This is a talk I gave in church yesterday. I call it:
Lessons I've Learned on the Path of Happiness:
The
prophet Joseph Smith taught us that
“Happiness is the object
and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we
pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue,
uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments
of God.”
As
we grow in the gospel we come to realize that far from being
restrictive or confining, the commandments of God are liberating.
God only ever commands us to do that which will be for our own good,
either immediately, or eventually. He asks us to trust him, to allow
ourselves to become clay in his hands, so that we can achieve our
full potential. His plans for us are far better and more amazing
than we can imagine with the limitations of our finite minds here in
mortality. I'm certain we had a better capacity to comprehend what
he had in mind for us before we were born, or else we may never have
agreed to come here! From that position in time and space we could
see that there were things we could only experience and learn by
being on this earth, this existence of opposition, away from our
memory of Father and Mother and Jesus. We needed to be able to act
for ourselves and prove our faithfulness. As we know, our agency is
a very important part of this process. Without the risk of failure,
there could not be the possibility of success, and so we agreed to
come down and take the risk that we might not successfully return to
Father and Mother, depending on our choices here on earth.
Satan
resisted this plan and drew away quite a number of our spirit
brothers and sisters, convincing them that the risk was unacceptable
and not worth it. He proposed a a short-cut and tried to change the
plan. I can see what he was afraid of, and in my own mortality I
have sometimes desired that someone would force me to grow and become
respectable like he proposed. It was hard work to choose it for
myself. I actually spent quite a few years as a teenager
entertaining plans to join the Marines because I wanted someone to
somehow MAKE me someone I could be proud of. Can you imagine me as a
Marine? Ultimately, even if I had gone that path, no one else could
have truly forced me to be someone I could have respect for unless I
gave them permission to. Because of our agency, we have to choose
such things for ourselves, even though we sometimes give the credit
to others. Likewise, as a mother, I have sometimes desired to force
my children to do or be what I desire for them or what I believe God
desires for them. Satan still tempts us to use his plan of force and
control whenever possible instead of Father and Mother and Jesus's
methods. Their methods involve freedom to choose for ourselves,
consequences for those choices, desirable or not, example, and of
course persuasion, longer-suffering, gentleness, meekness and love
unfeigned. Reproving betimes with sharpness, by being moved upon by
the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love
towards us.
So
back to being liberated by obedience to God's commands. Imagine that
life is like a board game, and that God is trying to tell us how to
win the game. His commandments are the keys to help us succeed at
the game and avoid unnecessary negative consequences along the way.
Satan, still very bitter about his loss in the war in heaven, entices
us to do all the things that will keep us from successfully returning
to Father. And that's OK, because that sort of opposition on this
planet is exactly what we signed up for in order to learn, to grow,
and to prove ourselves.
Satan
has influence on us through our bodies on this earth. I recently
attended a seminar where our presenter, Nicholeen Peck, described it
this way. We are each of made up of three parts. The body, the
mind, and the spirit (or as she like to call it, the heart). The
body is enticed by this world (the natural man). The spirit is
enticed by our Heavenly home and parents. The mind is the puppet of
either the body or the spirit. We choose which one controls our
minds. And then our minds can do powerful things for us with our
thoughts. Our thoughts, our self-talk, has a strong and powerful
influence on us, and we get to choose who is in control of those
thoughts. When we permit ourselves to indulge in negative thoughts,
we honor Satan and hurt ourselves and others within our
influence. When we choose to let our thoughts be virtuous and
positive, we honor God and help ourselves and others within
our influence.
Every
day, in every moment we get to choose. Again and again. Though it
doesn't always seem obvious to us, there are only two choices. And
we are always either choosing “liberty and eternal life through the
great Mediator of all men, (Jesus), or captivity and death according
to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men
might be miserable like unto himself.”
For
me, this is a daily, hourly even minute by minute struggle.
Sometimes I choose liberty and sometimes I choose death. Sometimes I
go back and forth on those choices in a period of 5 minutes. I may
choose patience with 2 incidents and then choose judgement or
criticism with the next incident and then choose to repent of that
judgement and be forgiving instead. All in 5 minutes. I think the
real problem comes when I not only choose captivity and death, but
then, instead of realizing what I've done and immediately repenting,
I let it rule the rest of my day. Or my week, or month, or years,
etc. We can always make a different choice by choosing the great
Mediator of all men and letting him liberate us from the captivity we
placed ourselves into with the devil.
When
our bodies are compromised in some way, from illness or injury or
maybe hormones, lack of sleep or a poor choice in food intake, it is
more difficult to choose liberty and eternal life. We have a better
chance of choosing liberty and eternal life if we are aware of what
is going on, and that we may be extra compromised. We want our
spirit to rule over our body and train it to obey every commandment
of God. In our last stake conference there was a sister who taught
us that the way to be perfect like Jesus, is not to be perfect at
everything we try our hand at, but to be perfect in obedience to the
Father. Satan distracts us with that other kind of perfection, even
confusing us with what Jesus was teaching when he commanded us to be
perfect. He didn't mean perfect hair or perfect looking children, or
perfect car or house, or perfect in any way that appeals to this
world. He meant to submit to Father just like Jesus did, as the son.
