A compass

So I'm on a quest for learning about gifts of the Spirit - it's topical guide time. I've done the section on the Book of Mormon - I do love reading in there, it's just entertaining to me. But today is a work day: time for the precision that comes with the Doctrine and Covenants.

What I found may just be a road map for my life moving forward as relates to my focus on gifts. It's in D&C 6.

10 Behold thou hast a gift, and blessed art thou because of thy gift. Remember it is sacred and cometh from above. 11 And if thou wilt inquire, thou shalt know mysteries which are great and marvelous; therefore thou shalt exercise thy gift, that thou mayest find out mysteries, that thou mayest bring many to the knowledge of the truth, yea, convince them of the error of their ways. 12 Make not thy gift known unto any save it be those who are of thy faith. Trifle not with sacred things.

The Lord may have been referring at the time to Joseph's gift to translate the Book of Mormon, or it may have been something else, but one of the gems here is that the wording is so precise that it applies to any gift. It could be about someone's gift of music.

I mention music first because when a person is considered gifted here, it usually refers to music skills. But there is so much more. The gift may be the ability to speak or write - gifts I'm working on. They may be gifts of healing, or of love, or of being able to connect with those who are wayward. I met someone with that gift last week. The gift may be the ability to see forward, prophecy, wisdom, compassion, or the ability to communicate with the Lord more directly or with his angels. I believe that the number of gifts that are possible are endless, and the extent that they can be developed is also infinite.

To illustrate a bit further, let's take music. Someone could have the gift of singing, in all its many forms. Or they could have a gift with a guitar - considering the many kinds of guitars there are out there. Or the piano. Or music production. Or teaching music theory. Or the gift to write music in all its forms. You get the idea.

So as I look at this scripture, I am reminded not to discount my gifts. Not to assume I'm awesome because I've developed a gift to whatever level - with God's help. Not to count the number of gifts I have versus someone else like it was a tally sheet. If I begin to assume that the greatest number of chalk marks wins, I lose - and the world around me does as well.

When the Lord says "Make not thy gift known unto any save it be those who are of thy faith. Trifle not with sacred things" I understand that those who are of my faith are not just fellow saints, but those who struggle with me to develop their gifts. And I'm reminded again that comparing with a gift tally is to trifle with sacred things. I think the Lord was pretty direct. That's a very clear sentence about what not to do. Remind me not to mess with that ever again.

"Behold thou hast a gift, and blessed art thou". And blessed are we all. May we seek earnestly to find and develop our gifts, that we can report confidently to the Lord at judgment day. That we can stand and affirm to the Lord that we have found our purpose, and became our own kind of greatness, and returned to the Lord his gifts plus the interest he expects from us. May we all do so.

Boolean thoughts

So I'm on a quest for information about gifts of the spirit, and I definitely ran into one today, but I also ran into a thought on a completely different subject.

I remember bible bashing - even when I knew that we weren't supposed to do it - with people who wanted to disprove me while I was in the mission field. I hated it, and I knew that it wouldn't accomplish anything, but some part of me insisted that if I just showed them one more scripture, they'd straighten out their thinking. It never worked and of course, it always left me somewhere between upset, disgruntled, unsettled and without the guidance of the Spirit for a while. I knew what I knew, but what seemed so clear to me couldn't get through the other person's closed door.

As I remember it, if you talked about one of various hot button issues: the nature of the Godhead, baptism, salvation, there would be a battle of the scriptures. What a shame that is to think about it - being heated with someone while quoting the words of the God of love.

So Joe would say "well, this is what scripture A says" and Jane would say "well this is what scripture B says", and back and forth. Like scripture A contained all of the truth and B somehow was meaningless. Then the counterpoint: scripture B contains what needs to be known, and A is lesser.

I'm working today on sending out facebook ads to promote my business - the real estate edge. It was a refresher course on Boolean logic. In short, it means that there's a very distinct difference between "and" and "or". I was looking for people in Utah who had listed their occupation as "Real estate agent" or "Real estate broker" or "Broker/agent" or even "Real estate professional". I didn't need them to have selected all of these, just one of them for them to be my target market. That is the "or" condition: either A or B or C or D. If any of those traits is a hit, they're my target market.

But I also wanted them to live in Utah and be in a certain age range. So now facebook knows that they had to have a geographic requirement and an age requirement and a professional interest requirement. This of course is "and", not "or". All three requirements must be met.

