God Loves His Children Even as They Toddle, Falter, and Fall

We have all seen a toddler learn to walk. He takes a small step and totters. He falls. Do we scold such an attempt? Of course not…

Compared to the perfection of God, we mortals are scarcely more than awkward, faltering toddlers. But our loving Heavenly Father wants us to become more like Him… 

I do not believe in a God who would set up rules and commandments only to wait for us to fail so He could punish us. I believe in a Heavenly Father who is loving and caring and who rejoices in our every effort to stand tall and walk toward Him. Even when we stumble, He urges us not to be discouraged—never to give up or flee our allotted field of service - but to take courage, find our faith, and keep trying. 

Pres. Uchtdorf, "Four Titles", April 2013 General Conference

Revelation As a Process of Sifting and Winnowing

“The Lord uses imperfect people…He often allows their errors to stand uncorrected. He may have a purpose in doing so, such as to teach us that religious truth comes forth “line upon line, precept upon precept” in a process of sifting and winnowing similar to the one I know so well in science.” 

- Henry Eyring, "Reflections of a Scientist", p. 47

On Expecting Miracles to Occur Regularly

“The very purpose for which the world was created, and man introduced to live upon it, requires that the laws of nature operate in cold disregard for human feelings. We must work out our salvation without expecting the laws of nature to be exempted for us. Natural law is, on rare occasions, suspended in a miracle. But mostly…like the lame man at the pool of Bethesda, (we) wait endlessly for the moving of the water.” 

- Elder Boyd K. Packer, “The Moving of the Water”

We Aren't As Elect As We Think We Are

I personally don't believe in a "Judgment Day" - where each person stands before a judge in a court room and hears a verdict about their life. I believe "The Final Judgment" is nothing more than the natural end of our progression and growth - that point where we no longer learn and grow. I also believe that point is FAR further out into the future than most people assume, and I think FAR more people reach "godhood" or "perfection" (a state of wholeness, completion and full development) than most people assume.

I think God's grace, mercy and charity (long-suffering patience, especially) are as universal and expansive as is possible, and I think lots of people will be shocked in the end as they look around and finally realize they aren't as "elect" as they thought they were.

Long-Suffering: How Our Heavenly Parents Must Feel When We Finally "Get It"

When a young man who lived with us for a year (about eight years ago) sent me a message years later saying he finally understood what I had modeled for him about what it really means to be a father, I sat and bawled like a baby. When he left our house, mad at me for not being a man because I wouldn't beat him when I was upset, the only hope I had was that we had saved his life and that it would last. To read what he wrote to me so long after the fact . . .

I got a tiny glimpse of how our Heavenly Parents must feel as they watch us struggle, wanting deeply to make us see but needing to let us learn on our own, and then, seemingly miraculously, suddenly "get it".

 It was a moment I will cherish forever.

My Birthday Wish for All: More Love, Patience, Tolerance and Care

The following is one of my favorite quotes from any General Conference talk I have heard in my lifetime.  I quote Elder Wirthlin's "Concern for the One" often, but I absolutely love this quote just as much.  I want to share it today, as a birthday wish for all.  

If we could look into each other’s hearts and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care.

Marvin J. Ashton (April 1992 General Conference, "The Tongue Can Be a Sharp Sword")

May we try to do so is my wish. 

My Sunday School Lesson Recap: Practical Ways to Strengthen Marriage and Family

We focused today on practical things that we can do to strengthen marriage and family in our own lives. Most of the kids in my class have two parents at home, and today all of the ones in attendance have traditional families, so I structured the lesson around a series of reflective questions and input from the students. Also, the Sunday School President attended the class, as did my wife. (She was called today to teach the younger class and wasn't prepared with a lesson, so we combined the two classes.)

I asked each question, gave them about a minute to think about it, and got their answers - talking about each one, if further discussion seemed appropriate. The following are the questions and the answers that were given:

1) What do your parents do to strengthen their marriage?

