Of Being Lucky and Blessed

March 29, 2023 1 Comment

Photo by Corey Hearne on Unsplash

“Insanely lucky.”  What does that conjure up for you?  I encountered it this morning at a repair shop where I presented my electronic hand-held device.  I began the conversation by saying, “I bring you the cleanest cellphone you are going to see.  It comes out of the washing machine.”

The technician’s response was, “Buy a new one.”

The look on my face led him to add, “There is no way to fix it.”  He had merely seen it in my hand, nice and clean and shiny.

I explained to him that I had dried it off, that it was on and working when retrieved, and that I immediately had turned it off.  With a slight shake of his head he reaffirmed his unexamined diagnosis.  Seeing that I was not yet convinced, he continued, “Unless you are insanely lucky, it cannot be fixed.”

Not ready to surrender hope, I handed it to him.  I even showed him the leather-bound case with an interior plastic sleeve that had enclosed the device (without explicitly mentioning the wash, rinse, wash and rinse again, and multiple spin cycles it had been through).  Friendly and nonplussed by my explanation, he repeated, “You would have to be insanely lucky for it to be fixed.”

Yet, obliging a would-be customer who remained cordial through the exchange, the technician removed from the device what I think was a sim card (for all I know).  Looking carefully, turning it on, examining the sides, running his finger across the glass, he handed it back. 

Worried that this was the end of the transaction, I asked the technician what I should do.  He said, “Take it with you and use it.  You are insanely lucky.”

Sure that it needed to be opened up, I asked, “Aren’t you going to take off the cover and see if there is any water inside that needs to be dried?”  He responded, “No need to.  It is completely dry.  No water got in.”  With a smile the technician reaffirmed, “You are insanely lucky.”

Leaving my thanks, I was too surprised to say more.  After a few yards toward my car, I knew I should have told the technician that I was not lucky, I was blessed, as I later recounted to my wife.  She replied, “You should have explained to him that we are all blessed.”  And so we are. 

We have a saying at the Washington Temple, where I volunteer several days each week, that there are no coincidences in the Temple.  Statistically unlikely incidents of joy and happiness occur so often there that we are sure that we see the hand of God in our labors.

I see the Lord’s  hand outside the Temple as well, in ways large and small.  For an all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly-loving God, how can there be anything that happens by chance?  In things as small as my machine-washed but undamaged cellphone to great matters of mortal life I have perceived my Heavenly Father blessing me every day.  Actually, that is what Easter is all about, and what Jesus Christ came to make possible for us all.

Filed under abundant life, Easter, God, Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, joy, miracles, Temples Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Of Pride and Overpowering Love

July 27, 2022 Leave a comment

Photo by Andrea Tummons on Unsplash

God the Father never says that He is proud of His Son, Jesus Christ.  At least we have no record in any scripture of the Father saying so.  At the baptism, the voice of the Father proclaimed Jesus with the words, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17)  Similar words are recorded by Mark (1:11) and also by Luke (3:22).  Some time later, at the Mount of Transfiguration, the Father introduced His Son, once more with the same words. 

Following the crucifixion and resurrection, the Father heralded His Son again, as Jesus Christ descended to teach an assemblage of believers in ancient America.  He used these words:

“Behold my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name—hear ye him.” (3 Nephi 11:7)

There is a pattern here in what is not said and what is said.  Instead of an expression of pride, the Father expresses His love for His Son and His joy in what Jesus has accomplished, including bringing glory to the Father through His mortal ministry.  No one ever honored his father more than Jesus honors the Father, and no one ever loved a son more than the Father loves His beloved Son.

It is not that the Father’s love exceeds and envelopes pride.  Pride has no part in the Father’s love, for His son or for us.  There is no scriptural account, ancient or modern, of either Jesus or the Father expressing pride in anyone, not in Abraham, not in Moses, not in David, not in Peter or any of the Apostles, or in any prophet, ancient or modern.

The perfect love of our Heavenly Father and of His Son, Jesus Christ, does not exceed pride; it overpowers it.  On the night before His crucifixion, Jesus prayed to the Father, one of the holiest prayers of which we know.  The prayer was witnessed by His Apostles and reported by John.  The Son concluded His profound prayer to the Father with this request, “that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them” (John 17:26).  Could anyone hope for anything greater?  The Father hears His Son and grants His requests, including the Son’s plea that the Father extend to us the same perfect love.

