Manly Man Training #19: Obey at your own risk!

Often we hear about we are being risky if we choose to do something that isn't quite right. We might hear: disobey at your own risk or enter at your own risk. In reality the opposite is true as well: Obey at your own risk!

What is it we risk exactly when we choose to obey the gospel and do and become what the words of scripture and prophets both living and dead have encouraged us to become?

A young man once said to me that the church wanted everyone to become the same, cookie cutter Mormons so to speak. I could see how he came to that conclusion, because he was so used to seeing Priesthood holders coming to church wearing a white shirt and tie, typically with dark pants. Those who differentiated themselves wore a suit or maybe a bow tie at the most. In reality he was seeing only the outside part of the people. What would he think if he saw how people in other countries dressed to come to church? What about in India, or Samoa or even Thailand where their lack of tie, or their shirts in native fabrics or even wearing a lava lava?

But the real individuality that we have and that the Lord wants us to maintain and use in His work is our inner individuality.  When we get a little experience and are attentive, we see so many times in life that the Lord orchestrates opportunities for each of us to use our talents and individual strengths and even weaknesses and oddities for His work.  Missionaries are called to places where they can find and will be accepted by certain individuals.  People are brought into my own life because I have the ability to say something they need to hear in just the way they will listen, even if it is sometimes a little unorthodox.  The Lord seems to want to strengthen us in the very ways that make us unique.  We are valued by the Lord for the things that make us individuals.

So what are the risks?  Well it boils down to the fact that when you choose to obey the Lord, it is at your own risk because it will change you.  Minimally it will take other options off the table for that time period.  Secondly the experience will teach you things that you didn't previously know or understand.  It will give you experience to consider in the future and as a result of these experiences it will give you feelings and knowledge that will tend to carry you further along the path to God. 

So you risk parts of yourself that are not in conformity with Heavenly Father.  You risk sin or support for sin, or ideas that are not supportive of faith, hope and charity.  You risk rebelliousness and pig headedness, you risk being wrong more often and hurting and harming people around you.  You risk losing non celestial pursuits.  You risk being comfortable around people who are doing wrong.  You risk being able to see sin or doing sin without concern or caring.  You risk losing your ability to see someone hurt without a desire to help. 

But you do not risk your individuality!  You do not risk the things that make you who you are and the ideal recognizable pure D you.  Indeed you find the best you, the most you, that you can be.  You become and really accentuate all that makes you yourself. 

Elder James E. Faust once said, "when obedience becomes our goal, it is no longer an irritation, instead of a stumbling block, it becomes a building block....Obedience leads to true freedom.  The more we obey revealed truth, the more we become liberated." (Ensign May, 1999, p. 47 & 45)

Its a risk--go on, take it!

Mom's big love

My Mom has been a good example to me over the years.  My Mother made sure I knew she loved me.  That was one of her strengths: that not only did love me but was able to deduce how I felt love and she loved me in a way that I felt she loved me.  (Some other time maybe I'll have to blog about the difference between being loved and feeling loved).  I felt loved. 

It is certainly possible, since I am the youngest, that I benefitted from her experience with my siblings.  My Mom is good at loving other people, beyond the family, too.  Oh, don't get me wrong, she sometimes gets irritated, she sometimes says the wrong thing, she can be stubborn whether for good or ill, but if we look past those few occasions then I think we can easily see that her ability to love and care for others is one of her greatest strengths.  About four years ago she made a decision that would end up changing several people's lives, some of them drastically. 

I'll take credit for getting things started like this: my family had over the previous 3 years had a couple of foreign exchange students, one from Russia and another from Mexico.  We really enjoyed each of those young ladies and had positive experiences with few difficulties along the way.  So I suggested to my Mom that she consider having an exchange student.  I could tell the idea appealed to her but she was concerned that a young teenager (ages 16-18) wouldn't want to live with such an old person with no exciting teenagers to hang out with.  I think secretly she wondered if she could handle having a teenager to be responsible for again.  These two concerns were not so easily worked out because they were in her head and would take some actual time working with the student to get over.