They help each other with the small tasks around the house.
They communicate with each other / talk about everything before making big decisions.
They work things out without arguing with each other.
They look for things to do together.
They still do silly, romantic things - like dancing in the kitchen while the food is cooking.
They go on regular dates.
They talk nicely to each other.
My dad made it clear he loves us but loves my mom more - that she is his top priority and he won't let us disrespect her.

2) What do your parents do to strengthen your family?

They make sure we read the scriptures as a family at least a couple of times each week and have family prayers most nights. (I loved the focus on regularly when "daily" just didn't work, especially since these parents are ward leaders and would be classified as traditional members by pretty much everyone who knows them.)
They try their best to put up with the kids.
They make sure we eat dinner together, even though my dad works 12 hour days.
They do fun family activities, including my favorite: rides after church on Sunday.
They had fun Family Home Evenings, including things like basketball in the backyard, tag, hikes, etc.
My mom helps everyone. She takes us to all of our activities and volunteers to help others, also - even though that leaves her little time for herself.
They spend as much time together as possible and work hard to have good relationships with us.
They show appreciation for us and compliment us more than they criticize us.

3) What sacrifices have your parents made to help their marriages and their families?

My dad took care of me when I was little and my mom was bedridden with her degenerative disease.
My mom got a job to help support our family, even though she wanted to stay home with us.
My dad started a new job during the day while trying to keep his business open. He would spend hours with us each evening, then, when we would go to bed, he would spend hours each night trying to save his business. We didn't know what he was doing until after his business closed, since he didn't want us to feel bad about the time he spent with us.
My mom gets stressed out easily. She tried to take medication for it, but it made her feel like a zombie, and she couldn't help us while she was on it. She gave up the medication and is trying to find other ways to cope with her stress, even though it's really hard on her. She told us she would rather struggle to be part of our lives than not struggle and not be part of our lives.

I used the responses to that question to reiterate again how we tend to talk about an ideal when we talk about marriage, but I pointed out (by asking the questions directly) that all of them know single, adult members of the ward - and divorced or widowed members of the ward - or members who are married to non-members and attend church without a spouse - etc. I told them that what we were talking about is important no matter what their individual adult lives end up being like - that it's much like in October when we will talk about "Becoming More Christlike".

I finished with one last question, and I told them I would NOT ask for their answers. I told them that it was something to consider now but also over time - and that it might be one thing or twenty-seven things or any number of things. I first reiterated the core definition of "repent" (which they all know by now is simply "change") and told them that this is a great example of a way to approach proactive repentance (making changes NOT because of mistakes / sins of the past but in order to grow moving forward).

4) What do you need to change about yourself in order to be a better husband / wife or mother / father when you are ready to get married and have a family of your own?

Finally, I told them not to try to find "the perfect spouse". I told them, for example, that the apostles and their wives weren't apostles and apostles' wives when they met, fell in love and got married. I told them if they are with someone who makes them feel worse about themselves when they are together to run away from that person and find someone who makes them feel better about themselves when they are together. I told them to find someone who will make them the top priority - who will be willing to sacrifice in some way to support them and to keep a strong marriage.

Baptisms are Not the Measure of a Successful Mission

I don't like fast baptisms, as a rule or a standard approach - but I know of quite a few individual cases where a baptism within 3-5 weeks was completely appropriate. I don't want a minimum wait time established, but I don't like trying to set a baptism date in the first or second lesson. I want investigators to know up-front and immediately that the missionaries are there to teach and baptize them, ideally, so I don't mind baptism being mentioned from the moment they sit down for the first time, but I want it to be "whenever you feel a confirmation from God that joining our church is what He wants you to do" and not "let's pick a date and pray you feel good about it by then." 

That is my own view, and I don't claim that it is the only right one. 