In comparison, the Lord has nothing good to say about pride, not a positive word in the thousands of pages of His scriptures.  He does say much to warn us about pride, because it is the opposite of love.  A modern day prophet, Ezra Taft Benson, described pride this way:

“The central feature of pride is enmity—enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen. . . .  We are tempted daily to elevate ourselves above others and diminish them.  The proud make every man their adversary . . .”

Much evil flows out from pride.  Only good extends from the love of God. 

I neither claim nor express any pride in my sons and daughters.  I am, however, well pleased by all of them, personally.  Each is beloved by me and by their mother.  They often observe the Savior’s admonition, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)  No pride is there, but much goodness as they take the gifts they have received from the Father and bless others with them.

I hope for the day when each of us may hear the Lord say personally, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”

Filed under charity, Christianity, God, Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, joy, pride, prophets, works Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Of Living and Dying

May 31, 2022 Leave a comment

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“Why will ye die?”  So asked the ancient prophet of the Jews, Jeremiah, of his unwise king, Zedekiah (Jeremiah 27:13).  God knew what Zedekiah knew but what the king did not want to believe, that the Babylonians were ready and able to conquer all the lands about them.  Since Zedekiah and his people had chosen evil and rejected the Lord, the Lord could not help them.  So, through His prophet, the Lord gave Zedekiah the next best advice:  do not fight the Babylonians, but submit to them and live.

Zedekiah rejected the Lord’s counsel again, and so he died, blinded physically as much as he had blinded himself spiritually.  Jerusalem was captured and laid waste, its walls leveled.  The Temple of the Lord, built by Solomon, was destroyed.  Most of the people were transported captive to Babylon.

To the people of the Jews in captivity, the Lord asked the question by another prophet, Ezekiel.  “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked . . . turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?” (Ezekiel 33:11)

In ancient America, to a people once free and prosperous, but whose social corruption put their government in the hands of gang leaders, the Lord again by His prophet asked, “Why will ye die?”  The prophet, Nephi, diagnosed their malady:  “ye have set your hearts upon riches and the vain things of this world, for which ye do murder, and plunder, and steal, and bear false witness against your neighbor, and do all manner of iniquity.” (Helaman 7:17, 21)

The Lord did not want them poor, having blessed them with prosperity, material and spiritual.  Yet they turned their focus to the perishable things of the world, its vanities, turning against each other in a spiral of death and destruction instead of triumph of kindness and life.

Now, in more modern times—and we always live in modern times—the Lord has both blessed and warned us.  In the summer of 1859, the Lord’s prophet, Brigham Young, warned that, “The Lord will sift the people, and the time is not far distant when he will sift the nations with a sieve of vanity, and the time is at your doors when he will hold a controversy with the nations and will plead with all flesh, and it will be known who is for God, and who is not.  (Brigham Young, July 31, 1859, Journal of Discourses, Vol.7, p.204).  It was not a new prophetic warning, but it was one about to be fulfilled, which sifting began within two years of the prophet’s words.

The Lord frequently cautions and invites us to life.  His prophet of today, Russell M. Nelson, recently reminded that God is not a God of contention.  He called for us to be followers of Christ, “the Prince of Peace.  Now more than ever, we need the peace only He can bring.  How can we expect peace to exist in the world when we are not individually seeking peace and harmony?”  The prophet encouraged us to build momentum in personally doing good, in laying aside contention.  “None of us can control nations or the actions of others . . . But we can control ourselves.”

The sifting of the world with a sieve of vanity is on.  We see it.  Let the sieve sift out the vanity, as we focus on the stuff of life that Christ offers to us.  In the words of the ancient American prophet-king Benjamin, in his last address, “I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual . . .” (Mosiah 2:41)  Otherwise, why will ye die?

