Conference questions and answers

I came to conference with questions this time around. There were three specific ones that I had in my head and in my heart. I had not written them down, but I knew what they were.

Similar answers came to each question, but not in the same talks.

It has caused me to reflect on how my process of receiving answers to prayers works. Doctrine & Covenants gives us some clues to general processes in the Lord’s instructions to Oliver Cowdrey in sections 6, 8 and 9. You know them: ponder, pray, think about your own solutions and your own process, feel peace in heart and mind, feel a burning in the bosom, and remember what you’ve learned.

Joseph Smith taught this about divine instruction:

When you feel pure intelligence flowing into you, it may give you sudden strokes of ideas, so that by noticing it, you may find it fulfilled the same day or soon; (i.e.) those things that were presented unto your minds by the Spirit of God, will come to pass; and thus by learning the Spirit of God and understanding it, you may grow into the principle of revelation, until you become perfect in Christ Jesus.”
(Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [1976], 151.)

I’ve written before that my answers to prayer rarely come during the prayer, almost never during the first prayer.

As I prepared for this particular conference, I had three broad questions in my mind. One concerned one of my children, one concerned my job, and one concerned a health concern of mine. These are not questions specific to conference, since these three items have been occupying my prayers off and on for months. But I looked at conference as one opportunity among many to receive guidance.

What I found is that guidance came. Some of it came in overarching themes, and some in specific quotations. A particular sentence in a particular talk struck me in a particular way. A story related by a speaker related to one of my issues. Recurring and connecting themes from several talks united to offer instruction and comfort.

In the end, most of my answers were comforting answers rather than go-and-do answers this time. That’s not always so. But this time I was counseled to be patient and to trust that the Lord can do His work. He has a way to accomplish what He needs to accomplish. That message is reassuring to me.

As I reflected on the Lord’s instructions through the prophet Joseph, it occurred to me that the Lord did whisper peace to my heart and mind. The Lord did cause my bosom to burn as I pondered ideas I had about my questions. And I felt what I assume is the pure intelligence, the sudden strokes of ideas that Joseph described. Not everything happened at once. And I am not sure I recognized each of those events as they happened, some only were clearer after the fact. But I do know that answers came.

These particular questions are still too tender for me to discuss in great detail, which makes this essay less readable; for that I’m sorry. But hopefully my writing will encourage you to think about how conference spoke to you – or that is, how the Lord spoke to you through conference.

I've got questions. They've got answers

Just a quick post today.

I mentioned in my pre-conference post that I was, for the first time that I can remember, taking specific questions into conference with me. I told you I'd report back what happened.

Well, Saturday Morning and Priesthood, that's what.

I'm still not telling you what my questions were.

(My 11-year old shared her questions with me, but I refused to share mine with her. I told her maybe one of my questions was about her... Mine weren't about her (and I told her that), by the way, but I also didn't feel comfortable sharing them with her last night when she asked. But we did both observe that we did receive answers to our questions, and that was important to her.)

My questions were very specific, and the answers were, too. Some were frighteningly specific (frightening because of the work ahead of me).

I'll blog more on conference later, but I'll add this:

As usual I took notes on each talk. Last night my lovely wife and I discussed our impressions and what things we ought to begin to think about for our family as a result. It was, frankly, not a completely easy conversation. The work of gospel living is not always easy for me, especially when I see my shortcomings as clearly as in the light of a conference weekend.

But from my notes I've generated a bit of a punch list for myself (no, that's not a list that gives my 15-year old license to punch me; it's a stepped-up to-do/to-consider/to-meditate list).

I have plenty to do.

A lost key and an answer to prayer (but not the one you might expect)

This weekend was a tense on for my dear wife.

First, some background: My wife does not like to do things in front of other people. She does not like to teach or speak or perform. She really doesn’t like it when people focus their attention on her. (When I say “really doesn’t like” it’s only because my lovely wife doesn’t like to use the word hate.) And yet, this weekend she had two events that were pretty stress-inducing. (And by stress inducing, I mean, sleep-depriving, stomach-churning anxiety.)

