Lesson 32: Trials and our Redeemer

It was on facebook just a couple of days ago. I love the latter day saint type pages because members of the church from all over the world can discuss. It's kind of awesome to see how a member of the church in Ghana or Finland sees things, and how the rest of us help people get past the differences between culture and religion.

So the facebook post went something like this: Why does God allow bad people to do bad things to good people? The idea sounds to me something like this: wouldn't a loving God protect his people? Why be good if bad is still going to happen to you? 

I don't know if it was intended to be an introduction to this week's sunday school lesson, but it very much was. 

Now, full disclosure. I live a very blessed life. My health is good, I have time to pursue my passions and try to be a light house to others. My wife is awesome, and my relationship with her is an 11 on a scale of 10. My job is good because I'm my own boss, and I make enough. Recently, when I don't make enough, my wife's income is more than enough to compensate. She out earns my best months lately. My children mostly live close, and they are all moving forward in their lives. I'm not being tested. Everyone around me is though.

For some, it's continuous horrible physical pain and no job.  For some, it's a continuous lack of money and a resulting depression & inadequacy. For some, it's loneliness, or a feeling of never being able to fit in. Or it is a lifelong history of abuse: sexual, verbal, physical - all of it. I know people who fit in all of these categories. For my dad, until he passed a couple of months ago, it was day in and day out loneliness. For years, he went to bed having done nothing, and in the morning he had nothing to do. We did our best, but you can't make a burden like that go away completely. 

Why does life have to be so hard? For everybody but me, at least. 

And the lesson this week is Job. He had it all back in his day: sheep, camel, all of it. He was the rich guy. Did it make him vain? Nope - I heard a phrase once that money doesn't make you evil, it just magnifies whatever you are. Job was a man of God. He knew what he was, and who he believed in. He had a relationship with his redeemer. This wasn't a matter of convenience because professing religion got him "in" with the religious leaders. It wasn't because he liked the other members of the congregation. It didn't assist him in his deal making as he was trading sheep for goats. He loved the Lord because he knew the Lord. Like Abraham, he knew the voice of the Lord because he had heard and followed that voice many times.

This is not a man who was afraid of judgment day, this is a man who knew that when he met his Redeemer, he would run to him and embrace him.

I'm not sure that the way the old testament reads is completely correct. As it is translated, it sounds like God and Satan were playing a game of chess, using Job as the pawn. To me it's a bit different than that. I believe that when we are born, Christ puts a protective ring around us. A full circle ring that prevents us from being jabbed by Satan in areas where we are unprepared and vulnerable. Then, little by little, line upon line, he removes some part of our protections, and allows us to battle the adversary and build our own protections. Our own testimony, our own wisdom, our own strength, our own relationship with the Savior. This is why we were sent here.

The Lord knew Job would pass his tests, which is why he allowed Job to be so tested. He knows we can pass our tests, which is why he allows us to have them. Job's loss of his herds, his family and his health were not curses from God. They were extremely unpleasant, and none of his tests were something I'd want to wish on myself, but they were gifts. They allowed Job to exhibit his greatness. They allowed him to go from being a really good man that lived among the sagebrush thousands of years ago, who would be forgotten a generation later, to a biblical light house. A beacon of strength to all of us who struggle. He was a foreshadow to a greater man who would give His all as well. That man is our Redeemer. My Redeemer. 

I have experienced pain in my life. My own choices brought me more pain than I can describe. Years upon years of pain, and the pain will never end while I'm alive. But it did help me get to know my Redeemer - he took my poor choices upon himself, and I willingly gave them to him. They are His now, and as a whole, my life is happier than anyone else I know. 

May we trust God, take our difficulties in a trusting way, and rely on Him to get through them. Greatness comes from asking Him to help us as we grow ourselves toward being more like him. 

Well, that's different

It's hard to keep up a good habit. When you're coasting along life, doing nothing to stand out, I would imagine you probably minimize the criticism you receive. By contrast, when you reach, when you lift your eyes from the bottom of the pail, there may be those who want to remind you that the bucket is all there is, and it's wrong for anyone to consider anything otherwise.

