Ok, ok. So I edited it, fixed some typos and errors. And cited the heck out of the thing. Now, for your reading pleasure...
Once upon
a time, a gazillion years ago, you and I were intelligences. Our
Father-God, using his creative Priesthood, organized us into spirits. As
spirits we learned and grew together. At some point in our spiritual
progression we began to see that we were not entirely like our Father. He
had a body of flesh and bone, we did not. He was perfectly wise and
loving, we were not. He was a creator, a parent, we were not. And
we wanted to be like Him. Understanding from the beginning that this
desire would build in us our Father had already made a Plan for us to become
like Him. We would have the opportunity to come to an earth, experience
faithfulness, joy, love, pain, sorrow, and grief. We would work in
smaller lab groups called families, where we would learn to submit to parents,
to be kind to siblings.
I think I
had a personal priesthood interview with my Heavenly Father before coming to
Earth, and I suppose it went something like this: “Well, My little
daughter, What do you think of all this Earth business?” “Oh! I
want to go! I want to go! But Father, I will make mistakes.
What if I don’t make it back? I am a little afraid.” “You must
remember who I will send to go before your face. I will not send you
alone. Jehovah will have already done His atoning work by the time it’s
your turn to do your own work. And The Spirit will be there, he will
guide you all the way. My child, you will live in the dispensation that
will prepare the way for My Beloved Son to return. I need you to go and
to guide others to Him. That means you will have to find Him for yourself
once you get there.” And that is, I believe, one of the first times I
told Him that I would go and do the things He commanded.
And so I
came to Earth! And so did you. And so did your mom and dad, your
aunties, and your grandpa, and the man who drives the bus, and the lady pushing
the grocery cart full of garbage. We all came. And shortly
after we got here, we all blew it. Big time. I fought with my brothers and sisters, I
was angry at my parents. I swore, I yelled. And sometimes I punched
things. And people.
My first
year of college I attended Institute classes in Salt Lake City. I had an
amazing institute instructor, Brother Downs, who taught me a principle that he
had learned from President Packer. He said, “True doctrine, understood,
changes attitudes and behaviors.”1 I had earlier realized that
I had lots of attitudes and behaviors that weren’t at all Christ-like, and I
wanted them out. But I couldn’t quite figure out how to manage it.
Here was my answer: study the doctrine until I understood it, truly understood it, and then my attitudes
and behaviors would change.
C.S.
Lewis, talking as Christ, says: “‘Make no mistake, if you let me, I will
make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what
you are in for. Nothing less, or other, than that. You have free
will, and if you choose, you can push Me away. But if you do not push Me
away, understand that I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering
it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it
may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me, I will never rest, nor let you
rest, until you are literally perfect—until My Father can say without
reservation that He is well pleased with you, as He said He was well pleased
with me. This I can do and will do. But I will not do anything
less.’
…
And He knows perfectly well that your own efforts are never going to bring you
anywhere near perfection. On the other hand, you must realize from the outset
that the goal towards which He is beginning to guide you is absolute
perfection; and no power in the whole universe, except yourself, can prevent
Him from taking you to that goal. That is what you are in for…”2
So we
enter in at that gate, we choose to be Christians, we take on the name of
Christ, and we accept His goal
as our own.
Nephi
says, “And now, my beloved bretheren, after ye have gotten into this strait and
narrow path, I would ask if all is done? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for
ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken
faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to
save. Wherefore, ye must press forward… and endure to the end…”3
Brother
Lewis then makes this observation: “When a man turns to Christ and seems
to be getting on pretty well (in the sense that some of his bad habits are now
corrected) he often feels that it would now be natural if things went fairly
smoothly. When troubles come along—illnesses, money troubles, new kinds
of temptation—he is disappointed. These things, he feels, might have been
necessary to rouse him and make him repent in his bad old days; but why
now? Because God is forcing him on, or up, to a higher level: putting him
into situations where he will have to be very much braver, or more patient, or
more loving, than he ever dreamed of being before. It seems to us all
unnecessary: but that is because we have not yet had the slightest notion of
the tremendous thing He means to make of us.”4
Now I
know we all have forgotten what it is that Father God said He would make of
us. We came to Earth; we had a veil drawn over our memories. We,
having forgotten all, are as dependent as children. He knew that we would
struggle, so He sent us gifts to jog our spiritual memories: "line
upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little"5.
