Be of Good Cheer

In Elder Oaks talk, He Heals the Heavy Laden, he references one of my very favorite scriptures:

 “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” 

John 16:33

This is one of the key truths we learn in Article of Faith #3: The Atonement of Christ. We know that if we are obedient to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel, through the Atonement, we can be saved because He did literally overcome the world.

The Lord knew that life would be hard. He tells us we will have “tribulation.” The dictionary defines tribulation as “a cause of great trouble or suffering.” He knows just how great our trouble and suffering are and will be, because He has felt them personally.

He tells us to “be of good cheer.” How is it possible to be of good cheer if we know that we will have great trouble and suffering? This is the amazing thing about the Atonement. Not only has it redeemed us from death and given us a way to be exalted and have eternal life, it has also blessed us with the enabling power of the Atonement.

I have experienced this power while going to school at BYU-Idaho. I work full time, have school, and serve in the temple on Saturdays. I have been blessed, and a witness to miracles, with a literal expansion of time. I have had my abilities increased to learn more quickly and get things done in a shorter amount of time.

Because of the Atonement we have all the reason in the world to be of good cheer.


Have any of you experienced the enabling power of the Atonement?

Agency vs. Freedom

Agency and accountability are words with which members of the Church are familiar. It is interesting to be discussing them in an American Foundations class. They really are, though, at the heart of what happened when the colonists began to revolt.

Given agency by our Creator, it is an innate desire of all men. We want to make choices for ourselves. Accountability comes into play when our agency to choose interferes with another person’s rights. All choices have consequences, good or bad. When we exercise our agency, we must be accountable and deal with whatever the consequences are. Laws are put in place to force some people to be accountable for their choices because they won’t do so otherwise.

I really appreciated how Dallin H. Oaks, a former Utah Supreme Court Judge, distinguished between Agency and Freedom. 

Agency is how we exercise our will and our power to choose. 

Freedom is the privilege to carry out our choices.  

Everyone has agency. Most people in the world don’t have freedom.

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Reference:

Dallin H. Oaks, “Free Agency and Freedom,” 1987

Weekly Reflection

I love what Elder Oaks says about our canon being open.

Because of our belief in continuing revelation, we Latter-day Saints maintain that the canon (the authoritative body) of scriptures is open. In fact, the scriptural canon is open in several ways, and continuing revelation is crucial to each of them.[1]

He goes on to say:

Our belief in an open canon also includes private revelations to individual seekers of the meaning of existing scriptures. Such revelations are necessary because, as Elder Bruce R. McConkie of the Quorum of the Twelve observed, “Each pronouncement in the holy scriptures … is so written as to reveal little or much, depending on the spiritual capacity of the student” (A New Witness for the Articles of Faith, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1985, p. 71).[2]

I feel I have experienced some of that personal revelation during my study this week. Some of the things that I have been impressed about:

Luke 1:37 For with God nothing shall be impossible. This stood out to me because I am going through some challenging circumstances with my family right now. This was a powerful reminder that a God who can cause both a barren woman and a virgin to give birth, can certainly help me find new employment, can help my daughter through this separation and possible divorce, and can rescue my wayward daughter. I just need to do my part and have faith in him.

Christ’s royal birthright was through both fathers. I either didn’t catch it or didn’t remember that he had a royal birthright through the lineage of David and would have been the rightful heir to the civic throne. He was King through all aspects of life.

The faith shown by Peter and Andrew when Jesus asked them to come follow him and they "straightway" left their nets, (Mark 1: 17-18) is a great example to me of the kind of faith I want to develop. That is my focus for my Becoming Project.

I believe that studying the life of Jesus Christ can only have a positive impact on me. I am excited to learn more about his life and to gain a deeper testimony of him.

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[1] Elder Dallin H. Oaks, Scripture Reading and Revelation, January 1995, lds.org.

[2] ibid

Loving Those Who Have Strayed

In his talk Love and Law, Elder Oaks discusses how God’s love and His laws work together and not in contradiction to one another.

“The love of God does not supersede his laws and His commandments, and the effect of God’s laws and commandments does not diminish the purpose and effect of His love.”

Bad things can happen to good people and not nullify God’s love. Because of His love for us, He must allow people agency to choose—not only their actions but the consequences of those actions. If He were to stop every bad thing from happening, He wouldn’t have a person’s actions with which to hold them accountable to the law.

He gives great counsel as to how we should handle our loved ones who may make choices we don’t agree with.

