least thirteen sit-ups, and four squat jumps. Each of these groups should be ably performed in not more than ten seconds.

If you are not up to these standards, you would do well to get some more exercise. Now is the time to learn athletic skills which you can use as you grow older. Besides exercise, these provide you with ways to use your spare time constructively with other members of your family and friends. In an era when the working man is apparently going to have more leisure time than ever before, this will become increasingly important.

There are other good reasons for keeping your body trim and healthy, too.

Many young people are bothered with bad complexions. For this reason you may elect to avoid highly spiced foods and chocolate. A sound physical condition contributes to emotional stability, good spirits, and high morale. With good health, you are more likely to get your work done with a resultant boost to your self-esteem. You can take emotional and physical shocks more easily. You are far more likely to have the enthusiasm and alertness which act as magnets on other people. Everyone enjoys being around a cheerful, energetic person.

The typical problems of teenagers, such as underweight or overweight, acne, poor posture from a body that is in rapid growth, awkwardness, and emotional changes, can all be helped by a sound physical health program.

Our bodies, as we have seen, are precious gifts from our Heavenly Father, given to us as a vital part of our progression. We cannot abuse them without suffering the consequences.

Man’s good physical health has long been a concern of the Lord. Few other good things are possible without it. In the Word of Wisdom, as we have already discussed, he provides the basic rules for good health, together with the promises that will follow obedience to them. Part of the Church program for young people is directed to the building of healthy bodies, as well as the enjoyment of the fun of competitive sports. Full Church activity will contribute to normal physical development and good health.

Social Life

We are all brothers and sisters, and from the time we are born into a family, we start getting along with one another one way or another. Social development cannot take place without some difficulties. The give-and –take of everyday life sometimes jars our feelings. Nevertheless, no one can retreat into isolation and be a good member of the Church. Social maturity calls for good mental and emotional health, and there is consequent growth in all these areas within the gospel.

One of the beauties of the gospel is that its basic message is also the secret of getting along with other people—love. This sounds simple, but it is sometimes difficult to do. Things and feelings get in the way. It seems sometimes that the very most difficult people to get along with in the world are members of your won family. And it is here, in the family, that living (gospel or otherwise) is learned, if it is learned at all. The home is the basic unit in the Church, and gradually many thousands of scrapping children have been led to the surprising realization that brothers and sisters can be friends, as well as to the broadening concept that friends are brothers and sisters. The difficult lessons learned in the home extend, through Church activity, to all the world. The second part of the first and great commandment, “thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matthew 22:39) is a doctrine of salvation, and the living of it brings to Church members such glad implications that most of them get all choked up trying to tell about it.

All the way through life the social implications of the gospel are with us to make us joyous. Dances, parties, activities of all kinds, as well as class discussions, quorum meetings, and gatherings in the foyer point up to the social nature of the life God ordained for us to live. We are his children, and this kinship fosters in us feelings of brotherhood that buoy us up in time of trouble and give us cause to rejoice when things go well for anyone we love.

Spiritual Sustenance

This whole lesson is an elaboration of the idea that the gospel will build us up in every aspect of life—emotional, spiritual, intellectual, physical, and social. We have pointed out that the spiritual should have the strongest ties and therefore the greatest influence and control over the other four. But full spiritual growth comes best with the appropriate development of each of the other facets of life and it must be permitted to permeate everything else with which life is concerned. This is more than having perfect symmetrical development, it is having perfectly balanced and controlled development. This means that life is lived well on a wide range of interests and needs, but it also means that there is harmony and wholeness in it.

John A. Widtsoe, The Program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Mutual Improvement Association of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1938), p. 24
Charles Edward Jefferson, The Character of Jesus (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1908), p. 87
John A. Widtsoe and Richard L. Evans, “The Educational Level of the Latter day Saints,” Improvement Era 50: 446 (July 1947).
Widtsoe and Evans, Improvement Era 50:446.

My Religion and Me

2005-11-27T00:22:00.000-07:00

Chapter 12
WHY A PHYSICAL BODY?

“The elements are the tabernacle of God; yea man is the tabernacle of God, even temples and whatsoever temple is defiled, God shall destroy that temple.” (D&C 93:35)

In this day of science fiction, orbits, interplanetary travel, flying saucers, and imaginative
fantasies about being lost in space, we are all nudged to think about these questions: What sort of creatures might be out there living on other worlds? Are there really little green men with antennae for ears? It is surprising that all the efforts to please and surprise television viewers has not produced an imaginary creature that is at least in some ways an improvement on man.

How Could We Be Improved upon?

You might try to break that “personality barrier” sometime. Try to sketch a body which in your judgment, at least, is more balanced, more functional, more beautiful, and more capable of winning the admiration of intelligent creatures than the one with which we are presently endowed. You will likely find, that the best, most efficient, most sublime body that you can conceive is the human body perfected.

Is this just egotism based on our lack of imagination? Is it not likely that ants would “idealize” ants but be quite unwilling to think that being manlike is an improvement? Would the same not be true of birds and fish? Perhaps, but from God the Father we have learned that man has dominion over all other creatures because his makeup is divine. Man in the form of his present spirit and body, which, we are taught, resemble each other (D&C 77:2), has an ascendancy over all other creatures. He is the pride of the universe because he was created in the express image of his Creator.

Why have a body at all? Why not simply remain in the condition of spirit bodies, freed of what is sometimes called the prison house of mortality?

It has been commonly assumed over the past 2500 years by most religious cultures, both in the Western world and in the Orient, that the body is much inferior to the soul (what we would call the spirit). By extremists is has been taught that there is no real similarity of substance between the two. They have received, therefore, a dual being, composed of two incompatible components—mater and spirit, or soul. They think of the soul as immaterial, shadowy, elusive, immortal, and the body as an inferior coarse abode in which the soul is housed and from which is will escape happily. Such ideas are not always a part of religious doctrines, but they seem deeply ingrained in many cultures. Are they true?

Much negative teaching about the body grows out of the false premises that the body is matter and the spirit is not, that matter is evil or at least less good than spirit or soul-substance. The idea persists that the body must be abused, ignored, discredited, or crushed into submission because it is forever at odds with the sublime spirit enchained in it.

Modern revelation clarifies the relationship between body and spirit. To combine spirit with matter is a step forward for the spirit. This combination is not of two utterly different and unrealated things but of two kinds of the same substance. The Prophet Joseph Smith declared that spirit is substance and is material but that it is a more pure, elastic, and refined matter than the body.1 Matter is the building block for everything physical or spiritual. It is the “stuff” of which all things are made.

The possession of a physical body makes possible the expansion of our world of perception and participation into the realm of earthly elements. Let us see what that means. Our present degree of knowledge has identified, classified, and characterized more than one hundred chemical elements which constitute our physical world of exploration and are a part of our being. Revelation tells us that there are also spirit elements in the spirit world which are more “pure” and “refined” than the elements of this world of mortality. Possessing an earthly body opens up a whole new kind of world for us, and having a physical body is an advantage in order to become acquainted with this order of elements. But we may project this idea to a third sphere because the Lord has revealed still another kind of world system into which we are shortly to be introduced—the world of resurrected and “perfected” elements. This third system appears to be a combination and expansion of the first two. There are three kinds of worlds—three kinds of elements to know, use, make a part of ourselves, and add to our potential and our joy. Only in association with all of these can intelligences “receive a fullness of joy.” (D&C 93:33) Knowledge of these progressive stages opens to our vision something of the spectrum of possible knowledge and relationships which make possible our eternal progression.

Furthermore, all those who have bodies have the power over those who have not. Angels who have bodies which have been reunited with their spirits have advanced higher in knowledge and power than spirits, according to the Prophet Joseph Smith.2 A body thus working with a spirit becomes a means of power and advancement.

Indeed we know what a diminishment of power accompanies the loss of a limb or an organ or facility in this world. Have you a friend who is an amputee or a paraplegic (paralyzed in the lower half of the body)? Or do you know someone who has lost his eyesight or his hearing or, because of enforced or accidental cutting o a nerve, has lost his taste or smell or touch? Then you know something of what loss of power means. It is remarkable that t woman like Helen Keller, who was in a dark and silent world alone, managed to make contact with the world through touch only. What might she have been with sight and hearing?

We witness occasionally the tragedy of a body which is stunted or deformed in its growth. All the essential parts are intact, but they do not function normally. The person lives, but is not able to move, act, or give and receive of himself the way so-called “normal” people do, who too often take what they have for granted.

When we consider all the handicaps of the amputee or the deformed, we can better understand the delimitation and impotence that would attend having no body at all. And yet many Christians await eagerly the day when they can escape the “mortal coil” and the vicissitudes of the flesh to move to a superior stage of existence—or so they think.. Actually in many respects it is just the opposite. Revelation tells us (D&C 45:17) that we will look upon the separation of spirit and body impatiently, that we will consider the long absence from our bodies as a bondage. Disembodied existence will be equivalent to being an expert violinist without a violin—the great principle of happiness consists in having a body.

Nor is it only external motion that we get from having a body; it is internal emotion as well. There is a direct connection between pleasing the eye, gladdening the heart, and thus enlivening the soul. (See D&C 59:18-19.) We can glimpse the possibilities of a higher sensitivity in daily experience.

There are treble ranges and bass ranges of sound that we cannot yet hear.
There are colors in the spectrum that our eyes cannot catch. How many colors and what magnificent patterns might be characteristic of the worlds to come?

There are tastes that come for fleeting instants in moments of great thirst or luchk accident which no mortal gourmet or professional connoisseur can catch.

What might it mean to feel the touch of the hand of Christ? There are scents…the pure breezes of heaven…that many miss.

There are dimensions, as it were, of mutual feeling when the affinity of one soul for another is so profound that nothing within us remains unaffected. We vibrate, or resonate, like a tuning fork to a rich chord. And something like that, surely, will attend our being in the presence of God and the prophets.

Every spiritual happening at its greatest intensity is not just a joy that touches us in the spirit. It is an “all over” sensation that leads to the use of such expressions as “every fiber of my being” or “from head to toe.” When young Nephi was trying to describe it, he coupled his bodily and spiritual reactions to the love of God, saying, “He hath filled me with his love, even unto the consuming of my flesh.” (2 Nephi 4:21)

Can we say that the body makes possible certain spiritual raptures otherwise unreachable? Yes, we can. That is the central point of the doctrine that when separated the body and the spirit of man cannot receive a fullness of joy. The body then, is not just a “coat of paint” on the spirit. It is a crucially important organism in its own right which opens up new levels of awareness and happiness for mind and spirit. The ancient sage seems to have glimpsed this concept when he said, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” (Proverbs 17:22)

If the body is good, why all the emphasis in sacred writ on purifying and sanctifying, on overcoming the filthiness of the flesh, on being, as the scriptures unequivocally require “born again.”?

We have been talking thus far about the kind of body that can emerge from mortality, a celestial body. In mortality the flesh may be diseased, smitten, partially deform ed. In various ways, our mortal bodies give us problems. “But all your losses will be made up to you in the resurrection, provided you continue faithful.” said Joseph Smith.3 Here in mortality bodies may be “opaque” to the light of God, may so darken themselves that they are unsusceptible to the influence of God. Such a condition results from physical abuse or moral license—abiding in sin. Such persons are slowly poisoning their otherwise infinite powers. They must remain filthy still. Unless they receive by their only Christ can give, they will, indeed, be manacled by the body. Such a body will cease to be reward and will become a torment. Only those who live downwardly will be partakers of it.

The process that leads upward is something else again. A statement from the Prophet tells us that the effects of the Spirit of God upon us in preparing our bookies for eternity depends upon, or is adapted to, the fleshy inheritance we have. That is, in our present condition we can receive through the Holy Ghost “pure intelligence” or the “light and glory and power of God.”

It is more powerful in expanding the mind, enlightening the understanding, and storing the intellect with present knowledge, of a man who is the literal seed of Abraham, than one that is a Gentile, though it may not have half as much visible effect upon the body; for as the Holy Ghost falls upon one of the literal seed of Abraham, it is calm and serene; and the whole soul and body are only exercised by the pure spirit of intelligence; while the effect of the Holy Ghost upon a Gentile, is to purge out the old blood, and make him actually of the seed of Abraham…a new creation by the Holy Ghost. In such a case, there may be more of a powerful effect upon the body, visible to the eye, than upon an Israelite, while the Israelite at first might be far before the Gentile in pure intelligence.

A body that has been acted upon by the Holy Ghost can be presented pure in the celestial kingdom, pure enough to endure the eternal burnings of light and fire that are characteristic of celestial glory, filled with intelligence, sensitive to all that is good, triumphant over all antagonizing forces or tendencies, breathing a new atmosphere, nourished by new fluids, equipped for instantaneous motion, and capable of entering into the fruition of all joy that was experienced or anticipated in this world. Such a body, in short, is harmonized into the unity and completeness and wholeness that is divine holiness.

On The Way Up

In the Orient there are religions that seek the “extinction” of bodily desire. In America there are religions (though they are not called religions) that advocate the expansion of physical desire, regardless of its object or its effects. Alma said, “See that ye bridle all your passions, that ye may be filled with love.” (Alma 38:12)

Is that not a paradox? Is not love a passion? Then how can he say “bridle passions” so that you can be “filled with love”? It is not a paradox at all, but divine wisdom. Diffused passion—passion that is blind and has no relationship to the profound nature of a person’s soul—is destructive, frustrating, and inevitably turns to ashes.

To “bridle” passion is not to kill or destroy it but to direct it where the real and lasting satisfactions are. Indeed, after long and seasoned experience, the need to bridle diminishes. At that point you will have lost the desire for sin. But you will have increased in desire, every worth godlike desire. You can concentrate on enjoying the whole landscape instead of having to give your attention to the course you are taking. Your joy is increased, too. In the companionship of others who really know how to live.

God opposes the compulsive, obsessive, blind passion not because he wants you to feel less, but because he wants you to feel more. The glutton hardly tastes the food he wolfs down; the libertine knows only “loves sad satiety,” and never the ever-increasing joys of married love. We are counseled to stay within certain bounds because only within those bounds will we find the essence of everything glad and good.

Harmonious Living

We recognize that the soul of man results from the union of the spirit and body. Through this harmonious union we can know the ultimate joy of living and can come to a clearer understanding of our relationship to God. The body, so perfectly formed, transcends all fleeting joy as we literally become co-creators with God. The bearing of children is a marriage and possible because of the bodies our Father has given to us in his great eternal plan. It is intended that we co-create and bridge the eternal links of life as a family. What greater and more righteous purpose for our physical and spiritual being is there?

1. Joseph Fielding Smith, comp., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1938), p. 207.
2. Teachings, p. 325
3. Teachings, p. 296.
4. Teachings, p. 149-150.

My Religion and Me

2005-09-15T22:09:00.000-06:00

Chapter 11

WHAT ABOUT THE FALLOF MAN?

Now that we have discussed the eternal nature of our freedom and the increasing responsibility we take upon ourselves, we come to a consideration of the kind of situation we are in while living here upon the earth. We have now undergone a second “birth” in the sense of having been clothed again with another kind of body.