On Friday, she had to perform in her piano masters class. Yep. She doesn’t like to perform, but she’s in a piano masters class. She’s upgrading her credentials as a piano teacher, and the performance class is part of the training. Oh, did I mention she’s also one of our ward organists, and a really good one, at that? (Just because she gets anxious performing in front of others doesn’t mean she doesn’t do it.)

On Saturday she had to present at a stake Relief Society leadership meeting. She’s a counselor in the stake RS presidency and had to speak in the “larger” group and in her smaller group with “her” counselors from around the stake. She knows all these sisters because as a presidency they visit the wards in the stake several times a year. But the stake president was going to be there, too. And she was really nervous about speaking in front of him. (I should point out that our stake president is wonderful; he's our former home teacher, our former bishop, and his kids take piano lessons from my wife. But he's The Stake President.)

Saturday morning we also had some complicated car gymnastics common to families with more than one person in them. Daughter had to be at a babysitting class at nine. Dad had to be at church at nine. Mom had to be at church at nine. Daughter is 11, so either Mom or Dad had to drive her. The plan was that Mom would drop off daughter and get to church a few minutes late, but in more than enough time for her leadership meeting at 10.

Then Mom lost her car key. (And, no, we don’t have a spare; someone lost that one months ago.)

(Ok, here’s where one might expect we all gathered in prayer and then someone got up and walked right to the key. But I told you already, it’s not the answer you’d expect.)

We all looked for the key. We retraced steps. We checked coat pockets. We looked in the trash. We ran out of time. Finally we (and I must say, we were all pretty level headed through all of this -- another miracle, but that’s a story for another day) decided we’d all go together in my car.

We managed to get daughter to her class on time. My lovely wife and I then drove to the church. On the way, she expressed her concern about speaking in front of the stake president. She even said, “It’s silly, I know. It shouldn’t matter to me what he thinks.”

I thought for a moment and then said, “You know, he didn’t call you. The Lord did.”

She said, “You’re right. And He already knows all my weaknesses. And He still called me.”

It was a ten-second exchange. And yet, it helped my lovely wife’s anxiety slip away.

We were both late for our 9:00 commitments, but it was ok. There were hiccups in the presentation at the leadership meeting (AV and computer equipment didn’t work the way it was supposed to), but it was ok.

After the leadership meeting, we renewed the search for the key. Finally my wife found it. In the pocket of the coat she’d worn the day before. It was a different coat than she had worn every other day this past week, and she’d forgotten that she wore it until after her leadership meeting.

My wife told our son that she believed her losing the key was an answer to prayer. She had prayed that she could calm down and do what the Lord wanted her to do in her leadership meeting. Our conversation in the car helped her to do that. Had she not lost the key, we would have travelled to church in separate cars, and we would not have had the conversation we did.

Thanks for those tender mercies.

In the quiet heart is hidden sorrow that the eye can’t see

I am grateful for quiet answers to fervent prayers.

Answers that come as whispers, barely perceptible, but still essential to discovering a next step.

Answers that provide just a shade of comfort in the glaring light of adversity.

Answers that come in the form of a phone call, an otherwise casual conversation, a hand offered in fellowship that turns out to be a rescuing hand.

Answers that come in an expression of love from a church leader.

Answers that provide someone to comfort me when I stand in need of comfort.

Answers that illuminate possibilities that had previously been hidden.

Answers that reveal just one next step in the darkness, even when I’d prefer to see a lighted path.

Answers that are only clear in retrospect, which, when taken together, make clear that God is in His Heaven.

Answers that, while they do not solve a problem, still ease the burden.

Answers that come in familiar strains of music and oft-quoted verses of scripture when I need them the most.

Answers that prepare me to be aware of others so that I might comfort those who stand in need of comfort.

I am grateful for Him who sees my heart even when others cannot.

The Promise

In our family scripture reading we finally got to the end of the Book of Mormon (this time it took us about 15 months). As we read Moroni's promise, we talked about all the steps Moroni wants us to take in order to gain a witness of that great book. It's not the simple, "If you were lucky enough to get this book, ask God if it's true and He'll tell you through the Holy Ghost." Here are the key verses:

Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts. And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things (Moroni 10:3-5).

