Jesus Wept

Now I think I better understand the poignancy of these two small words buried deep in John 11.

As you are aware, Jesus wept when he arrived at the home of his dear friends, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Lazarus had been dead for three days and Mary and Martha had been hit hard by this untimely and even preventable tragedy. Upon seeing the pain this death had caused His friends and perhaps struggling to understand His own emotions, Jesus wept.

But why?

More than anyone, Jesus knew the Plan of Salvation. He knew where Lazarus was. Jesus knew that Lazarus’ pain was over. Lazarus had fought a good fight and finished the race. Christ was aware that death is merely a passage way each of us will take in our journey back to that God who gave us life.

Yet, He wept. Despite all that He knew and despite who He was, Jesus wept.

Why?

Biblical scholars all have their insights into this seemingly strange reaction. But having just gone through the death of a dear friend, I think I have an explanation -- at least one that suits my current needs.

I am on firm doctrinal ground when I state that Christ, as a mortal, had to experience the full onslaught of the human experience in order to qualify to be our advocate to the Father. Yes, the preponderance of this suffering could only come through His atoning experience, that much is for sure. But a critical part of His ability to heal our pain and dry our tears comes from what He experienced during His own life.

I am convinced that Jesus wept because this may have been the first time He experienced death so closely. He knew He would raise Lazarus from the dead. He told his apostles this well before they arrived. But the theory of death is always much simpler to understand that the reality of death.

I feel Jesus wept because of His great love for Lazarus. Add to this the deep mourning of  Mary and Martha whom He loved as well. He wept because He grieved the untimely death of a good friend. He wept because the death of a loved one is hard.

But, there is hope even amidst the pain. For Christ, during this same experience stated the only words that can bring peace to a grieving soul:

I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.

Our family will miss our dear friend Dorothy Gillespie. We will grieve. We will weep. But we have hope that though she is dead, yet shall she live.

I thank each of you for your words of support and prayers during this difficult time.

Trojan Horses

Growing up, one of my all-time favorite stories from Greek mythology was the tale of the Trojan Horse. As you may recall, Greece was in a lengthy 10 year war with Troy. The Greeks had besieged the city of Troy but the war drug on with no end in sight.

In a bold act of desperation, the Greek army constructed a beautiful wooden horse to offer the people of Troy as a gift of the city’s bravery and tenacity in their ability to hold out against the seemingly overpowering military

After completing the horse, the Greek invaders wheeled it up to the city gate, marched down to the sea,  boarded their ships, and the entire army sailed back home. Or so it seemed. Little did the people of Troy know that hidden within this wonderful “gift” was a number of Greek soldiers.

The people of Troy celebrated their hard fought victory -- a celebration that likely included wine flowing freely late into the night. Unconcerned about an entirely inebriated populous, the people partied until all were in a deep, drunken sleep.

In the cover of darkness, the men inside the horse crept out and opened all the city gates to the Greek army that had secretly returned. In a matter of minutes, the magnificent city of Troy fell to the invading army – a city that defiantly withstood that same army for years.

While it is disputed if these events ever really happened, story teaches us some important lessons. Throughout our lives we will all face a myriad of personal Trojan Horses. By that I mean we will be tempted to let down our guard to something that seems so innocent only to become easy prey to forces that wish to destroy us. Let me enumerate a few such personal Trojan Horses.

Honesty is a virtue we all wish to possess but it can be misused. I am convinced that honesty devoid of kindness is nothing more the rudeness hidden inside a Trojan Horse. We must be ever vigilant in how we say things to others because words really do count. James called the tongue “a little member that boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth” (James 3:5).

Sensitivity is a better companion to honesty. We must refrain from using honesty as a weapon. This is especially true with your roommates and friends. To be honest without sensitivity is, in my opinion, a sign of immaturity. It may have worked in High School, but it does not bode well in the adult world.

Another Trojan Horse is the incessant need to be right. Yes, this is a paradox. We are taught to be right in all that we do. I am not talking about doing right. Rather, I am talking about setting ourselves apart as the fountain of all knowledge. When our opinions or our practices become absolute in our minds, our only course of action is to diminish those who think differently. This is not a Christ-like attribute. Tolerance must replace our desire to prove to the world the we are right.

