Some thoughts from my mission:
"Today I complete a year in the mission. I feel great as a missionary... The hard part is strict obedience. When I break a rule I feel terribly & unbelievably weighed down. Going to bed at 10:31 is a sin. Sleeping 5 minutes longer is a sin. Singing a song from the radio is a sin. Thinking about a boy is a sin. Eating something cooked by someone who is not the pensionista is a sin. Never sinned so much in my life!-- Even though I'm living a life much more righteous than ever before. Temptation seems to beset me more than ever before. Little things always come up & I fall. I don't fall far but the important thing is that I fall. I want to be perfect. I want to obey every rule ever written. But if I really had the desire, I'd do it...
"...They say that a true desire is always possible to accomplish. If I had the true desire to accomplish 100% obedience, would I achieve it? Was Christ's desire what made His life different? Overcoming physical urges for spiritual needs is what God wants-- the purpose of life. What is it about having a body & learning to control it with the spirit that makes a God?
"...How does one know if she is being obsessive-compulsive or being righteous? If only one could stop sinning for good & yield herself completely to God & pass the test with an A+ 100%. But thinking this denies the power of the atonement. If it were possible, we wouldn't need Christ. Thus, it ISN'T POSSIBLE.
"Why is temptation so tempting? Why is the world so worldly? Why is the darkness so dark? Why don't more people search for the truth? Why are the distractions so distracting?"
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
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First, I have to comment on the blog title...I even know how that sounds when you say it: So good...and so good FOR you. Nonverbal conclusion: wry smile. This came from Grandpa Bruce, I think. Ray says it, too.
ReplyDeleteYour post: Caitlin said the same stuff...that it really stressed her to be even slightly disobedient, in ways that weren't even really disobedient by the world's standards, but absolutely necessary to hold to as missionaries. John has said some of the same stuff...one minute over his emailing time on Pday and ARRRGH, he's disobedient and is GONE. I guess we certainly are glad that you are/were conscienrious missionaries. I think the rules do stand as a protection, the same as, but even more amplified than with the rest of us. Missionaries are so important to the Lord's work, and Satan would have a heyday if he could get a foothold in a missionary. I haven't sent John's emails along for a while (I must repent) but I know that he has been protected because of his obedience. And persecuted for it.
Yep! It's really neat that his kids have carried on the tradition of saying it :) My dad says a lot of things he got from his dad, and I'll probably end up passing them along to my kids, too.
ReplyDeleteAnd I know I was called "ruler" (I'm guessing it comes from being straight-edged?)by other missionaries. I don't know that I was really "persecuted" for it, but maybe just made fun of a little. Isn't that sad? That's part of what makes it hard to be obedient-- other missionaries say things like that about you, and then you're like, wait, am I being too extreme? Isn't everyone else like this?? Do I need to just relax?
I have never been a missionary so can only speak for and to us commoners. I recently heard our very serious Stake President Brouer talk to a grou of us "singles" and he told us that if one keeps a Temple Recommend, knows and keeps the right answers to all the questions one WILL receive Eternal Life. Last week I heard on BYU TV one of the Apostles say that very same thing in the very same words, and am comforted.
ReplyDeleteI love the study of how we should get to a point where our spirit controls our body. What's stronger: our spirit, which should lead us to do spiritual things and not waste time on menial things, or our body, which wants to laze around and not really accomplish anything. I remember coming home from work one day (about three years ago) and sitting down and watching TV for 30 minutes. Then I told myself that I would only watch 30 minutes more. Then that turned into 3 hours. Wasted time. What did I gain? Nothing. What did I learn? Nothing. Did I get closer to the Celestial Kingdom? Absolutely not. But I DID learn what I wouldn't waste my time on (so maybe I did get closer by realizing something about myself). Now I'm not harping on TV (a WHOLE other discussion), but I think often that we waste time in front of screens. Such a small temptation, that often leads to wasted time.
ReplyDeleteI think "Good and so good for you" could go back earlier than Grandpa Bruce to his mother, Grandma Grace. He liked to repeat many of her wise sayings--with her inflection: "Some people have eyes but they cannot see," or "Nature's candy" (commenting about figs). Though it's possible that "Good and so good for you" is instead from a commercial--he liked to quote them too with inflection--like, "What's a Mother to do?"