Here's my thought: the bible is the word of God. All of it. To use or assume "or" logic when discussing scriptures can only result in error. Conclusions will be incomplete, and a person may be misguided - or worse.

The thought occurred to me this way: truth 1 is that my office has a wall with replica swords on it. Truth 2 is that my office has a wall with a whiteboard on it. Both are true - but these are different walls. To argue whether truth 1 or truth 2 is more accurate than the other is frivolous and wrong.

Here's the gem, it's simplicity is both obvious and hidden: it's "and" - not "or". Scripture A is true, and scripture B is true. They're both the word of God. The question then is to meld the scriptures - all of them - to give us the guidance that the Lord intended.

Doctrine and Covenents 6:28 Which Father, Son and Holy Ghost are one God, infinite and eternal, without end. Amen.

Here's a scripture indicating exactly what many on the other side try to tell mormons when a discussion of the godhead comes up. They say they're one person, or one thing, or one cloud, or one consciousness. And here's a scripture to prove that we believe that too. Yet there are others - so many others - that indicate that there's more to the story. Wisdom is gained when one realizes that both are correct.

We can choose to look at our world through a straw with "or" thinking, or we can allow our souls to expand. "And" thinking might be more of a stretch, especially at first, but in the end it's much less difficult. Far more rewarding.

Intrigue

Reading in Alma 53 today. My goal had been to do some research from the topical guide on gifts, but today I didn't want to study - I wanted to just be lifted. Easy reading and soul filling stuff. For that, it's the Book of Mormon for me. So - topical guide tomorrow. Alma 53 today.

Rolling along in the war chapters can seem like reading a good novel, but in the past I've wondered why it's scripture. There are certainly gems in here too though. As I was rolling through I noticed verses 8 and 9. "...while in teh absence of Moroni on account of some intrigue amonst the Nephites, which caused dissensions among them... and 9 "...because of iniquity amonst themselves, yea, because of dissensions and intrigue among themselves they were placed in the most dangerous circumstances".  

So in the big picture, the Nephites were winning big, but where there was dissension, they were losing their soul and their lives, and the lives of their wives and children, and their neighbors, their friends, and so on. One might ask if their theories were worth the cost. 

The next thought for me is "well, they're dumb. A modern society of faithful followers wouldn't do such a thing". 

Not so. And this may be why this chapter is scripture. I was recently introduced to one variety of "intrigue" while on facebook. There's a group that is called "heartlanders" who believe that much of the book of Mormon happened near New York and Ohio. While that seems quite unlikely to me and against everything I was taught and assumed while young, the reality is that it doesn't matter. The events of the book of Mormon happened somewhere, and where that was is irrelevant compared to what we learn from those events. Yet some of these facebook heartlanders, and those who argue so passionately with and against them, seem to get caught up in the details to the point that they despise and reject the person behind the argument. It gets heated, and it gets angry, and I think it's deplorable.

Even though I'd never heard of it until just recently, apparently there are a good number on both sides. But this heartlander issue is just one of them. From my point of view, there are intellectual clubs that espouse various theories, none of which really matter, They get very passionate about defending a viewpoint that can neither be proven true nor false, and which wouldn't matter if it could be proven either way. 

To me, it's pharisiacal - like the pharisees - that we pour ourselves into the meaningless. It reminds me of a discussion I had while on a mission - I was explaining the Lord's inspiration to the prophets - the word of the Lord - to someone when he interjected with "well, do you know how many books there are in the bible?" 

Such a person is not interested in raising his soul, just about appearing to be more knowledgeable than whoever he's talking to. Having more data is very different than having your soul fulfilled, knowing your mission and purpose, and being ready to embrace your father in heaven in full love and confidence. 

Imagine judgment day. You can embrace the one you love and have served, or you can unload on the great judge your knowledge of the number of books in the bible, and your encyclopedic knowledge on theories relating to the placement of events in the book of Mormon. 

And as described above, it doesn't just affect us. It affects our families and those we love. In place of personal spiritual greatness, we choose to superficially appear greater than. This drives others that we love, and those that we should love, away from us and away from the gospel we profess to love. It kills them spiritually. It damages their souls, and may push them toward lifestyles that cause eternal damage to who they are eternally. 