Being too casual among others is one of the tricky Trojan Horses. We live a very casual society. But being casual too easily leads to gross and indecent behavior. Conversations about body functions, body parts, and bodily fluids, will initially be funny but do little to bring one closer to Christ. Yes, like a Trojan Horse, such juvenile behavior seems innocent on the outside, but inside the deception of casualness is a festering pool of disrespect and lewdness that we need not entertain.

A final Trojan Horse I wish to comment on is that of physical intimacy. In a developing relationship, physical intimacy has its place. (Yes, I struggle to say that.) When properly used it can create a bond between a couple and provide clarity in a relationship. However, when used as a form of conquest, meaning such expressions are merely a tool to satisfy a selfish desire or to boast of one’s own powers, you cheapen the experience.

I am convinced that God is not pleased when we become casual with the tender feelings of others. The prophet Jacob warned the Nephites to respect the tender feelings of others. I feel a cavalier attitude toward physical intimacy is nothing more the a Trojan Horse that will lead to hurt and confusion.

These are just a sampling of potential personal Trojan Horses. As always, I am open to a vigorous and lively debate.

What’s Love?

I have been in this calling for a long time and have seen trends that are consistent even when ward membership changes so dramatically from year to year. One of those consistent trends is a discussion of love. This makes total sense. We are, after all, a singles ward. Many members are meeting their future spouses while living within our boundaries. So it comes as no surprise that I am often asked to help people come to understand love.

Now, of course, there are many meanings to the word love. I have no intention to try to delineate love and its different expressions. My aim to provide you greater clarity on the type of love necessary to gently push a budding relationship towards marriage.

To start out, let me explain what I feel is the facade of love. By facade, I mean it has all the trappings of love. It looks and feels like love. But, scratch beneath the surface and there is really nothing there. Hence, it is called a facade.

The facade of love is best expressed in the giddy feelings that come when you think about, dream about, or are even in the presence of that person you think you are in love with. This feeling was best descried by Thumper in Disney’s Bambi, as twiderpation. The more mature word to use is infatuation. Contrary to popular opinion, this emotional turmoil is not love.

While it is true that infatuation may lead to love. This transition from the facade to the substance of love has lead many potentially great relationships to break up for no good reason. Too often, I have seen great relationship end up in heartbreak when one or both people feel the spark is gone or that they are not feeling it.

Now, I will admit that couples have the right to explore a relationship and determine if it is right. This is a vital part of your current social situation. You are not meant to marry everyone you meet. But if your sole reason for questioning the potential of a relationship is simply because the infatuation is over, then I question your motives.

Married couples cannot sustain an infatuated relationship. It would kill them in a week. Married couples must quickly learn that love is more than an all consuming feeling. Rather, love a journey that two people take requiring their best effort everyday. It evolves, it changes, and it deepens over time.

The problem many of you face is that you judge the love you need to marry someone by a benchmark that is not allotted you at this time in your life. Many of you look to your parents or to beloved leaders as an example of the type of relationship you want before you enter into marriage.

This is unrealistic. Those relationships you look at as being the definition of love only came after years, if not decades of hard work, constant nurturing, and massive personal changes. You don’t get that at this time of your life. Instead, you get the confused, muddled, and even down right frightening version of that all consuming emotion called love.

As I have explained to many of you, Alma’s lecture on faith is a perfect recipe for understanding love. He teaches that faith is to be compared to a seed. When you first plant it, if it is a good seed, you will feel stirrings. Soon, a seedling appears. If you are not careful, you will find yourselves rejoicing at the seedling but neglecting its care. In a short amount of time, the seedling will wither and die. Why? Because it was not nurtured. Faith cannot grow without constant nurturing.

I feel faith is nothing more than a relationship with God. So Alma is talking about how relationships work. Infatuation is the stirrings that let us know a relationship may work. Once that seedling of love appears, the work of love begins. At this point, the infatuation is over. It is the work of love that causes great couples to shy away from that seedling and look elsewhere. The problem with that is if they walk away because of the work, then they will likely find that same problem with the next relationship.

