Breaking Silence for Religion

I've never been good at being concise. I like words too much. I think outloud. And I haven't had time to blog all these conversations & posts & mental thoughts and it's eating at me to write it all down, to get it out there.

These are some words that no one understands anymore: love, tolerance, faith, forgiveness, covenants, judgment, respect, moderation, self-worth, humility, equality...at least if they say they do, I wouldn't believe them. In truth, I think we should be forever understanding what these words mean. Yet I hear people affirming over & over again in their actions & with their voice that they want to be right and they want you to know it & accept the choices they're making. So much for democracy & freedom.

They might say "to each his own" but I'm not idealistic anymore, people don't really believe that. 

I reference "the world" a lot. Let's clarify what I mean. We can start with Hollywood. For some reason that's really become an agenda pushing machine, and it's arguably dominated by secular, biased, power seeking viewpoints backed by the highest bidder and more liberal than not. But let's step away from politics at the moment & just focus on the negative vs positive output. Perhaps good people are still making good, moral films like Pride & Prejudice. But mostly they're full of violence & sex & sin of all sorts and I call a self-gratifying, anti-faith institution, influenced by the devil. What is good can still come from God, but Satan is still a wolf in sheeps clothing and people are being deceived. I can include myself in many aspects. Everyone should.

But let's talk about this idea of being deceived. It's "hip" these days to argue. Nevermind that contention is of the devil. Even Christ himself got angry, so what's the difference? We know Christ was perfect so, therefore, there must be righteous anger of some sort. I just think most people aren't righteous enough to get angry, if that makes sense. And we are deceived by unrighteous traditions, unknown biases, hypocrisy, unrighteous judgment, fear, pride and I'm sure the list goes on. The question is, where is our heart?

How do we become more "self-aware" and really live the highest commandments 'to love God' and 'love others'? We don't know how to do that without hand holding, so we were given the Ten Commandments, and then we had that Sermon on the Mount and then we all whined because it was too hard. That's 2018 for you. It's the EASIEST period of time as far as purely living goes, yet it seems to have crippled us on every level. We are so blessed, yet we are blind & deaf & SO hard hearted, we are going mentally insane. How frustrated our heavenly parents must be. I get frustrated listening to my kids whine; I can't imagine an entire generation at once. But I am an imperfect parent. Our worth is always great in their eyes.

Maybe prosperity is a curse or certainly a test of will. Will we seek for our personal glory? Will we seek for worldly possessions? Will we set the bar any higher than the bare minimum? I want to meet the souls who have everything or nothing & you'd never know it. Don't we all love those kind of people? Pearls.

Today our goal should be to stand more confident in the face of God. I do think some people really don't care. I really think some people will choose (are choosing) not to live in His presence because they lack the faith to see anything greater than what's currently in front of them. Some of us lack the faith to call on Christ for strength to avoid being deceived or tempted or discouraged or even lazy. I don't know how judgement day will roll out exactly, I just know we'll have a perfect knowledge of how we lived, and no one should want to carry all their baggage to the grave, not when someone else already carried it. We can give that guilt away. But we should also have plenty of good to remember too, right?

I can spend all day talking about how to be real with ourselves and others, how godly sorrow is a gift,  how equality doesn't wear a uniform, how tolerance never included an acceptance of sin, how love is endless & forgiving, how hypocrisy is unrighteous judgment & how pride is a sin that plagues us all. Whatever happened to covenants (i.e. promises to God)? Why is it that washing 7 times in the river Jordan is too simple for a miracle? Why is it that we want to first mention how ridiculous something sounds before praying and asking if it be right? It's pride that makes us think we know the end from the beginning. Or else it's fear that makes us think we'll never get there so why try. We are missing out on so much when we don't commit to God.

Let's go back to our ability to be confident in the face of God. There is a difference between self-confidence and self-worth and it's subtle, yet powerful. It has made all the difference in my life. My worth isn't fleeting. My worth is in God's eyes and it's empowering. I can remember when something in me clicked, when I stopped judging first impressions & just tried loving every person for what they had to offer & being grateful for whatever good I could find. It really felt like a switch, something more selfless. And it's not like it's always that way, but I try. Relationships weren't just "what do they have to offer me" but "what can I learn from them" & it made all the difference. We can still be scared & uncertain, but we can be confident enough to admit it and keep going any way - we can be resilient. And we can share that hope.

People like to stab good works or obedience or sacrifice, like it's something worth mocking. But for me, better obedience brings greater promised blessings (that doesn't mean bad choices brings punishments, but they won't bring lasting happiness; "wickedness never was happiness"). And not all blessings are visible; I think most are not. Pres Benson once said, "the Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of the people and they take themselves out of the slums."  (Something similar comes from Alma 60:23 or Matthew 23:26-28). Confidence to me is resilience, it's grit, it's humility/gratitude, it's honesty...and true confidence comes from God.

So why do some choose fake? People will continue to look to the world for confidence and come up short. How did Christ live his life & is what we are doing comparable? Maybe church culture doesn't explain perfection well enough. It isn't possible for us to be perfect. But we are used to hearing things like 'you're the good one' or 'you're the smart one' and we fear falling from that label. We don't want others to see us fall? As if everyone else isn't?! But God knew we all would and Christ broke that fall. He already caught us and we are here to remember that, accept that & follow Him the best we can. But we actually have to try and it'll be uncomfortable, hard, uncertain, etc... But it's required in order to become something better. Too many people want to see the end from the beginning vs having faith. Too many people focus on the holes vs the miracles that exist. Too many people want to "win" or "be right". Too many people give up when it gets hard. Too many people prefer the worldly distractions. Power & wealth corrupts over & over in the scriptures. Social media gives more people power & influence. And Satan has abused that to no end.

Just don't make excuses for your choices, because they're yours to own, including the consequences (own them, you don't always get to choose those).  Believe it or not, that ability to choose is a gift & it came at a great cost. It's a cost we can't repay; we're just asked to follow Him, to bring to Him our broken hearts and contrite spirits. And He can fortify & save our souls.