He gave us prophets and apostles, living and dead. He gave us
scriptures that remind us what The Plan was to begin with. He put a
portion of His light in our hearts that we would know how to decipher the good
from the evil.6 He has further made it possible to have the
constant companionship of a Holy Being who will dwell in our hearts and tell us
“the truth of all things.”7 In this way He reminds us of
what it is He intends to make of us, if we will let Him. He has said that
if our eyes are single to his glory our “whole bodies shall be filled with,
light, and there shall be no darkness in you…” and that we will then
“comprehend all things.”8 He has further reminded us that if
we endure the course work He has given us we “will be like him, and we shall
see him as he is,” because we will be “purified even as He is pure.”9
We will be perfect.
C.S.
Lewis says it this way: “The command to Be
ye perfect is not idealistic
gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make
us into creatures that can obey that command. He said (in the Bible) that
we were ‘gods’ and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him—for
we can prevent Him, if we choose—He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us
into a god or goddess, a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all
through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine…
He meant what He said.”10
Now, do
you see how Nephi’s statement “I will go and do, because a way will be
provided,”11 fits in here? Indeed, the way has already been
set, the price of passage paid, the ticket in hand. Father God said,
“Come home.”12,13 Christ said, “Come, follow me.”14,15
Both have laid before us injunctions to be perfect.16 And we
can be. We will be. Every ugly thought, feeling, impulse, or act
may be rooted out of our heads and hearts. Every past, present, or future
pain may be healed and sealed with the Balm of Gilead until we are perfectly
whole.17,18
But how?
This is
the practical portion of my talk. President Thomas Monson said, “Vision
without work is dreaming; work without vision is drudgery; but vision and work
together is joy fulfilled.”19
We have discussed the vision, now let’s explore the work. What is it that
we must “go and do”?
Sister
Julie Beck, former General Relief Society President, said, “The ability to
qualify for, receive, and act on personal revelation is the single most important
ability that can be acquired in this life… when we have that spirit we can walk
with God, we can know His Son, and we can make proper choices.”20,21
Did you
catch those “go and do’s”? Qualify for, receive, and act on personal
revelation. And then she used a superlative:
MOST. That’s the most important ability we can acquire. Why?
Because then we know who we are, who God is, and what we are to do.
So what
are some ways we qualify for personal revelation? First we’ve gotta do a
self-check. Are we right with God? Are we currently trying to live
according to laws we’ve already been given? I’m not saying we have to be
perfect for God to talk to us. That’s nonsense. What I am saying is that if God has already told
me to do something and I choose not to do it I am not yet ready to
hear more. For example, several years ago I received a prompting to do
something. It wasn’t a monumental thing, but it was inconvenient, and
sort of unpleasant. I chose not to do it, even though I understood at the
time that by so doing I was rejecting the Spirit, and I would be left to
myself. In my pride and foolishness I persisted in my small
rebellion. Immediately the Spirit withdrew, and I was wholly left to
my own “wisdom”. It was horrible. Horrible. I begged
forgiveness, promised faithfulness, but the heavens were shut to me.
Through the course of about a week I wept and plead, hoping for any sign of
forgiveness. I finally had a thought to ask for a priesthood
blessing. I called a friend, he was available, and I drove quickly to his
home. As I parked the car I offered yet another appeal for grace.
This time I was truly sorry. My grief was no longer the “sorrowing of the
damned”, but real regret for having treated my God and His Messenger so
lightly. I was truly humbled. My friend voiced a blessing in which
the Lord told me that His Spirit would be restored to me, and that I was
forgiven. Instantly I felt the return of light and hope, as if, like
Saul, scales had fallen from my eyes. In order for the highest quality
communication to be happening, we’ve got to be right with God. We need to
be doing our best to do His will-- that’s when we’re really open for
revelation. Willful rebellion, no matter how small, blocks our ability to
qualify for personal revelation.
