Faith over Fear

Recently I have had one thing that has always come up and of course, is expected to, and of which is so difficult. The question of marriage. It is the Lord will that everyone be married and after all, that is what brings most blessings, especially the most powerful: The sealing blessing at the temple. This is something I want. Or at least, I try to want. Marriage seems wonderful. To fall in love seems like a fairy tale. But as of recent as I have thought about it, it as been dark and grim. The person I really like seems to not want to give it a chance at all, but won't say No either.

Which means I am on a clean slate. The faith that I am good enough for anyone or if anyone will acknowledge me, let alone date me or marry me, or heck, FALL IN LOVE with me seems ridiculous. Seems outrageous. And sometimes, impossible. But I have to believe and I have to try and so that is what I am putting my faith in. I know that God will help me. It is possible. This article is to help assert that. I know it will be a trial of faith, I don't know why things have fallen into place the way they are, but I know it's because there is a wonderful, incomparable future ahead for me and for those I love. It will all work out in the end. If it hasn't worked out yet, it isn't the end.

Love

I just wanted to do a general post about how I am feeling at the moment. I'm sure you don't need anyone to tell you this, but life is really hard. But don't worry. Calm down. It's not something to freak out about. It's hard for everyone. This is an acknowledgement I have learned is okay to make. Yes. Life is hard. But that doesn't mean it's bad. After all, aren't the challenging games the most exciting ones to play? I think so. And we have help.

Today, I was given a very very very large challenge. To be honest, I have yet to fully face it. But one thing I know is that God will help me. This morning I was studying in Mosiah 14. Abinadai is teaching the Priests of Noah about the atonement of Jesus Christ and it is one of the most touching and personal chapters in my opinion. Here are some of the things I learned.

First: There are people out there that I am sure you can relate to. They feel like God has abandoned them. You've felt that way before I am sure. It's a common tool that the adversary will use. But you can be the tool of helping others know God loves them. You can be a tool for God! I have been doing all I can to get in the habit of helping and complimenting others so that way others can feel loved and often time, I catch them on hard days and bless them! I find especially when I have a hard day, there are others with a hard day too

I really know God does love everyone, all the time. He will help us with our challenges. He really, really will. I have seen him help me before, and I will again today.

Faith means Action

Today while at Sunday School I was thinking a lot about that actions that have led me here. I remember that I felt the plan I had was the one that needed to happen. I would go to SLCC and work on getting married, an education, a job, a future really. And I remember as soon as I got to Utah, it was like I hit a wall. Everything was going wrong and for some time I remember the question, that dark question came to mind: Should I just go home to Nauvoo. It was a hard thought to face. And I remember that immediately I had to choose. Many times I felt the voice of the spirit asking me: "Where is your faith?" and so I made the choice. I will stay here and make something. I will have faith and so it shall be. 

Since that decision I have had more walls and I have had great blessings. I will never fall, I will overcome. I will feel God's love and trust him. 

I feel great opposition to getting married which means that for sure that is what I need to do. I will have faith. I can do this and I will be full of charity. It's my choice is it not? I am choosing right now. Charity. Love. Christ. Faith. 

The Decay of Virtue

Frankly, I am horribly horribly offended by the things I have witnessed. How many times I have sat down and watched a TV Show or listened to a song, or read a book and have been interrupted by disturbing images of darkness, either in the form of terrible sexual misconduct or the form of inappropriate violence. It it sickening. Several times while I was on my mission, this thought came across me as I watched investigators that were ravished with pornography, or suffering from the guilt of sexual misconduct and really, it is very sad. We live in a day and age where the common hero of the show is someone who is praised for their obscene love of blood and killing, who say horribly vulgar things and who participate in unchaste and provocative things on a daily basis.

Why?

Because that is what the mind of the natural man wants.

There is nothing more tragic than to see a perfectly beautiful story, told with talent and with poise be terribly mangled and hacked at by the ax of transgression and immorality. I can give you a very long list, but lets just mention a few.

Revolution: Fantastic story, realistic and genius, spoiled by loads and loads of mangled, hacked up, or shot bodies with literally over twenty people dropping dead in the first episode only to have more including slit throats, shooting and torture by knives in the second episode.

Lost: A wonderfully told story spoiled by buckets of blood splashed on things, drugs used often and more mangled bodies up in trees and that's just the beginning. Deaths include buried alive as well.