She chose a young woman from Russia, she went by the American name of Anny despite her name being Anya.  She was popular in Russia, with a boyfriend, a brother and parents and grandparents that were all very close.  Anny of course knew nothing of the Gospel and my Mom had told her some about it prior to her coming, but needless to say it was hard to comprehend hearing it in English and she didn't understanding much of the impact it would have on her life. Mom told me later that she chose Anny because she had a feeling that she should choose her.

Anny came and soon was learning the various ways that the gospel impacts our lives on a daily basis.  Things such as modesty, daily observance of activities to turn our thoughts and hearts to Christ, several times weekly church attendance, and caring for others.  Despite the foreign situation both culturally, religiously and family, Anny adjusted.  Because my Mother loved her so easily and willingly Anny was able to adjust very smoothly and learn the lessons of "why" instead of just doing what she had to in a new place. 

Mom loved her and taught her, calmly (okay, the occasional frustration), and in as much detail as she needed.  As a matter-of-fact, Anny ended up getting just what she needed from an elderly lady and Mom had another opportunity to do just was God made her best at.  I think God using Mom this way helped her to realize that she still had value in this life. 

Over time Anny loved going to church, made friends with teens and adults alike.  Anny participated willingly in scripture reading and study in the home.  Anny attended not only Sunday services and Wednesday services but also early morning seminary services as well. 

As time was growing to an end, Anny expressed some interest in being baptized.  Mom and I felt like she needed to return home to her family and decide if baptism was what she wanted.  After all the church wasn't even available in her town.  It seemed to Mom that she would appreciate the same consideration if it was her child in a foreign country.  So Anny returned to Russia.  In a few months Annie returned back to Mom's to attend college locally and requested to be baptized.  I agreed to do that baptism for her. 

She was happy.  She loved the gospel because she had been loved by a master (if I got the benefit of my Mom's learning from my siblings then Anny got even more because of what my Mom had learned from me).  Anny decided she wanted to go to BYU and eventually was accepted there.  Anny embraced the gospel and the gospel embraced her.  Her family was supportive all along the way.

One big day for Mom was when Anny went to the DC temple to receive her endowment in preparation for getting married in the Portland temple.  Anny with her family from Russia, was here along with Dane and some ward members.  That was a big day for Mom. 

As you know, all good true stories must have multiple new beginnings, and this is true with my Mom and Anny's story.  Anny met Dane, who coincidentally has served a mission in Russia so he spoke the language that her parents know and can communicate well with them.  Anny and Dane were married in the Portland Temple last summer.  We traveled there and experienced the excitement along with them.  Dane's family is quite large with several children (I never was able to count them all but I am thinking 13).  So Anny is getting accustomed to such a large family when she had no experience with any family larger than two children in Russia.  Anny's family of her Mom and Dad and brother were able to come for her wedding. 

Dane's family loved her brother Anton who stayed for a couple months with Dane's family and joined the church.  Anny's parents understand the gospel more than ever and who knows that when the time is right and missionaries finally move into their town in Russia but...

Anton, Anny's Dad, Dane, Anny, Mom, Anny's Mom

Anny's family took to Mom and responded to her love as easily as did Anny.  They expressed appreciation and honored Mom during their stay here.  Anny's parents paid my Mom a huge complement when they said, "We raised her for sixteen years but you are the one who helped her become the person she is today."

This story continues on and hasn't stopped and I don't expect that it will.  You see, Anny has two families now, well I guess even three.  She has her parents and brother, my Mom and the rest of us, and now of course Dane's family as well.  So a Russian girl who had a desire to learn English well, ends up a die hard Mormon with American roots dug deep into both ends of the country and ever deeper in the gospel soil.

A Mom's love can work miracles.  My Mom's love has done so more than once.   

