Remembering Through Music

 My thoughts have been jumbled recently as I've mourned the suffering of my brothers and sisters around the world, especially those who have been scorned and rejected by those—even many "Christians"—who claim to have more rights than other people just because they have a paper to declare it so. Any who claim to be Christians should remember that Christ welcomed all, including Matthew the Publican, hated by most Jews for working for their enemies, the Romans; he healed the woman with an issue of blood, who had been rejected and called "unclean," and the lepers whom everyone else feared and would not touch. He opened his arms to the Gentiles, those not of Jewish ancestry, and the Samaritans. So, for any suffering alone or on behalf of another you love, many of our hearts go out to you. Lo sentimos.

As the contentions, wickedness, natural disasters, and heartaches increase, I have sought comfort in both the scriptures and in uplifting music. It is therefore fitting that our Sunday School lesson focused on how music directs our thoughts to Jesus Christ. We were given a challenge to study the hymns we love and learn about them. The first hymn I selected to research is "This is the Christ," written by James E. Faust and Jan Underwood Pinborough and composed by Michael Finlinson Moody.

What I knew about this hymn was that it was about Christ's resurrection, but what I did not realize was that it was Elder Faust's testimony of the Savior's coming to the Americas. How does this give me comfort? I served in Guatemala City, Guatemala, where I received a firm witness that Jesus Christ came to the Americas after His resurrection. I had a powerful, but quiet, personal experience, which I wrote in my mission journal and had pushed into the back of my memory until a couple of weeks ago. That memory emerged at the right time to remind me of what I believe and know, and to testify to me that Jesus is the Christ and is aware of all of us.

"They saw Him come, a man in white, the Savior, who had suffered for their sake. They felt the wounds in hands and side, and each could testify: This is the Christ...

"I read His words, the words He prayed while bearing sorrow in Gethsemane. I feel His love, the price He paid. How many drops of blood were spilled for me? With Saints of old in joyful cry I too can testify: This is the Christ."

He is the Christ, the deliverer and redeemer. Many of us—groups and individuals—will experience some sort of persecution or bondage. But even if the deliverance does not happen now, He will deliver all who put their trust in Him. 

On Track to the Temple

 

The Lindon, Utah Temple is built along the Murdock Canal Trail. Until recently, I only watched the construction's progress whenever I drove past it. And then, I noticed the trail marker.

There's nothing remarkable about the number on the trail marker, but the fact that the trail marker exists beside the temple is a great reminder of everyone's spiritual journey. Not everyone is at the same point on the trail. Some may be at the temple's doors every week. Some are at the three-and-a-quarter-mile marker, in sight of the temple but not quite there. Others are back at the trail's beginnings... which might be at Utah Lake somewhere (For those unfamiliar with the area, that's a long walk).

What matters is that we're on the trail and headed in the right direction. A sincere commitment to covenants takes time. God wants us to make covenants with him, but an accidental mishap in breaking a covenant is a bit more excusable than a heartfelt rebellion. What's even better is to fully prepare ourselves to make those covenants with God in His holy temples and then steadfastly keep to them.

Get on the trail, stick to it, and move forward until you reach the temple.

Insights on Pilate

 It is 33 AD in the Common Era, and the Romans have control over Israel and various other countries. Many of the citizens under their rule are little better than slaves and deserve the cruelest treatment then known to man. The Jews are barely unworthy of consideration by Caesar, and he carelessly murders them without end. God's people are underneath a yoke of hardship above any their people had experienced before, including the many chastisements placed upon the people of Israel during past captivity.

And then, here comes a man claiming to be the Christ—the Deliverer, Savior, Redeemer—the man who would free them. But He didn't free them from the Romans. Instead, He, who proclaimed to be their Messiah, let Himself be led like a lamb to slaughter. He, who was supposed to lead them out of captivity, stood meekly beside the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate, without raising a fist. He, who was to free them from the whip allowed Himself to be beaten by a nine-tail whip.

It's because He who was the ultimate Messiah needed to deliver Himself into the hands of His enemies (the hypocritical Sanhedrin) and the Jews' enemies (the Romans) to rescue all—not from physical captivity at this time but from spiritual captivity and physical death.

What's interesting is that these cruel Romans, who had no problem sending a Jew to the cross to suffer the ultimate torture, experiencing agonizing pain in their hands and feet while suffocating slowly as everyone below mocked them, were hesitant to send Jesus the Christ to die. Pilate found no fault in the one who claimed to be the Son of God and did not mock His response. And had not the unrighteous leaders below—people of the living God—ordered His crucifixion, Pilate would have let the son of Joseph go.