Supernatural: A very intriguing and fun scary show, unfortunately butchered with gore and violence and disturbing satanic images.

And recently the most tragic: Sherlock: My favorite show. I finally found a show that I can love. Intense. A little dark, but totally clean. Right? WRONG. Season two begins with a new reveal of tons and tons of swearing and completely nude women with more references to gay things than the first season.

Do I have a delicate mind. Likely. Does that change something wrong to right? No. I am saddened beyond belief and that is exactly why I decided long ago that I was going to be the one to make all of the stories that are good from Zombie apocalypse stories to detective stories and do it right! Do it morally right. And so that is exactly what I am going to do and I pray to my Father in Heaven that he will forgive me for the shows I have tried to justify even more a second and to give me the strength to write the stories that people need to hear. Things that are safe.

Here is a quote of what I feel worded by Jeffery R. Holland: "Most days we all find ourselves assaulted by immoral messages of some kind flooding in on us from every angle. The darker sides of the movie, television, and music industry step further and further into offensive language and sexual misconduct."

What we need is morality. What we need is the old moral play. We need pure love. Real love. The love between God and Man and between Man and Woman that is real. That is pure. That is clean. That is chaste and selfless. Not this false, putrid lust that throws up all over my favorite shows. I won't stand for it for another second. I won't do it. I believe in Christ. I believe he has power to overcome all these things and that he will help me. He will help anyone who comes unto him and believes.

And I commit that I will never flinch in the face of sacrifice. Not even for a second. As for TV shows, I guess I can never find one that is for me. So, with Gods power and with the atonement to help, I will make one.

Individualized

I am not totally sure if anyone read this blog anymore. I highly doubt that they do, so this as become almost a personal journal site for me. Hahah! I don't mind. Anyway, today I went out for a walk. It was one of my goals to spend more time meditating and reading scriptures and such in order to understand some spiritual truths and to come closer to Jesus Christ. As I walked out in the warm sun, (thank goodness its warm in Utah.) I came across very randomly an idea.

I was taking in the general beauty of the neighborhood and thinking to myself of the fondness that I had for this place. And that was when a thought came to me that went something like this: God the Father knew that one day there would be a little boy who would be born in Price, and grow up in Heber, become very fond on of the place and so he wanted to make everything surrounding him beautiful because he likes to see this little boy happy. And that's me! And I thought, that can't be right. Why would God make Heber just for me? I don't own it. And that is when the other thought came, he did it for everyone. But he did it for me.

Here's a good analogy to this idea. A parent loves their child. So they surround that child with good things. Nice clothes, colorful room, fun toys and shows to watch and good food to eat. Good surroundings, or in other words, a good home to live in. Now, when a second child is born to that same parent they do the same thing for that child, right? of course! But they do it for both of them. But they do it for their child. Not just children. He does it for both children. So, for the same reason, PART of the reason God made Heber was for me. Just like how part of him making Heber was for my siblings and for my friends, each one of them that lived there.

How grateful I am that we have an Individualized God. Not a collective God. Does it not make sense, that a perfect, omniscient God would want EACH child to have something good around them? Would it not make sense that wherever YOU are, he made, partially for you.

And so that leads to the final part. How often do we take the nature around us lightly. We are too busy with our phones or our ipads or our computers, or our thoughts (I'm guilty, I admit it.) but today, I noticed. I noticed that the things I was looking at, the trees, the clouds, the grass, the warmth of the sun, it was placed there, partially because God loves me. And the other parts of why he did it is because he loves everyone else experiencing it. He loves the human race. I know and testify that he is an individualized God. Meaning that we, each of us, are like only children to him. I really believe that. That doesn't mean we ARE only children. It means he gives the same undivided attention to us. And because he is God he has the capacity to do that for each of us.

I love him.

Those are my thoughts today. Now go outside and drink it in! :D

The Win/Lose Theory

So, we all know you've heard something like this, but if you think for just a few seconds, can you remember any conversation, any incident recently where someone HAD to win. Even in something that was never made to be competitive? Well, let's just say that I hate competition and you'll know where this train wreck is headed.

Ever since I was little, I not only hated, I loathed sports and games. Happy to say I have since been cured of that, thanks to young single adult activities that are just too fun to pass up. But the real question is why? Heck, I was a young boy, boys like sports right? Right? Wrong. I hated sports so much because there always had to be a winner. And I despised that. For two reasons. One, there had to be a loser. Two, if there has to be a loser, than if you are the reason that people lose, everyone hates you. It goes from grassy fields of a sport to the dark fields of your heart as people's morals are cut down, people ridiculed in public and a whole lot of other nasty stuff. 