Filed under abundant life, Brigham Young, death, God, Jesus Christ, life, prophets, Russell M. Nelson, spirituality, vanity Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Of Marx and His Side of History

January 27, 2022 Leave a comment

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Karl Marx was a bad prophet.  His record is abysmal.  Reality paved a road moving opposite to the predictions of Marx.  That is a serious problem for someone whose theories of economics, life, and the future boastfully rest upon assertions of inevitable fulfillment clothed in scientific jargon.

My friend, Alex Pollock, has frequently said to me that predicting the future is easy; having the predictions come true is the hard part.  Richard M. Ebeling, a professor at The Citadel, has done what many have not.  He has studied what Karl Marx foretold in comparison with what happened.  The differences are stark.  Ebeling reports, “Being blunt, every one of Marx’s ‘predictions’ has failed to come true.” (See Richard M. Ebeling, “How Marx Got on the Wrong Side of History,” June 16, 2017, Foundation for Economic Education.) To begin, Marx’s forecast of the progressive immiseration of the general population was exploded by the greatest increase in standard of living in the shortest period of time for the largest number of people in history. 

His prediction that mass production would render labor skills ever simpler and homogenous, rewarded with mere subsistence wages, compares poorly with the dramatic expansion of the complexity, variety, sophistication, and compensation of employment and employees in the nearly two centuries since.  I admit that I am not comparing Marx’s predictions with the reality in Marxist societies, where Marx’s predictions of employee drudgery and subsistence living have come too painfully close to fulfillment.

Indeed, perhaps only in such a view, where Marxist experiments have been tried, can one find any relevance of the Marxist concept of being on the “wrong side of history.”  The once oppressed residents of the former Soviet bloc are still trying to get caught up with their neighbors who did not spend decades living Karl Marx’s utopian nightmare.  That is to say, the idea that the Marxist conception of history having “sides” has only been demonstrated in the negative by regimes who have imposed Marxist prescriptions on what they call their “masses,” often within walls to keep them on the inside.

What history has shown is that no one controls it, other than God.  From time to time God provides His prophets visions of future history, usually with invitations and cautions, invitations to actions that will bring progress and happiness, and cautions that if ignored yield destruction and sorrow.  Those prophecies have always come true.  In that sense, and that sense alone, to be “on the right side of history” is to be on the right side of God and His encouragements and warnings.

God our Father loves us and our freedom so much that He gives us room for our exercise of choice in creating our own history, disinclined to force what He wants or to prevent what He hates, ever offering counsel and eager to help when asked in faith.  History is littered with the ruins of societies that acted otherwise, when they reached a point described in scripture as being “fully ripe in iniquity.”

Filed under communism, economic growth, freedom, future, God, Heavenly Father, history, Marxism, prophecy, prophets Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Of Vanity and Measureless Worth

January 14, 2022 Leave a comment

Photo by Jean Wimmerlin on Unsplash

Millions who were recently fully employed today choose to remain off the market.  The unemployment rate, measured by the number seeking work who have not landed a job, is therefore approaching record lows.  Available jobs outnumber those looking for them.  The total of all employed remains fewer than it was two years ago.  Too many have stopped looking.  With generous government benefits for doing nothing, more than a few have concluded, what is the point?

That is bad for the economy, but it is worse for those who have taken a pass at gainful employment.  It is the ancient attitude of personal desuetude.  Solomon, the King of Israel of antiquity, wrote, “I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.” (Ecclesiastes 1:14)  Has the spiritual wind that brings value to life gone out of people’s sails?  Or have many stopped unfurling their sails?  Giving up on work, are they giving up on living?

Having seen it all, and explored and pondered life, Solomon, the richest and wisest of kings, ruled Israel at its peak in wealth and sway.  Observing “all things that are done under heaven,” he concluded, “vanity of vanities; all is vanity.  What profit hath a man of all his labour . . .?” (Ecclesiastes 1:2, 3)  Solomon presented a powerful case.  He described the profound emptiness of the ephemeral existence he perceived.  Generations of people come and go, forgotten.  People’s eyes are not satisfied with seeing nor their ears with hearing.  There is little remembrance of what was done in the past, and what will come will be little recalled by those who come after.  Man’s search for wisdom finds grief and his increase in knowledge increases his sorrow.  “There is no new thing under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9ff.)