The Lord has revealed to us something of how we obtained physical bodies. After Adam had lived an unrevealed length of time in the Garden of Eden, he fell and became mortal. We have inherited bodies and the kind of world in which we live through him. What do we know about Adam’s sin and “Fall”?

Let us briefly consider the points of view of the world on these matters and then devote our main effort to the beautiful concept contained in the gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed in both ancient and modern scriptures.

VIEWS OF APOSTATE CHRISTENDOM

The traditional Christian doctrine of “original sin” says, in effect, that all of us were mysteriously and immaterially present in Adam. We sinned through Adam and therefore came into the world “stained” throughout our beings with that original guilt. The purpose of baptism is not for the remission of sins we commit ourselves but for the one terrible sin we committed “in Adam.” This point of view has built generations of resentment against our noble parents and has resulted in the pernicious doctrine of “pedobaptism” (infant baptism).

The apostate doctrine of “utter depravity” condemns man even more totally. It teaches that before the Fall in Eden Adam was sinless and guiltless and incorrupt, bearing somehow the “image” of God. When Adam fell, he lost absolutely and irretrievably that “image.” He became utterly depraved. All of us born since have been conceived in sin. There is no good in us. We are all bad—mind, spirit, and body. Before God we are always in the wrong. By nature, by makeup, we are incapable of doing or being anything in any way good. Baptism is pointless. No man, regardless of what he does, is worthy of divine blessing or of salvation. If he is saved, it is through the “grace” of God which he does not earn but which is bestowed in “mercy” upon the “elect” (chosen few) by the God whom everyone, chosen or not, is supposed to love and revere. This doctrine has prevailed in all Protestant churches having a Calvinistic background and is a part of the stern heritage from our pilgrim and Puritan forebearers.

A third less literal point of view which is widespread rejects the story of Adam and Eve as a nonhistorical myth, true only in the underlying presentation it give of the awful dilemma of all men-- they are estranged from themselves, from their God, and from each other. In the most of the versions of this view an extremely pessimistic attitude about the nature of man is taken. He is compound of pride, lust, and evil intent and by nature is demonic. Here again the rule of God is to make up by his own supreme goodness and mercy all the lack in man.

THE MORMON VIEW OF THE FALL

Revealed latter-day doctrine has brought welcome news to a world struggling with the crushing oppression of such doctrines which are misunderstandings of God and man’s very nature.

The Mormon doctrine of the Fall might be called “the happy fall”. It is rather like a man in the Alps who is ascending toward a remote peak. After climbing for some time, he discovers that he has reached the top of a lower peak. He records in his notes, “I must now go down in order to go higher up.” Adam did not begin his existence in the Garden, but belonged to the family of God with all the rest of us in the pre-mortal worlds. He was Michael, the archangel, one of those choice and bright spirits privileged to sit in the “congregation of the mighty.” (David’s phrase for the council of the gods, Psalm 82:1) He aided in the planning and organizing of the earth and was assigned to be its great patriarch.

The details of the entry of his spirit into his body and the entry of himself and Eve into the Garden are yet to be revealed. It is clear however, that his Fall did not consist in a rebellion against the Father like Lucifer’s in heaven. We are given some insight into his motives or Eve’s. The facts are that they were tempted, that they partook of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that certain changes were brought about which were necessary for the whole human race:

Adam and Eve and, therefore, all their posterity became subject to death, becoming mortal, where before they had been immortal. They suffered a “spiritual death” or banishment from the presence of God. Shortly, however, Adam was given the keys and powers and teachings to enable him to regain that presence, this time with knowledge, power, and an embodied personality like unto God’s .
They put themselves in a position to learn some additional aspects of good from evil and become aware of the “opposition of all things,” spoken of by Lehi, and in so doing lost their primeval innocence or lack of awareness. (2 Nephi 2: )
They became subject to illness, pain, fatigue, and all the miseries to which the flesh is heir.
They were cast out of Eden into the world of thistles and noxious weeds where they had to work the soil by the sweat of their brows. We, as children of Adam, come into the world subject to these same conditions of mortality which open up for \us those same possibilities.

Absent from this account of Adam is the notion that we inherit from Adam in any sense original sin or utter depravity or estrangement. Our second Article of Faith would sound like heresy to most people in the world today but sounds, too, a clarion of truth: “We believe that men will be punished for, their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgressions.” (Second Article of Faith.)

It is important to note the corollary: We are not to be punished for Adam’s transgression and he is not to be punished for ours. In much of the world the commandment to “Honor thy father and thy mother” (Exodus 20:12) has not been applied to Adam and Eve, upon whom blame for all our mortal woes is placed. It is glorious to belong to the religion of Christ which does honor to both Michael and the Master and thus to all mankind.

WAS IT ACCORDING TO PLAN?

All of us, with father Adam, as premortal spirits anticipated the unfolding of the plan just as it has unfolded. The overall plan had been prearranged and prepared. Theoretically Adam could have refused to bring mortality upon the world, but his Heavenly Father knew that he would not. That was presumably one of the reasons why he was chosen for the task. It is the same with each of us. Not that we are fatalists (whatever will be, will be) or predestinationists. There is no coercion—that was rejected. Rather, as Lehi suggested, “All things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things.” (2 Nephi 2:24.)

Mormons agree with the rest of the world that the earth was cursed at the Fall but call attention to the phrase that follows “for thy sake” (Gensis 3:17) which means “for thy good.” It is the kind of world we knew would be suitable for our vital growth. It is deliberately constructed “obstacle course” to enable us to test the strength of the strands in our character as spirits in bodies. That testing “to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command” (Abraham 3:25) is not just to satisfy divine curiosity. It is the probing and improving kind of testing that yields development. It is fraught with godlike possibilities. All except a very few will benefit everlastingly. Even those who perform least effectively will be much improved.

In the pre-existence we proved ourselves as spirits in the presence of the Father. This was our first estate. Now, to keep our second estate, we must continue to progress in spite of not seeing and talking directly with the Lord. Although we have lost all memory of the sphere from which we came, we do have we will stay on the road that will lead us to become strong men and, finally, after the long hard pull, we may be exalted to be with our Heavenly Father.

WHY WE ARE HERE

Sometimes a young person may be heard to say in a moment of frustration or disgust with the way things are going “I didn’t ask to be born.” The implication is that his parents are responsible for his being here in the midst of whatever impossible situation is giving him a bad time. There is a further thought of resentment against God, as if to say, “If I’d had anything to do with it, I wouldn’t be in this predicament.” Oh, wouldn’t you now?

The gospel answer is concise: Yes, you would. You did ask to be born. Not only that, you sang for joy at the prospect. There is some indication that we had a pretty good understanding, too, of what we were getting into.

Brigham Young, whose days were not so different from our own as we sometimes suppose, expressed a further bit of insight in giving our Heavenly Father more credit than is sometimes given him:

I am aware that these evils are not pleasant, and probably if we could understand and comprehend evil without coming in contact with it, God would never have placed us on this earth, so far from those with whom we dwelt in the eternal worlds. He never would have placed us here but for our own good.1

Modern revelation bears out the idea that we needed and wanted to come here and were grateful for the chance. We got ourselves into this world by being valiant in another sphere. We can get out only by going through life here. We cannot withdraw.

WHY THER IS EVIL

If all the world is set up according to a plan of God, is evil real? Is pain pain? Or are they only part of fake scenery in a drama of life? Evil is real all right, and it is really evil. If it were not, there would be no real test. Pain is pain. Evil and pain cause suffering among men. Suffering can yield good results00 depth of learning, nobility of soul, sweetness of spirit, magnification of all that is godly in us—courage, compassion, new ability to feel and to transmit the light of God. Suffering can be beneficial, but there is too much of it. Not all is well in Zion or anywhere else.

The Father’s ceaseless work and glory is to persuade each of us to do all he can to reduce suffering among his fellows and to be transformed, partly through suffering, into a sin free and purified character. Perhaps one day we will be able to say that our sufferings have truly brought us closer to Deity. That is not just a spatial or emotional or intellectual closeness. It is the literal “closeness” or “likeness”—becoming as God is, as well as moving nearer to him. Should we not, then, seek to meet the problems of the world head-on in order to become perfected?

Our mission is to cope as best we can with what comes and to develop strength in the struggles to do so. To cultivate evil, to go looking for it, is folly. It is like the man in Zion’s Camp who deliberately picked up a snake and bragged that since the Savior promised that men with faith would deal with “any deadly thing” (Mark 16:18) he was going to give it a try. He was rebuked by the Prophet who explained that only if we are afflicted in line of duty will the Lord reward our faith with protection and healing.2 If, to satisfy the curiosity of the crowd or with the spirit of “showing off” we deliberately do ourselves harm in order to demonstrate any power, the power will be denied us and we must face all the unpleasant consequences. Opposition will come; we need not, should not, invite it.

With this thought in mind, Brigham H. Roberts says:

That conditions in life which is calculated to give the wildest experience to man, is the one most to be desired, and he who obtains it is the most favored of God… some of the lowliest walks in life, the paths which head into the deepest valleys of sorrow and up to the most rugged steeps of adversity, are the ones which if a man travel in, will best accomplish the object of his existence in this world… the path-way of fiery trials is the one ordained of God for his favored sons.

In proof of this I direct you to the lives of the saints and the prophets; but above all to the life of the Son of God himself. The life of the Prophet Joseph Smith is an illustration second only to that of the Messiah.3

We shouldn’t envy sinners, they are in a terrible condition. But are they? Often they seem to prosper, seem to be “having a ball,” and not to be afflicted with many of the worries that beset people trying to be good. It seems often that they are having all the fun, and getting all the breaks. It makes us wonder. Then we see afflictions coming upon the righteous—losing a beloved wife or child, being injured in an automobile wreck on the way to conference, being hurt on the welfare farm. Some people have more to bear than anyone ought to have. We wonder even more. Do the people thus afflicted wonder? Yes sometimes.

There is a young man who has been since birth a hemophiliac or a “bleeder.” A slight bump on his arm makes it swell and swell until his whole arm is one huge bruise from bleeding under the skin. Every three weeks he goes to the hospital and lies in severe pain while they pump by transfusion more and yet m ore blood into him. The pressure in his organs, even in his bones, builds up to bring him incredible pain.

This young man is a blessing wherever he goes. He has served an inspired and inspiring mission (wearing braces.) He is a successful salesman and a brilliant sound technician, able to study and apply his knowledge even in bed where he is much of the time. He is married and has two choice children. Often anniversaries and Christmas are celebrated in the antiseptic bleakness of a hospital room.

What he has done is not so important as what he is, what lines of character and compassion are in his face and in his very nature. “When I come out of great pain,” he has said, “I feel that all my petty acts are washed away. I feel that I am starting afresh with a clean slate. It is like baptism.” Asked if he would endure it all again, he says, “Of course I would not wish this on myself or on my children. Yet the blessings have been so great—so great.” Told of a woman who has not suffered 1/100^th as much physical pain but who is bitter and cynical and seems to darken the air around her with her bad spirit, a woman for whom nothing can be done that is appreciated, he smiles and says, “She must learn.”

Some, like this young man, find enlightenment and exaltation in suffering. Others are darkened and corroded by it. Some are grateful for the strength to endure what they must; others are greedy for blessings with which they are never satisfied. The difference is in the way one is affected by adversity. What makes the difference?

The prophet in the semidarkness of a dungeon was given this great “if”: “if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high… all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.” (D&C 121:8, 122:7.)

Enduring it well seems to make the difference in the effect of adversity on people. If someone were watching at the other end of life, seeing the people coming out, he might be inclined to think that there were two worlds in here, one happy and one sad, seeing the shriveled souls on the one hand and the expanded, radiant ones on the other.

The truth is that it is all one world. Sooner or later each person has to come to grips with it. Pain is the common lot of mankind. Every man will fail sometime. The difference in men is not because of the world, but because of different responses to it. One man walks with God; another does not.

IS THERE NO OTHER WAY?

Repeatedly questions arise as if people regret the bargain they made and are trying to find and easier way. Why are we going through all this? If God knows the end from the beginning, does he not know what we will do without our having to do it?

Repeated questions arise as if people regret the bargain they make and are trying to find an easier way. Why are we going through all this? If God knows the end from the beginning, does he not know what we will do without our having to do it? Why could he not assign us to the appropriate level in the world beyond and be done with it?

Such a question ignores the nature of the universe in which both the Father and his children exist. It is a universe of law. Growth does not come because someone has it all figured out. You cannot gain an education without grappling with ideas in the classroom and the laboratory. You cannot develop muscles without using them, nor avoid their atrophy if you do not. You cannot write the lessons of exposure to good and evil into the depths of your soul without living through experiences with them in flesh and spirit. In summary, you cannot gain experience without actually having it. No matter how accurately, for example, high school registrars can predict the statistical outcomes of each entering class—how many will graduate and with what major interests and with what levels of proficiency—the knowledge of the spectator does not create the outcome of the experience. Work does. Experience does. Our bodily experience is essential,

Why does a man need God? What is religion for? Isn’t it a crutch? Why all the emphasis on Christ and the atonement? Isn’t it just a matter of walking a straighter line each day—more good turns, slow improvement, and making each day a little better than the last?

Such questions ignore the destructive force of sin and the lifegiving power of Christ. If life were just a matter of turning the right switches, all we would need would be a taperecording of the Ten Commandments and we could turn ourselves on to obey them. It is not that simple.

No man of himself can lift himself to celestial glory. Our growth depends on the light of Christ, guidance of the Holy Ghost, and the power of the priesthood which is given us of God and his Son. We need divine protection from all the forces that can stunt, wither, or destroy us. The religion of Jesus Christ is not just a philosophy of life; it is the generator of life. The judgement day will not only establish “Were you obedient to law? But “Did you know the law so that you could be obedient? It is the power of godliness that is essential to our exaltation, the same power which the boy Joseph Smith was told Christendom lacked.

If you go it alone, you cannot succeed. If you go it with him, and receive his power, you will increase and make it. There is no other way.

Brigham Young, Jr. in Journal of Discourses, 26 vol. (London: Latter-day Saints Book Depot, 1855-86), 15:192
Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. B. H. Roberts, 7 vol. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., ), 2:95-96
B. H. Roberts, The Gospel and Man’s Relationship to Deity (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1965), pp. 278-279.

My Religion and Me

2005-09-15T22:06:00.000-06:00

Chapter 10
WHAT (WHO) IS HOLDING ME BACK?

Now that we are somewhat oriented in time and space and have begun a consideration of our relationship with our Heavenly Father, it may be well to investigate what the responsibility of each person is to himself and, through himself, to his Father in Heaven. By what are we bound. On whom can we lay the blame for our failures? To whom is the credit due for our triumphs?