Manly Man Training #14: thoughts determine destiny

We men can be interesting creatures.  Whether influenced by DNA, family training or cultural norms we often learn to keep our thoughts to ourselves and not share them often.  This can impact our lives in a variety of ways.  Many of us have learned that if we choose to keep our thoughts to ourselves that it can often get in the way of our relationships with our wife, if married, or interactions with ladies in general.  When we keep our thoughts to ourselves we don't get practice sharing them and when we enter a relationship with a lady and find that sharing thoughts is an important part of relationships, then we often find ourselves fumbling and inadequate. 

Related to that is we can learn to wall off our thoughts to others and keep them private creating a false sense that we can think whatever we want without causing harm to others.  This is clearly false.  Despite any proficiency that we develop in sealing in our harmful thoughts, those thoughts will leak out in our actions, body language and attitudes.  Thoughts determine what we become and who we drag down along with us, or who we lift up as we go along through life. 

In essence our thoughts become the breeding ground of all of our future and what we can become.  It's not just a case of thinking good or bad things it can also be thinking productive and righteous things or thinking valueless and worthless things.  If our time is spent thinking things of little worth then our thoughts are not germinating righteous behaviors enough or at least as often as would be beneficial in our lives and in the lives of others.  Consequently we become a person who isn't as dependable to the Lord because of our wasting our minds time in thoughts of little worth. 

Robert L. Millet says it this way: "Obviously how we think and what we think about will determine our future, even our destiny.  God and his chosen servants have entreated the men of the Church, those called out of the world, to think eternally as they act daily.  When we think eternal thoughts, our actions will be lasting and worthwhile.  When we think eternally, our impact on our homes and our society will be permanent.  When we think eternally, the things that matter most will never be sacrificed to the things that matter least.  And when we view our lives from an eternal vantage point, we will recognize that we are indeed agents on the Lord's errand; we will then do things his way." (Men of Valor p. 34-35)

In Doctrine and Covenants section 64:29: "Wherefore, as ye are agents, ye are on the Lord's errand; and whatever ye do according to the will of the Lord is the Lord's business."

As manly men we are recruits of the Lord, consequently we are his agents and we need to do things his way.  Of course we will take years to learn and hone those abilities, but if we know now an area we should change then we need to take steps to make that change or be held accountable not only for what we are doing and not doing, but for the good that making that change would lead to in our lives and the lives of others. 

So, bottom line, our thoughts need to be of eternal and lasting things, so that our attitudes and actions will be of eternal and lasting things.  Please make adjustments as necessary. 

"As a man thinketh in his heart so is he."  Proverbs 23:7

Homework

Look into what an affirmation is (if you don't already know) and develop 5 affirmations based on eternal values that will guide you in becoming a righteous agent of our God. 

Manly Man Training #13: Testify

When I was a child listening on Fast and Testimony Sunday I had a hard time connecting with what people were saying.  I needed something to help me pay attention and not get energetic and rambunctious.  So I started keeping a tally of the number of men versus women bearing their testimony to keep me somewhat focused.  I quickly noticed that repeatedly, month after month, women were more likely to bear their testimony.  I began to wonder why that was the case.  For years that seemed to be the case.  Why were more women bearing their testimony than men, I wondered.  Was there some difference between men and women that led to this inequality month after month?
In the past couple of years I have noticed that more men are bearing their testimony as well as more boys and young men.  The numbers have equalized by my counting and it is not uncommon for men to actually outnumber the ladies in bearing their testimony. 

Manly men need to bear their testimony.  Of course I don't mean just in Fast and Testimony meeting, but in life.  Men need to bear their testimony to their family.  Manly Men need to make a stand and declare what they stand for.  I remember hearing a talk in the last couple of years about the importance of fathers bearing their testimony to their children and I decided to write mine and put it in a book for my children.  The example of a man bearing his testimony both in his own home to his children as well as in the meeting are important to his family and to other observers. Just the action of bearing our testimony can influence others for good, irrespective of what we say.   It could be that there is a little boy like me that is keeping track and wondering why a testimony is important especially for a man.   