So I never played a sport all the way up till High School. Then I considered trying out for the swim team. I like swimming. But that idea got halted in less than a week because I realized if you swim to WIN then I will hate it. Then I was going to do basketball. Same effect. Then the Golf team. Same thing. I have just always hated that idea! 

Well, here's the real kicker and it comes out in lots of us, if not all of us. I'm gonna get religious here, but it's truth, and I like truth. Satan has a similar plan. What if he could make our goal of getting back to heaven look like a competition. It's not, mind you, but Satan after all is a great liar. Elder Jeffery R. Holland said,

"Brothers and sisters, there are going to be times in our lives when someone else gets an unexpected blessing or receives some special recognition. May I plead with us not to be hurt—and certainly not to feel envious—when good fortune comes to another person? We are not diminished when someone else is added upon. We are not in a race against each other to see who is the wealthiest or the most talented or the most beautiful or even the most blessed. The race we are really in is the race against sin, and surely envy is one of the most universal of those."

Now, I am not being so adamant about this point because I have seen this in others, although I am sure I have. I am writing this blog today because sometimes I have seen it in myself. God does not look at you any different than anyone else. I wrote this little quote not over a month ago, but I am gonna be awesome and quote myself to finish this post:

"We need to learn that we are all on different playing fields. The cards that you have been dealt are face cards. I got uno. Someone else got rook cards. None of us are playing that same game. We were all born in different families in different locations, under different circumstances and will go to different schools and meet different people and do different things and think different ways. Therefore any comparison is unrealistic in all truth. The only comparison that is important is the you of yesterday compared with the you of today. Nothing else matters. It doesn't matter if someone is higher up in callings, or if someone has more money or if someone looks better or if someone gets more blessings. It doesn't matter if someone succeeds at something more than you, even if its something you like. We are all on different levels in different things. It's likely that the someone you are envying for their skills is envying you of some skill you have! If you want to be happy, be happy with where you are and who you are, but not satisfied. Keep learning and doing your best, regardless of what others do! Let God be your coach. He will root you on. "

My rant is over now. Love you. XD 

To Cleanse and to Cultivate

Happy Sunday! Oh, darn, it's not Sunday anymore. But oh well! I was meant to do this one on Sunday, but I am going to do it today. So just pretend for a few moments that you reversed time a day or so and you will be set! So, when I was on my mission, we had a huge mission conference. My Mission President at the time was President Baird. He was awesome and he introduced to us the 12 step addiction recovery guide as a pattern we can follow our lives after in order to First: Cleanse ourselves from impurity and from bad habits and sins and Second: Cultivate within ourselves the Christ-like attributes found in Preach My Gospel. I found this very enlightening and a great commitment and have never stopped this process, even after coming home. I still use the Addiction Recovery Guide in my daily study as well as Preach My Gospel, the missionary manual, and of course the scriptures. 

Today in my study I learned a little bit more about this. I found, by the help of the Lord in my study that this can be rephrased from Cleanse and Cultivate to Repent and Obtain Spiritual Gifts. This meant so much to me. It gave me a hunger for the gifts of the Spirit and I gained further understanding in my study and my reading of "The Infinite Atonement" (one of my favorite books by Tad. R. Callister) that in order to obtain gifts of the Spirit we must have it as a constant focus in our day. We must give our attention frequently and persistently to this. We must truly desire them, and then ask for them. And when we do so, living the commandments and striving to understand these gifts, we will get them. 

In this condition you will find that the law of Karma applies. Whatever amount of force you put into something will return to you. I am so excited now to continue to pursue spiritual gifts! I am focused on three right now and in order to obtain I have made a daily system! 

1) I will frequently pray throughout the day, earnestly, for these gifts. 

2) I will frequently throughout the day, ponder and meditate concerning these gifts and try to align my actions to it.

3) I will frequently study each day, more than once, gifts of the spirit and the gospel through scriptures and books. 

4) I will have a changing daily goal to push myself closer to one of these goals. 

Oh how consuming it is, but I feel that if I put this effort into it, God, my Heavenly Father will grant it unto me! I'll let you know how it goes!