A pattern of blessings

The scriptures are full of repeated patterns, types, shadows and symbols. Recognizing those patterns leads to understanding, and allows us to see similar patterns in our own lives.

One of my favorites is the story of the fiery serpents, told in Numbers 21 and repeated three times in the Book of Mormon, too. In each case, we’re told that people could look to the serpent that Moses raised on his staff to be saved from the fiery serpents that were besetting them. The serpent raised on the staff is a type or symbol of the Savior’s sacrifice in our behalf; if we look to Him, we also can live.

I recognized another pattern from my own life in our fast and testimony meeting yesterday. The pattern is long-established and has been taught in the scriptures and in the temple: covenant, obey and receive a blessing. It is a pattern I have taught my children, and that I have regularly taught to youth and adults alike in the church.

As I listened to testimonies yesterday, I remembered a clear example of the pattern from my own life. Between my junior and senior years in high school, I spent part of the summer as an exchange student in Germany. The organization with which I traveled inquired if there were health or religious dietary restrictions that my host family should know about. I indicated on the form that I did not use alcohol, tea or coffee. Frankly, I did so out of habit, not because I had some great moral need to exclude those items from my diet. It was simply what we did (or didn’t do). My testimony at the time was typical of a mid-teen boy: pretty still and small. I was a good kid, but I was unsure at the time about missionary service, I was ho-hum about seminary, and I didn’t go to many mutual activities (though I attended church on Sunday). I was not on fire in any way in the testimony department.

Still, I committed to live the Word of Wisdom on that trip.

When I got there, the family was aware of my desire, including the boy who was my age. He and his friends regularly went out together and, like most German youth, they drank together. Still, they respected my desire not to drink, and we found suitable soft drinks for me. When they drank coffee, I drank herbal tea (and realized how much I hated most herbal tea). My American friends in my group were enjoying the freedom to drink and found me a curiosity, but were tolerant.

The mom of my guest family was quite impressed with my commitment. She and I spoke on more than one occasion about the church and my commitment to it. I had packed along a German Book of Mormon, just in case, and I offered it to her, though she did not accept it, citing her husband’s intolerance. Still the family saw to it that I got to church a couple of times I while I was there.

Toward the end of our trip, the pressure for me to drink increased. I had made plenty of jokes about my not drinking and I was quite good natured about it, but frankly I was pretty curious myself. On one of our final nights, I was getting some pressure to try it “just once,” and I was nearly ready to give in. I was relieved, however, when my “guest brother” stepped in and reminded me that I didn’t have to if I really didn’t want to. I honored my commitment to myself and to my host family not to drink.

Several weeks after coming home, I attended my stake’s youth conference. (My mother had signed me up while I was gone, and I went specifically because she asked me to go; I would not have chosen to go on my own.) At that youth conference, I had a transformational experience. In the priesthood meeting on Sunday morning (our conferences went through Sunday in those days), I felt such a powerful spiritual witness of what we were being taught it was unmistakable, and my heart was changed. Following that conference came a series of decisions that carried me to BYU, on a mission, to a temple marriage and to a life of faithful service in the church.

As I reflected yesterday morning on that series of events, it occurred to me that the spiritual witness came after my keeping a personal covenant to live the Word of Wisdom while I was away from home. I can’t say with certainty that one event depended completely on the other, but surely my willingness to keep my personal covenant opened my heart to the change the Lord offered it when I came home.

Teaching Youth Obedience Without Driving Them Away

I read a post at another blog on “losing” youth (the article is here). The premise was when youth find steady boyfriends or girlfriends we lose them because they are doing something counter to the counsel of the prophets. They are serving two masters. They are cut off. And therefore, we need to do something to keep them from entering into those steady dating relationships.

Here’s what I agree with:

1. The prophets have consistently taught our youth not to date before age sixteen, and not to date steadily until they are ready to consider marriage (after missions for young men). Prophets have been consistent in this counsel for years, and it’s good advice.

2. Dating too early -- and steady dating too early -- can have harmful effects on a young person’s social development, and in the most extreme, can lead to moral transgression. Not only is there the risk that a couple that is too familiar will become too familiar, but by dating exclusively one person, a young person can shut himself or herself off to other friendships and associations.

Here’s what I disagree with:

1. A steady-dating young person is lost. That steady dating young person may be unwise. That person may not have the full social experience that a non-steady dater could have. That person is even living contrary to the teachings of the prophets of our day, and may therefore miss out some blessings. But that person is not lost.