When I was a teenager it became accepted practice, for a while, that if one of us stood up that we could encourage a specific individual to do so after us.  So a teenager might stand to bear their testimony and mention a friend in the congregation and encourage them to bear their testimony too, while at the pulpit.  Of course that would be embarrassing but we figured if we had the courage to go up and do it then our friends should too.  I believe our action of verbalizing our testimony in a meeting helps others think that they could do the same thing, we literally encourage them by our example.

It is important that men strengthen their testimony by bearing it as well as living it.  I think I understand how that works now.  If we develop a testimony but keep it to ourselves, it tends to never get strong enough to have power in our lives or other's lives.  Similar to faith without works, there are action parts to the testimony.  If we put our testimony into words it requires that we think about it and that process of thinking and delivering helps define what our testimony is and isn't to ourselves as well as others.  The delivery also serves as a declaration of our belief and makes others aware of it and consequently we can receive support in living up to it. 

In a marriage our wife likes to hear us bear our testimony.  She knows our beliefs probably more intimately than any other person and would be the one who could most accurately measure our testimony, outside or ourselves.  She will appreciate hearing our words of testimony especially when they match our actions that she sees in our life.  The testimony we bear verbally as well as the one we show through our actions in our life, and especially in our home, will bear great dividends.  It will assure and comfort our family that we are trying to do the things that they know we should and that we likely teach them that they should do.  Our actions in this regard strengthen our words and indicate that they are truly meaningful to us, consequently making them powerful to our families and friends.  [Naturally if we tell our testimony at church and then do not show it at home then those actions will weaken the power of our words and weaken the faith and hope of our families.]

So as a Manly Man please bear your testimony of the Savior, the gospel, the church, the importance of families and the reality of a meaningful daily religion and it's power to help us in our daily trials.  The dividends are that your family will be strengthened and be more unified in the Gospel and that other people will be influenced for good through the Spirit of your testimony. 

 

To Be or not to be?

Lynn G. Robbins of the Quorum of the Seventy made some remarks in conference that initially intrigued me and since have really stuck with me.  He talked about being and doing.  It is about who you are as a person versus your behavior.  He pointed out that these two things are different.  That what you do isn't as important as who you are.  Or more directly what you do isn't necessarily representative of who you are.  He suggests that our emphasis be put on becoming more like the Savior and that will lead to actions that are indeed more like him.  Our behavior will change to represent who we are as we become a better more Christ-like person. 

We have often been encouraged to do what we are asked of the Lord willingly.  In essence Elder Robbins is telling us to directly work on and change our inner selves and our outer self will change along with us to reflect who we really are. 

It reminded me of times in my life where I had known the right thing to do but didn't want to do it.  I even consciously knew it was right and knew I should want to do it, but alas I didn't really want to do it.  Ultimately my way of handling that conflict was that I wanted to want to do the right thing but I wasn't at that point yet.  Over time my wanting to want to be better helped prepare me to be the person inside that would lead to the actions I knew were right but did not yet do.    When our character and our actions match, peace and happiness are much more achievable!

Elder Robbins points out we make lists of things to do, but not lists of things to be.  He explains that we can check off things on the to do list when they are done, but we can't check off things to be, because they continue and don't end.  Consequently being is a lifetime commitment rather than doing, which is a time frame commitment.  Interestingly we complain about some commitments required or encouraged by the church (i.e. the time it takes to move a neighbor, the time to prepare for an activity or a lesson, and so forth) so we can go back home to remain the person we were without any permanent change.  It could possibly inhibit permanent change because we feel like we have done enough for the moment.  Permanent change is of course what the Lord is requiring. 