A cursory reading of Solomon’s Biblical book, Ecclesiastes, has led some to regard Solomon’s wisdom as having soured on existence.  A more careful reading reveals an inspired wisdom that reaches beyond the world.  Solomon recognized, and hoped to cause others to recognize, that lasting value is not to be found in the perishable things of mortality.  He declared, “I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness.” (Ecclesiastes 2:13)  He taught that wisdom was not to be found in a focus on things under heaven, but in the things from heaven, the eternal things.  God gave us the world as the school for us to prepare for heaven.  A focus on the world itself is folly, nothing but dust in the end.  A focus on the eternal, however, can enrich life now and to come.

What are the eternal things?  The scriptures resonate with counsel to make our life bountiful.  In modern times, Jesus Christ offered an exemplary list of things that give us joy and meaning today and endow us for heaven.  “Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence.” (Doctrine and Covenants 4:6)

The temporary and transient are provided to be harnessed by us as we secure now and take with us what can be never ending.  What is that?  It is all that can go with us beyond the temporary grave, such as our family relations and the virtues that are developed in a family better than anywhere else.  I recently heard my daughter say that being a mother is the hardest work she has ever done, and she loves it.

Solomon urged a rearrangement of our priorities from an attraction to what would become inevitable vanity under heaven, to the use of what the Creator has given us to prepare for living in heaven.  “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.”  This is what Solomon called, “the conclusion of the whole matter . . .” (Ecclesiastes 12:1, 13)

The gift from Jesus Christ is to guide, preserve, magnify, and hold to every good thing which, if we will accept His gift, “without compulsory means . . . shall flow unto thee forever and ever.” (Doctrine and Covenants 121:46)

Filed under abundant life, death, eternal life, family, God, heaven, Israel, Jesus Christ, mortality, vanity Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Of Majority Rule and Minority Freedom

November 23, 2021 1 Comment

Photo by Davide Ragusa on Unsplash

The majority rules, the minority be damned.  That is the heart of a democracy.  The Founders of the United States wisely chose a different course.  They recognized that popular majorities are inherently unstable, ever shifting, never constant, with little patience for the minority.  Each of us, however, is always and ever part of some minority.  The Founders sought a durable nation that would accommodate variety, so they established a republic.  More precisely, they established a democratic republic, where representatives are chosen by democratic action.

A republic works, and can only work, by respecting and accommodating one another sufficient to find agreement, which is often elusive.  A representative legislature by definition gathers delegates who have their own minds, who carry with them divergent views and interests, and who cherish rights to be respected.  From my personal experience I have observed that no one in Washington is your ally or your opponent all the time.  I find that reassuring, and occasionally surprising.

This structure accommodates several things that we hold dear.  Our republic accommodates differences of opinion, or even better said, varieties of opinion.  I have rarely been in a conversation with more than two people where all were in agreement on every point raised.  I have similarly rarely been in such a conversation where I did not benefit from the interplay of ideas.  We often can reach a consensus, but it is not consensus on all things.  A republic embraces this. 

In a republic no majority mandates our tastes.  Our republic, for example, allows for an assortment of cultures.  It had to or would never have been created.  I like to bring flags to our family reunions, symbolizing our cultural heritages, from my parents’ families to those of the new in-laws as our children have married.  With preeminence for the Stars and Stripes—reminding us of the attraction of this nation—our family unity makes enjoyment of those cultural influences an enrichment, in our clothes, in our menus, in our games and sports, in our traditions.  I see that in other families.  In much the same way, the constitutional foundation of our republic fosters a commonality upon which a cornucopia of good things thrives.

A republic requires several things that we find necessary, embedded in our Constitution.  It requires freedom of religion, free speech, private property, a market economy, separation of powers, a federal system of government, among other things.  God Himself implores freedom of religion on His earth, free hearts with devotion to be freely extended to Him and expressed in love to His children.  A market economy means that we are free to exchange our time, talents, and resources with one another, without being limited to choices that only the majority favors, hence the incredible selection of goods and services, often some only favored by a few (like my argyle socks).