Why? 

"Wherefore, as I said unto you, it must needs be expedient that Christ—for in the last night the angel spake unto me that this should be his name—should come among the Jews, among those who are the more wicked part of the world; and they shall crucify him—for thus it behooveth our God, and there is none other nation on earth that would crucify their God.

For should the mighty miracles be wrought among other nations they would repent, and know that he be their God" (Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 10:3-4).

Although the Romans exercised barbaric practices, as a Pagan society, their beliefs extended past more than one god. To hear a man say he was the Son of God would have been no different than if a man had come to them proclaiming to be a demi-god like Heracles. They would have seen his miracles and have believed. Listening to such a man would not have been against their beliefs. But it was to the Jews that Jesus needed to go.

And so, unable to be anything more than a puppet of the people, despite believing in Jesus Christ's declaration that He was the Son of God, Pilate had to listen to the people crying out "Crucify Him, Crucify Him" and then washed his hands of it.

The Presence of God

 I'm sure someone in the blogging universe has heard of this television show and remembers it, but when I was much younger, there was a show called Joan of Arcadia with a theme song by Joan Osborne called "One of Us." Both the song and show addressed the concept of God walking among us. In the show, God always talked to Joan, but it's interesting to imagine Him as someone we might pass on the streets each day, the lonely person sitting on the bus, or the server at our favorite restaurant. What if God was "one of us?"

I find it strange whenever people say they haven't seen a miracle. It's more strange when others can't see God around them, although maybe it's hard for some to see His hand in their lives. As a student (or an enthusiast) of the sciences, I find it difficult NOT to see evidence of God in nearly everything good or the lack of Him in all that isn't good. The complexity of life teems with the need for a maker's hand. But even if it's hard to see Him in things, He's visible in the kindness of others or where true love lies. How can someone so good or omnipotent not be present in creation?

C.S. Lewis wrote, "We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always hard to penetrate. The real labour is to remember, to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake (Letters to Malcom: Chiefly on Prayer)."

If we're willing to look for Him—and miracles—we'll see Him.

The Lord Loves Effort

 On Sunday I had reached a point of exhaustion—not the simple tired exhaustion but the "I wish I didn't have to keep going" exhaustion. Luckily, I'm stubborn, so although I would have stayed in bed with a blanket over my head, I convinced myself to go to church (and it helps when someone depends on you for a ride). And I was exceedingly blessed—blessed by some miracle to be there for my friends' talks and a musical number; blessed to hear the precise messages I needed to listen to that day, and blessed to hear at the end in the final talk that "the Lord loves effort." Because I know it's true and has been cemented by another layer from Sunday's messages, I want to share those edifying messages.

Each of us has thought or will ask, "What's the use?" What's the use of enduring? Why try? The first special message was "God didn't bring you this far just to bring you this far." If we've made it this far in life (and we have, regardless of our pain, struggles, tears, and exhaustion), we can make it further. It's not the end until it's the end.

Many of us will also wonder if we've been doomed to stay put and stuck in the life we have. We may wonder if we'll ever be noticed or make a difference. I prefer serving others in a quiet, unseen manner, but honestly, it would be nice if someone noticed me occasionally when I walked through the middle of the room to find a seat on the other side (I guess I have a talent for ninja skills). Message two is that the Lord doesn't measure our efforts by how much or what the giver gives but by what effect the giving has on the giver's heart. This is good news for those of us who feel like our efforts might be wasted. As long as we are changing or experiencing those "feel-goods" we're making a difference. And even when you're invisible to almost everyone as you walk through the middle of the room, at least God notices you.

Third, our Heavenly Father knows you can't do everything and doesn't expect you to do everything. Dieter F. Uchtdorf shared, "God is fully aware that you and I are not perfect. Let me add: God is also fully aware that the people you think are perfect are not." Thank goodness we live in a society of perfectly imperfect people so we don't have to be overwhelmed by our imperfections. A rule of thumb is to do one more good thing—not everything and not a long list of things but just one thing.

The final main message weaved all the other messages into one great symphony of hope for me and hopefully for others: How do we balance everything we have to do? How do we take care of the details in our daily lives, date, raise a family, study, work, build our talents, etc?

The answer is simple. We can't. Life isn't a balancing act. Unfortunately, it's a juggling act and when one thing seems like it will fall, we have to spend a little extra time on that aspect. But when the juggling act weighs on you because there are too many balls to hold onto, then this promise comes: Everything that's meant to fall into our lives will fall into place, while what doesn't matter will fall out of our lives completely.