ReplyDeleteAs to your topic--I never worried too much about you--you always had such a strong sense to do right. But for me the whole thing you're talking about needs to be done inside out. That's easier said than done(and easy to make excuses for neglecting "little" commandments and counsel you don't like). Getting your spirit to control your body is a life's work, and has to be done by the spirit, from the inside. I think it can lead to joy instead of worry about little flaws (they will always be there)--like a feast of the Spirit where "it beginneth to be delicious," and you "let your soul delight in fatness." We have to make the true effort to partake.
I really liked your post, a lot. I also like that you took the idea to have a blog where our families could share ideas, stories, thoughts, etc. and make it more than that (a reality). Oh, and I really like you.
ReplyDeleteBack to the post, there are so many different little (big) ideas mentioned, with the idea of what does it take to make perfection seeming to be at the core.
I don't think the quest to perfection is there to (dis)stress us out. In fact every time in my life I remember stressing out over obedience I was miserable. I would tear myself apart not experiencing joy, at least not in the amounts spoken of in the scriptures. I think it's Satan that is at the core of pulling us down and making us feel worthless for going to bed two minutes late instead of making us feel worthless for the person we thought poorly of that day. The later would probably a little "menos eficaz" to Satan's objectives.
Don't get me wrong I think there is power that comes from exactness in honoring the commandments of the Lord, but it isn't achieved by allowing ourselves to do what seems to me to be "kick[ing] against the pricks." Or in other words doing something that gets no results.
"Men are that they might have joy," which sounds almost like a commandment to me. Or at least a measuring stick we can use to see how we are doing. Are we joyful? If not, why not? Achieving that joy comes from loving God and loving our neighbor. When our focus is that love, it seems a lot easier to follow the spirit of the law around the rules set up to draw us closer to Christ. When it isn't we become more pharasiacal or more lamanandlemsical.
The spirit is what sets us free. If we don't have it or aren't working towards it then we are damned until we set out for it again.
I loved your post and I love you.
Josh, you are so wise. Adele you are so dilightful. I love you both. Adele, you are now on a mission--a wife, a mother, a daughter, a granddaughter, a potential liver of a Godly Life. The worth of you is greater than any of us mortals (including you of course)can possible imagine. I speak as an old lady who has, uh, yeah, experience?
ReplyDeleteRyan, I totally agree on the TV thing-- a reason why I don't want to have it. Not because I'm just so righteous that I would never watch it-- but because I know I WOULD watch it and waste away my days and weeks and years. Although you said "in front of screens" and I'm the first to admit that I'm wasting an awful lot of time in front of this computer every day :)
ReplyDeleteGrandma, those are very comforting words. I guess sometimes we just have to take a deep breath and realize that we can only do so much and that Heavenly Father loves us. Although then I start wondering if I'm just making excuses for my imperfections... :) Thanks for reminding me that I am still on a mission!!
Dad and Josh-- I guess maybe that's the missing link: enJOYing the journey. There were many very joyful moments on my mission too. I hope to take that lesson-- to aim for true joy, which comes only in the service of God and of our neighbors-- for the rest of my life. Because life is so short, and will soon be gone...
wow... forgot to read this one.
ReplyDeleteThat is a real struggle for me, too. In a way I think I end up kicking against the "rule-abiding-so-I-never-sin" mindset... and thus, sometimes I end up kicking against some important pricks.
My guess is it takes a lot of balance... and in the end I think what you said is good: the Spirit really is the key. If you're living the Spirit of the law, almost always you're also living the letter of the law. It's when you get that mixed up (letter of the law in pursuit of the spirit of the law) that things get tricky...
and yet sometimes that's what we have to do, too. For instance, that whole prop 8 thing had me befuddled, but while i was getting my testimony under me I still supported it because the prophet said to.
Anyway.
"Some people have eyes but they cannot see,"
ReplyDeleteYESSS!!!
Dad says that too.
I'm laughing right now, thinking of it...