Bucking the trend is hard. People ask you why you think you're different or better than. The fact is that we're all different and better than, and it's up to all of us to find out what variety of different we are. Yes, we are all better than in some category - we all have gifts that make us different/better than in some category. It's not reason for pride, it's a responsibility. We are expected to use our gifts and skills to climb out of the bucket, and then help others.

So today I'll differ with myself. Up until today, this has been about reading scriptures, and then writing about what I learned. There are no pre-set rules that bind me to that. I can consider, use the gifts I have, receive guidance from the eternal, and write about that. I guess it may not be about where I start, but how I am guided, and to where.

So I'm looking at notes I took while at the feet of a friend and guru, we'll call him Nathan. This is a sub-sub section of training about teaching, listening and responding. My notes have a heading of Connection when working with someone I'm trying to listen to. 

So here's the scenario - one we've all seen before. The angry teenager, spouse, boss, or co worker. The difficult church member. The arguing client. Angry and/or difficult people are anywhere. They are impossible to avoid.

So. Connection. There are three parts to that - connection to them, connection to me, and connection to God. Nathan didn't elaborate on that, that's up to me for now. 

Let's say I have an angry client. I do home inspections, so let's say I miss something. Let's say the roof leaked the day they moved in, and let's say that I didn't warn them about it.

So first, building a connection with them? I probably had their trust in the beginning, and then lost it all when the roof leaked on their twin babies. How does one restore that connection? How does one even get a part of it back? I can't just throw in the towel because these people are angry. From their point of view, they have every right to be angry. They paid me to advise them on the roof, the roof leaked, and their babies got soaked. They think they're correct, and to them, they are. 

Everyone thinks they're right. Nobody has ever walked up to anyone and said, "you know, I realize I'm wrong about this, but here's what I think". 

So. Are they right? do you only have to try to connect with them when they're right? Nope. Their correctness or lack of it is irrelevant. My correctness or lack of it is irrelevant. This is a time for connection, not correctness.

That in mind, a listening ear may be huge. To thoroughly and completely understand what they believe the facts to be. To feel their frustration. To learn that one of their babies has an allergy to being wet. To feel their fear and frustrations To try to feel their pain as deeply and in as much detail as they feel it.

That's hard. I am horrible at that. 

Then, connection with myself. I have to know who I am and what I represent. If their roof leaked, and I'm at fault, will I automatically use words and actions that protect my bank account, or my soul? Which is more important to me? Being in contact with my soul isn't something I can just do in 5 minutes, like I would try to do with a client. Aligning myself with my eternal side takes a lifetime to do, and even then I'd guess that without great personal effort, it will never happen. And if/when it happens to some degree? That would be a gift from above. Big. Huge. Kind of like that scene in "Pretty Woman". 

And then the third category: aligning myself with God. I guess it's fair to say that if I've aligned with myself, I'm well along the path of aligning myself with God. Still, there may be some difference.

Let's say that "Me, Inc" has decided that my brand will be known for extraordinary customer service. Would a company with that brand do more than listen and build connection? Would it go back out? Would it do everything in its power? Obviously, a home inspection company would go broke in no time flat if it paid out resolution money for everything it missed - everyone misses something every time, no matter how experienced, detailed and thorough you are. So it's not about writing checks. It's about being exceptional. 

And from the Lord's perspective? Connection with God helps me to see that client as God sees them. He may not share with me their concerns about their mother's dementia, or their concerns about their baby's possible deafness, or their own fears of losing a job, or their fears about the spouse leaving, or their fears about having to speak or sing. He may not share those details with me, but he may share with me how much he loves them. I can get that when I am sufficiently aligned with God.

All three of these are hard. Mucho super hard. To connect with everyone, whether they are happy with you or not. That one by itself is a superhuman feat, and only God can help us do that with more people. That would be an awesome gift. 

To connect with ourselves. To really know who we are, and to be committed to living our principles, even when it's really hard. To know what honesty and integrity mean, and to live that way even when we want to skip it for a minute.

To connect with God. Few things are more awesome than that. Again, this will be a matter of line upon line, and a million steps or grades, but to know our Savior? To look forward to the day when we meet him at the judgment bar? To yearn for the time when I can embrace him? To make this life a chunk of heaven, because we have access to his presence, just like I hope to have after I die? 