2. Sexual sin, while it may grow out of steady dating, is not the inevitable consequence of steady dating, and steady dating is not the only contributor to sexual sin. It’s true that if I hang around a barber shop long enough, I’m likely to get a haircut, but it’s not true that I will never get a haircut if I never go to the barber shop. Equating sexual sin with steady dating as a fait accompli is harmful to young people.

I left a comment on that blog I read. I suggested that a steady-dating youth is not lost, but it is precisely then that we in the church need to love and support and seek to understand that youth, not to teach him that he is lost and irretrievable.

I’ve mentioned on my blog before hearing Elder Clayton Christensen (then an area authority seventy) speak in our stake and tell us that if we didn’t smell tobacco in our sacrament meetings we were doing something wrong. We desperately want to attract sinners and transgressors to us so that they can feel the Savior’s love and desire to draw nearer to Him. It is the same with our youth. All of our youth, whether they are steady daters, double piercers, short skirted flip-flop wearing girls or unshaven surly boys.

What it comes down to is this, in my view: it’s about how we teach them standards and commandments. If we teach standards as exclusionary markers, we will exclude those young people who are on the fence or already do not comply. If, however, we teach the standards as invitations from a loving Father in Heaven, we may attract some youth to rethink some of their choices and to enjoy the blessings of the atonement.

Don’t get me wrong. I do not mean to counsel the prophets on how they teach the youth. As Elder Holland pointed out not too long ago in conference, general officers of the church need to teach a certain message and a certain standard with absolute clarity. But in the trenches, on the ground, we need to reinforce those teachings with gentleness, kindness, meekness and love unfeigned.

I am peeved by EFY’s requirement to have young people follow a strict dress and grooming code, not because I oppose the dress and grooming code per se, but because it excludes youth that might be close to embracing the dress and grooming code, but are not there yet. (At the same time, I acknowledge that the sponsors of EFY can choose whatever standards they like; I can choose whether I like their choice or not.) I’m glad, therefore, that my stake does not impose an EFY-like dress and grooming code for its youth conference. I’m similarly peeved by a militant application of the principle of white shirts on youth who bless and pass the sacrament. The handbook’s guideline is not militant, but inviting and gentle. In our ward, the application is also gentle, and I’m glad for that. (And almost all of our boys wear white shirts almost all of the time, and, as near as I can tell, don’t make a fuss about it.)

In the end, I think we need to consider our goal: we want to bring our youth to the Savior so that they can enjoy the blessings of His atonement in their lives. We want to invite them to “come and see” for themselves. We want to encourage them to learn from their own experience the truthfulness of the gospel. It is, therefore, in my mind dangerous to establish needless conflict in their lives, suggesting they are lost because for today they make a different choice from established prophetic counsel.

In fact, our youth will choose what they want, no matter what we do. We can teach the standards and model them, and they will see us and see their friends and see all the other influences in their lives and then decide. As important as it is to be clear, it is also important to be inviting and loving as we encourage them to continue to draw near to the Lord. We cannot force them, and if we try, we will fail (if not in the short term, most assuredly in the long term).

"Cleave Unto God"

Recently I came across this phrase in Jacob: “…and cleave unto God as he cleaveth unto you” (Jacob 6:5).

Jacob has already delivered his I-wish-I-didn’t-have-to-talk-about-this speech, and he already shared Zenock’s allegory of the olive trees.

His whole book seems to be about returning. Return from sin. Return from the diaspora. Come home to God.

In this verse, he reminds us that God already cleaves unto us. In the next sentence in this verse, he reminds us that God’s arm of mercy is extended toward us. (And all this prophetically spoken since the Atonement is still to come.)

How do I cleave unto God? Well, studying his word is a great place to start. I had gotten out of the habit of daily personal scripture study and a few weeks ago, egged on (inadvertently, I’m sure) by my teenaged son, I set about to re-read the Book of Mormon again. (I have no idea how many times I’ve read it, but this time is a “fast” read where I’m trying to read multiple chapters a day in order to get connections I don’t get when I go slowly.)

Daily prayer also helps. But real prayer – real communication, including listening for impressions that come in those quiet moments during and after prayer.