And I guess it's not just spiritual things we can apply this to. If someone is too focused on their job to raise their family with love, or if their hobby or passion takes them away from what's important, or if pride requires them to regularly "prove" they're better/smarter/faster/stronger/richer/more toys than those around them, then the world loses. And they personally lose. And I believe they will cower when they meet their Savior.

I can't stop people from abandoning what's important in favor of pursuing the meaningless, but I can refocus myself on doing what's important. This is my reminder to do just that.

The mighty help meet

Reading in Abraham 5 today, it's Adam hanging out in the garden. It describes the garden, and mentions how things get watered with four streams and by a mist.

As an aside, it mentions how the plants were designed before they were planted in the garden. I think it's cool that each plant was designed by some team of who knows who, but that every little detail was planned. What a monumental effort. This also strikes a chord another way: Stephen Covey mentions in 7 habits that all things must be designed in the mind before they are created in reality. He might have been silently referring to this scripture in verse 5.

This post though is about something that's a bit amusing to me. It talks about Adam and his only listed job: naming everything. It also talks about Eve and the only listed job that she has while in the garden: being a help meet.

You know, if you're the first man on earth, and food is covered, and it never rains, and you can sleep on a bed of roses (wouldn't that hurt?) that magically appears every night, and you don't have diapers to change, and there's no job, no boss, no commute and no utility bills to pay, life's pretty darn good, right?

But imagine the scenario: Adam wakes up and here's a parade of new animals that need to be named: the eastern striped seagull, the lemur, the ringtailed razor back cobra, buffalos, wasps, hornets, praying mantis - the list goes on an on. Name an animal, and off it goes. Now what? You have a new animal to name, and you have to remember the name of the last one you named - and the 1 billion last animals you named. Boring life! Give me the commute instead!

Me personally, I'd pretty much flop at it. I couldn't even remember what I named the last two, five minutes later. It would be an endless ring, and the animals wouldn't have time to eat.

Enter the hero of the story - the help meet. Here's a mini play that I envision:

Adam: "Hey Eve, would you mind naming the next 100 animals? I've got to get something to eat - oh and by the way, what was the name of that big long leg thing over there?"
Eve: "It's an ostrich dear".
Adam: "Thanks hon - why'd we name it that again?"
Eve: "Because giraffe was already taken".
Adam: "Thanks hon - you're the best!"
Eve: (sighs and mumbles) "Of course I'm the best - I'm the only one here besides you. This would be easier if I just did it myself"

This may be a precursor to the relationship that we all have today. The help meet that's really the one who's got things figured out.

Verse 21: And Adam gave names to all cattle, to the fowl of the air, to every beast of the field; and for Adam, there was found an help meet for him.

I hear a bit of gratitude on Adam's behalf that he had a help meet. Perhaps a long verbal search could be done on what a help meet is, and what a help meet helps you meet, but that's another day. :)

Keeping the second estate

To begin with, the scripture: Abraham 3 verse 26 "And they who keep their first estate shall be added upon...And they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever".

So as I read this chapter, I gather that the first estate happened before this earth life in what we call the pre-existence. This was the time from our spiritual creation by God, until the time that our spirit joined with our body on earth. I'm going to focus on the second estate - which we're all traversing now.

So what does it mean to keep the second estate? To do things right while we have the advantages of spirit and body being joined into a soul? All of my life, I pretty much had a big picture of what this meant -  basically I assumed that it means doing the right things and making it back to our Father pretty much intact based on not having broken too many commandments.

I think I've grown a bit since then. In my last post I described how when our souls are rotten to the core, we won't choose to live near Father. It's not him condemning us - it's us being too uncomfortable in our filth to choose to live in His light. Not going to go there because that subject got covered in greater detail yesterday.

What inspires me today is what it means to keep the second estate. There is more depth than just completing the check boxes - baptism, temple marriage, returning to the temple. Those are the basics, but they can be done in a way that accomplishes little more than box-checking. It might be compared to what other religions believe - they expect a heaven if they live well. They might get that heaven, because I hear it's pretty awesome over there. They might get everything they hope for - and more - but it's not all they could receive. Same for us as LDS. When we do things to check the boxes, we fail to develop and refine our souls. To use an unusual metaphor, perhaps we fail to turn our black beans into the world's best chili. And when we return to the Lord with slightly warmed black beans, we'll know we never created the chili that the Lord wanted us to be.