So first, of course, we must read.

And we must remember God's mercy through the ages, from the creation to now. That presupposes that we have some knowledge of God's mercy during that time. We must become acquainted with that mercy (some of which we get from reading the Book of Mormon, of course).

We need to ponder that mercy in connection with our reading of the Book of Mormon. To me this means that I must ask myself how the Book of Mormon is a continuing sign of God's mercy. How does it demonstrate His mercy to me?

Then when we receive these things (the book, an understanding of the mercy?), THEN we ask God in the name of Christ if these things are not true. I was always bugged by that wording as a missionary. Why should I have people ask if it's NOT true? I wonder sometimes if this makes that particular question more of an offhanded one: go ahead and ask if it isn't true, as if that isn't even a possibility.

Ask with a sincere heart. I can only judge that in myself, but a clue of my sincerity comes in the next phrase: with real intent. What do I intend to do with the knowledge I'm about to receive? If I intend to change my life because of it, then it seems I'm sincere. If I have no intention to change, then how real is my intent?

I must have faith in Christ. Faith is, of course, a motivating force in our lives, encouraging us to act according to the object of our faith. In this case, that faith is to be in Jesus Christ – as testified by the Book of Mormon, I assume. With that faith I would look forward to, among other things, the answer that the Book of Mormon IS true.

If I meet all those conditions, then the Holy Ghost will bear witness to me.

In subsequent verses we're taught to deny not the power of God, the revelatory power of the Holy Ghost and the gifts of the spirit which manifest themselves differently to different people. To me, Moroni says: Do not deny that an answer is possible. Have faith that one is possible. It will come.

It has for me.

Bargaining with God

It was the early 1990's. I was living in Hiroshima, Japan and traveling to Seoul, Korea on business. About halfway through the one hour flight I was sure I was having a heart attack. I couldn't be having a heart attack, I thought – I was in my early 30's. But pressure around my heart was building and the pain was incredible. Which arm is supposed to go numb? I couldn't remember, and neither hand was tingling. Or maybe they were. I wasn't at my most rational.

As my pulse raced and my breathing became shallower, I began to bargain with God. Heavenly Father, let me land safely and I'll do anything. Anything. I was willing to promise whatever I had to in order to be saved from a heart attack on a Korean airliner far from everything I knew and loved.

The pain subsided. I could breathe again. My heart rate returned to normal. There was a feeling like bruising behind my sternum. But by the time I deplaned, I was, as far as I could tell, fine. I was to be in Korea just overnight, and I'd be back home in Hiroshima the next evening for dinner. I finished the trip without incident, and without ever finding out what caused the pain in my chest.

A couple of weeks later I had a repeat experience. I was waiting to go into a meeting after lunch. Same chest pain. Same racing heartbeat. Same panic. I began to think about what I'd done that day. I realized I had eaten a Japanese lunch and I had eaten some horseradish – something I never have liked, but which I'd eaten by mistake. Then I thought back to that Korean Air flight to Seoul. Had there been horseradish in the sauce on the sandwich I had on the plane? Probably. I then avoided horseradish and avoided another repeat performance.

I described my pain to my dad and he said he had the same thing – a hiatal hernia. As we discussed it, I realized this is what had happened to me, and it must have been somehow brought on by the horseradish. (I had horseradish again several years later back in the US – it was in a sauce at a restaurant – and I had the same reaction.)

Well, the health history is to illustrate a point larger than my weak constitution. In my first moment of distress, I prayed. And I prayed specifically to be delivered from what I perceived to be danger. And I bargained with the Lord.

While I am a fan of prayer, and a fan of covenants in which we make commitments to the Lord, in this case my prayer of desperation, however laudable on the one hand (for instance, at least I thought to pray, and I did have faith that God could deliver me if He wanted to), was probably misguided. Not because the source of the pain was a temporary allergic reaction, but because I was trying to tempt God by bargaining my own righteousness for my relief.