THREE TYPES OF SCAPEGOATS

There is a legend about a man who was convicted of a crime and sentenced to thirty years in prison. The turnkey who guarded the cellblock felt that the prisoner was innocent of the charge and therefore left the door to his cell unlocked, expecting the man to escape. Not wanting, however, to be charged with conspiring to aid the prisoner, he did not tell him about the door. He only hoped the prisoner would discover it. The door was unlocked for thirty years, but the prisoner never tried it and thus never escaped! He had made the false assumption about his chances for freedom.

There are at least three assumptions we make about the limits to our freedom that are like prison doors and confine us only because we think they do. Actually they are unlocked doors through which we could walk to claim our freedom and to assume our responsibility. Because we do not know it, we never try to escape. We stay imprisoned like tethered elephants, not knowing our own strength. The three false assumptions are:

1. The people around us make us what we are.
2. We are bound by the thoughts that come unbidden into our minds.
3. We are bound by our feelings which we cannot help.

THE PEOPLE WE KNOW

Those with whom we live and to whom we are closely tied are our families. For years now you have been living in your families. For years now you have been living in your family and have been subject to your parents. You may feel that you are pretty well hemmed in by their rules and opinions. Do you ever hear sentences that begin, “As long as you’re living under my roof…”? You may recall the scripture that put the responsibility for teaching “their children to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord’ squarely on the shoulders of the parents. “The sin be on the heads of the parents” if they do not teach their children the first principles of the gospel—faith, repentance, and baptism. (D&C 68:25, 28)

Yes, that sin is upon their heads—the sin of failing to do their duty—but your sins are not upon their heads. “We believe that men will be punished for their own sins” (and not for parents’ transgression). Parents, too, will be punished for their own sins and not for their children’s transgressions. (First Article of Faith.) The knife cuts both ways.

Since you were born, you have been growing in freedom. To some degree you have assumed the responsibility for your own actions. At the age of eight, you passed some kind of landmark that marked you as accountable, for your understanding was then considered adequate to know the moral differences between right and wrong. Now you have probably already admitted that you are not a child any more and have become impatient at being treated “like a little kid.” Gradually you have come to feel, then, that ultimately you are your own “boss.” Implicit in saying that is saying, “I accept the responsibility for my own life, and I will take the consequences for what I do.” This is a large order, but each one has to grapple with it.
Your brothers and sisters may seem to interfere in your affairs, may seek to guide you or “boss” you around, may pray for you and wish you well, but they cannot be you. They have, each of them the responsibility for a life—and it is not yours. Your brother is your brother and possibly can be said to be your keeper, but for all his help he cannot accept your responsibility for you.

Take the friends that you yourself have chosen and cultivated. Are they responsible for the kind of person you are becoming? They can be a help and they can be a hindrance. Friends will never matter more to you than they do in your teens. When you get down to it, though, they can do only so much and then you are on your own. They can study with you, but you must take your own final examination. If they could take it for you, what kind of “help” would that be?

Chances are that you are greatly influenced by your friends. If they smoke, you may want to join them. Whether you do or do not is up to you, not to them. It is your choice. There is, too, the possibility that you may influence some waiverer for good if you take a strong stand. Each person is an “I”; each is subject to suggestion; each is swayed by example. When you take charge of yourself, you may be helping someone else do the same thing for himself.

What about your teacher? Are they responsible for the kind of person you are becoming? Again, they provide the tools, expose you to secondhand learning, and even set you on the path to making firsthand discoveries, but they cannot experience life for you. During the time they teach you and ever after, you must plow your own furrow.

Is it true that there are no delinquent children but only delinquent adults? Nonsense. There are both. People can set you a bad or good example, but they cannot force you to imitate it. People can treat you like dirt, but they cannot make you become dirty. People can deny you love and return you evil for every good you do them, but they cannot prevent your giving love nor your returning good for evil. People can show up as phony as hypocritical, but they cannot force you to be phony and hypocritical. Each basic decision about what you will think, say, or do is yours.

One more person scapegoat is always lurking in the background. What about the devil? The Prophet clearly taught that “the devil has no power over us on [except] as we permit him.”1 He taught that God will not use compulsion over us and the devil cannot. Satan is completely shackled when we are righteous. He is rendered impotent as a whimpering child by those who worthily take upon themselves the name and Spirit of Jesus Christ. The prophet taught that God, man, and the devil are “three independent principles”—three active and , therefore, never wholly passive agents. “All men have power to resist the devil.”2

The adversary can rage and buffet, but he cannot possess and dominate unless we permit him to do so. This is likewise true of the whole realm of evil spirits. In the presence of a servant of Jesus Christ they have no overpowering influence unless we let them.

It is difficult, however, to endure in the presence of someone who is obnoxious or irritating or tantalizing. As long as you seek the influence and help of the Father and the Son, you can endure such people or spirits, if need be, forever. To develop that kind of strength is one of the most vital experiences in life. The immature go on in petty crabbing or surrender their standards to the “group.” The mature put such things under their feet. The mature have learned that freedom to become their best is infinitely more valuable than freedom from entanglements with people.

Is much of your quest for freedom a reaction rather than independent action? Do you let others decide how you will behave? Reacting is allowing yourself to be manipulated like a puppet on strings. Someone pushes a button and you grind out the exact reaction called for. A truly free person is not that controllable nor predictable. He decides on his own—independent of expected standard responses—how he will deal with others. Why not make your won definitions of “manliness” and “womanliness” and “courage.” Who is to say for you what is worth fighting for, and what is worth fighting against? Christ was not free from involvements, problems, buffetings, entanglements, but he never sacrificed the freedom of becoming—the carrying out of his mission – to a compulsive effort to free himself from responsibilities. He lived for others; he taught for their salvation; he worked for his Father’s purposes. He might have rescued himself from a challenging temptation, painful abuse, and embarrassing imprisonment, and ignominious death, but he was not concerned with himself, only with others.

THE THOUGHTS WE THINK

Can thoughts ever really be controlled? Thoughts that “pop into our head” do seem to be involuntary. They seem almost as inevitable as the jerk-of-the-knee reflex. We see someone we do not like and are immediately inclined toward spiteful thoughts or a long list of grievances come to mind. Someone we know receives recognition of special honor, and we tend to start thinking jealous thoughts. We go to a movie full of crime and violence and our finer sensitivities are dulled. Immorality or perversion on the screen may make of our minds a sinkhole of fantasies and unworthy brooding.

Then we go to church and hear some quote the words of the Bible:

…whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her [or on a man to lust after him] hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. (Matthew 5:28)
Does that mean that to think evil is just as bad as to commit it? No. Does it mean that we are supposed to be able to eliminate all such thoughts the way we can erase words from a sheet of paper? Yes.

Look at the passage again.

It is not the occurrence of ideas in the head, but their lodgment in the heart, their carry-over into one’s motivation and intentions, that degrades. “As [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he.” (Proverbs 23:7) In the mind of one man a thought about evil is a cause of revulsion—he cannot even look upon sin except with abhorrence. In the heart of another a thought about evil becomes an evil thought because he cannot look upon sin except with haunted, lustful, unworthy desire.

Throughout the scriptures the heart is used to symbolize the seat of man’s most important desires. To “love with all your heart” is to love without reservation. The heart can also be the combustion chamber of all the degenerate drives of man’s life—anger, jealousy, lust, hostility, and all the rest. That is where the issue lies.

The warning of Jesus is that what we permit to enter our hearts will eventually lead us into action. One who has already committed adultery in his heart will commit it all to soon in fact. “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” (Matthew 12:34) That is the meaning of this statement that it is what comes from within that defiles a man. To the Nephites he made this even clearer: “[I would] that ye suffer none of these things to enter into your heart.” (3 Nephi 12:29)

How can we prevent evil thoughts from entering into our hearts? Thoughts that come to mind unbidden can be stifled or choked out. You can really hold only one thought at a time in the center of your mental stage. Temptation occurs when the thought turns into a feeling in the center of your heart.

All of us have seen the cartoons of the demon with the three-pronged shaft who climbs up on your shoulders and whispers evil thoughts into your mind and pushes, and needles, and goads, “Do it! Do it! It won’t matter once. Come on. You owe it to yourself.” The reason such pictures are still in circulation is that they do in fact reflect the kind of pressure we feel in the hour of temptation.

Whereas we assume that such demons, even if the “demons” be ourselves, put thoughts into our minds, the truth is that their most devastating success comes from getting thoughts out of our minds. One who is greatly tempted may develop an unrighteous interest or design in a girl which gives him little time to think about anything else. He thus literally loses thought of everything else—his past, his future, his better and more important commitment, the promises he make yesterday to himself, the resolves for self-control he made last Sunday in sacrament meeting, the dark nights of despair he has already known whenever he has yielded, the loneliness and unworthiness he has felt during time of temptation—all such considerations are driven out, forgotten, wiped out.

Hence the wisdom and power in the counsel of the Christ to our generation. “Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.” (D&C 6:36.) He might have added, “Forget not.” Does this mean we should look to him though we feel unworthy to lift our eyes?

Yes, in the darkest hour most of all. That is just what it means. Where else shall we find help? We must lift our eyes and our thoughts to heaven, or we can never lift ourselves from the various pits we dig for ourselves.

A simple “help me” spoken in silent prayer can break the compulsion of the temptation. Your ability to anticipate the long-range results of this present betrayal becomes as vivid as the thought of yielding to the present unworthy impulse. Anciently Paul said:

There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man [we are all in the same boat]; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

THE FEELING WE HAVE

We are moving, then, from the area of the thoughts we think, into an area that is even closer to home—the feelings we feel. We now ask the question: “Can one control the feeling of his heart?” Are they not utterly beyond our control, rising and falling with the same inevitability as the involuntary pumping of our hearts?

Listen to the wise insight of a modern prophet:

In the first place the spirit is pure, and under the special control and influence of the Lord… Recollect, brothers and sisters, everyone of you when you are tempted, buffeted, and step out of the way inadvertently: when you are overtaken in a fault, or commit an overt act unthinkingly; when you are full of evil passion, and wish to yield to it, then stop and let the spirit, which God has put into your tabernacles, take the lead. If you do that, I will promise that you will overcome all evil, and obtain eternal lives. But many, very many, let the spirit yield to the body and are overcome and destroyed.3

The key word in that passage is “let,” not “make,” your spirit take the lead. To the degree that we reach for our better selves, for our spirits (and always we can reach for help), we find it deep within. At the edge of an abyss, we can always scramble back. The spirit within approves of the good and disapproves of the evil. It throbs with potential power a hundred times greater than that of the flesh. As the Prophet said, the affinity of our spirit nature is for divine things, and “those revelations that will save our spirits will save our bodies.” To be saved in the mortal sense is to be saved from sin and ignorance. To be saved in the eternal sense is to be saved for the wholeness and holiness of celestial life.4

What does it mean to be responsible, then? It means to accept this sovereign truth about yourself—that you are a product of your own freedom, ever being added upon—in charge of your thoughts, your feelings, and your reactions to others. Do not write your own book, One Thousand and One Excuses for School and Home Use. When improvement is in order, discover it, admit it, and look to yourself and to your God for help. This means you never shirk responsibility nor try to pin it on anyone or anything else. You are otherwise accepting a lie. If your life seems filled with misfortunes, failures, problems, you are not alone. Everyone has problems as a necessary part of free agency and personal development. Regardless of what happens outside you, you were and you are, and you will be, in charge of what happens inside.

By your nature, by your spirit birth, by virtue of your being a son or daughter of God, by your degree of knowledge and maturity, you are responsible for your own success or failure in life. This is true whether or not you are willing to face it.

1. Joseph Fielding Smith, comp., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt
Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1938), p.181
2. Teachings, p. 189
3. Brigham Young in Journal of Discourses, 26 vol. (London: Latter-day Saints’
Book Depot, 1855-86), 2:256
4. Teachings, p. 355

My Religion and Me

2005-09-15T21:58:00.000-06:00

Chapter 9
HOW CAN I LIVE MORE ABUNDANTLY?

The story is told of a ship becalmed in foggy waters off the coast of South America—a sailing vessel at the mercy of the winds. Several days went by and the men on the ship were dying of thirst when a steamship came into view. The captain of the stranded ship hailed the steamer and asked that some water be given to him and his dying men. In response the other captain cried out, “Let down your buckets. You are in the current of the Amazon River.” When the buckets were raised from the waters in which the ship was becalmed, they were indeed found to be full of the fresh water of the far outreaching current of the Amazon. So it is with many of us. We have the resources within ourselves or available to us which are untapped, and we fail to “let down our buckets”, often suffering unnecessary, but inevitable, consequences.

Each person is somehow gifted. It is true that “all have not every gift” (D&C 46:11-26), and some of us spend years lamenting the absence of gifts within us. Such a failure to know ourselves often results in our missing our missions. The prophets teach that we were trained, reserved, prepared, forearmed, and fitted to the time, place, generation, and conditions we now face. This is our generation and each of us will—if we will to do it – be raised up to our special work. This is what we were sent here for. It is all—important that we discover, which really means uncover or recover, the gifts that are part of our make-up both as spirits and as bodies.

There are many things that hold us back. We doubt ourselves; we are afraid to try; we feel unqualified; we think things come easily to others and are difficult only for us. We envy and repine and say there is “no way.” We watch others who seem to move easily from task to task. We aspire and dream, but we fail to dig in. The late John A. Widsoe used to say that one of the greatest problems in the
Church and beyond is the “aspiring spirit”, with which men gnaw their hearts out to be in one of the few positions of presiding and prestige. As a result an infinite number of crucial roles in the Church go begging. The whole body of the Church is like the whole wristwatch. It needs every tiny part. The face and hands are no good at all without all the little cogs and wheels, springs, and jeweled screws that make up the watch. One defect or omission of a part anywhere, and the watch no longer does the job. Many fail to appreciate the importance of each small role; many fail to understand that no person is unimportant. The worth of each soul is great.

Two kinds of help will be discussed in this lesson. The first is the kind of self-help which comes to one who has trained and developed his own internal resources to such degree that he can be his own initiator of help through his own creative powers. The second comes from the Lord as men seek to comply with the requirements to receive guidance either directly through his Spirit or indirectly through the prophets, alike in that they are only available to individuals who are open and flexible; in this sense both may be thought of as “creative.”

INTELLECTUAL PROWESS

IQ means “intelligence quotient” and has long bee considered the measure of a man’s mind, constant and fixed throughout his life. The present view is that the IQ test measures some aspects of mental ability, but by no means all (and probably not even most) of the important ones. There is a new understanding today among those who seek to measure the mind, and many old ideas are being discredited.

First, it is completely erroneous that men are mere learning machines that stand empty, waiting to be filled by experiences and rote, as a computer waits to have its tapes filled with information. There are indications that man something going for him at least from the time of his birth, something innate or built-in in the psyche that may result in differences in the way information is received, interpreted, stored, and used. For example, some people seem to have a “feel” for order, harmony, logical sequences, and relationships; others may seize upon a certain set of facts and remember and build on them to the exclusion of other. Experts are still in the experimental stages in measuring inborn mental phenomena, but this much seems clear: All of us have flairs or streaks or flashes that are somehow part of our very constitutions. They need to be developed, but they can be turned on rather than having to be installed, nurtured rather than planted. The mind, in short, is not just a blank surface on which the finger of experience writes. It is more than that, but the “more”, is difficult for scientists to explain.