Further,
have you noticed in the scriptures how many times God says, “Ask and ye shall
receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you”? He says it a lot.
One of the ways we qualify for personal revelation is to ask for it.
Moroni clarifies some of the finer points of the state our hearts ought to be
in when we pose questions to God. He invites us to remember how merciful
God has already been, he indicates that we should have a sincere heart, a
willingness to act on the answer—whatever it may be— and, fundamentally, to
employ our faith in Christ.22
OK.
We’ve got the gist of qualification. Now how about reception? How
do we receive personal revelation?
In a
revelation given to Joseph Smith, recorded in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants,
Christ himself says, “For it shall come to pass… that every man shall hear the
fullness of the gospel in his own tongue, and in his own language…”23
I submit that “language” here means more than English or Spanish or
whatever. I am confident that this also includes our
learning, loving, and spiritual languages. For example, my younger
brother, who is not an emotional creature, does not feel “warm inside” when he
does the right thing; instead he feels simply a sense of rightness, or of
accuracy. Similarly, one of my sisters doesn't often feel emotionally
moved when important spiritual discoveries are made, rather she feels as if a
puzzle piece has fallen into place with a subtle “click” into the neighboring
pieces.
Before
the 1900s physicists described light through wave mechanics. Up to that
point their observations had, more or less, consistently pointed to wave
behavior. Around the turn of the century, however, it was clear that
there were some holes in the accepted theories of the nature of light.
Some scientists proposed that perhaps our understanding of matter was at fault;
still others suggested that perhaps our fundamental understanding of light was
at fault. As it turns out the latter was the case. In 1905 a very
clever bloke, a guy surnamed Einstein, presented observational data, as well as
mathematical proofs, indicating that light could, and did, behave as a
particle. It wasn't just a wave. Light behaves as both a wave AND a
particle.24 As we work to understand how it is that the Spirit
communicates with us we've gotta remember that we don’t know everything.
Just because our spiritual communications (or everyone else’s spiritual
communications) seem to match wave mechanics doesn’t mean that we can’t also
observe and experience particle theory, in fact, it’s likely that we should be experiencing multiple forms of
communication from God. Keep an open mindset, ask a lot of
questions. The scriptures are replete with spiritual experiences of great variety. God never intended our
personal communications from Him to be one-size-fits-all. So if you’re
not feeling warm fuzzies, and you’re working to be right with God, don’t
fret. He’s talking to you via some other method. Pray to know what those
methods are, and then keep moving forward in what you already know to be right,
and you will certainly be enlightened.25
Now we
come to acting on personal revelation. Since my above mentioned
experience, the one where the Spirit withdrew, acting on personal revelation
has been a no-brainer. When God gives me commandments, suggestions, or ideas,
I act, regardless of any inconvenience, pain, or frustration it may cause
me. Remember how true doctrine understood changes attitudes and
behaviors? Well, up to the point where the Spirit withdrew I hadn’t
really understood the doctrine of the Gift of the Holy Ghost. He’d been
with me so long I had sort of forgotten how much he was really doing for me,
how much guidance he was giving me. It wasn’t until I acted a fool that I
truly understood the Gift that was in me. I will never do that again.
But let’s
say you haven’t experienced such a foil. Or let’s say, perhaps, you want
to do the thing you’ve been commanded, you’re totally down with the “go and
do”, but you can’t seem to accomplish it. What then? This is where Grace comes in.
In the
Book of Ether Moroni records a conversation he has with the resurrected
Christ. They’re talking about the record that Moroni is working on, and
Moroni expresses concern that he, and perhaps others before him, are too
awkward in writing for this record to convert the Gentiles. He says,
“Thou hast made us that we could write but little, because of the awkwardness
of our hands… wherefore when we write we behold our weakness, and stumble
because of the placing of our words… and I fear… the Gentiles shall mock our
words…”26 Christ’s response here is so stinking awesome.
He says, more or less, “don’t worry about whether or not the Gentiles are gonna
get this, that part isn't your worry. I’m so on top of that.
But let me teach you a little bit about weakness.” He says, “If men come
unto me, I will show unto them their weakness.” Hear that promise?