The Founders understood a principle of governance also articulated in scripture:

“We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.” (Doctrine and Covenants 121:39)

Best to reduce the chance, especially should one profess to represent the majority of the people.  Safer, as in our federalized republic, to divide such power.  I recall Senator Phil Gramm, for whom I worked for many years, saying how frustrated he was when first elected to Congress at how little one person could accomplish in Washington.  He added that after a while that gave him great comfort.

Filed under Congress, Constitution, democracy, federalism, free speech, God, government, markets, religious freedom, republics Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Of Sincerity and Talking with God

September 23, 2021 Leave a comment

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In the 1700s, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, referring to times of personal stress, wrote, “I turned with my request to my Invisible Friend.  I was received so kindly, that I gladly came again.”  Speaking with God is simple.  It may not always be easy.  A basic requisite is sincerity.  When we share with our Heavenly Father a sincere message from the heart, He is eager to listen. 

That is also a basic criterion for us to hear God.  Our Heavenly Father is eager to speak with us when we are sincerely listening.  That means sincerely wanting to know what our Father wants us to know, and being sincerely willing to do what He asks us to do. 

This is prayer and revelation.  Such prayers are answered, and our lives can be made happier.

Can that happen now?  Can I speak with God and get a personal answer?  Yes.  The Lord has given us a prophet today, Russell M. Nelson, who reminded us, as prophets have often taught, that the “privilege of receiving revelation is one of the greatest gifts of God to His children.” 

The Lord has never desired that His prophet be the only one to receive revelation.  When Moses led the children of Israel through the desert, he replied to a complaint about someone in the camp receiving revelation, “would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets” (Numbers 11:29).  Our Father does not want us to wander in the dark, not knowing how to cope with life’s problems.

We are all in the process of dying.  That is why this existence is called “mortality.”  But until we reach the end of that process, we are also in the process of living.  Our Father likes to help us to live well, so that when we die we will be able to live with Him eternally.  He will show us how if we sincerely want to know.

When I was a child, I wondered what it would be like to live in the day when Apostles of Jesus Christ walked the earth.  Some years later I came to know that I was living in those days, that once again Jesus Christ has called Apostles, from ordinary professions, to follow Him in teaching the Father’s children how to live with joy. 

One of these Apostles of Christ is David Bednar.  He recently spoke with a young man whose wife, just a few months before, died from cancer.  The man asked, “What can we do to understand God’s will for us in our personal life?”  With great tenderness Apostle Bednar addressed the question.  He said that he knew that the man’s departed wife was “a righteous woman, and no righteous man, no righteous woman passes before his or her time.” 

Turning to the question of God’s will for this young widower, he recounted a similar conversation with a young girl at a funeral for an older brother.  She had asked, why would God let this happen?  This Apostle of Christ candidly said to her, “I don’t know, but I know God knows, and because I know God knows, I’m O.K. not knowing right now.”  So, he invited this son of God to listen to the revelations from the Lord and, while yet in this life, press on to do what his loving Father inspires him do. 

The gift of personal revelation continues available to this young man.  It is available to each of us, too, as we sincerely seek it.

Filed under death, God, Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, mortality, Moses, prayer, prophets, revelation, Russell M. Nelson Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Of Unity and the Tenth Commandment

February 27, 2021 Leave a comment

Photo by Luis Lara on Unsplash

It may be a commonplace to comment on popular culture’s war on the Ten Commandments, but it merits the effort. At best they are treated in Hollywood and other secular Zions of pop culture as the Ten Old Fashioned Ideas. Undeniably, Moses was after all just another one of those old white men, whom many with public microphones wish would fade from the contemporary scene (as long as they keep paying the bills).

Yet there seems to linger in the hearts and minds of most people in America who are not cultural trend setters an enduring if vague respect for Ten Commandment concepts such as the preeminence of God, the duties to parents, abhorrence of murder, the value of marriage covenants, the evils of theft, and that telling the truth is still better than lying. These are basic concepts that even children have little trouble understanding.

