Back To The Basics

So, after the turmoil of the last few days, I have decided to not delve so much into the events of my personal life in this entry, but rather to focus on more general events and whatnot. I believe that the events of the last several days have generally resolved themselves or will continue to do so over the next several.

That said however, there are a few things I'd like to address that have been on my mind as of late. The turmoil that has taken place in my life has been mainly as a result of my doing and my failing to take into account several key doctrines and logical processes. I will address a few of those here:

Fear: One of my favorite scriptures outside of that in 2 Nephi is the scripture section in Doctrine and Covenants 121: 34-46:

"Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen?
Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world and aspire to the honors of men that they do not learn this one lesson --
That the rights of the Priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness.
That they may be conferred upon us it is true; but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambitions, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold the heavens withdraw themselves, the Spirit of the Lord is grieved: and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.
Behold, ere he is aware, he is left unto himself, to kick against the pricks , to persecute the saints, and to fight against God.
We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.
Hence many are called, but few are chosen.
No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only be persuation, by long-suffering, by gentlenss and meekness, and by love unfeigned.
By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy and without guile --
Reproving betimes with sharpness when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth an increase of love toward him whom thou hast repoved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy;
The he may know that they faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death..."

Sure, we've all heard these scriptures before, and they are very good at face value, but let's look at them in a little further depth, especially how it applies to our lives personally.

First - when we consider the life of a single individual approaching the age at which they may be considered mature enough to wed or to undertake greater responsibilities in life, we must consider the first scripture of this passage - many are called but few are chosen. What does this mean to all of us? It means that for such things such as marriage - which is a calling from the Lord to the world: Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh (Moses 3:24) our calling to do such does not guarantee that we gain any form of mortal exaltation from it or that we are to be rewarded according to our own time schedule. Rather, we take ourselves out of "chosen" status of the Lord when we set our own hearts upon the things of the world and the praises of those around us, rather than keeping in our hearts the true reason for this calling from the Lord. This is where it gets interesting though because the rest of the scriptures have one underlying principle behind them: agency. Agency? Yes! A simple word replacement or rather understanding of the definition of some of the terms listed in this scripture help to bring this into greater light.

The priesthood of God is the power of God. Thus, the rights [to the power of God] are inseperably connected with the powers of heaven (what is bound on earth is bound in heaven and vice versa), and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled, only upon the principles of righteousness. That they may be conferred upon us it is true (i.e. we may be recipients of that power through another source such as general blessings from God, or through Priesthood blessings given by a righteous Priesthood holder), but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambitions (i.e. our hearts being set upon the things of the world and the honors of men)...behold the heavens withdraw themselves, the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.

What does this all mean? It means that if we try to expect big things to happen in our lives without employing agency to all parties involved - including the Lord - we forfeit that guidance and power that he has to bless our lives in making those changes occur. Further, not only do we forfeit those privileges to call upon the power of God to assist us with those changes, but the Spirit of the Lord is grieved when we do so. That is not to say that the Holy Ghost is grieved - because by this point it has already departed from our lives, but the Lord himself is troubled like unto the pains that he felt while in the Garden.

This is further confirmed in the next scripture where it is said "Behold, ere he is aware, he is left unto himself to kick against the pricks, to persecute the Saints, and to fight against God. Two scriptures better explain this specific term: "And it came to pass that when they had fled we did pursue them with our armies, and did meet them again, and did beat them; nevertheless the strength of the Lord was not with us; yea, we were left to ourselves, that the Spirit of the Lord did not abide in us; therefore we had become weak like unto our brethren. (Mormon 2: 26)" and "And the presence of God withdrew from Moses, that his glory was not upon Moses; and Moses was left unto himself. And as he was left unto himself, he fell unto the earth. (Moses 1:9)" How does this relate with the Savior in the Garden? In the Biblical accounts we are taught that the Savior felt alone, in fact to a point that an angel was sent to strengthen him while in the Garden (Luke 22:43). Further, we learn of the utterance of Jesus Christ while on the cross in his feeling of being forsaken - or left alone; And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
(Matthew 27:33). Thus, our failure to exercise agency within the bounds of the Lord's will is to forsake Him and to deny the power of the Atonement to work within our lives.