And that's why when we feel exhausted or want to give up, all it takes is doing one thing even if it's making the effort to open your eyes or say a little prayer because in the end, the Lord loves effort.

God knew José

Yesterday, a high councilman shared a story with us: a group of about 30 people from Utah went down to Mexico last December for humanitarian work. Their first stop was to help a woman build a house because she worked every day for twelve hours picking berries while raising two children, and yet they had nothing except for a shack in the middle of a field. The group arrived on Saturday, and there was supposed to be a storm the next week, so early Sunday morning, the men had to get up at seven and work on building the house, while their wives and children attended church. The missionaries for the ward had asked one of these men to pick up an investigator named José and his family, so the man's wife said she would do it. 

This woman was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed soccer mom from Utah who didn't speak Spanish, but the missionaries shared a map location, and she followed it. But when she reached the place, there was no José. She prayed and asked for help finding this man and his family, drove around, and saw a family in the distance coming from the fields. Just like the missionaries had described, there was a man, a woman, and three children, so she drove up beside them, stopped, rolled down the van window, and asked, “José?”

The man responded, “Sí.”

She replied, “Iglesia.”

The man appeared confused, so she tried again with the same result. She called the missionaries, and they spoke to the man, but the family still wouldn’t budge. Finally, this sister told the missionaries she would deal with it, got out of her van, opened the back door, and said, “José, iglesia. Andale.” The family (and a dog) got into the van, and she drove them to the church. They entered, and she led the family to where the missionaries were sitting. 

“Elders, José,” she introduced. The missionaries looked at José and told her, “That’s not José.”

She told them that they better get to work, then. That José was not the man she was sent to find, but it was the José the Lord wanted to be found.

The cool part of the story is that this José she found had moved with his family to the fields not long before. He was raised Catholic, and when they arrived, they didn’t know anyone, so he prayed, “Lord, help me find your church so I can worship.”

And guess what? That’s what the Lord did. He knew this man’s name. He knew where he wanted him to be. And He provided the way for him to get there.

And if the Lord knew José in the middle of an aldea of Mexico, He knows us.

Miracles in a Coin Purse

 There are people who doubt or question God's existence because they have not seen grand miracles in their lives, but it is most often in the everyday miracles that God works.

Twelve to thirteen years ago, when I was serving a mission in Guatemala City, on a bright, sunny, and hot day on the coast, my companion and I had a meeting in a different area. While there, we stopped at the ATM to withdraw money because buses and taxi-like services were common. Before climbing onto the bus, I felt like I needed to put only the amount of the fare in the coin purse I carried, while the rest of the money went into the bottom of the backpack. I did not know why, but I did not question the feeling because I was accustomed to being cautious.

On the bus ride back, two men climbed onto the bus, threatened the driver, and stood at the front of the bus where they demanded money from everyone and walked past every seat. The first woman hardly had anything, and one of the men waved a gun at her, asking, "Is that all? Do you swear you don't have anything more?" I should have been terrified but was not. I simply pulled out the coin purse and held it up as they passed. The man took it, and then he did something that could have made my heart stop—he rubbed it between his fingers. There was nothing in there but two small coins. He should have threatened me the same way he did to the woman at the front. But he didn't. He walked past and continued to collect money until they jumped off the bus. I don't know if he felt money inside that did not exist or if he thought it wasn't worth his while to threaten a foreign girl, but what I do know is that it's evidence that God does watch after us.

God does not prevent bad things from happening all the time because he won't interfere with anyone's agency, and sometimes, he will allow them to happen because we need to learn something, but if a miracle like I experienced isn't evidence enough that he cares about us, I don't know what is. He is real. He loves us. He has not forsaken us.

Like A River

 

Several places in the scriptures talk about having "peace... as a river." 1 Nephi 20 states, "O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments—then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea." Isaiah 48 says the same thing.

I have been around rivers all my life, and I have never seen a completely peaceful river (although St. John's Bayou and the Mississippi are fairly calm on good days), so the more I read these verses—all of the ones addressing having peace like a river—I can't help but wonder what could this possibly mean? Will my peace be rambunctious and unpredictable, or my life be tossed about like the waves of the sea? Could it mean that I will have ever-flowing peace, perhaps? The latter supposition sounds more reasonable, but maybe, just maybe, the former does apply.