If heaven means living in God's presence, there's no reason that can't happen now. As I've written before in this blog, he's waiting for us. Not the other way around. 

May we connect. With others, with ourselves, and with our God. It sounds like that would be pretty awesome.

Holding it

So I try to be open to guidance, however it comes. I have found that it can come in various ways, but the guidance I take today is from seeing repetition. It goes like this: I've been feeling like a big slacker because my number of posts dropped considerably in the last few months - from about 8ish to 1 or 2. I write these so that somebody somewhere might benefit from them, and I wonder if my slacking hurts my own soul and fails to benefit others as I intended.

So with my slacker-ness in mind, I spoke up in sunday school the other day. The subject was the old testament, 2 Kings chapter 2. In there twice, Elisha was told to hold his peace when his friend, mentor, and prophet was taken from the earth.

It happened twice. This is one of those things where sometimes you get it once, and you have to notice it to see the golden nugget. When it happens more than once, it seems to me that the Lord is trying to send a clear message: notice this phrase! And the phrase was to hold your peace, even when Elijah, one of the greatest prophets ever, was taken from your side.

Then I start reading today where the Doctrine and Covenants was open, and I start at verse 22. What do I notice right up front? "Hold your peace". OK, I get it. Someone is trying to tell me something. I also found it a few verses earlier as I kept reading. Twice, twice.

I am no expert on what "hold your peace" means fully, but I can stab around the edges. It probably means that Elisha didn't fall down, stay on the ground, and mourn Elijah's loss as the reason for his being a wreck for the rest of his life. It might have meant that he felt authorized to feel grateful for Elijah's life, service, and greatness. It could have meant that he chose to feel honored for the time spent with this great man. What is peace? It comes from the Lord. It's an inner thing. Was Elijah's loss a loss to Elisha? Of course, but the Lord knew why and when he was taking Elijah home, and it seems a bit faithless if Elisha were to have mourned and wasted his life, knowing that what happened was the will of his God.

So perhaps for Elisha, holding your peace at Elijah's "death" may result in some loss. It could also mean greater power and depth, greater stature, and a preparation to fulfill his own calling and purpose. It could mean that Elisha's time had come. He could spend it mourning and complaining and wishing, or he could now step into his full greatness.

I'm not saying it's not OK to feel bad at someone's death, not at all. For me, it's not even about death. It's about moaning and mourning excessively when something "bad" happens. Elijah's passing was the will of God. Sometimes our losing a job, or having someone get a disease, or being put in a wheelchair might be a gift from on high. It seems bad to us, but it's the Lord's plan, and that makes it perfect. I know people, including myself, who have had these "bad" things happen, only to acknowledge later that it was exactly what needed to happen at the time. The consequences of the "bad" event immeasurably benefited me and others I know.

I find it interesting that internet definitions of "hold your peace" means to bind your tongue when you want to scream. That seems to me to be about a nickel's worth of the meaning. It's not about bottling up, it's not about restraining the bonfire inside. If there's a bonfire anywhere, whether I think it's showing or not, then there is no peace. You can't hold your peace if there isn't any. You're just holding a fire.

Instead, when things go badly, holding your peace to me means that inside your soul, you don't internalize. You keep the peace that has been in your soul right there, your soul is filled with peace, and nothing gets to replace it. Of course there are fires, but they are not fires within. I try to deal with my fires from a place of peace within my soul, but they are fires outside my soul - not in.

Not to say that this is actually what I do - but it is the goal.

Life gets easier when we can be a lighthouse, when our soul is filled with light - and peace. Then we can reflect it properly. Dark spots and inner conflict prevent a lighthouse from being functional, and to extend the analogy a bit further, I'm thinking that a conflicted, unpeaceful, unlit lighthouse is just a pile of rocks. The cost of allowing the un-peace in is too great. It can't happen if we are to fill our purpose and calling.

May we fill our souls with peace. May we let in the light and make it ours. Darkness can be dealt with, but it doesn't come in. Instead, it can be served. It can be shown a light. May we keep our peace, and our light, so that it is always ready to be reflected, but never displaced within our souls.

At least that's how I feel about it. Thanks for the read - I hope it benefits you.