What does this have to do with fear though? Everything! If we exercise agency in our own lives and live according to the will of God in all things, seeking to do His will always - we adequately understand the next section which begins: "No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood.... What is the priesthood again? It is the power of God Thus, no power or influence can or ought to be maintained by the power of God..." This means that God himself cannot and should not be expected to maintain constant power over our lives and dictate all things to us, just as we cannot dictate our lives to the Lord. It must be an equal partnership that exists within the bounds of agency on both sides! For God to revoke that agency to us and dictate our lives accordingly is to rule by fear - as fear is the antithesis of faith, just as we cannot revoke our own agency from the Atonement which is to invite fear to replace faith within our lives.

Obviously, from here we know the rest of the qualities outlined that will keep us from living in fear, but instead allow us to function according to faith and agency. To try to live life any other way is to completely deny the power of the Atonement and do as Peter did and deny Christ himself - for to know Christ is to know His works, and to know His works, is to know his love, which love triumphs over all fear and sorrow.

Fruits: Another thing that has gotten me into a bit of turmoil lately is to try and anticipate things, assume personalities, and overall not just live in fear, but ignore the tools that I do have available to determine things in life. When thinking about this, I have to consider the scripture in Matthew uttered by the Savior that says "By their fruits ye shall know them." Granted, this scripture was given to us to give us guidance in determining the nature of professed prophets in our lives, but its counsel is more far reaching than we acknowledge. After partaking of the fruit in his account in 1st Nephi 8, Nephi beckons his brethren to come forth to the tree and partake of the fruit for themselves. It was clearly seen from afar off that the tree was grand and immaculate and offered desirable fruit to the eye, but the contents of that fruit could not be determined until one partook of the fruit of that tree and were filled. Likewise, in life, we run into those things that appear to be grand and immaculate and are desirable to the eye, but we cannot determine the contents of the fruit unless we partake of that fruit on our own. It availeth us nothing to try to determine the nature of the fruit by examining the tree upon which it grows, or the location at which it grows, or even in examining the rod of iron or whatever other object is associated with that tree. Rather, we must partake of the fruit on our own, in order to fully understand what that fruit is. While we may encounter those bitter fruits in our lives at times, we cannot shy away from partaking of all fruit simply because we have had bad fruit in the past, nor can we attempt to try all fruit that life has to offer us.

One principle that is overlooked in the account of the Garden of Eden, is the surrounding area of the forbidden fruit. Unlike in life, the forbidden fruit of Adam's garden stood at the central point of the garden. It was surrounded by good vegetation and shrubbery that was to suggest that is was good fruit. The temptation of the adversary at that time is the same temptation that is offered to us in our day. Though Adam and Eve were specifically commanded not to partake of the fruit of that tree, they did so because they were enticed by the desirable nature of the fruit and the consequences that it would hopefully bring to their benefit.

Likewise, the adversary tempts us the same way in this day and age, but his fruits are not identical in nature to the fruits of the Lord. Just as the examination of the surrounding area and influences of the fruit alone are not sufficient to determine the nature of the fruit presented in our lives, nor is the examination and expectations or promises of the fruit while ignoring its origin sufficient either. Other scriptures throughout the Standard Works teach us that a bad tree cannot bring forth good fruit, just as a good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit. Thus, it is necessary to examine both the environment in which fruit is produced as well as the fruit itself in order to effectively determine its goodness. This is known in other gospel terms as the law of two or more witnesses! Simply putting our faith into one source alone while ignoring the other is not only incorrect, but it is wholly inadequate and inappropriate really. Rather, our faith must be placed in multiple locations in order to understand life fully - it is not that we put our faith in God alone, it is that we put our faith in God and his works, or God and his leaders, or God and his teachings. There never is that time when God himself alone will be able to teach us of the validity of certain fruits, just as there are times in our lives when the examination of a specific aspect in and of itself will not be sufficient to give us knowledge of a situation or an individual.


I think this is where I'll stop for tonight and allow those two things to sink in a little bit. I've learned a lot over the last several days and about the many things in life that I don't do as fully or completely as I should. I need to live more of life according to faith and invoke my own personal agency in conjunction with the agency of the Lord in his power and majesty to bless my life. Further, I need to be aware of the many resources available to me that the Lord has provided in order to fully understand those things that come before me in life, and not try to exercise dominion, compulsion or any degree of unrighteousness in any form of life - be it on other people or situations, especially in those situations where other means are available to fully understand the situation at hand without going overboard with another.

I'm hopeful that I will be given the chance to apply these more fully in my life and show some of the things that I have learned, as well as the opportunity to invoke the Atonement on my behalf so that I can correct those situations in which I may have erred in the past.

Just some thoughts for tonight...