I couldn't help but wonder though if doing good things in a hypocritical way couldn't eventually lead us back to being what the Lord wants us to be, or at least encourage us to become better?  It didn't seem to work too well for the hypocrites of Christ's time.  It seems that if we choose to refrain from doing good because we don't feel like it then we are missing out on critical experience, so it must be worthwhile in some way or form to do the right thing even when we are not doing it willingly, or with the right spirit. 

I realize now that his talk was primarily a parenting talk but as I heard it I understood it as a motivational and explanatory, nuts and bolts, kind of talk for individuals.  (Kind of on the order of the book, The Bonds That Make Us Free by Terry Warner) When I read and studied the talk I realized it has huge value as a parenting talk and could be developed into a parenting class by leading a group in finding practical concrete ways of implementing what he teaches.

How do we approach the "to be" part of his talk.  How do we influence who we are becoming?  The world would like us to believe that we are developing but there isn't a whole lot we can do about who we are the world says.  The world would say that we cannot directly influence our behavior.  Elder Robbins teaches us that being taught and hearing (responding) to the word of God can impact who we are.  You see we believe in change, even a mighty change and that all are capable of that change to grow toward being like Christ. 

This talk is awesome!  Learn to be and not just do.

The Great ones will be lost no more

Sometimes it seems that we lose people in their prime.  I don't mean physical prime but rather spiritual prime.  I am thinking of some discussions my mother and I have had over the years.  She is in her 80's now and she sometimes comments that it is good that people get old and less attractive by the worlds standards, less able to do a variety of things due to physical decay and less able to do some things mentally.  She says that if that were not the case that the young people would never have the opportunity to come into their own and to be required to be responsible and learn.  It might be easy for them to be lazy and not accept the growth opportunities that they need just as their elders have needed them in their own day. 

I get the feeling that my mother knows that to be correct but that she still misses some things from her youth.  I am thirty years behind my mother but am beginning to see the changes that remind me of days gone by with a pleasant smile. 

Of course there are advantages to being old particularly if we gain in understanding and spirituality.  This great opportunity to see patterns and faith fulfilled in our own memories is very powerful and helps us accept this great world as an opportunity to grow with tests along the way to measure our growth and encourage us in the direction our God would have us go. 

Then I think of my Mom & Dad, Mother-in-law and Father-in-law who have been great examples in their lives and have lead their families to the Savior and many other people as well.  They have done great service and held leadership callings that have influenced people for good throughout their lives.  Then I see that they are struggling now and use their well developed faith to get them through these times of trials due to age and otherwise.  I imagine what the world will be like without them to be living examples to me and others and recognize that it will be my turn to be the same to my family, friends and others too.  In a way it is a bit frightful to consider replacing them to some degree.  But having seen their great example I often feel confident that I can follow them and then go through the new twists and turns with the faith they have exemplified and I have gained of my own thanks to their great example. 

But I look forward to the millennium when we will not lose the great people in our lives through death.  Instead we will be able to work with them (and work I fully expect it will be) to prepare the world for the last battle with Satan and for the end.  How wonderful it will be to stand beside them in their prime and to contribute with them to the great plan of Happiness as it moves forward for a thousand years.  I look forward to that time where we will not lose our great ones but instead will stand side by side in the great work of the Lord.  Where those fully developed great ones of the Lord will once again be with us to help us and work with us.  We will be side by side as equals but with different talents and abilities.  What a day that will be!

I'll let the hope of that day comfort me through the difficult times of their lost abilities and eventually loss of life.  Then in their footsteps I will carry on and be what they have taught me to be.  Then finally we will be together as equals, having learned our lessons on the training planet of earth, to prepare than fight for our Lord in His upcoming victories.

Thinking of you Dad (Died 1995), Mom (80+ years old), Dad (in a coma 2+ months) and Mom (Faithful through the loss of almost all by the worlds standards but certainly not by the Lord's standard).  Love your hopefully ever faithful son -- Dallas