I must confess, however, that as a child I had difficulty understanding the tenth commandment, “Thou shalt not covet” (Exodus 20:17). “Covet” is not a word much found in a child’s vocabulary, or in anyone else’s for that matter. It required explaining to me. Then it was not overly hard to take in as an idea. I did wonder, though, why it had an exalted place with the other nine commandments. The gravity of theft, murder, sacrilege, lying, not going to Church on Sunday, and even dishonoring parents I could sense as a child, but why make such a big deal about coveting? Very bad things happen from breaking those other commandments. Sure, coveting, as explained to me, led to other sins, such as stealing, murder, lying and the rest, but where was the great evil in the thing itself? You could go to jail for breaking some of the other Ten Commandments, and you certainly were on the high road to hell if you did. Coveting might make you feel unhappy or dislike someone who had something you wanted—not good, but was it really so bad?

I have come to learn, with time and experience, that the answer is, Yes, it is very bad. The Ten Commandments address, first, our relationship with God; second, our relationship with family; and finally our relationship with our neighbors and in the communities where we live. Coveting is a powerful corrosive acid in community relationships. It dissolves kindness and respect and love for our fellows, leaving an envy that has hate at its root.

Indulged in, coveting insidiously works to separate us from those who have what we might want. One need not act on the coveting, one need not steal, lie, cheat, commit adultery, or engage in other offenses for the wedge of coveting to work its evil within society. Neighbors become cold, businessmen and workers become self-centered, helping hands become harder to find, envy and jealousy increasingly push compassion and cooperation aside. The poor hate any richer than they, and those who are better off lose their pity and concern for those whom they might otherwise be quick to help and encourage.

I am not one who looks to our political leaders to be moral leaders, but I do look to them to be virtuous. Morality must be a fundamental qualification for those to whom we give authority to make, execute, and judge the laws if we want our laws and their administration to be based upon virtue. We do not and should not derive our morality from these people, but we should expect them to act morally in the exercise of the duties and powers that they derive from the people whom they govern.

It is more than irresponsible, then, that coveting is in fact advocated for the nation to embrace as a defining element of economic policy. This national call to covet is dangerous to our community. Look again at how the evil was described on Mount Sinai:

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s. (Exodus 20:17)

All sharing in the tax burden is a necessary element of self-government. Self-government does not work without all the individual selves in society pitching in fairly.  What Congress enacts as national policy should be carried by those who compose the nation.

By the way, I am not aware of any religion that condones coveting.  But even if the fear of God does not make you slow to covet, objective love for the nation as a whole and the integrity of the society should cause you to recoil from a political platform based upon feeding the fires of envy.

Filed under civilization, commandments, covetousness, culture, demagoguery, God, government, morality, sin, unity Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Of Careers and Stepping Away

September 29, 2020 Leave a comment

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

Asked to give up successful careers, they all did.  Decades ago one was a world renowned heart surgeon.  Today he is president of a worldwide church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with some 16 million members.  His name is Russell M. Nelson.  At 96 years he is still vigorous, going about the world doing good.

One of his colleagues had been a Justice on the Utah Supreme Court.  Dallin H. Oaks stepped away from that post and his legal career when asked to assist in leadership of the Church, which he has now done for 36 years.

His colleague, Henry B. Eyring, has a Ph.D. and MBA in business administration from Harvard.  He left the faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Business to serve for six years as a college president.  Since 1980, he has been involved in spiritual education at all levels of the Church, with the exception of 7 years to help manage the Church’s physical operations.

The youngest of these three men is now 87.  All three gave up their successful careers to devote their full attention to religious matters, for decades.  None expected to be Church leaders.  They never applied for those responsibilities.  None of them retired from their jobs.  They were asked, and they stepped away in the prime of their professions.  They had faith that the Lord had something even more important for them to do.  They were invited to serve in what they would in an instant tell you was a more pressing calling.

These three are members of what is known as the First Presidency, the highest council of the Church.  They were called to their current positions after first serving as members of the Council of the Twelve Apostles.

Their colleagues on the Council of the Twelve have similar stories.  None planned to be leaders in the Church.  Some had careers in the automotive, real estate, investment, health care, airline, and banking industries.  Others came from occupations in education, on college faculties and as college presidents.  Another was president of a chemical company, another in manufacturing, yet another a heart surgeon specializing in cardiac transplants.  One of these had a career in international relations, in and out of government.  And one was an accountant and auditor—nothing meant by mentioning this profession last.