When we choose to follow the path Jesus made for us, we put
ourselves in the role of the son, just like he did. And the
commandment that is most important for you to obey is the one the the
Holy Spirt is whispering to you about. If you feel like you can't
recognize the Holy Spirit whispering to you, then identify your
favorite sin, and offer it up as a sacrifice to God. He will help
you, and soon you will be recognizing the voice of the Holy Spirit
again.
One
of the things that this new understanding has helped me with; that
either my body or my spirit controls the puppet of my mind, is that
it is a little easier for me to understand this truth: that people
are not my enemies. Most of the time people hurt us on accident.
I which case, it is my choice be offended or not. To let my spirit
rule me or my body rule me. But even if a person deliberately does
something to hurt me, they are merely being ruled over by their body.
They are in captivity to the devil in that moment, being used as his
tool. He is the one trying to hurt me. They are a son or daughter
of God just like me, and if they fully realized what was going on
they would feel sorrow. What Satan is trying to do is tempt me to
give in to the emotions of hurt, resentment or anger that my body may
be feeling. I am my own worst enemy when I choose to indulge in
those emotions. And who am I to judge a brother? How often does
Satan use me as a tool? It is a gift to be allowed the opportunity
to forgive another for doing to me what I have done to others, that I
may claim mercy too. “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with
what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye
mete, it shall be measured to you again.” Jesus also taught us to
pray “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”
Therefore, my debtors, those who hurt me in some way, are a gift to
help me be able to claim forgiveness. Our emotions are often of the
body, and must be bridled in their proper place. Anger, despair and
resentment are less than useful emotions that we can choose to
indulge in or not.
All
this is easier said then done, but it helps us when we recognize that
we do have a choice. And I'm here to tell you that we DO HAVE A
CHOICE. Sometimes that choice is easier to make than at other times.
Sometimes we are so overwhelmed by the power of those emotions that
the best we can do is offer up what is left of our will to God and
ask him to please help us overcome because we cannot do this
ourselves. We need him. We need Jesus to succor us and help us. It
is not always an easy choice. But it is a choice. Jesus doesn't
judge us for our choices. He is the great mediator. He is always
offering us forgiveness and assistance to repent. Satan is named as
the great accuser. When you hear the voice of the great accuser in
your head, recognize it for what it is. We don't effectively create
change in ourselves by browbeating ourselves with negative self
talk. We successfully change when we keep our eye on Jesus,
continually choosing liberty and eternal life and choosing to repent
when we mess up. The advice I was give recently was this:
Every
morning, just like the apostles, get down on your knees and pray
until you feel the spirit. If at anytime during the day you lose
that feeling, go back and pray again until you feel the spirit again.
This is a simple formula, but once again, easier said then done.
The gospel really is simple, it's just easier said then done.
However,
“That which we persist in doing, becomes easier to do. Not that
the nature of the thing has changed, but that our ability to do has
increased.”
And
so it is with our growth in the gospel. As we persist in the process
of making choices, repenting of the regrettable ones and trying again
and again, certain things do get easier. We begin to find it easier
to repent quickly. We find it easier to be grateful for all things,
especially our challenges. We find patience coming with greater ease
and love for others increasing. We find it easier to extend
forgiveness. We find it easier to not take offense in the first
place.
And
then, sometimes our challenges go up a notch. For as we gain greater
enlightenment from God, the devil is allowed to tempt us in equal
proportion. There must be opposition in all things. So don't worry.
The challenges of life will probably never get boring!
A
few weeks ago in Relief Society, I was struck by this sobering
thought: We are taught in the scriptures to build on a sure
foundation. That when the devil comes against us, with his shafts in
the whirlwind and all that, he will have no power to to drag us down
to the gulf of misery and endless wo because of the rock upon which
we are built, which is a sure foundation, even Jesus Christ, whereon
if men build they cannot fall. And all of a sudden it struck me that
maybe all I will have left is that foundation! Do I love Jesus
Christ enough that if I lost everything in my life that I loved and
had worked for, especially my family, that I would be like Job, and
remain grateful for my foundation in Christ? Because with that
foundation all could be built up again. That's what Abraham went
through. How much do we really love the Lord? How much do we
really trust him? That love and trust will be tested. And if we
hope to claim the blessings of Abraham, then we will be tested to the
same extent he was. It's something we grow into, a long process of
spiritual shaping. It only happens if we choose to follow Christ on
his path through Gethsemane, to Calgary and finally to a glorious
ressurection and reunification with Father. He won't impose that
degree of challenge on us. We have to be committed enough to the
path to ask for it, to seek for it, to desire it. Knowing what we
know, nothing short of true valiance and integrity to our
understanding will gain us the Celestial Kingdom of God. Many of
God's children will choose to settle for less. There is a place for
everyone in the next life. A place where we will be most happy
depending on what we chose during mortality.
It
is my hope that we each have eternal perspective enough to remember
that this life is merely a moment of our existence, during which we
are nurtured by the light of Christ, challenged by the opposition of
Satan and given opportunity over and over again to choose captivity
and death through the power of the devil, or to choose liberty and
eternal life through the great mediator, even our Savior, Jesus
Christ. My testimony to you is that Jesus Christ is the son of God.
If we submit ourselves, as son to father, with his help, we can
return to our Heavenly parents, hopefully helping in the work so as
to bring many souls home with us. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