I should have been willing to give my righteousness anyway (and, by the way, I think I am doing that, even in my own imperfect way). King Benjamin (Mosiah 2) reminds us that when we obey a commandment, we're instantly blessed, so it's not like we have some bank account full of "obediences" that we can draw on when it's convenient to do so. No, the point is that we are not ever in a position to bargain with God.

It's true, God tells us He's bound when we do what he says (D&C 82:10), and it's true that there are blessings associated with obedience (D&C 130:20-21), but we don't ever get to set the terms. King Benjamin reminds us that we are not in a position of power in our relationship to God.

Here are some lessons I take away from this and other experiences I've had in connection with these principles:

1. I don't get to set the terms of my relationship with God. He's in charge, and it's up to me to find Him. (He knows where I am already, and the scriptures teach that his hand is always stretched out to me.)
2. I don't get to pick my blessings. He has already decided what blessings are associated with obedience, and it's up to Him to sort that out. It's not like going to the prize booth at Chuck E. Cheese with my game tickets and getting to pick the blessings I want.
3. I do better when I seek to find His will for me, rather than giving Him my shopping list of what I want.
4. He really does bless me, and it is good for me to recognize His hand in my life.

In that regard, my prayers about my "heart attack" were answered. I did land safely. And over time I came to an understanding of the cause of my pain and I learned to avoid it. I suppose that all might have happened just the same way if I had not prayed. But I'm still glad I prayed on that airplane. Just as my children learned to walk by stumbling a few times, so do I.

I know what I know. Do I know what I don't know? And is it ok if I don't know?

In this post I plow some ground that I've been over before; thanks for you patience.

Last week I got a little heated under my collar at a discussion I participated in with R. Gary on a thread at Clean Cut's blog. Without discussing the particular point of doctrine, here's the gist:

R. Gary advanced an argument, based on statements of modern prophets. Fair enough. I sustain the prophets, too, and I'm ok with looking to them for wisdom and truth – in fact, I encourage it, and do it in my own life, too. (And I encourage you to do the same!)

But R. Gary and I didn't interpret the particular quotation in the same way. I asked questions. R. Gary responded openly and in a very straightforward manner based on his understanding. And I was offended that I felt he suggested that I was something less than faithful.

My characterization of his response to me was unfair. I should not have taken offense. R. Gary is as near as I can tell a faithful latter-day saint, and is welcome to his views, which he clearly has carefully studied out in his own mind and balanced against public statements of the brethren.

I admit it. I'm not as certain as R. Gary on the point of doctrine he cites. I agree that he has a list of quotations. And I understand where he is coming from. But I don't agree with his conclusion. We are simply not on the same page. That doesn't mean he is wrong. I know I'm not right, because I don't know the answer, yet. I am still very unsettled on the question.

But the conflict points out to me an interesting possibility in the church, and that is that if we take a collection of members, it's highly likely that we're in different places in our understanding of doctrine. And that should be no surprise, because we each have different experiences. Some are new to the church; others are more seasoned. Some have intense interest in finer points of doctrine. Others are content to lead good lives, keep the commandments, and not sweat the details of those finer points. Some put questions "on the shelf" for later consideration (I'm a fan of that method, by the way, as it's worked well for me in the past), and others just aren't interested.

I heard Elder Theodore M. Burton speak on my mission. He was a member of the Seventy at the time, and he suggested that our testimony is like a circle. He said if our testimony is small, the circumference of the circle – the border of our testimony – is also small. We know what we know, but we don't know what we don't know. As our testimony grows, he said, the border of our testimony also grows, and we become increasingly aware of what we don't know. And since we know more, we become aware that there is much more that we do not understand.

This teaching has helped me to keep questions that I've had in check over the years. I'm able to be comforted by what I do know, by past spiritual experiences, by the confirming witness that comes sometimes when I sit in sacrament meeting or in the temple, by the truths I've been taught from the scriptures, and by the confirming witness I have as I sustain church leaders.