Departure from a vibrant career is not expected of everyone.  For all but a few, our chances may be no more than doing the marvelous good each day that our jobs may offer, as well as helping our families, neighbors, and communities.  The daily potential is endless, and the joys of job and service taken together can be great.  

Still, there is inspiration in the dedication of those who were asked to give up their careers and did so.  They are giving their all—retaining the preeminence of service to family, which may not be surrendered—to the opportunities to bless others whom the Lord puts before them.  Wonderfully, the Lord also, each day, puts before us opportunities to bless.  Through our work and our service we strengthen our communities, as the Lord would have it.

Filed under charity, choice, duty, faith, God, happiness, jobs, organized religion, prophets, Russell M. Nelson, service Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Of Defending Freedom and Divine Aid

May 25, 2020 Leave a comment

Photo by Štěpán Vraný on Unsplash

The story is told in The Book of Mormon of a kingdom rich in freedom, freedom from want, freedom from oppression, with much freedom of opportunity.  What could go wrong?

The generation that participated in building that freedom—it did not come free—yielded to a generation led by a dissolute king.  Under his leadership the society neglected the defense of that freedom.  That was a great danger.  The kingdom was encompassed and its people greatly outnumbered by enemies who nursed a centuries-deep hatred reinforced by an ideology of grievances of perceived victimhood.

Alluringly prosperous, the kingdom was a tempting honeypot to its much poorer neighbors, and yet for more than a generation it kept its enemies at bay.  That success stemmed from the intertwined combination of strenuous exertion and divine help from their faith in Christ.  Each time attacked—by overwhelming numbers—the people drew all of their might into the muster, on one occasion placing young and old into the ranks.  Appealing to and blessed by God, who strengthened their arms and demoralized their foes, the people of the kingdom repelled the invaders.

Their new king followed a different formula.  Governed by his appetites and the mirage of perpetual security, he taxed the people and he taxed his army, diverting resources to feed the wanton consumption of his court.  The people came to tolerate and then ape this corruption.  The generation that had deep faith in Christ and reliance upon that faith, passed on to one that at first kept up the forms of religious observance but without the spirituality in worship or soul.  Their focus shifted from heaven to the transient things of mortality.  They had plenty of reason to be unhappy with the king, from the escalation in taxes, to the perversion of the religious leadership, to the degradation in public morals, including the whoredoms and drunkenness.  Yet while there may have been dissatisfaction at first, the lavish public spending and the example of undisciplined revelry became popular, as it so often can.

The situation fit the pattern mentioned by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations, “What Dercyllidas said of the court of Persia may be applied to that of several European princes, that he saw there much splendour but little strength, and many servants but few soldiers.” (Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Vol. I, p.392)

The enemies began to notice, too.  Overcoming years of intimidation from their inexplicable defeats, the very proximate hordes commenced a series of minor raids.  As the scripture record relates,

And it came to pass that [they] began to come in upon his people, upon small numbers, and to slay them in their fields, and while they were tending their flocks.  And [the] king . . . sent guards round about the land to keep them off; but he did not send a sufficient number, and [their enemies] came upon them and killed them, and . . . began to destroy them, and to exercise their hatred upon them.  (Mosiah 11:16, 17)

The king responded to the raiders by sending his army, which “drove them back for a time; therefore, they returned rejoicing . . . saying that their fifty could stand against thousands” (Mosiah 11:18, 19).  Their enemies took them up on the boast.  “And now behold, the forces of the king were small, having been reduced . . .” (Mosiah 19:2)  Their enemies, though, came with their thousands, and the fifty, indeed the king’s entire army, fled at his command; the people exchanged freedom for bondage and poverty.

The message is clear, as intended.  Freedom for the people and for the nation, any nation, resides in the people doing all that they can and should for their defense, and a reliance upon God to reinforce their efforts.  That has been the formula for the United States, from the Revolution to now.  It is the duty of each generation to take the handoff of the responsibility from the previous one and pass it on secure to the next.  Hubris for accomplishments in the past will little overcome provocative weakness.  Maintaining freedom is a gift from God, who will help us to the extent we seek His help and demonstrate that we will do what we can to help ourselves.

Filed under freedom, God, hubris, Jesus Christ, military, morality, national security, peace, The Book of Mormon, war Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

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