In the midst of such stress, we must endure the reality that the straying of our loved ones will detract from our happiness, but it should not detract from our love for one another or our patient efforts to be united in understanding God’s love and God’s laws.

This really stood out to me. My daughter has many friends who have also left the church and fall under the LGBT umbrella. Most of them have parents who have disowned them, won’t talk to them, have kicked them out of their homes, and basically no longer support them. Exactly the opposite of how the Savior would treat them.

This breaks my heart. We have worked so hard to get our daughter to believe that we love her no matter what. She was convinced we would hate her because she chose to live a different way.

I have always been a Momma Bear when it comes to my girls and to their friends, who I love like my own. One of my hot buttons was hearing how parents would kick a daughter out of their home because she had gotten pregnant out of wedlock. I thought that at the moment when a child needed their parents love the most—they turned their backs on her. I told my daughter’s friends on several occasions that if that ever happened to them, they could come live with us.

No one has needed to take me up on that offer; however, that attitude was tested in my own home when my daughter left the church and again later told us she was pan sexual.

I just keep thinking of how the Savior would have me treat her. He would love her and support her, letting her know what He believed to be right and giving her an opportunity to come to Him, but loving her nonetheless.

This is how I am trying to love.

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Dallin H. Oaks, Love and Law, October 2009

Together in Marriage

Watching a podcast about eternal identity, something that really stood out to me was the concept of “not being alone” as to marriage; Satan had to find Adam and Eve alone to more easily tempt them.

Hugh Nibley said: “[Satan's] first step (or wedge) had been to get one of them to make an important decision without consulting the other.  He approached Adam in the absence of Eve with a proposition to make him wise, and being turned down he sought out the woman to find her alone and thus undermine her resistance more easily.  It is important that he was able to find them both alone…” [1]

This doesn’t mean that husband and wife have to be constantly at one another’s side. I think that would drive us all crazy! It is, however, very important that husband and wife are “together” both spiritually and emotionally.

Elder Oaks said: Satan's most strenuous opposition is directed at whatever is most important to the Father's plan. Satan seeks to discredit the Savior and divine authority, to nullify the effects of the Atonement, to counterfeit revelation, to lead people away from the truth, to contradict individual accountability, to confuse gender, to undermine marriage, and to discourage childbearing (especially by parents who will raise children in righteousness).[2]

If one of Satan’s “most strenuous oppositions” is targeted “to undermine marriage”, this shows me how extremely important it is to be one with my husband.

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[1] Professor Hugh Nibley, Old Testament & Related Studies, 1988

[2] Elder Dallin H. Oaks, “The Great Plan of Happiness,” Ensign, November 1993

The Purpose of Prophets: Case Study

Case Study: (in summation) Courtney walked out of Relief Society class after discussion from The Family: A Proclamation to the World and comments that children are best served when raised in a home with a mother and a father. It turns out that Courtney had a best friend growing up who was raised by two lesbians. She later texted Mariah "I believe, in God's eyes, love and kindness is what it's all about, not someone's sexuality. The church has a way to go, but I know that same-sex parenting is not wrong." The names were changed, but this was a real situation at BYU-Idaho.

We were asked how Mariah could reach out to Courtney.

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This is a very difficult situation.

My daughter has left the church. She identifies as pansexual, meaning that she isn’t limited by gender as to whom she may be attracted. Many of her friends are gay. Some of them also come from Mormon families.

One of the things that my daughter struggled with is that she can’t believe in a God who would make people feel this way and then not allow them to be married. She believes that if a person is gay, their spirit is gay – so my belief that all will be made right in the heavens doesn’t hold any weight to her.

She loves these people and can’t imagine that they are horrible, sinful, evil people, just because they want to have a loving relationship with someone of the same sex.

What I have come to learn is that you cannot change someone’s opinion about this. All we can do is love them.

As Elder Oaks states in As He Thinketh in His Heart, “I suggest that it may be preferable for our young people to refrain from arguing with their associates about such assertions or proposals.”

As to Mariah’s dilemma, she should approach Courtney with love and caring. Perhaps focusing on some of the following:

• We are all God’s children. God loves us all, no matter who we are or what we do. We know that families are central to the plan of happiness and that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God.
• We don’t understand why some people have same gender attraction. Nephi said: “I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things” (1 Ne. 11:17).
• While it may be true that her friend was brought up well in a same-sex parent home, that isn’t the standard that God wants us to strive for and isn’t the manner in which the heavens are ordered.
• Mostly Mariah should try to love and understand the feelings that Courtney is struggling with and remind her of her true identity and worth as a daughter of God.