I understand not wanting to make someone wait longer than necessary when they want to join, and I understand youthful zeal and enthusiasm, and I understand leaders (especially Mission Presidents) wanting to do their best and be recognized as successful leaders - but, in principle, I don't like rushing things that shouldn't be rushed. I'd rather take a little longer than necessary, for example, than too little time when it comes to baptism.

For what it's worth, I know the two-year retention rates right now for new converts are higher than they've been, overall, in the past - but I don't attribute that to fast or slow baptisms. I attribute it to better, more personalized teaching than used to occur with the memorized lessons and, overall, less measurement of success as a function of total baptisms. "Preach My Gospel" says in crystal clear terms that the number of baptisms is not how a successful mission should be measured, and I've heard it said from the pulpit in multiple locations over the last five years or so. It's sad that some leaders still are preaching the old line of success being measured best by baptism numbers, but it is not the way it is supposed to be.

Discretion Is the Better Part of Just about Anything

Discretion is the better part of just about anything. It's important to recognize and acknowledge that.

I can't say everything I might want to say in any group with whom I associate. I weigh my words all the time, both to consider their effect on me and to be careful of their effect on those who hear them. I try not to be misunderstood, even if I'm not fully understood. I don't succeed all the time in that effort, but I try. 

That's just part of life. Anything else is selfishness and lack of charity.

It's easy to forget that and think that church life is or should be different - that it should be a place where we can forget discretion and just say whatever we think and believe without filters of any kind. It's not that way, and it can't be - since it's a gathering of people who are just as short-sighted and weak as I am.

I'm not looking to carve out any "otherness" in the Church for any group of people. I'm looking to be a Papa D Mormon - for John Doe to be a John Doe Mormon - for Whomever to be a Whomever Mormon, etc. That's all, but it's vitally important to me - and discretion is the better part of that - just as it is for our apostles and local leaders, I would add.

I think leaders really do try to accomplish that (use discretion) well over 90% of the time. Even in cases like I've described here in some threads, with decisions and actions that left me scratching my head in bewilderment and caused some people real pain, most of the time the leaders involved really are trying to do the best they can.

They're human. Life is pain, because we humans inflict pain - because even our best efforts are undertaken as we see through a glass, darkly.

That's all I'm saying - that, given our collective humanity, discretion is the better part of everything we do, in all situations, among the people in all of our associations. I can't control them; I try to control me, to the best of my ability; I hope that I will not be held to a higher standard than I can reach, so I try my hardest not to hold others to a higher standard than they can reach.

That's easy when I like the others and they aren't hurting me and others in any significant way; it's not so easy when I don't like the others and/or they are hurting me and others in real, significant ways. Sometimes, I need to bite my tongue; sometimes I need to speak out; always I need to exercise discretion and think before I act - including before I speak.

We Can Learn from People Whom We Naturally Think Can't Teach Us Anything

Throughout my life, I have found the most profound insights often come from people from whom I naturally would not expect to be able to learn anything – and they have come almost always when I am in the right frame of mind to listen carefully to what someone is trying to say and not get so caught up in crafting a response that I forget to listen to everything they say prior to reaching a conclusion about what I assume they are going to say. In other words, these insights come when I am more focused on understanding than arguing or being understood. 

For example, I have had experiences of not liking what someone has said in General Conference and then, when I read the talks afterward, realizing they really didn’t say what I thought while listening to the talks live. In nearly all cases, the disconnect was my focusing so intently on one statement that I failed to hear the surrounding statements or consider context enough to realize that I had misconstrued the original statement and turned it into something other than what had been intended. That same experience has occurred in conversations with fellow members, with talks they give in Sacrament Meeting, with co-workers, with my wife and children, while reading blog posts and comments, etc – and it generally is because I was thinking of a response before they were done talking or before I was done reading.

If it happens with people from whom I want to learn, I know it happens even more frequently with people from whom I am not as inclined naturally to want to learn.