Secondly, IQ is not a fixed quanity, so that you have it or you do not. By application and effort,, a person can increase his IQ, which includes at least the facility of memory, imagination, and conceptual arrangement (putting things in order).
On the other hand, by neglect, by slovenly mental habits, by refusing to exercise and challenge the mind, we can lose or decrease our IQ. The rewards, nature seems to have decreed can come to those who persist and struggle, regardless of what they start with.

Third, IQ is expressed in a variety of ways that are dissimilar. A poet has one kind of mental knack, an engineer another, a business executive still another. How these come out in practice depends not alone on IQ, but on other talents a person may have.

THE MULTIPLE TALENT SPECTRUM

Both in America and Europe, partly doe to the so-called “space race,” there has been in recent years a tremendous amount of research done on “creativity.” What is wanted is not just people who can absorb other people’s ideas, readymade into their own minds, but people who can rework, add to, invent, discover, and travel to new mental horizons. One “shock” is that such creative people are not necessarily those who show up well on IQ indexes. Another shock is that, in one sense of “creative,” each of us has much to offer. We may be subdued and intimidated geniuses, but geniuses just the same in spirit of our self-doubts and reluctance to trust ourselves.

So now, instead of measuring IQ in the old-fashion way, psychologists are applying tests that spot individual talents along a spectrum of six major fields of endeavor.

This falsifies the traditional idea that if a person is good in one thing, he will be good in everything and the corollary (which is a depressing influence on our secret aspirations) that “if I’m not good at this, I won’t be good at anything.” Each of us can be great at something and may be dismal at something else—depending on the field.

Someday each of us should take an aptitude test to show us more about ourselves and to reveal where our strengths really are. Several advantages would result for each one such as increased confidence, and sense of purpose, an exhilaration in work, and ability to cope with one’s other failures, etc. All there arise from the clear and confirmed recognition of one’s latent abilities. Nothing is more frustrating than banging your head against “limits” which, for all your effort, go forcing you into the mediocre range. Psychologically and spiritually all of us need the sweet taste of success before we can take in stride some of the bitterness of below average performance. The Father of us all wills that each of his children experience that sweetness.

CREATIVE PEOPLE

Let us now look at some descriptions of the general makeup and attitudes of “creative” people together with an indication of the way in which our Heavenly Father, by means of the gospel plan, has arranged to bring the creativity of all his children to the surface. Between the lines of gospel teaching is the expectation that each of us will grow into creative living.

The parable of the Talents clearly indicates that when we magnify our abilities the Lord will bless us with increased abilities. (Matthew 25:23)

The spiritually sensitive, it can be shown, are more inclined to be sensitive in other ways to their environment and especially to the other people. The person with the soul of a poet feels the heights and depths and life’s experiences; he can have exquisite pleasure and exquisite pain in ordinary living that leaves many others untouched.

On the other hand, the kind of behavior that most petrifies feeling most dulls and dims our capacity for alert and keen awareness, is sin, the trampling of the sacred and the breaking of the law. The gospel is given us to increase our spiritual awareness and to lead us from the deadening paths of sin. It is to make bad men good and good men better. Better men tend to be more sensitively observant men, more creative men.

Examples of the sensitizing effects of the gospel can be observed in many lives. One, in particular, comes to mind: Here is a man with only an eighth-grade education, with longer experience among the dregs of society where most of the conversations were in one-syllable, four-letter words, and most of the people were as amoral as the horses with which they worked. This man, after he rounded the corner onto the gospel road, became a real gentleman, developed a greater appreciation for the beauties of nature and a love for growing things, and reached out to the Lord and gratefully accepted the priesthood which he fully honors. He has become a necessary member of his community, unfailing sensitive to the needs of others, untiringly responsive to the,. The gospel did not make a different person of him so much as it game him the opportunity to become all that he had it in him to become.

The gospel of Jesus Christ exists to make us all “prophets,” possessed of the testimony of Jesus which is the spirit of prophecy, not just alerted, as some suppose, to the future, but to the whole sweep of time and space; stimulated to find divine meaning and divine purpose in the whole pattern of history and life.

Creating people see things as others do, but also as others do not. Take the following gems of insight that we come out of modern revelation.

It is no more incredible that God should save the dead than he should raise the dead.1
How long can rolling waters remain impure? What power shall stay the heavens? As well might man stretch forth his puny arm to stop the Missouri River in its decreed course… as to hinder the Almighty from pouring down knowledge from heaven upon the heads of the Latter-day Saints. (D&C 121:33)

The gospel and the spirit of God are the spirit of truth. They enable us to see with fresh eyes. They transform us so that “old things shall pass away” and all things become new. (D&C 29:24.) The barrier of gap that ordinarily cuts us off from seeing others “from the inside” is overcome. He that speaks and he that received understand one another and “both are edified and rejoice together.” (D&C 50:22) The mind and heart are both quickened, and we see the old mind and the heart are both quickened, and we see the old and the new with the “renewing” spirit of Christ—eventually to “see as [we] are seen, and know as [we] are known.” (D&C 76:94)

Said the ancient seer, “Your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams.” (Joel 2:28) This is occurring all around us today. The knowledge that unlocks treasure houses of truth has given us a veritable “explosion” of scientific knowledge in the past ten years, more than in all the centuries since Aristotle. These are the outgrowth of the restoration of the priesthood and the inspiration of God. Several of our own Mormon scientists (Joseph F. Merrill, John A. Widtsoe, Henry Eyring, Armin J. Hill, Tracy Hall, etc.) and artists and technicians credit the crucial ideas and impulses that have led to their most significant discoveries to the same ultimate explanation: the enlightening influence, the creative influence, of the Father of mankind.

Critics of Mormonism decry our involvement in “strange health codes.” There has always been, also, criticism of ancient Hebrew dietary restriction. How can one achieve effective mental processes in a body that is deteriorating? The Word of Wisdom is not an arbitrary interdiction of the pleasures of the world, nor is it a delusive promise conjured up like magic for no reason. Its promises are, it should be noticed, triple in nature; promises to the physical, the mental, and the spiritual person.

The promise is of health, of stamina, of vigor to “run and not be weary, and … walk and not faint.” (D&C 89:20) To this can be added by implication to sleep and not have need of tranquilizers, to awake without hangovers and depression or pep pills. The gospel allows us to tap the bounteous reserves, so often only partially tapped, with us. We can “let down our buckets” oftener and over a longer period of time than other people.

But that is only the start. Also promised are “treasures of knowledge” (D&C 89:19); learning functions of the brain are aided, stimulated, enhanced by the health of the thinker. Conversely, they are broken down irreparably by harmful or hallucinogenic substances. Medical students cannot even for an idea of the structure of the brain when doing autopsies on alcoholics, the breakdown is so extreme. The mental powers of one who honors the revealed laws of health is greatly magnified, and his physical energy is added upon.

As for the spiritual, the spirit itself is nourished and toned by health; and vice-versa. The whole gospel exists to achieve the “renewing of [our] bodies” (D&C 84:33) and thus “enliven the soul.” (D&C 59:19)

Some books on scientific method speak of “serendipity” (the gift of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for). This kind of occurrence is fairly common and brings together otherwise unrelated ideas or combinations of ideas which turn out to be both new and useful. When men report their findings, the whole process sounds logical, ordered, careful, almost like a regimented march of soldierly thoughts through the brain. Most discoveries are not like that. Rather they grow out of intensive and difficult preparation and effort and then playing with some equipment or asking, “what would happen if? ...” Or sometimes when a man is working very hard on one idea, some unexpected side effect occurs, or some related ideas swim into his mind unbidden, and a new discovery is made.

In the religion of the Latter-day Saints such procedures and events turn out to be facets of the life of the spirit. Inspiration is “given;” it is not clear always whether it comes from “way up” or way down” inside. To use the careful preparation, and training as a springboard—to be capable of disciplined, controlled procedure and receptive to flashes of insight—is what a solid Latter-day Saint should have going him in his inner life. To “mount up in the imagination… as upon eagle’s wings”—a promise in the Doctrine and Covenants (D&C 124:99)—and to be touched by the Spirit with the power of remembrance—a promise in the New Testament ( John 14:26)—are both possible through the Spirit. One needs in addition to take time to meditate and follow one’s impressions and have the courage to execute them. This is to grow up into the spirit of inspiration and revelation—to “let down the buckets” into the living waters all around us.

Young people are heard to say and to seem to mean it, “I have nothing to live for. The more I live, the more problems I have. And then I die.” This attitude is incomprehensible in a Latter-day Saint. It is indeed dying of thirst with life-giving water within reach.

One hundred and fifty years ago, one of the closet associates of Joseph Smith summed it up:

The restoration of these pure laws and practices has commenced to improve or regenerate a race. A holy and temperate life, pure morals and manners, faith, hope, charity, cheerfulness, gentleness, integrity, intellectual development, pure truth and knowledge, and above all the operations of the divine Spirit, will produce a race more vigorous and better prepared, for long life and good days in their mortal sojourn.2

The gospel sets us free to be creative—and sets us creative to become more free. It is the “perfect law of liberty.”

1. Joseph Fielding Smith, comp., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1938), p. 191
2. Parley P. Pratt, Key to the Science of Theology (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1965), p. 167

My Religion and Me

2005-09-13T16:20:00.000-06:00

Chapter 8

WHY IS A FAMILY? (Continued)

Look in the mirror. When the pressure is on, look yourself in the eye and ask, Is my attitude helping or hurting the situation? When you see that clearly, then is the time to look objectively at what others are doing to aggravate the problem at the mote that are in their eyes. You will find, if you do this honestly, that you are consuming whole vats of inner energy in defensive thinkingâ€ï¿½giving numerous reasons why you are feeling the way you feel, none of them pointing to your own responsibility. You are using the rest of your energy naming to people and conditions and problems that make it all hopeless---offensive thinking. One tenth of that energy turned to creative ways of reducing tension in yourself would go miles to improve the situation.
D o not store up resentments. In connection with home night or family hours, a family council provides an excellent opportunity to talk out grievances and generate solutions. Letting a backlog accumulate and pretending it isnt there only worsens things. Let your concern out all the appropriate time, and let then out honestly, on the level.

Seek counsel with others who are trustworthy. A third party a biship, a teacher, a wise friend can often help restore perspective when two family members are grappling with each other. Teenagers (despite what cynics may say) are greatly influenced and greatly inspired by others. They are natural hero-worshipers. If you have found a person who brings out your best self, let him or her make a contribution, hearing your troubles and giving you unprejudiced counsel. This is not a sign of weakness. It is a fact of life that all of us need one another. It is a fact of life, too, that all of us, sometimes are so down that others who are up are desperately needed.

Try wearing other shoes. One of the most helpful questions you can ask yourself about misunderstanding with your parents is this: How would I deal with myself if I were my father? Or ask: How would I deal with my own children if they were like me? Depending on how well you know yourself, these questions can open up some real insight. You will find that, if you treat parents with the respect you would like, you will find a return wave of mutual regard and concern. Tell your parents occasionally, though you have not said so for a year, that you really appreciate them. Wouldnt you like to be told that? Say, for a change, You know, I see your point. I really am hard to live with sometimes. Some depressing day approach each parent and say, Ive made up my mind that I want to do at least one thing just for you today. What will it be? Such gestures are but a reflection of the golden rule. This attitude will take from the scrapping mat to genuine understanding. Try, in sum, a hug, a pat, a kiss, an arm in arm. There is often more lift in this than in words; and you will get one, too.

WHAT IS ALL THIS ABOUT?

We have been saying that independence develops normally in the home stresses. Why cant parents give more freedom more easily?

Define it correctly. Freedom is responsibility. Responsibility in homes patterned in the divine blueprint is the ability to stop just reacting feverishly to everything. It is the ability to respond with mature consideration and patience, to endure sustained pressure to achieve long-range goals (and not to say, as we all do in our childishness, If you really loved me, youd let me do this idiotic thing.)

Judgment can come only with time and experience. We gain both of these in the home, providing ourselves without killing ourselves. The real question is whether, once away from parental warmth and guidance, we can stand up and face the winds. Will we then react like little boys out of school and run to the forbidden things? Or will we have grown up enough to know that most things are forbidden because they are harmful and costly and unpleasant?

A questionnaire was recently sent to a large number of returned missionaries asking them to describe two or three of the most important changes in their lives through their mission experiences. Almost without exception they put down that a major change was a new appreciation for their parents.

Why should a young person away from home come to feel this way? Partly by contrast seeing the brutal, cold places called home that are often behind the doors on which they knock. Partly by distance. You never miss the water till the well runs dry. Absence makes one aware of how many subtle and unnoticed things the family provided. Most of all, however, it was the sudden descent of responsibility onto their shoulders. The missionary is expected to be, is required to be an adult. The transition is abrupt. He is often shocked to be asked for counsel in the most bewildering problems of life by people who are decades older than he is. He is asked not just to represent his family, but to represent God. At that point, he sees Mom and Dad through new wyes, with a new awareness of how it feels to be the one who shoulders the load. There is a wave of sympathy, and the letters home reflect a deeper gratitude for burdens born and services rendered. Many a missionary has struggled on only because he was trying to be true to a mother or a father, alive or dead.

If you want responsibility, want to be treated like an adult, want to be more trusted, there is a way: It is to act like an adult, to accept responsibility and prove your reliability. Prove by your actions and your attitude that you can be trusted, no matter what. In short, be responsibility.

Our Heavenly Father sent us away, here to this earth out of his direct presence, to find how trustworthy we are, how much we can be trusted with, how much responsibility and hence how much freedom we can handle. It is much the same with your parents, and they rejoice to give you increasing charge as you show them that you are worthy of the charge.

My Religion and Me

2005-09-13T15:13:00.000-06:00

Chapter 7

WHY IS A FAMILY?

Having briefly reviewed the eternal nature of God, ourselves, and certain laws which influence us, we move to a consideration of the conditions surrounding the life we are in the process of living now”-- this present segment of eternity known as mortality. Each of us is born into a family, and each thus becomes at birth a member of a group that may range in size from two on up. It must be remembered that there are more members in a family than those presently alive on the earth.

FROM ALL GET TO SOME GIVE

Of all the creatures of the earth, the human infant is the most helpless for the longest time. The mother conceives bears, nourishes, and protects the child, meeting most of his basic survival needs. Every child has an incredible ability to make his needs known, a power which from the earliest days borders on genius.

The total dependence of the newborn baby drastically curtails his freedom. His simplest bodily needs have to be met by someone else, and he can do little for himself to maintain his own life. No normal child, however, is content to remain so dependent any longer than necessary. Only a crippling of his powers through illness or injury can keep him dependent. Some may be more passive than others, and the maturation process is not exactly predictable--different "buds" of our nature come to flower at different times. There is a certain schedule, though, for physical growth, motor ability, language development, and mental and emotional stability. Physical and psychological maturity are reached at about the age of twenty to twenty-four years, a span of infancy unprecedented in the animal kingdom.