Obedience to the next commandment is important to me. Yes, I need to obey all the commandments, but I know that my spirit gets nudged from time to time about what I need to do next (like improving my scripture study a few weeks ago). It’s not so much keeping up the status quo (I haven’t been translated yet, so there’s got to be more I could do), but sorting out what should be next to do.

Living a life of love is probably related to obedience, and could nearly always be the next commandment for me. But it deserves particular mention. Loving my fellow man is Commandment #2, and King Benjamin and the Savior (among others) teach me that as I love my fellow man, I show my love to God. And that love, of course, is not reserved for strangers, but also for those closest to me.

I could go on all day, I suppose. But what I’d like to get to is this question: How do you cleave unto God?

The Iron Rod and the Liahona

In 1967 (the year I was baptized), Richard D. Poll delivered a sermon in the Palo Alto ward in which he coined the terms Iron Rod Saint and Liahona Saint. The sermon was reprinted in Dialogue and the Saints' Herald, and was also later published in the essay anthology A Thoughtful Faith (1986, Philip Barlow, ed.). What follows is one of a few entries on the iron rod, the liahona, and impressions about Brother Poll's essay.

In this month's general conference, I heard two references to the iron rod. I don't know if it was mentioned more than usual, but it was enough that I took notice and went back and counted. Sister Wixom and Sister Cook both spoke of it. And there were no references to the liahona that I noticed.

The mention of the iron rod got me thinking enough that we had a family night on the two this week. We know the iron rod comes from Lehi's vision of the Tree of Life. It is a means of conveying people safely from their starting point through the mist of darkness and along the river of filty water to the Tree of Life where they may partake of the fruit of the tree – the love of God. Nephi learns that the iron rod is the word of God.

In the dream, despite the physical stability and safety of a rod of iron, some still let go of the rod and wander in the mist of darkness or are tempted away by those in the great and spacious building. The faithful needed to do something in order to take advantage of the iron rod – they needed to take hold and continue holding on. If the iron rod is the word of God, it would suggest that we need to take hold of the word (study it, follow it, live it) and keep holding on (endure to the end).

It is interesting to me, however, that once they arrived at the tree and tasted of the fruit, some still fell away mostly because they had, as Lehi recounts, been led away by those of the world in the great and spacious building. Even when we taste the fruit of the love of God we must be watchful, presumably continuing to study, follow and live the word of God and endure to the end.

The liahona -- a two- spindled compass with changing writing -- is different. (It occurred to me as I taught my family about the liahona this past week that cell phones today also have directional indicators and writing that changes regularly.) The liahona appears under mystical circumstances to lead Lehi's family further on their journey in the wilderness, and it operates by the faith and diligence of those who use it. There is, in my reading, no indication that the behavior that typifies holding onto the rod of iron is any different from the behavior that allows the liahona to work.

For me, the iron rod and the liahona are two separate images that teach similar lessons, namely that our arrival at the blessings of God's love come through following His word.

Next: Iron Rod Saints and Liahona Saints

Why do we obey? Another view...

I used to drive over the speed limit almost everywhere I went. An occasional speeding ticket was the price I paid for being able to drive as fast as I wanted. A few years ago, though, I got a couple of speeding tickets on local roads in my community within a week. The fines were not small, and points were tallying up against my license. I decided I needed to slow down. I obeyed the speed limits out of fear.

Now that I'm older (and perhaps even wiser) I also obey the speed limits in my town out of concern for my neighbors. I don't want someone racing down my residential street so fast that a child is hurt, and I certainly don't want to be the speeder who hurts someone.

What about the laws of God? Are we obedient to commandments because we fear punishment, or because we seek blessings? Or because we love God?

The Savior taught that there are really two Big Commandments:
1. Love God.
2. Love your fellowman.

All the other commandments ("the law and the prophets") hang on these two. Even the Ten Commandments can be easily fit into these two broad heading as can other things we're asked to do by the Lord.

Outsiders observe that Mormons have a lot of rules to keep. We often don't talk about it that way inside the church, instead suggesting that the commandments that seem restrictive free us to take advantage of spiritual (and sometimes physical) blessings as a result.

But do we keep those commandments so we can enjoy the blessings? Is that the right motivation? Do we keep them because we fear being without the blessings? Or are we trying to fit in to our Mormon culture?