I have learned over the years to try to listen to everyone (their voice, in person, and their words, in a forum like this) with the primary purpose of learning from them rather than arguing with them - and, while I am not yet perfect at it, the result has been amazing to me. I truly have been able to learn from people from whom I didn't expect to learn anything.

God Is More Patient than We Tend to Believe

I think that God is much more patient than we tend to think - and He has time and all eternity to be patient with us.

Sometimes, the simple things are the most profound. 

To Walk More Blamelessly before God

My New Year's Resolution for the month of April is "to walk more blamelessly before God" - taken from the first sentence of Alma 5:27, which reads:

Have ye walked, keeping yourselves blameless before God? 

As I began to contemplate this question and how to internalize it a little more fully this month, I separated it instinctively into three core concepts:

1) We must walk our life's journey; we cannot sit, nor can we run.

2) We must walk "before God". 

3) We must strive to be blameless in "how" we walk.

I will attempt to address each of these points each Saturday this month and try to wrap them together on the final Saturday of the month.


1) We must walk; we cannot sit, nor can we run.

A number of scriptures come to mind immediately when I consider walking - not sitting or running.  Among them are the following:

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Mosiah 4:27 

And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. 

Ecclesiastes 9:11 

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. 

The central idea in these and other passages is that all things must be done with patience at a proper pace - that "enduring to the end" most often is a case of continuing to walk a long journey steadily and humbly rather than sprint to a near finish line.  The interesting thing, to me, is the differing imagery that is employed in these three passages to address the same general topic.  

The first passage (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8) presents an image of someone walking through life at a pace that allows him to look around and see each "time" and "season" for what it is.  There is no rushing around in such a hurry that he misses the signs that tell what he should be doing at that moment.  He literally is strolling and observing - and, thus, acting according to what he observes in relation to his own life.  

I believe the person who walks thus is tune with the things that he sees, is more likely to see all that is put before him and, thus, less prone to miss what God wants of him.   

The second passage (Mosiah 4:27) adds an element of stamina to the first image.  In this verse, the person not only is in tune with what is placed before her, but she also walks at a pace that does not exhaust herself - that allows her to continue to walk without needing to take long pauses but at the maximum pace that she is capable of accomplishing.  She does not walk faster than she is able, but she does walk as quickly as she is able to do consistently for the length of her journey.  Thus, she covers the maximum distance possible for her - regardless of how that distance compares to the distance walked by anyone else.  

I also love the inclusion of the phrase "in wisdom and order" - as it implies, to me, an active and conscious prioritization on the part of the walker.  She acts as an "agent unto herself" - using her wisdom to "order" her life appropriately - again, regardless of how others order and prioritize their own lives.  

The final verse (Ecclesiastes 9:11) adds a truly unique and important element to the discussion.  The first part is a nice restatement of the others. However, the last part is a reminder that there really is enough time for ALL to accomplish what is set before them, if they but continue to walk - AND it emphasized an important disclaimer, if you will.  It is not just "time" that happens to all; "chance" happens to all, as well.  

"Chance" can be nothing more than "luck or fortune" - and that might be a legitimate reading of this verse.  However, given what is stated in the first part of the verse, I prefer to define "chance" as "opportunity or possibility".  With this interpretation, the last part of this verse would read: 

but all have time and opportunity

[In stating it this way, I believe it also is important to recognize directly that, when comparing life to a race of some sort, ALL can "walk" figuratively (since "walk" when juxtaposed with "run" connotes a difference in "pace or speed" rather than "manner") - while all cannot run.]

In summary, my resolution this month includes the commitment to strive to walk with my eyes open, seeking to see and recognize this "time" for what it is - to see the Lord's purpose for my life this specific and unique month.  It includes the need to use wisdom to order / prioritize the activities of this month.  It includes the faith that, if  I strive to walk in this manner, that there really will be time for me to accomplish whatever the Lord wants me to accomplish, that I really will have the chance to do so - that I truly may be more than I am now when I finish my mortal journey.