A river can be dangerous when the levels are high or when the wind blows. Some rivers have hidden dangers, such as large river monsters, snakes, or piranhas. However, if you stand and watch a steadily flowing river like I have, you realize it holds many beautiful lessons. First, a flowing river is more pure than a stagnant one. Although most water sources, even rivers, have impurities or bacteria that humans should avoid drinking, a flowing source is better to drink from than from a pool. Peace like a river must then be clearer or easier to understand. When we feel that calm, warm feeling, we'll know that we are feeling true peace.

Second, a river constantly moves items along. I once wanted to see how fast the river was flowing, so I threw a stick into the river to calculate its travel over a certain distance. The stick never sank and never stopped. It kept moving along with the river until it left my sight. I'm confident that the peace we can receive from Jesus Christ will buoy us up and help us keep going even in the crazy journey of life, aiding us to avoid getting stuck along the way just as the river moved that stick onward.

There is something else that a river moves but is underneath its surface: rocks. As the river tumbles the rocks, the rocks become smoother. I don't know if having our peace like a river means that things will necessarily smooth out, but the promise I hold onto from the scriptures is that the peace we'll have will be greater than we now have, and that sounds like a good promise to me.

Unfortunately, our lives are ofttimes unclear. The answers we want don't always come or they come and then turn into something else we weren't expecting. We might feel prompted to step back after we've done all we thought we could do and have seen some good results, only to see that our stepping back didn't yield the final results we hoped for. But we have been promised peace, and even if that peace is sometimes bumpy or unpredictable, at least it's flowing.

The Sermon of Faith

 "Consider the lilies of the field." A set of scriptures from the Sermon on the Mount, starting with these words, came into my mind earlier. They're a good reminder to stop worrying or, at least, to live life more fully. Starting with these powerful words and having all of those scriptures emphasized during the final talk of our sacrament meeting today, I put the lessons into a poem. It's strange that the messages during the meeting went from the priesthood to Star Wars lessons to the Sermon on the Mount, but all of it has a basis in exercising faith. The priesthood power is activated by faith. Luke Skywalker could not blow the reactor on the Death Star until he closed his eyes and trusted in the force. And how can we have peace if we are unwilling to leave everything in God's hands and trust Him to take care of us and our circumstances?

Tomorrow often sounds dismal and dark,

And fear and control never take a rest.

Worry holds us back from moving onward.

Maybe, just maybe, closing your eyes is best.

Leaping by faith into dark paths is chancy,

But, surely, not all that is dim leads to death.

The flowers and birds are fed aplenty,

They expect nothing and are, yet, given breath.

Why fear humankind, whose lives are short?

Why not move forward from failure and scorn?

Taking a step forth is all that's required–

The words will be given, and our burdens borne.

We are in the details of a larger work,

And some days it seems we are put to the test,

If the next step looks like the deep abyss,

Maybe, just maybe, closing your eyes is best.

Rejoice with Me

Lost By the Bay

 "And he spake this parable unto them, saying,

What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine... and go after that which is lost, until he find it?

And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost" (Luke 15:3-5, 8-9).

It is easy to fall into the habit of thinking no one notices us or cares about us. It is more logical to consider the billions of people on Earth and say to ourselves, "Who am I? What good can I do? What purpose could I possibly serve among so many."

Oh, my friends, if we could only comprehend more fully how necessary we are—how marvelous, loved, and wanted we are. And I think I'm only beginning to grasp the concept.

Have you lost something important before? Something that you could probably live without, but it meant something to you? I have. In fact, I recently lost something I needed for work, and as much as I searched for it—I recleaned my bedroom, checked the bathroom just in case, looked in the dryer, checked outside, searched my car—I could not find it. And I prayed. And I prayed again. And God didn't tell me exactly where to find it right away.

It was important to me, so why didn't He just tell me? He knew where it was, didn't He?

Instead, He told me to clean my backpack and to change my bedding, and did I find it? No. But finally, when I was at breaking point and knew I had searched everywhere and had done all I could, He opened my eyes, and I found what I was looking for in the thinnest, darkest area next to a stack of towels. How did it get next to the towels?!

But it was there. And I was overcome by joy and gratitude.

And I'm pretty sure that's how Heavenly Father sees us. When we've done something wrong or feel like we aren't needed, or we wander away because people have hurt us, or maybe we feel uncomfortable around religious people because sometimes they can be too judgy, so we avoid everything relating to God, He hasn't given up on us. He could easily kick our stubborn mortal butts and tell us to get back in line, but He doesn't. He looks for us, watches for us, and then welcomes us with open arms so He can give us a big hug when we are found.

And when we return to Him, I'm sure He's saying to all of the angels, "Rejoice with me, for I have found the [one] which I had lost."