My own experience is that my obedience is along a continuum. I may start obeying because I want to test a principle, or because I trust the person who teaches me (like my parents). As I obey, I see the blessings for doing so, and I want those blessings to continue. And over time, my love for God increases as I obey Him. And as my love increases, I want to obey Him more.

Conversely, when I'm tempted to do something I shouldn't I may reflect first on the possible lost blessings that would result from disobedience. But my example should be the Savior who resisted temptation out of devotion to His father (see Matthew 4).

In the end, the New Testament reminds us we are not saved by the law. At least as important as strict adherence is our attitude when we obey.

Why do we obey?

I remember as a child reading scripture stories with my father. We read from an old book of Bible stories (I think there were two: one for the Old Testament and one for the New) with wonderful illustrations for each story. The book had been my father's father's as a child, I think. (Or so I thought at the time; the book was too old to me to have just been my father's.)

I don't recall any specific story or picture now so many years later, but my memory is of fantastic, almost scary pictures, depicting an "angry" God of the Old Testament. Whether right or wrong, that sense of an angry God shaped my thinking about the God of the Old Testament for years to come. The movie The Ten Commandments added to that image for me as a child, painted the Old Testament God as powerful and willing to destroy the wicked to save His chosen people. In fact, now I don't believe that view.

When I was on my mission, I read the Old Testament for the first time. I was frankly surprised to read as much about the love of God as I did in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Yes, there are other stories that seem to paint a picture of an angry God: Sodom and Gommorah in which Abraham bargains not to have a city destroyed; Job in which God allows Job to suffer; Joseph's being cast into prison even after making the right choice and running from Potiphar's wife; and stories of non-believers being, as a friend of mine in college used to say, "zapped." But those first two commandments, love of God and love of neighbor, are also clear.

In the New Testament and the Book of Mormon, a different picture of God emerged for me. First, influenced by Joseph's experience in the sacred grove, I understood the difference between God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ – that they were two distinct beings. Further I came to understand that Jesus Christ is the Jehovah of the Old Testament. And taking the New Testament and the Book of Mormon together, I came to understand Him as a loving God, as is His Father.

In John, the Savior teaches, "If ye love me, keep my commandments" (14:15). That there are blessings for obedience to the Lord's commandments is clear, and that lesson is taught in each volume of scripture. While the unschooled children of Israel may have been taught to fear God, and obeyed against the risk of apparent punishment, the higher law teaches us that we obey out of the motivation of the first great commandment, that we love God with all our heart, might, mind and strength.

We live in an economic world which rewards hard work and ingenuity; discipline leads us to success in school and success in the world around us. We look to titans of industry as our role models for economic advancement. And it is not without precedent for religious people also to assume that our good works will yield blessings (and also its converse, that an absence of righteousness may yield misfortune).

Careful observation of the world, however, makes clear that righteousness alone is not the determining factor in garnering the riches of this world. The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. Plenty of unrighteous people make plenty of money, and plenty of righteous people don't.

Some may say that we obey in order to receive a better reward in the next life. While our obedience may lead to more blessings, King Benjamin taught that as soon as we obey the Lord blesses us. Now the Savior did teach that we should lay up treasures in Heaven, not on earth, but again, those Heavenly treasures, though the result of our obedience to His law, should not be our motivation.

Having said that, we're all on a path. And we're all at different places on that path. One of us may be content to obey out love with no thought of other benefit. Another might need some evidence of the wisdom of obedience first, and, after living the law may then develop the more pure love of God (John 7:14 suggests this is possible).

I remember sitting in a discussion in an elders quorum years and years ago. I had just finished my freshman year of college, and I had all the wisdom of a kid who had been ordained for about five months. In the quorum, they were talking about how to encourage more home teaching, and there were many practical ideas, such as encouraging home teaching companions (especially adults and youth paired together) to share an ice cream cone after doing their visits. Thinking back, it was a great suggestion. Not only would it provide a pleasant cap to an evening of visits, but it might encourage an informal relationship between junior and senior companions that could benefit the junior companion in the long run. Well, at the time, filled with idealism and a fair amount of self righteousness, I suggested that we shouldn't need ice cream to reward us for a job well done, that we ought to be motivated by our love for the Lord.

I was right on one level, of course. Our motivation for obedience should be our love for the Lord. But our other motivation should be that second great commandment: to love our neighbor as ourselves. And in showing love to our neighbor, we might also eat an ice cream cone or two.

Why do you obey?