WHAT ARE PARENTS FOR?

Such a long maturation span obviously demands someone to care for the developing child. You may not think of yourself as an "infant", but scientifically you are so considered for a few years yet if you fit within the broad bounds of "normal." The fact is that you are not yet fully independent in many ways, fully able to fend for yourself in the complex world you are inheriting. You are cutting yourself loose, it is true, but up to now and for a while yet you need your parents. In his wisdom the Lord arranged that there would be two of them, a mother and a father.

Experts in the field of human relations point out that maturity is many sided and individuals develop at very different rates in the various facets of maturity, Our bodies need physical health. Our minds need knowledge, goals, a philosophy of life, discipline, and training in creative self expression; our spirits need vital, practical faith; socially we need to express and receive love, acceptance, and a feeling of worth. In each of these there is need of developing strength self-direction, and self-discipline.

Many things in our environment affect our degree and speed of maturity. We draw upon many things, we may rebel against some the relationship we establish may make us hero or heel in the sight of others and may result in happiness or misery in our own lives.

Let us now look at a few of the problems that parents face in their monumental responsibility in the home and consider how you might help your parents, rather than frustrate them in their efforts to bring you safely to maturity.

PARENT-YOUTH CONFLICT

President David O. McKay has set forth the idea of the Latter-day Saint home: "I picture heaven to be a continuation of the ideal home..."1 In spite of good intentions it is an unhappy fact that the average home in the Church witnesses much more conflict and contradiction than can be reconciled with this ideal. That some conflict within the home can exist to allow for growth is attested to by the fact those who have grown up in large families are usually better able to cope with the problems of life than â€œonly children.

Home is the place where you learn to live with people learn it in all the moods and struggles of learning. Home is where in bitter moments you wonder why you are stuck with each other and in your happy moments you wonder how you could have been so lucky. The latter mood is almost always more lasting and true than the first.

The experts on home conflict list four major areas of frictions:

1. Power struggle. What are the rules? Who is going to enforce them? Why should I keep them? The major problem is that parents and son or daughter can often be right in principle --all can be pushing for something”--good yet they can be wrong in method. You want to do as your parents ask, but your defenses bristle when they put steel in their voices. Every child knows the tone of voices that means You'd better jump, or else!

Revelation tells us that the way of leadership in the home, as in the Church, includes tenderness, gentleness, patience, and long-suffering. It also includes being frank as well as ridged and even sharp rebuke if (and only if) it is followed by an increase of love.

If you care enough about the great joys of life, you can put up with great amounts of pressure and struggle. Of the many indications of this fact, here is one:

Vince Lombardi, the late coach of the champion Green Bay Packers football team, is a case in point. He initiated the most rigid rules of training; the most ruthless pressure to practice and play (even with pulled tendons and broken bones); ceaseless scolding, intimidation, comparison, threats, etc. He demanded more and more from his men when they thought they had already had enough. This man was a tyrant! The team members would all agree time and again that they intended to quit the whole business. When the games and the championships were won, however, the coach broke down in tears as he told them of his pride on their effort. Every man on the team wanted to say he thought Vince Lombardi was the greatest man in the world.

He insisted that they sing together (even those who couldn't carry a tune). He insisted that they pray together. He offered the Lord's Prayer before and after every game. He insisted that they consider themselves men of God and that they do their best, for otherwise they were cheating themselves and their Maker. He is insisted, too, that they treat one another as brothers, and not one of them was ashamed to say he loved his teammates. You may not think love can grow out of such turmoil, but it did.

One of the saddest but most common attitudes in young men and women in their late teens is the feeling of all rules and no love. They yearn for attention, warmth, being cared about (which is not always the same thing as being cared for.) Like a baby robin with his mouth open awaiting the food, they have waited, but in vain. Instead, there are often rebuffed and rebuke. Eventually they may give up. Then slowly they build a shell, a protective covering, saying inwardly, I'd rather settle for no love than risk giving mine only to have it bruised and scorned. Parents, too, sensing the imminent departure from the home nest and constantly plagued by fears for their childrens welfare, often are unable to see that yesterdays curly-headed toddler is really almost grown up, step up the rigorous enforcement of rules. As a result, both parent and child what terribly both to give and to receive love, but they are working against each other.

Such an attitude bred in a child shows up not only in his relationship with his parents, but in his relationship with God. He drudges through duty, hating every minute of it. He can't even pray well, uncertain, often, whether there's anyone there to whom to pray. He does not want to risk getting to close. He would rather go his own way, with a closed in form of emotional independence. The truth is that his need is compounding. His relationships with everyone, including himself, are forced instead of free, choked and partial, instead of outgoing and whole. The longer this pattern persists, the more it breeds distrust, hostility, suspicion, and a refusal to recognize or listen to love. No matter what language love speaks or who speaks it. It does not get through to him.

2. Differences in abilities. "Anything you can do, I can do better." This phrase often marks the pattern for rivalry within the home. It builds pressures and tension among those bearing a family resemblance and name there is the greatest (and potentially delightful) variety of makeup. You should no more try to stamp your father with a hard and fast image than he should do it to you. One may be bookish, one athletic, and one a loner. There is room for all in a good home, and each one should be respected for his own abilities and interests and encouraged in them”even parents.

3. Faulty communication. "You don't understand me! " is one cry that helped to precipitate the generation gap. Communication of one's thoughts, feelings, frustrations, and concerns should be going on both at the surface and under it most of the time. To communicate one must put things into words in one's own mind. Vague feelings and impressions, and mental images are hard to tell about. How, for example, do you describe the way you see a remembered face or the feelings that face conjures up for you: unexplained terror, uncalled-for resentment, or unexpected tenderness?

Some families have a quiet time just before bed when the day's toughest experiences and the happiest ones are reviewed. Others do the most important talking over the table or in the midst of chores. It is a sad day when we start going it alone, storing up a variety of feelings that we reserve for others and fail to express at home. The tragic line of youth is, "Oh, I can't tell Dad. It would tear him apart." The relationship between youth and parent should be the last one to tear anyone apart. The communication of the real man-to-man or woman-to-woman truth should be there. You should be able to say it like it is."

The attitude should be, "You may not fully understand this, I'm not sure I do, but this is the way I feel” knowing there will be an arm around your shoulders and an unfailing I'm always here." If you will analyze it, you will see that help is not necessarily a quick and ready solution to anything. Most often the kind of help we need is the kind of help you get when you hold hands with someone you love.

Sometimes we underestimate our parents ability to understand, and we forget that they have plowed through experiences very much like the ones we know and many worse than we have seen. They were not born yesterday, as the saying goes. Usually they would prefer to know the facts, whatever they are, than to fumble in the dark of uncertainty. Wouldn't you? Do you get uncomfortable when your best friend confides in you? Where do you think you got your composure? Your parents have some too more than you know.

4. Value conflicts. There is a long list of things about which you care about most and about which your parents care, too. Here you overlap and mesh with little trouble. Every new generation, however, establishes its own patterns and preferencesmusic, dress styles, dancing, painting, cars, teen idols and preferred personalities, whatever is stylish. You have to realize that your parents parents were as bewildered as their children are now by the patterns their children set a generation ago; but that, it they had seasoned judgment, they opposed and drew the line only where soul-growth could be stunted. Wisdom should assure you that within years, believe it or not, you will not fight for the same fads or styles which seem so important today. It will not matter nearly so much then. It never has been possible to make all generations agree perfectly on such matters, but they have been committed to something more inclusive and more important”the gospel. On things that matter less, parents and children often agree to disagree.

We sometimes take the view that we are growing up quite independent of our parents, that they live in their world and we live in ours, and that our areas of common interest are very limited. Actually this is not the case. Most of youths needs, concerns, interests, and achievement responsibilities are held on common with their parents. There are, of course some areas which are unique to each and it is mostly in these areas that conflict arises. Even here, however, communication will bring understanding and harmonious relationships.

Though admittedly there can be conflicts, there can also be ways of resolving them.

1. David O. McKay, Secrets of a Happy Life, ed. Llewelyn R. McKay (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1960), p. 18

My Religion and Me

2005-09-13T15:11:00.000-06:00

Chapter 6

ARE THERE ETERNAL LAWS?

And again, verily I say unto you, that which is governed by law is also preserved by law and perfected and sanctified by the same. (D&C 88:34)

FREEDOM AND THE LAW

Thus far we have discussed your individual position in eternity. We have described the power and promise of the freedom of becoming. We have spoken of the limitlessness of your potential, of your responsibility for developing it. Let us return now to an idea mentioned in the first lesson and discuss some of its meanings and significance to us. You will remember that we discussed things which are eternal—intelligence, God, certain laws, etc. We have discussed to some degree how God brings blessings to us. Let us now discuss how law is also a source of great blessing. We may well ask ourselves if there is anything besides God upon which we can depend—anything permanent we can count upon which is not subject to anyone’s whims. Are there any laws that everyone—even our Heavenly Father—must respect? What is the relationship between freedom and the law?

THE POSITION OF ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY

The standard position of Christian orthodoxy is that God is the source of law (as of everything else). He “made” the laws, and they (even, some say, the laws of logic) are binding only because he has so decreed. This view has resulted in at least one controversy: Are the laws right because God wills them, or does he will them because they are right? In other words, is God responsible for the laws or to them? The traditional Christian solution is this: God wills them and thus makes them right; and his will is unchangeable. God is not finally responsible to anything except himself.

Thus the view of many Christians if that God is the “author” of the ( 1 ) natural laws (gravity, motion, and energy), (2 ) metaphysical (supernatural) laws, (3 ) mysterious laws governing his own relationships to the universe; and finally, (4 ) moral laws.

THE PROPHETIC PICTURE

Again the prophets present a different picture: Law is as eternal as God. There are laws that govern, control, and condition things animate and inanimate, spiritual and temporal. God himself works within the framework of thee laws. In fact, it is by his understanding, abiding, and fulfilling these conditions that he has gained his dominion, exaltation, and glory. The principles of the gospel are eternal.

It is the reverse. If there were no laws, nothing would be possible; we could not do anything. Every purpose would be in danger of being thwarted; there could be no constancy of expectation, a possible different result from every act. This, of course, would be an impossible situation.

Thus law is the guarantor of freedom; it assures us that when we know and understand eternal laws, and abide them—when the “mystery” of law is replaced by “mastery,” we can us them to our everlasting happiness and progress, and no sudden intrusion of lawless chance can spoil it.

The revelation further says:

That which breaketh a law, and abideth not by law, but seeketh to become a law unto itself, and willeth to abide in sin, and altogether abideth in sin. Cannot be sanctified by law, neither by mercy, justice nor judgment. Therefore, there must remain filthy still. (D&C 88:35.)

Notice the word cannot—“cannot be sanctified.” This is not a decision that God has made and refuses to change. It is an announcement of an unchangeable fact. One can so abuse his freedom, both his innate capacity and his gift, that he cannot receive the benefits of obedience. If you disobey you take the consequences.

Why should God not have mercy and sanctify the sinner anyway? Restitution comes through the application of another law, through repentance. The only avenue to the result is through the law. To receive the glories, one must abide the laws of those glories. We cannot offer an education to anyone by handing him a diploma. You work to become educated or you do not become educated. Abide the conditions to become a competent physician, or you do not become one. No power in the universe can pat you on the head and confer upon you any competence. So it is with the highest award of all. Godliness cannot be conferred, but must be acquired. That is one of the eternal principles that God himself cannot change. The enlightenment of knowledge cannot be bestowed. (D&C 93:28-29)

We may hesitate to acknowledge the importance of eternal laws because in our experience some laws change. Even some laws of nature seem to change as scientific knowledge increases. So it is with all areas of our understanding. For example, it was universally believed that matter could not be changed, until Einstein showed the inter-relationship between matter and energy. The laws of nature do not change, but our understanding of them does.

Man-made laws are often adjusted to suit changing conditions. For example, there are traffic laws which are enforced as they are written to meet a present need. These are just statements of what orderly people should do and are not based on some eternal condition. If the need changes, the law changes.

Eternal principles are inescapable; they bind all of us; and they free all of us. Temporary laws that help us to live better lives together are important. Change in these laws should not lead to some misunderstanding which would keep us from recognizing the eternal, unchanging laws. If we seek to become perfect as our Father is perfect, and if we yearn for eternal life, which is his greatest gift, the unchanging, eternal laws of the universe must be taken into consideration. We must understand and obey them if we want to be successful. They do not cease to exist if we ignore them; we are bound by them even though we may try to work against or around them. The downward path is outlined in the above scripture: (1 ) we break a law, (2 ) we abide it not, (3) we seek to become a law unto ourselves, (4) we will to abide in sin, and (5) we abide in sin and cannot be made holy unless we repent (which would involve obeying a law.)

It is better far to be preserved by the law by willingly letting ourselves be governed by it in every way we can, to have it going for us instead of against us. To do this, we must learn what the various points of the law are. All that we need to know for our salvation and exaltation has been revealed to us. If we will allow ourselves to be thus governed, the law will perfect us and sanctify us (make us holy.)

We can put ourselves in harmony with all things in heaven and in earth if we will conform our lives to the pattern set by eternal law. In even beginning to realize the great truth of our need for unchanging law, we are taking a step toward conformity with it. We are moving closer to our Father in Heaven and the path he trod. These principles, clearly understood, affect our attitudes toward God.

We must not assume that man-made laws are bad because they change. Our parents make rules for us to obey because they love us. Often these rules may be changed because they were not carefully thought our or are difficult to enforce. If so, they should be changed. We all grow together as a family, and the fact that rules may change to meet growing needs does not detract from the unchanging love our parents have for us.

Our greatest opportunities arise when we learn the relentless and eternal principles. The Lord knows what we are to learn. Eternal laws neither wait nor bend for any man. Everlasting principles can bring enduring deprivation or enduring glory.

Any discussion of freedom that does not recognize this fundamental fact about man and the pattern of his life is based on something other than the whole truth and can lead only to confusion and misunderstanding.

For example, the law of gravity, a natural law, is one commonly given as an example of an unchanging eternal law that if anyone tries to flout or to ignore they do so at their peril. In modern days, science has put other natural laws into effect to make it possible to raise greater-than-air craft to great heights and to protect the occupants of the craft with parachutes should they fall. Any skydiver knows well the fate that awaits him should his chute fail to open, and some have plummeted to that fate by toying with the immutable law of gravity.

The consequences are just as predictable with the law of repentance, the law of chastity, the law of consecration, or any other of the great laws that form the basis of the gospel plan. Anyone who toys with them, procrastinates or rationalizes about any one of them does so at the risk of his eternal happiness. The choices are made individually, even doing nothing is making a type of choice, a choice by which to be bound.

My Religion and Me

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Chapter 5

WHAT IS FREE AGENCY?