But there is more. A story comes to mind about a friend of mine. He's the awesomest guy in the universe - incredibly talented. A musician, producer, marketer, insanely wise, photographic memory, and a man with messages to share because his wisdom easily takes him places that the rest of us can never go. But my friend has "yang" - for lack of a better term - that compliment all of his yin type gifts. He has crazy pain in many parts of his body, all of the time, is presently in fear for his job, and pretty much is controlled by fear in many aspects of his life.

On a sideways note, I see this in life. I know people who have crazy gifts. Gifts I can only dream of having. Gifts that have me looking up - way up - to them as towers in their areas. Yet these gifts always seem to come with a cost. The costs are also towering. Much as I'd love to have those gifts, I don't know if I could handle those costs. You know who you are.

So my friend, with all his gifts, has the ability to be a Steven R. Covey type of person: someone who can change the world with the talents he has. Someone of such superior intellect and capacities that, well, my words fail. Yet he is held back. His demons and his fears have the same grip on him as do his strengths.

But he is a strong member of the church and a faithful follower of Christ. He knows that when he is given direction by Christ, he must follow it. This is what keeping his second estate means to me: of course he checks the boxes, but there is more. He must keep his second estate by developing his gifts. This means stepping out into uncertainty, ignoring his demons, shedding his need for safety, even using his faith to choose his mission over short term concerns about feeding his family. These are not small concerns.

But he knows what he must do. As a follower of Christ, I am pretty certain he will choose greatness for him. May we all keep our second estate, not just by checking the boxes, but developing our souls. Refining and brightening who we are, reflecting Christ's light to others, adding light to those around us, and preparing ourselves to live comfortably in Christ's light.

More miserable

I often go back to something my mission president, Carlos H. Amado, told me at the end of my mission. He said that we would all agree with our judgment in the final judgment day. I found that very remarkable, as everyone overestimates  (well almost everyone) how good a person they are. Even some of the world's greatest criminals thought they were the good guys.

So the thought of a self-centered, controlling, ego maniac actually agreeing with the judgment placed on him was certainly an eyebrow raiser for me. I didn't understand it, but it comforted me. He also told me that the same sort of thing would apply with marriages. That has been helpful for me as well.

But then you go back to the religions of my day who think that all you have to do is pay lip service to Christ, while letting your life soak in the sewage pit, and think it's all going to be good. To me, God wouldn't set up such a messed up system - why would a loving father be OK with us living in a stench out of our own bad choices? Of course he wants more from us than that.

So when I run into scriptures like today, it all comes together. This is in Moroni 9 verse 4: "Behold, I say unto you that ye would be more miserable to dwell with a holy and just God, under a consciousness of your filthiness before him, than ye would to dwell with the damned souls in Hell".

That makes things clear and simple to me. Christ saves us from a mortal end - all of us - without any conditions. That's a free gift to all. But what happens after that depends on who we are. If I'm a porn addict here, I'll have the same needs there, and I won't want to have that addiction while in the shadow of my Redeemer. I'll want to be away, and my loving Father will allow that. I'll be away. As away as I'm comfortable being.

To me, that's another show of extreme love: while any loving parent wants his children close, he won't force them to be close. If the bright light of love and righteousness makes a soul uncomfortable, he doesn't get forced to stay there. The most perfect of all loving fathers wouldn't do that.

So to those who would object to all of the above and say "we are saved by grace with no price on our own", that would be true. Christ saves us from death by his grace. That's free, but that's physical death. What I don't understand fully yet is how much his atonement saves us from a spiritual death. I suspect that it goes back to how much we want to be saved from that kind of death.

It's perhaps like the joke about changing light bulbs: "How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?" The answer is "Only one, but the bulb really has to want to change."

And if I am really addicted to my porn habit here, I'm not likely to be interested in having it be forgiven and erased there. No use forgiving it when I'll routinely continue with it going forward. I'll go where I can continue with the vices I cling to.

All of this points to me to a perfectly loving God. I use a measure for myself, and it's this: if I knew that I'd be visited by my Bishop, stake president, or mother for a month of my life, and they saw everything I did, would that fill me with fear and dread, or would I be excited about that? Would the opportunity to be surrounded by greatness be met with excitement, or would it be met with fear and grumbling?

That, I believe, is a preview of what judgment day may look like for me. I hope that I live my life well enough to feel only love for my Redeemer when that day comes.