That is good news! I can’t work to repair a weakness I am totally
ignorant to, but one I’m aware of? Now we’re talking! Then He
says, “I give unto men weakness that they may be humble,” Now that is
totally worth noting! that phrase, “I give unto men weakness,” God gave me weaknesses. On purpose.
That means they’re actually blessings, because I know God doesn’t give bad gifts—no rocks
and snakes from Him! Only bread and fish! So what reason does He
give for giving us weaknesses? “…that they may be humble; and my grace is
sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me… and have faith in me…”27
I mean, wow. Weaknesses are a catalyzing agent for me to access
grace! Awesome. So I work to come unto Christ by trying to be
obedient, as I come unto Him he shows me my weaknesses, and now I practice
humility and work to strengthen my faith, and then grace slides in to fill
the gaps. What does that really look like?
In the
Bible Dictionary (I love the Bible Dictionary) we learn that grace is “divine
means of help or strength given through… the love of Christ.” It says
that through this we are able to “receive strength to do good works that we
would otherwise not be able to maintain left to our own means,” and that it is
an “enabling power.”28 It’s the power that makes it possible
for us to hold our tongue when we should, and to speak when we should. It
allows us to love those we don’t really like, and to serve those who are
unkind. It is the power that changes us from natural men and women to
saints of God. It is the power behind every good thought and every good
deed. It is the power behind repentance and change. So how do we
plug in to this power? You’ll like this. By doing the things we
already know we should be doing! Nothing new or fancy. We plug in
to grace by regularly, honestly, communicating with our God. We tell Him
about our day, we express gratitude, we repent, we ask for help. We
access grace by extending grace to others: we forgive, we serve, we lift
and bless. We do the best we can, and trust that God will fill in the
gaps.
We've
come full circle now. I say that I will go and do the things that God has
asked me to do because I believe that He has already provided a way for me to
accomplish those things. That way is Grace. The way by which I can
be kind: grace. The way by which I can be honest: grace. The way by
which I can repent: grace. I will go and do the things He’s commanded
because I can, through
grace. So when he tells me to open my mouth, I open my mouth. When
he tells me to work, I work. When he tells me to be still and let the beauty
of life unfold, I ask for grace, because that’s still kind of hard for me to
do. And as I petition for His Grace I find that I am becoming a new
creature. Just like He promised I would.
Sources:
1. Boyd
K. Packer, “Little Children” October 1986 Conference Report
2. C. S.
Lewis, Mere Christianity c. 1952,
chapter 9
3. 2
Nephi 31:19-20
4. C. S.
Lewis, Mere Christianity c. 1952,
chapter 9
5. 2
Nephi 28:30
6. Moroni
7:16-17, 19
7. Moroni
10:5
8. Doctrine
and Covenants 88:67-68
9. Moroni 7:48
10. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity c. 1952, chapter 9
11. 1 Nephi 3:7
12. Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, c. 1985, #292 O My Father
13. Romans 8:15-17
14. Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, c. 1985, #116 Come, Follow Me
15. 2 Nephi 31:10-11
16. 3 Nephi 12:48
17. Mosiah 27:24-29
18. 3 Nephi 19:28-30
19. Quoted by Elder Bruce C. Hafen to the
Wisconsin Milwaukee Mission, October 2009;
the original quote may be found in President Thomas S. Monson’s address,
“Finishers Wanted” in the June 1989 Ensign.
There the quote reads, “Vision without effort is day dreaming; effort
without vision is drudgery; but vision, coupled with effort, will obtain the
prize.”
20. Julie B. Beck, “And Upon the Handmaids in
Those Days Will I Pour Out My Spirit” April 2010 Conference Report
21. Julie B. Beck, BYU Women’s Conference
address, April 27, 2010
22. Moroni10:3-4
23. Doctrine and Covenants 90:11
25. David A. Bednar, “The Spirit of Revelation”
April 2011 Conference Report
26. Ether 12:23-25
27. Ether 12:27-29
28. Bible Dictionary, “Grace”
Address
given in Sacrament Meeting on July 20, 2014