We have been discussing the preface to this life, the pre-mortal existence, or what some have called the first in the three-act drama of life. We have touched on the eternal nature of our Heavenly Father and ourselves, as his spirit children. We have mentioned the spirit world and some of the preparations that were made there for our coming to the earth. It becomes necessary now to consider the matter of our freedom, without which the whole gospel plan would be meaningless.

AGENCY

Agency is the ability and freedom to choose good or evil. It is an eternal principle which has existed with God from all eternity. The spirit offspring of the Father had agency in pre-existence and were thereby empowered to follow Christ or Lucifer according to their choice. (Moses 4:3; D&C 29:36-37.) It is by virtue of the exercise of agency in this life that men are enabled to undergo the testing which is an essential part of mortality. (Moses 3:17, 4:3, 7:32; Abraham 3:25-28.)

Four great principles must be in force if there is to be agency: 1. Laws must exist, laws ordained by an Omnipotent power, laws which can be obeyed or disobeyed; 2. Opposites must exist—good and evil, virtue and vice, right and wrong—that is, there must be an opposition, one pulling one way and another pulling the other; 3. A knowledge of good and evil must be had by those who are to enjoy the agency, that is, they must know the difference between the opposites; and 4. An unfettered power of choice must prevail.

Agency is given to man as an essential part of the great plan of redemption. As with all things appertaining to this plan, it is based on the atoning sacrifice of Christ. As Lehi expressed it: “because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given. Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great mediation of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.” (2 Nephi 2:26-30, 10:30; Alma 13:3; Heleman 14:31.)

Agency is so fundamentally a part of the great plan of creation and redemption that if it should cease, all other things would vanish away. “All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence.” (D&C 93:30.) Expanding and interpreting this revealed principle, Lehi said: “It must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so,… righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one: Wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility. Wherefore, it must needs have been created for a thing of naught; wherefore there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation. Wherefore, this thing must needs destroy the wisdom of God and his eternal purposes, and also the power, and the mercy, and the justice of God.

And if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not there is no God. And if there is no God we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon; wherefore, all things mush have vanished away.” (2 Nephi 2:13; D&C 29:39)

Agency is the philosophy of opposites, and because these opposites exist, men can reap either salvation or damnation by the use they make of their agency. If it were not for the law of agency, there could be no judgment according to works and consequently no rewards or punishments. “Choose ye this day, to serve the Lord God who make you” (Moses 6:33), is the voice of the Lord to all people of all ages. (Alma 30:8; Joshua 24:15.)

Satan “sought to destroy the agency of man” (Moses 4:3), an eventuality which would have made the attainment of salvation impossible, and accordingly he was cast our of heaven.1

FOUR EXAMPLES OF FREEDOM

What is this liberty, whose very name makes the heart beat faster and shakes the world? Is it not the union of all liberties—liberty of conscience, of education, of associations of the press, of travel, of labor, of trade? In short, is not liberty the freedom of every person to make full use of his faculties, so long as he does not harm other persons while doing so?2Mr. Bastiat’s definition has merit for our purposes here, for he mentions or implies four freedoms which most of us presently enjoy and , generally speaking, take to much for granted. These are:

1. Freedom of decision

2. Freedom of action

3. Freedom of inaction

4. Freedom to become

FREEDOM OF DECISION

Suppose you are in prison bound with cords, straight jacketed, and surrounded by vicious people who are seeking to manipulate you in every way contrary to your won desires. Notice you still have a measure of freedom. Inwardly you can agree or disagree with anything they say or do! We may keep our thoughts to ourselves.

What we decide to approve or disapprove is up to us. In our premortal state we made at least one big decision to stay with our Heavenly Father and his Son in defending the principle of free agency. Even in such situations as the one described above, though you were forced to say things you did not mean or to do things you would never do if your were free to choose—even then no one can reach into your mind to see what is there and set it in order according to his will. What you decide to think is eternally your decision.

FREEDOM OF ACTION

A certain man was trying to demonstrate that we all do what we are caused to do and that there is no freedom. He held up a candle before his audience. Extending his right hand, he said, “I put my finger in the flame, it burns, I pull it out! This is cause and effect, not freedom.”

An opponent, who believed in genuine freedom, arose took the candle, and said, “I put my finger into the flame, it burns, I grit my teeth and hold it there! THAT is freedom!”

A man who spent a few weeks behind the iron curtain in the rural areas of East Germany returned recently (before 1972) to tell of his impressions. He said that there was a feeling of death. “It’s stable,” he said, “but so is death. There were no cars on the road, no people in the fields, no visible signs of life, and many signs of decay.” Where freedom of motion is greatly restricted, death ensues, the death of a person or of a nation.

The story is told of a little girl who, watching a moth attempt to struggle from the cocoon in which it was imprisoned, felt sorry for it. Getting some scissors, she cut the confining strands of the cocoon to release the struggling moth. To her startled concern, the moth ceased it struggle and died. When, sobbing, she told her father what had happened, he said, “Now you know that often life itself depends on putting forth effort and having to exert oneself against things that are in the way. The moth instinctively fought to break open the cocoon because in so doing, he gained the strength he would need to live, to fly, to find food. You tried to help him but you robbed him of his one big chance to make himself free.” So it is with many people who are straining against the confines of their lives. It is best, beyond seeing that they don’t hurt themselves, to give them freedom of motion to a successful breakthrough.

FREEDOM OF INACTION

“I can, not do, anything I choose to not do.” Inaction sometimes seems the easiest course, but there are limits. You cannot cease to exist. The essential intelligence mentioned earlier is indestructible and therefore unavoidable. Among the impossibilities, therefore, if your mental health is sound, are: becoming someone other than yourself; destroying all consciousness by relapsing into the condition of a billiard ball without freedom or individuality. You cannot cease being, in some measure at least, an active agent.

There is however, still an open area of inactivity that we are free to enter, though it be dangerous. It has become the common practice in the Church to speak of people who do not come to the meetings, who do not have Church jobs, but who are nevertheless members, having been baptized, as inactive. Active membership in the Church implies motion, effort, growth. It is desirable if one wishes to make progress, for that is what the Church is for. Nevertheless inactivity is permitted; a person is free to do nothing if that is what he wants, and there are many who do.

The most basic inaction of life is this:

Behold, here is the agency of man (freedom to act for itself and at the other side of that, freedom not to act), and here is the condemnation of man; because that which was from the beginning is plainly manifest unto them, and they receive not the light. (D&C 93:31.)

To “receive not the light” which would tell us ceaselessly that we are free, that there is more we could have done, can now do, and may yet do, is to give favor to the darker aspects of the soul, which are found in the heavy down pull of the body. It is to flout, ignore, harden ourselves against the lightful elements, our spirits, which are glory laden and innocent when we enter mortality. They may encourage and persuade, but no one will force us to do otherwise if we choose to be inactive.

FREEDOM TO BECOME

This is a fourth kind of freedom, the most vital and most exciting and most enduring freedom. We hide it from ourselves and try to convince ourselves that our guilt feelings and anxiety feelings are all over the first three. You know what we are talking about here if you are a writer with a message in your heart who never sits down at the typewriter; a musician who can not discipline himself to practice or to master the mechanics; an artist who shies away from brush and canvas; a cook, mechanic, inventor, physicist, genealogist, a whatever, who backs off hardest from the thing he could become best qualified to do.

To be fully free is to unfold all the strains, facets, and functions latent within us which help us become what God created us to be! We are enslaved to the degree that we fall short of that self-realization. That kind of freedom, like the eight-day flowering of a bud into a rose, is the genuine freedom, the freedom to become what is in us to become. This is what Bastiat called “the freedom… to make full use of his faculties.”

There are Latter-day Saints in parts of the world who are meeting the challenge of becoming Saints in the midst of political tyranny. It is sometimes more possible to become in the midst of greatest difficulty. In fact, sometimes we need to be blessed with problems to make us put forth enough effort to become more than we are. While we stand pat in defending and scrapping over the first three freedoms, this one may be slipping from our fingers. We may paradoxically be digging the grave of freedom or losing it by default.

DIFFERRENCES BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST

We can get at what this freedom is by asking, what do we have that animals do not? Pressed to distinguish man’s advantages over other forms of life, those who study such matters often mention four qualities:

1. Man’s power to think in abstractions. A house pet can see the marks “7 plus 5 equals 12” and can be trained to understand the formula in the sense that he reacts to it: taps his paw, or learns to take it as a sign of forthcoming food. He does not, however, understanding the seven-ness, five-ness, plus-ness, or wquality. Those are all abstractions.

2. Men are equipped with the amazing power of language. Shakespeare knew and used some 25,000 words. The rest of us have about 5,000 on the average. Beyond his verbal powers, man has the fantastic ability to communicate his feelings, responses, needs, and subtlest shades of thought by facial and symbolic means and be understood as if by magic.

3. Men “tie together” their past and futures. These ideas have no other relationship, apparently, except in men’s minds. We are uniquely the “time-binding” species, capable of ever-increasing expansion of memory and thus of imagination and projection. We can think a million miles ahead, or imagine a million years back, or picture what it would be like to be on the other side of the moon. Man can. Can other animals? Apparently not. Decisions, projects, and plans can be infinite in scope—not so for the squirrel who at best plans for next winter. Man can build on the experience of all men in all ages.

4. Man is capable in a measure of predicting and creatively controlling his environment. The best of dogs or birds have not learned interplanetary travel, nor written poems and symphonies, nor filled other lives with expressive, creative activities.

5. Man is the spiritual offspring of God. This is the most important difference of all. Through the restored gospel we learn this most basic truth and become aware of the spark of godhood within us. From the very beginning man was given dominion over the beast of the field who do not share man’s spiritual heritage.

THE DIVINE WAY

God will assist us to magnify the freedom of becoming by increasing these qualities of life to their fullness, to intensify our mental life, to intensify our communication with ourselves and with all other kinds of intelligence, to increase our mastery of earth as preliminary to our mastery of the universe, to increase our creative abilities. One step forward in any of these areas increase our freedom. Thus it is important, as the scripture says, to be “anxiously engaged in a good cause (D&C 58:27-29) and to be involved in something greater than we are which causes us to extend ourselves.

One step backward diminishes that freedom. The divine way for increasing our freedom by increasing our capacities is through “persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned.” (D&C 121:41-43.) The opposing method is that of Lucifer—force. We opposed force as spirits, and many of us continue to oppose it here.

God gave us a privilege to advance like himself. He made his work the fulfillment of our purposes. “This is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” (Moses 1:39.) Every step of the way our Heavenly Father has plans laid to help us, but not to interfere with our freedom—not to cut us free and destroy us, but to give us difficulties with which to cope and thus to grow.

Let us now turn to what it means to say “we make ourselves.” How much really depends on us?

HAVE YOU REALLY ACCEPTED FREEDOM?

It is common to suppose that all of us want more freedom. We pay lip service to the idea. As a matter of fact, though, a little serious and quiet “in looking” will show that we have deep longings in the opposite direction. All of us want an escape from freedom. Freedom can be frightening. How can this be?

Fatalism, behaviorism, predestinarianism, and mechanism all say: Everything that happens has to happen and whatever is, is right. Nothing is avoidable. Few of us believe or even seem impressed with these doctrines. Yet we sometimes seek a permanent, unanswerable, and effective excuse that says, in effect, “You couldn’t help it.” We want to escape from the responsibility of having to say, “I could have done something about it.” We see freedom as what it has always been—responsibility.

It actually is a great enticement, a great comfort, if we can believe (or at least have others believe,) that when it gets right down to it, we are not responsible for what happens. “I can’t help,” we say, or, “It’s not my fault.”

A felling of fatalism is reflected sometimes even within the Church as people try to shirk responsibility: “Why worry about a graduate degree? The world will be blown up by then, and it won’t matter.” “Don’t plan. Just get a bomb shelter and a year’s supply of food.” There is a tendency to regard a patriarchal blessing as akin to fortune-telling—saying what will happen to you instead of what can happen, still leaving it up to you.

The fact is that a certain relief is felt when one can finally say, “It is my fault. I could and should have done more, and I am still trying.” There is more to be done. This is true, not just in the sense that if things were different and you were different, more could be done. With everything just as it is, there is still more you might do if you want to do it as much as you want to avoid doing it.

“I cannot do otherwise,” we say. Why not? Someone else, looking the situation over, not unkindly, might say, “What about doing this? Have you tried that?” until we wonder whether we have done anything at all.

“The world has need of willing men,” says the hymn. (Hymns, no. 206.) It means men who are willing to accept the responsibilities of freedom, to ride the waves in, like a skilled surfer, risking a dangerous fall, but steadily, practiced, and surefooted. He knows a thrill and the senses of accomplishment that is never known by the lazy beachcomber who grudgingly moves up the beach as the tide comes in and never dares to try.

We are not alone. God is not dead, and he will help us however badly we may feel we have failed. The only real failure is not to try, not to become, not to extend the bounds of our freedom and our responsibility. Knowing your own weakness, “Be thou humble; and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand, and give thee answer to thy prayers.” (D&C 112:10)

1. Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966,) pp. 26-27

2. Frederic Bastiat, The Law (New York: The Foundation for Economic Education, 1964), p.51

My Religion and Me

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Chapter 4

WHERE DID I COME FROM? (CONTINUED)

ASSIGNMENT OF MISSIONS

Every man who has a calling to minister to the inhabitants of the world was ordained to that very purpose in the Grand council of heaven before this world was. I suppose I was ordained to this very office in that Grand Council.1

Some may suppose that this refers only to those mighty and great ones who stood at the head of dispensations like Adam, Abraham, Enoch, Noah, Moses, etc., and does not imclude us; but every one of God’s children is important to him and has an opportunity to make a contribution if he will.

President J. Reuben Clark said:

I like to think that it does include those of us of lesser calling and lesser stature… and I like to think that perhaps in that grand council something at least was said to us indicating what would be expected of us, and empowering us, subject to the re-confirmation here, to do certain things in building up the kingdom of God on earth.2

As the Church expands in its worldwide mission, we can see that there is a great variety of work to be done in building the kingdom. Each one of us is very important to the Lord and his work. No son or daughter is without dignity in the sight of God, and every assignment in the Church or life which may contribute to human happiness is significant and deserves full effort and dedication. There is a crying need today for leadership in many areas of activity. There are many indications that those who live in these last days are specially chosen and have, in fact, been held in reserve to come forth in this era. Many are told this in their patriarchal blessings, and an indication of this idea is provided in the Doctrine and covenants as follows:

Therefore, thus saith the Lord unto you, with whom the priesthood hath continued through the lineage of your fathers—

For ye are lawful heirs, according to the flesh, and have been hid from the world with Christ in God—

Therefore your life and the priesthood have remained, and must needs remain through you and your lineage until the restoration of all things spoken by the mouths of all the holy prophets since the world began. (D&C 86:8-10)

There is, then, much work to be done, and out of all the world you who are privileged to be members of the church undoubtedly received such important assignments in heaven.

This does not preclude the fact that in other dispensations great and noble spirits also were born to fulfill their work.