That I have continuing questions about certain points of doctrine or history does not make me less faithful. For me, the presence of questions means that I am still seeking, still trying to learn, hopefully while doing my best to live the gospel as I should. If I know these things about myself, then I can also assume them for others who are still learning, too.

As for the last question in my title – is it ok if I don't know? I think so. After all, if I knew everything, there would be no need for faith.

Adam and Eve as Co-Parents

I remember a friend of mine telling me of an exchange I found unbelievable, but I knew it was not only true, it probably had happened many times.

It seems they were having a discussion in their priesthood quorum about D&C 121 (where we're told how to exercise proper persuasion as priesthood holders – kindness, gentleness, meekness, love unfeigned, etc. -- see verses 41-42). When it came to the "reproving betimes with sharpness" (v. 43) verse, a brother said out loud that this verse gave him license to yell at his wife when she was out of line.

As my friend told me this story, I reflected on some solid teaching I received on my mission from Theodore M. Burton, then a member of First Quorum of the Seventy who instructed our zone conference. He said as a chemist he likened the "sharpness" in that verse to the sharpness of a clear photograph, not the sharpness of an acid. That image has always stuck with me, as has his rush to the second part of that verse ("showing forth an increase of love").

I remembered this story the other day as I read in Moses 4:22 the Lord's instructions to Eve that her husband was to "rule" over her. Someone in our class recalled President Kimball's discussion on that point suggesting that the word "preside" could well replace the word rule.

But the real nugget for me came in the next chapter, where we read in verse 4, "And Adam and Eve, his wife, called upon the name of the Lord, and they heard the voice of the Lord from the way toward the Garden of Eden, speaking unto them…" I was struck that Adam and Eve were praying together, and that they received divine guidance together.

The Family, A Proclamation to the World teaches, "In these sacred responsibilities [of presiding and nurturing], fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners."

The cool thing for me in the Moses verses is that Adam and Eve approached their condition together: they prayed together and they received inspiration together. A great model to emulate, if you ask me.

- Paul

Answers to Prayer

Returning to the topic of prayer: In an early post, I talked about Joseph Smith’s rather dramatic answer to his first prayer spoken out loud: he received a visitation from God the Father and Jesus Christ. Subsequently, Joseph received other heavenly visitations as a result of his prayers, and those visitations played key roles in the restoration of the Lord’s church on earth.

When I served as a missionary in Germany, we taught a gentleman the gospel. He was thoughtful and studious, and ended up not joining the church. When we spoke to him about his decision, he said he had prayed as he walked through a park in a very calm part of the city we lived in. And, interestingly, he prayed specifically not to have a visitation of any kind. At the time I thought that an odd request for at least two reasons. First, it had never occurred to me that I might have a heavenly visitation as a result of my prayers, and second, I would have welcomed the certainty that such a visitation would have brought.

But my prayers, especially when I was a young man, were rarely answered as I expected, or hoped. As a freshman at BYU, I made a half-hearted effort to scale Squaw Peak behind the Provo Temple in an effort to have an “Enos” experience. (Enos is a young man in the Book of Mormon who prays all day and into the night to gain forgiveness for his sins and hears the voice of the Lord.) Looking back, I’m astounded at the hubris that I should dictate to the Lord how He should reveal himself to me.

That prayer was answered, but days later, and in a rather specific way (to me) so that I knew it was an answer to that prayer, though no one else would have known. It was in that answer, given in the Lord’s way and time, that signaled to me what tender mercies the Lord held for me, regardless of my youthful demands that He present Himself on my terms.

Over the years my prayers have changed from lists of wants (albeit righteous ones, I think) with a perfunctory “Thy will be done” tacked on at the end to seeking greater understanding of His will for me and greater acceptance of what comes in my life and more help in knowing how I can and should respond to events I do not control. I find greater peace in my more recent prayers.

It is not a lack of faith that drives me to less demanding prayers. In fact, I think it is greater faith that does so. My doing so is driven by a conviction that my Father in Heaven loves me, and I can have faith enough to trust his promises that He will care for me in the way I need it the most.

- Paul