This is why I feel love is misunderstood. Love is not so much a feeling as it as an opportunity to work.

What do you think?

Our Strengths Can Become Our Weaknesses

  King Sisyphus prided himself on his cleverness. Any why not, he was a very clever man. So much so that when Thanatos, the god of death, came a calling to chain this clever king on the banks of the river Styx, in preparation for his final journey to the underworld, Sisyphus was able to trick Thanatos into chaining himself.

The gods were not impressed. They likely enjoyed clever people, but when Sisyphus used his strength to control or coerce, the gods turned the table. Zeus decreed that Sisyphus would spend eternity pushing a large heavy boulder to the top of the mountain. His punishment would end once both he and the boulder reached the top.

As soon as Sisyphus got close to the summit, Zeus would cause the boulder to roll back to the bottom of the mountain. I would call that eternal frustration.

Clever? Well, if you are Zeus, then yes. If you are Sisyphus, you have all eternity to wonder how your strength became your weakness.

In a speech given by Elder Oaks at BYU, he spoke on how we can fall into similar traps. He gave several examples of strengths, many of us have or some of us desire, becoming nothing more than a boulder reluctant to reach the top of a mountain.

With today being Sunday and the weather being hot, I encourage each of you to read this great talk and let me know your thoughts.

Have a great Sunday and apologize to Br. Sikahema for me posting this during Sacrament meeting.

Understanding Consequences

The emotional pain had to be intense, more intense than Alma and Amulek could have possibly imagined. There they stood on the edge of the fiery pit in Ammonihah watching their recent converts - women and children they dearly loved - being tossed into the biting flames where all these victims could do was pray for a rapid death.

Why did God require Alma to watch this when clearly Alma had the power to make stop? That was Amulek’s question. It was Alma’s question as well. Alma did not clearly understand the purpose. His best guess was that God allowed the wicked people to cause so much unnecessary pain to justify the awful destruction that awaited the perpetrators.

Alma may have been right. Ammonihah was destroyed and all its inhabitants were eventually killed.But I think there was a much deeper purpose to this senseless slaughter. A purpose that Alma was not comfortable expressing, nor did he likely understand at the time of the massacre.

Let’s go back several years to a time when Alma was one of those who would have gladly thrown these women in children into that fiery pit. Mormon, looking backwards, labeled Alma and his cohorts as the vilest of sinners. They were young men who caused more harm, more pain to more people over a longer period of time than the torturers at Ammonihah.

As we know, even after being such vile sinners, Alma and his friends were all completely forgiven. So much so that they all became mighty men of God - even prophets. Yet even while they were freed from the burden of their past sins, I am convinced that God needed them to bear the consequences of those sins for years to come.

To be sure, the days, weeks, and months after their miraculous conversions, Alma and his friends had to face the family, friends, indeed the whole church, they had hurt during their rebellious years.That had to be difficult. In fact, I feel it was so hard to overcome the mistrust and emotional drain of having to face the victims and their families, that the Sons of Mosiah felt it would be better to live among the Lamanites.

But some sins, even when we are completely freed from them, still require us to go through consequences. Sometimes those consequences may be delayed by years. This, I feel, is why Alma was constrained by the spirit to stop the killing at Ammonihah.

For the first time in his life, as he watch those whom he loved suffer in those awful flames, Alma finally understood the pain he had caused so many during his season of sin. As he looked at the suffering faces of each woman and child who died in those flames, Alma could finally truly empathize with victims and their families.

This is a vital lesson for each us. We are all sinners. We all fall short of the glory of God. Yet we need never fear that our sins are so serious that there is no path back. We can all be cleansed by the blood of the Lamb of God. Never doubt the enabling and healing power of the atonement.

However, we must be willing to accept that consequences are separate from being healed. Alma and his friends were all cleansed from their vile sins. But they still had to bear consequences. For each of them, the brunt of these consequences were delayed.

I encourage each of you to never allow the consequences to cloud the healing power of the atonement. Consequences have nothing to do with cleanliness. They are just consequences. Also, never fear allowing God to lift your burden even if the consequences of the repentance process frighten you.