There are three important activities in which we participated in our former home of which we are given some knowledge through the revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith:

1. Upholding and sanctioning of Christ’s plan

2. Assignment of missions

3. Assignment of lineage

Some of the brightest spirits that dwelt with the Father are making their appearance among this people. Brigham Young’s conviction was that the rising generation to which you belong would rise up and be greater in the gospel than he or his brethren.

You may remember it and lay it to heart and, if you wish, write it in your journals, that some of the best spirits that have ever been sent to earth are coming at the present time…3

The missions no doubt differ widely, It is, however, the testimony of our prophetic inspiration that these chosen spirits are not only great in opportunity, but are great in three other ways:

1. They were fore-appointed.

2. They were organized and interrelated.

3. They were set in the pattern of lineage.

FORE-APPOINTED

The timing depends upon when our preparation fits best into the plan of the Father. The Lord has told us that his house is a house of order and not one of confusion. He, therefore, knowing the end from the beginning, make his assignments according to a pattern. The fact that we are only dimly aware of the pattern or not aware of it at all does nothing to change it. We must, therefore acquaint ourselves with what has been revealed concerning the orderly nature of not only the universe, but of all things within it—including each of us, each life, and each mission to be performed. As the Prophet Joseph concluded:

Hence the importance of embracing and subscribing to principles of eternal truth by all men upon the earth that expect eternal life.4

ORGANIZED

The earth was brought into being according to plan, for no project so great would be left to chance by so great an intelligence as our Heavenly Father. Here on earth we see the organizations of men established to accomplish certain things. We find armies, companies, nations, and empires, all set into patterns of various sorts. Only in organization is there accomplishment. Could our Father lack the skill to organize and understanding to do so, and his children demonstrate such skill and understanding?

ORGANIZATION INTO FAMILIES

We are told that all the children of our Heavenly Father who were to come to earth were

organized into a family with Adam as its patriarch and head. According to the Prophet Joseph Smith:

The Father called all spirits before Him at the creation of man, and organized them. He (Adam) is the head, and was told to multiply. The keys were first given to him, and by him to others…

I saw Adam in the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman. He called together his children and blessed them with a patriarchal blessing. The Lord appeared in their midst, and he (Adam) blessed them all, and foretold what should befall them to the latest generation.

This is why Adam blessed his posterity; he wanted to bring them into the presence of God.5

Later the Prophet elaborated on this theme:

The organization of the spiritual and heavenly worlds, and of spiritual and heavenly worlds, and of spiritual and heavenly being, was agreeable to the most perfect order and harmony: Their limits and bounds were fixed irrevocably, and voluntarily subscribed to in their heavenly estate by themselves, and were by our first parents subscribed to upon the earth.6

What exactly does this mean to those of us who live on earth today? At least this much: Our agreement or covenant to enter mortality was made (to take upon us flesh and bones in one decision of many which was both completely voluntary and without recourse). We cannot now decide not to have bodies. We understood somewhat the details of what we would face in life’s trials, life’s hazards, life’s opportunities, and the resultant promises.

THE ASSIGNMENT OF LINEAGE

Finally, the Prophet learned by vision through the Urim and Thummim that his own blood line, his own familial inheritance, came down through Abraham—and that into the house of Israel some of the choicest spirits that dwelled in heavens have been, and will continue to be, sent. It was made known to him that Abraham, chosen before his birth, had comparable fidelity, proved himself on earth, withholding nothing, likewise did Isaac, and Isaac’s son Jacob, and Jacob’s son Joseph. It was make known to the Prophet Joseph Smith that he was of the lineage of Ephraim and that upon him much power was to be laid in the last days.

What of us? We too are of Abraham’s family. Those who join the Church become members of that family which is the family of the prophets, the seed of Abraham and the elect of God. It is not a “closed shop,” an arrogant caste of people who think of themselves as special (as if God needed an excuse for blessing them). It is the product of an eternal merit system—the continuing embodiment of the truth that when we fulfill our covenants, the living God fulfills his and that when we violate them we “have no promise.” (D&C 82:10)

In history the “chosen” have often rebelled themselves into degradation and darkness, and the darkened have often risen to the pinnacle of blessing. The Book of Mormon tells and retells that story with matchless vividness.

CLUES IN OUR EXPERIENCES

In addition to the revealed word of the Lord in these latter days, our Father has kindly

provided us with rich experiences with things spiritual to verify, personally, in each life the official declarations that are made through the prophets. Some of these are attested to in fast and testimony meetings, and some are held to sacred to be mentioned by individuals to whom they have come. Anyone, however, who seeks shall find. And he who is watching shall be given signs which his faith will reveal to him as true. Those who live by the Spirit have no need of further proof, and those who do not would not be convinced by a sign if it were given. It is by means of small wonders in our lives that we come to that greater knowledge for which our spirits hunger.

Such relatively intangible evidences as the following are given to us:

( I) felt as if I had always know it… They who love the truth and to whom it most

strongly appeals—were they not acquainted with it in a previous life?7

We doubtless knew all about faith, repentance, baptism, and the Holy Ghost, before coming into this world, and when we hear the Gospel preached on earth there is something in it that appeals to us, and we say to ourselves, I have known that always; it is nothing strange; it is an old friend, a familiar voice.8

These are what might be called spiritual memories. They seem brief, fleeting, and hard to remember, yet they enable us to make decisions of life safely and in tune with the will of the Father. There was much that Christ knew beforehand, and it is the teaching of President Joseph F. Smith, for one that as he did so did we.

Our knowledge of persons and things before we came here, combined with the

divinity awakened within our soul through obedience to the gospel, powerfully affects, in my opinion, all our likes and dislikes, and guides our preferences in the course of this life, provided we give careful heed to the admonitions of the Spirit.

All those salient truths which come home so forcibly to the head and heart seem but the awakening of the memories of the spirit. Can we know anything here that we did not know before we came?9

Thus, what is kindled by the word of the Shepherd is the “hidden word” of our interior. President Hugh B. Brown has said:

Sometimes during solitude I hear trough spoken with clarity and freshness; uncolored and untranslated it speaks from within myself in a language original but inarticulate, heard only with the soul, and I realize I brought it with me, was never taught it nor can I efficiently teach it to another.10

We did not come to fail; we were trained not only to achieve but to lead others in achieving. We were prepared for this period in earth’s history when there is ripening in iniquity the accumulated sins and estrangements of centuries—a time of unmatched evil—that we might be tried. Here again, Christ is our example. It is not Church doctrine to say that he was “forced” to be the Savior. All was voluntary. When he actually faced, in the flesg, the anguish and shock involved, he himself “would that (he) might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink.” (D&C 19:18)

1. Joseph Fielding Smith, comp., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1938), p. 365

2. J. Reuben Clark, Jr. in Conference Report of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Oct. 1950, pp 170-171.

3. Brigham Young in Journal of Discourses, 26 vol. (London: Latter-day Saints’ Book Depot, 1855-86), 11:117.

4. Teachings, p. 325.

5. Teachings, pp. 158-59.

6. Teachings, p. 325.

7. Orson F. Whitney, “The Undiscovered Country,” Improvement Era 23:100 (Dec. 1919).

8. “Sermon by Apostle Orson F. Whitney Delivered at the Funeral of Nellie C. Taylor,” Young Womans Journal 21:300 (June 1910).

9. Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1968), pp. 12-13.

10. Truman G. Madsen, Eternal Man (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1966), p. v.

My Religion and Me

2005-09-13T12:47:00.000-06:00

Chapter 3

Where Did I Come From?

The great thing for us… is to comprehend what God did institute before the foundation of the world.1

We have now established three marvelous aspects of the nature of man: The eternal nature of his individual intelligence, his spirit birth that made him the son of God, and the endless possibilities that these two unlock.

Now we turn our attention to the agreements, preparations, and anticipatory arrangements made before we entered mortality.

The great Jehovah contemplated the whole of the events connected with the earth, pertaining to the plan of salvation, before it rolled into existence, or ever “the morning stars sang together” for joy; the past, the present, and the future were and are, with Him, one eternal “now”; He knew of the fall of Adam, the iniquities of the antediluvians, of the depth of iniquity that would be connected with the human family, their weakness and strength, their power and glory, apostasies, their crimes, their righteousness and iniquity; He comprehended the fall of man, and his redemption; He knew the plan of salvation and pointed it out; He was acquainted with the situation of all nations and with their destiny; He ordered all things according to the council of His own will; He knows the situation of both the living and the dead, and has make ample provisions for their redemption, according to their several circumstances, and the laws of the kingdom of God, whether in this world, or in the world to come.2

We, too, knew much of the plan, for we who have been born on earth accepted it joyfully.

In coming here, we forgot all, that our agency might be free indeed, to choose good or evil, that we might merit the reward of our own choice and conduct. But by the power of the Spirit, in the redemption of Christ, through obedience, we often catch a spark from the awakening memories of the immortal soul, which lights up or who being, as with the glory of our former home.3

As we know, not all of our Father’s children accepted the plan as it was presented, for there was opposition. As the Prophet summarized it on one occasion:

The contention in heaven was—Jesus said there would be certain souls that would not be saved; and the devil said he could save them all, and laid his plans before the grand council, who gave their vote in favor of Jesus Christ. So the devil rose up in rebellion against God, and was cast down with all who put up their heads for him.4

Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give unto him mine own power; the power of mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should be cast down;

And he became Satan, yea, even the devil, the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken unto my voice. (Moses 4:3-4.)

We were all present in the grand council. We saw the Savior chosen and appointed and the plan of salvation made. Scriptural evidence shows that we not only upheld the Son, but we loved and honored him. In the conflict of wills that followed, we were among those valiant ones who accepted the plan of life and voluntarily agreed to his voluntary act to offer himself as Redeemer, Revelator, and Mediator. That Christ should be the Savior was decided by the Father and by us in premortal councils (voluntarily subscribed by us in our heavenly state) and we permanently rejected the will of a world-be usurper. He desired to force. He did not desire to save and suffer for us. (Moses 4:1-4; Abraham 3:27-28.)

As sides were taken in that mighty conflict, one-third of God’s spirit children were lost to him and cast out of heaven. The war, however, gave the faithful an opportunity to prove their loyalty. If we had not proved ourselves on that occasion (now shrouded in forgetfulness for us), we would not be here today. Our preparation for the task of earth life is the subject with which we are now concerned.

In addition to the differences which existed between those who were loyal to God and those who failed to prove themselves, there were very wide differences among those who were on the Lord’s side. We have been told that there were differences among the intelligences. Some undoubtedly progressed much more than others continuing their upward reach to improve themselves. Thus, spirits coming into this life differ widely even though all of them accepted the Lord’s plan.

A word of caution ought to be expressed concerning the limitation of deciding anything about the degree of valiancy of any one person. We should not judge ourselves or others with respect to the quality of spiritual growth determinable by observation of earth conditions or situations. We are not always able to do this except in the broadest kind of generalization. The Father has need of strong spirits in every age and every circumstance, and likewise the needs of individuals may also be considered when sending spirits down to earth. Some, therefore, who are “born in the covenant”, appear less mature spiritually and less strong in character than many born under far less favorable circumstances.

1. Joseph Fielding Smith, comp., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City:

Deseret Book Co., 1938), p. 320.

2. Teachings, p. 220.

3. Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., pp. 13-14.

4. Teachings, p. 357.

My Religion and Me

2005-09-13T12:05:00.000-06:00

Chapter 2
What Is My Relationship with God?

God revealed to Moses:
I am without beginning of days… thou art my son;… I will show thee the workmanship of mine hands… they never cease… thou art in the similitude of mine Only Begotten… the Savior… (Moses 1:3-6)

President Joseph Fielding Smith has stated our concept of who God is, what he was, and what he has done as follows:

"It is very evident that in the days of the apostles of old the true knowledge of God was fully understood. These apostles never confounded the separate entities of the Father and the son. Jesus on numerous occasions taught them the true character of his Father. He taught them to pray to his Father, and if they forgave not others their trespasses the Father would not forgive theirs. He taught them that those who deny him he would deny before his Father… He also declared that no man “knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him,’ and that “as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the son to have life in himself; And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man."1

TWO WORLDLY THEORIES OF CREATION

In the orthodox tradition of Christianity, there are two leading theories about God’s creative role in the universe.

1.The ex nihilo (ne hi lo—“from nothing”) theory of creation, dominant among creedstoday, holds that god brought all that is into being from nothing. In other words, man and everything else is made out of nothing. Catholic doctrine indicates that the soul (what we call the spirit) is created at the instant of mortal conception. Protestants have no official dogma about the time of soul creation, but they affirm the belief that such creation is, indeed, from nothing. Both, of course, take no official stand regarding the preexistence of anything, or anyone, except god. Such a theory extends to everything that is tangible and real.

Thus, by holding that God alone is self-existent, theologians must face the difficult (perhaps insoluable) problem of saying that a perfect god willed to bring into existence all evil realities including Satan, evil spirits, hell, suffering, disease, defect, disaster, etc. Extended to logical conclusions, this view maintains that even every act of man comes from the nature of man which is altogether God-made; hence, whenever man commits evil, it is indirectly the act of God himself!

The ex Dei (di—“from God”) theory of creation is often associated with a theory of emanation and is based on the idea that the perfect God, without changing or losing anything, shone forth and these degrees or waves of light hardening into the reality with we call the material world, so that everything is literally part of God himself. The farther the process leads from god, the less perfect and more fallen everything becomes.

Both of these doctrines leads to an insistence that there is an infinite distinction, or, as it were, a complete and unbridgeable gap between the divine and the human so that it is impossible for man so much as to glimpse the actual nature of God. This view is not just the honest and human recognition that there is much we do not yet know, let alone understand, of the nature of God. Instead it states that divine reality is permanently unknown and unknowable. We are left with guesses. All theology is taken as a feeble attempt to say the unsayable, know the unknowable, and describe the undescribable.

Such is the panoramic view we are given of the works and purposes of the God of traditional (historical) Christendom. No matter how it is improved in an effort to make this “God” less of a monster, the chasm between him and man remains.

GOD AS REVEALED THROUGH THE PROPHETS

Modern revelation raises us from this hopeless condition and spans the gap Christians have made between man and his God.

One of the most constant and repeated themes in the life, ministry, and sayings of Jesus is that God is our Gather and is close to his children. The Savior spoke frequently of Father using the expressions, “our Father,” “your Father”, and “my Father”, affirming a shared relationship for all mankind, including himself. He walked, talked, lived, prayed, and manifested this relationship. It is untrue to him, as to the father to “water down” that relationship into anything less personal and less intimate than those close ties between parent and child.

Both of the creation theories outlined above and the conclusions consequent to them confirm through their many discrepancies that creation is impossible under either theory. A living person is organized from existing matter and not made from nothing. God is the organizer. He acts as architect and designer to construct and reconstruct suitable worlds and world systems for his children. To create (as the Bible suggests) does not mean to bring into being, but to bring into order. This is like a contractor who requires brick, cement, steel, and all manner of other materials for the construction of a building.

In relation to man, God’s additional role is that of parent. As he expands his power in the cosmos, he singles out the intelligences we know as men and women and stamps them with his own divinity. He is parent and progenitor—the majestic Father who stands at the head of his divine family of spirits.

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF GOD

The doctrine of pre-existence… pours a wonderful flood of light upon the otherwise mysterious problem of man’s origin. It shows that man, as a Spirit, was begotton and born of heavenly parents, and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father, prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal body to undergo an experience in mortality…
The Church… proclaims man to be the direct and lineal offspring of Deity.2

The prophets have given us inspiration to understand what this sonship really means. The ties between parent and child are much more sacred and binding than those which unite master and servant.

Someone may be said to have a face that “only a mother can love”. An element of truth exists in the implication that the child is hers and that she loves him. He may be born with defects—deformity, deficiency, palsy, blindness, etc.—but still she rejoices in the privilege of motherhood and nurtures him. If “mother love” seems stronger than “father love,” it may because she has labored, served, and suffered more in the child’s care. Both parents, though, share a great love for their children.

Contrast that to the felling of being merely a cog in a vast machine where, if conditions change or you fail to perform, you are finished. Such is not the characteristic feeling of sonship! Our home and our parents give us the “we” feeling—we belong to each other; this home is ours; our feelings are soul to soul. Spirit ties are the unbreakable ones which become eternal when spirituality infuses them. We can do nothing to destroy the loving concern of the Father for us. Even those who “hate their own blood” (Moses 7:33), as the prophet Enoch put it, are still loved of God. None is written off and none is a tool to be used or exploited and then cast away.

A son inherits his father’s property but a servant does not. Having received his wages, the servant has no further claim. In other words, sonship involves heirship. A son or daughter who upholds holds or her father (and sometimes even one who does not) has a legal and time-honored right to inherit the father’s property.

So it is in the eternal worlds. Because of our birthright as spirit children of God, we are his and his heirs—“join-theirs with Christ”. (Romans 8:17) The earth with all its fullness is to be given to the faithful sons and daughters of God. All will have an inheritance. How can that be?

The universe is infinite. Even within reach of our telescopes, it contains three billion planets, one for every human being in this world. There is enough and more to spare.

A father reveals unto his son his purpose and designs, but he does not acquaint his servant with them. Hence the reason for our Savior’s remark:

Henceforth I call you not servants but friends (they were his brethren, and God their Father) for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth; but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you. (John 15:15)
I have revealed it, I have obtained revelations from the Father because I am his son: I have revealed them unto you because ye are his sons also; and my brethren and friends; “no longer strangers, nor aliens, but fellow citizens.”… thus we see that a Son of God has revelation, a servant has not, and this is the grand difference between sectarians and the Latter-day Saints.3

By reason of our sonship (the characteristics of the Father in our very nature), we have inherited the capacity to understand, however incompletely, the nature and will of the Father. To a modern-day Twelve the Lord said, “Behold ye are little children and yet cannot bear all things now.” (D&C 50:40) If they were thus still in their spiritual infancy, so are we. We are children, true children of the Father, and we do but glimpse his purposes. His voice speaks to us and we recognize it.

Look now at the glorious picture painted by the prophets:

God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself. The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge.4

Here a motive is revealed that matches a majestic divinity. God’s goodness and love were such that “in the midst of spirits and glory” he “saw proper” to bring us nearer to him. How far did he will that the rest of us should advance? To a position “like himself”.

The traditional idea that God, being perfect, wanted others to adore and love his perfection is outstripped by the revelation that he wants to share and to help his children achieve perfection too. He, being “more intelligent,” deemed it proper to ennoble, enlarge, and expand the power of all other intelligences in order that his love for them might lead them to a like perfection. He did not create from nothing inferior human beings, but he procreated (produced offspring) potential creators from intelligence. By what possible logic could anyone claim it is a “higher motive” to create men as everlasting inferiors?

The promise presented by the prophets is one that causes rejoicing, for the decision of aid, knowledge-giving, and privilege-giving (without any limits except those we impose on ourselves) was made from the beginning. Indeed, the revelations state that we shouted for joy at the prospect, for we had come far enough in our eternal journey to recognize the glory of the possibilities. (Job 38:7)

Lorenzo Snow has written:

In our spiritual birth, our Father transmitted to us the capabilities, powers, and faculties which He possessed, as much as the child on its mother’s bosom possesses, although in undeveloped state, the faculties, powers and susceptibilities of the parent.5

Therefore we all have the embryonic capabilities of God himself, and we should so act that each may be developed to the utmost.

Parley P. Pratt stated that related truth that the capabilities include the personality traits and the spectrum of feelings and affections that God has:

An intelligent being, in the image of God, possesses every organ, attribute, sense, sympathy, affection, that is possessed by God himself. But these are in embryo, and are to be gradually developed.6
From this it follows that self-knowledge, if it goes deeply enough and brings into action the perceptual abilities of our spirits, is not only knowledge of self but is knowledge of God. Charles W. Penrose puts it this way:

To know God we must know ourselves. All the personal attributes which are ascribed to God by inspired men, we find in ourselves in an imperfect, undeveloped state, But Mormonism… does not tend to debase God to the level of man, but to exalt man to the perfections of God.7

Hence the Prophet said, “If men do not comprehend the character of God, they do not comprehend themselves.”8 To this the traditional reply would be, “A God who had equals would cease to be God and cease to be worthy of worship.” To the contrary, the prophets teach that a God who would oppose the coming of such a fullness of his sons, a God who did not encourage all, would cease to be a God worthy of our worship and love. It is not a denial of his perfection and love to say that he shares his nature, but it is an affirmation of it. Perfect love is perfect willingness to share.

One observer of religion has said that he sees two motives at work in all that men feel about God: One is the quest for an “ultimate,” someone more and higher and better than anyone else, and the other is the quest for an “intimate,” for someone with whom one can have deep, rich, powerful personal relationships. These two motives have often worked against each other. God is defined as ultimate but is duly unreachable, and the intimate is lost.

In Mormonism the two motives merge. The ultimate reality is an intimate reality—a person, a Father who has power over all and loves each one. Our relationship need not be, unless we make it so, a subservient one. It should and can be the most intimate possible. In the end, the King wants not slaves nor subjects but princes and princesses who, if they will, may share the kingdom.

1. Joseph Fielding Smith, Man, His Origin and Destiny (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1954), p. 88.
2. Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder, Anthon H. Lund, “The Origin of Man,” Improvement Era 13:80-81 (Nov. 1909).
3. “Sons of God,” Times and Seasons 4:75 (Jan. 1843).
4. Joseph Fielding Smith, comp., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith) Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1938), p. 354.
5. Lorenzo Snow, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow, comp. Eliza R. Snow Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Co. Printers, 1884), p. 335.
6. Parley P. Pratt, Key to the Science of Theology (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1965), pp. 100-101.
7. Charles W. Penrose, “Our Relationship to God,” Millennial Star 23:181 (Mar. 23, 1861).
8. Teachings, p. 343.

My Religion and Me

2005-09-12T20:37:00.000-06:00

Chapter 1

Your Part in the Lord’s Work

Sometimes we step outside the snug little circle of the present where everything is more or less familiar and in our minds we venture into a vast uncertain world to ask in wonder, “Who am I? Where did I come from? Was I always myself? Will I always be? Is there anyone else just like me? Why am I?” Such questions usually come to us when we lift our eyes to the endless sky ever above us or when we think about the universe that is always around us and consider how little we know about it. Then our imagination staggers as we reach out with our finite minds to try to grasp the meaning of infinity and eternity.

Because we are children of God, there is little cause for wonder that we should ask questions and that our minds should reach out hungry for understanding not to be satisfied without some kind of answer. Wrought upon by the Holy Ghost, man has gone surprisingly far in reaching out. He has understood and subdued the forces of nature sufficiently enough to send human beings as far into the void of space as the moon and has devised machines to measure and photograph other planets, thus extending the realm of what is known and understood by man. Even such extensions of knowledge only touch the surface of the vast uncharted world of the unknown and do little to answer the recurring questions about out beginnings and eternal destinies.

WHERE DID I COME FROM?

To the Prophet Joseph Smith, who wondered too, some answers came—answers he transmitted to us which opened new vistas of understanding. He said:

"The mind of man… Where did it come from? All learned men and doctors of divinity say that God created it in the beginning; but it is not so; the very idea lessens man in my estimation. I do not believe the doctrine; I know better… I am going to tell of things more noble."¹

To the question “How was man created?” most religions answer, “By God.” To the question “How was God created?” most religions answer, “God was not created at all. God is self-derived. God had no beginning and will have no end. God is a ‘necessary’ being.” Thus, most world religions agree to the proposition that there was never a time when nothing existed.
God has always existed. All the prophets of God, ancient and modern, have understood the great related truth that there never was an eternity in which god existed alone. The building blocks of all things are co-eternal with Him. God has always been working with self-existent realities, at least three of which may be identified as follows:

1. God has always existed.
2. Some laws have always existed. (These are laws of nature as distinct from man-made laws.)
3. Matter is eternal. (It may be converted to energy but the sum is eternal.)

Here are some exact formulations by or through the Prophet of this glorious truth:

"God himself is a self-existent being…Who told you that man did not exist in like manner upon the same principles? Man does exist upon the same principles."²

The mind or the intelligence which man possesses is co-equal (i.e., coeternal) with God himself. Is it logical to say that the intelligence of spirits is immortal, and yet that it had a beginning? The intelligence of spirits had no beginning, neither will it have an end. God never had the power to create the spirit of man at all. God himself could not create himself. Intelligence is eternal and exists upon a self existent principle. It is a spirit from age to age, and there is no creation about it.³

"Ye were also in the beginning with the Father;… Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence… was not created or made, neither indeed can be…For man is spirit. The elements are eternal, and spirit and element, inseparably connected, receive a fullness of joy." (D&C 93:23, 29, 33.)

IS THERE ANYONE ELSE JUST LIKE ME?

It is one of the amazing facts of human personality in this world that no one of us is exactly like another. Even those of us who look alike and have the same parents and similar environments are unique—in some ways as different as if born in a different universe. “It takes all kinds to make a world,” people exclaim when they make this recurring discovery of human differences. Strictly speaking, though, there are no kinds. We speak of species, races, families, tribes, and the like, but at root every individual is one of a kind and the only one of his or her kind.

Consider a pair of identical twins, for example. In appearance they may be so similar that they are mistaken for each other. Those who know them best, however, can tell them apart because there are differences in attitudes, interests, mannerisms, and even in the ways they gesture or smile or say hello. No two people have the same fingerprints, the same scars or the same signatures. In the harder-to-measure matters of thought and perception, we all seem to be wired differently in ways that allow no permanent disguise.

As a lively person, you have a good imagination. Try sometime to draw a hundred different faces. You will likely run out of ideas and find it hard to make that many that are really distinctive. Your imaginary faces will have your trademark or identification tag, as so Rembrandt’s, da Vinci’s, or Picasso’s works. Or as the characteristics in any familiar comic strip who bear their creator’s stamp. Yet in this world of three billion or more, there is not one face that is the exact replica of another. Think of that! Three billion variations on the same theme! Resemblance without duplication! How many more before now and how many after. Such is the wondrous variety that surrounds us, not just of face and feature but of personality and character.

Scientists tell us that individuality goes at least as far back as our birth into this world. Embryologists tell us that individuality goes back still earlier to our development in that mysterious period between conception and birth when the embryo develops into a baby ready to be born.

The great differences we observe here in physical, measurable mortality are but reflections of that vast variety of differences that existed in the pre-mortal existence. President J. Reuben Clark has written:

"The record in Abraham which precedes the account of the council (in heaven), is devoted to explaining that there are inequalities… among the intelligences, not all are equal. The Lord said to Abraham, calling attention to this great group of intelligences, that there were among them those who were the great ones, and declared to Abraham that he was one of
those who were to be rulers"⁴

Do we not believe, is it not a self-evident truth, that all men were created equal? Yes, if by that we mean equal before the law or equal in certain inalienable (undeniable) rights or equal in their claims to opportunity. It is obvious, however, that great inequities exist in terms of what men are, what they have, and what they are able to do.

Lingering in many of us is the unanalyzed assumption that we all got the same start—that back in some beginning we were all on the same foundation with all others and that everyone started equal. This has not been fully clarified in the revelations. But there have been great differences since there was any record or any indication given. Along the path of our eternal existence, we have apparently always been surrounded by varying degrees of enlightenment, glory, power, goodness, and harmony with the purposes of God. Some have responded and some have not. Why?

We know—and it is all we need to know for our purposes (and our Heavenly Father’s) here on earth,-- that the framework of the gospel plan provides us with ample opportunities to grow and prove ourselves in association with others similarly engaged who both need our help and need to be of help to us. We know that God as a loving father who knows our needs and aspirations and how best to help us fill the measure of our creation.

"Those who diligently labor, knowing that the Master (our Lord) will give to them whatever is right, and with thought for the work rather than for the wage, shall find themselves more bountifully enriched."⁵

It was probably in this connection that the Savior told the following parable:

"But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first.
For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard.
And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard.
And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace,
And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way.
Again he went our about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise.
And abut the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and said unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle?
They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go you also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.
So when even was come, the Lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.
And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny.
But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny.
And when they had received it they murmured against the good man of the house,saying, these last have wrought but one hour, and thou has made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.
But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny?
Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.
Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?
So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called but few chosen." (Matthew 19:30; 20:1-16)

Christ seems to indicate that everlasting life is promised to all who come and follow him regardless of when they come. Eternal life is indeed a “golden penny” and is our Heavenly Father’s to bestow where he will. Our relationship with him is on a one-to-one basis, and it matters not what others may do or receive from him (except as they need our help). We covenant with him to serve him; he offers us the marvelous coin of eternal life. Whatever inequities there seem to be, lose their significance in view of such an offer. The gratitude each one of us should feel at so great a love should kindle in us enough life to let us rejoice at whatever success or advancement our brothers may achieve, though they go in ahead of us. Only in heaven is there universal rejoicing over the repentance of a long-time sinner, for only in heaven is there in each heart so great a love that there is no room for selfish comparisons and protests to the good man of that house.

Such truths help us relate to the other things in the universe. We sometimes hear individuals discuss the relative importance or influence of heredity and environment as if all they were could be accounted for by credit or blame to immediate circumstances as these, but when looked at in longer perspective, what we are is a product of our own doing. This leaves a lot of excuses looking pretty thin. Each of us is an eternal self, and what we are today is a product of what, with the help of our Father we have been making of ourselves for having make enough wise choices along the way to account for a great deal of progress, for that is why we are here upon earth. Our relationships with God, each other, the elements, and eternal laws have brought about our present situation. In this sense, each of us is a creature of his own making.

1 Joseph Fielding Smith, comp., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1938), p. 352
2 Teachings, p. 352
3 Teachings, p. 354
4 J. Reuben Clark, Jr., in Conference Report of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, April 1952, p. 96
5 James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1963), p. 482.