You can be clean. You will be clean. You must trust God. He loves you and will succor, or run towards you, when you need Him the most.

A Call for an Open Discussion

In Young Single Adult wards challenges seem to wax and wane. At times it feels as though all is well in Zion. Then, without warning, it feels as though a tsunami of challenges plaque the ward. Of course, neither is true. Mortality provides us a constant arena of triumphs and tragedies.

So it is with this ward.

Because of alarming trends I have been monitoring, I would like to create an open forum for any who desire to participate. To better target this discussion, I ask each of you to watch this video.

Think about its message and share with me your insights. Feel free to post your comments on the blog, on Face Book, through a text, or an a-mail.

I look forward to your comments.

Building Confidence

The following is a message from Kaylie Sikahema.

Being a woman in today’s world can be confusing, and difficult to navigate. We hear from hundreds of sources what our role in society is, and what gender has to do with that role.

On one end of the spectrum we have women objectified and treated as though they were only values by their bodies and appearances. On the other end of the spectrum, we are told to completely reject the natural differences between men and women, and expect total and complete sameness, and nothing less.

Obviously most individuals don’t occupy either of these two extremes, but often, we as women do place ourselves somewhere on the edge of these extremes; whether it is being overly concerned with our image and comparing ourselves with the images of others, or whether it is feeling the angst of women full of femininity.

Let me be clear, I do not feel femininity itself is a bad thing. Yes, it can lead to ideas, feelings, and images that are more harmful to women then helpful. I’ve been in both of these places, so I guess that’s why I feel okay talking about it.

But here’s the thing I want you to know about the breadth of this spectrum. Each of us must work to find a happy medium.

It is good to learn how to take care of your body and present yourself in a nicely dressed, well groomed way without becoming obsessed with the materialism of it or objectifying yourself. It is also good to know that, yes, women are equal to men and that, yes, we deserve to be treated fairly and with respect in any scenario without expecting to be men.

Emily and I are writing these posts at the Bishop’s request. He feels that some in this ward, both men and women, may struggle with purpose, presentation, and perception of femininity.

Bishop referred specifically to girls who want to pursue marriage, but just feel like they are constantly “one of the guys.” However, I think that the misperception of femininity goes beyond that; I think every single woman in the church can relate to the difficulty of defining herself as a woman, and what and who that woman is supposed to be.

But here’s my thing, girls.

There is always going to be another argument. There is always going to be a spectrum to gauge. There are always going to be things to distract, degrade, and deface you. Satan himself is working so arduously at this very thing. You may have heard Sister Dalton this morning. (And if you didn’t, for heaven’s sake go listen to that talk!!) Women have power. Power we don’t even know we are capable of. And Satan knows it.

So.

My take on all of this? My advice?

Pray.

If you want to be more feminine, more attractive to your future eternal companion, tell Heavenly Father. If you want to struggle less with the angst of femininity, if you want to feel more peace about your place in God’s kingdom -- pray. If you are sick of being “one of the guys” and you want to be seen for the beautiful daughter of God that you are-- pray. Forget about the spectrum for a minute. Forget about the world’s definitions, and expectations, turn to the one who knows you best. He has promised to help you.

And then after you pray?

Study.

Open your heart to the scriptures, and I promise you the Holy Spirit will lead you to specific insights about the minor course corrections you can make to confidently define yourself as a daughter of God. God will help you to learn what things you can do, what small changes you can make to not only be worthy of and ready for one of his valiant sons, but also the changes you can make to recognize the beautiful woman of God He wants you to become.

I wish I could give you some specific things you could do, I wish I could just sit you down and tell every single one of you how incredible you are, I wish I could just hand you confidence in the fact that you are a daughter of God.

But that’s the beauty of it. I can’t! And because I can’t, you get to seek out a relationship with Him. And by doing so, you get to divinely define yourself in a way that no worldly endeavor possibly could.

However, I do believe that we have the ability and responsibility to learn from each other. So let’s make this a discussion, shall we?

I’m open to responses.