Jacob 3:2
"O all ye that are pure in heart, lift up your heads and receive the pleasing word of God, and feast upon his love; for ye may, if your minds are firm, forever."
The weather today was terrible. Bad enough that we closed early at work. Which kind of stinks since I lost about 5 hours of work, which means I won't be getting any overtime this week. But I guess I can't really complain because that's the nature of the fast food industry, and the amount of money that Mike will lose due to the inclement weather is far worse than any financial disturbance I may have. So there's nothing really worth getting upset over. I appreciate the wonderful opportunity he has given me to grow in the job that I have, I honestly love every minute of my work, and I thank God almost nightly for the wonderful operator that Mike is because it has given me an awesome job for the last year plus.
However, having the night off was nice. I got some more reading done out of the book that Andrew gave me to read to help develop my skills as a leader. Which is a great book by the way, I'm 84 pages into it and I already have about 5 pages of notes! It also gave me a chance to talk to Rachel tonight whereas I otherwise would not have had much time to. On tuesday nights she goes to bed right around the time I normally get home from work since she attends the temple at 6am in the morning. So that turned out to be a blessing in disguise. :) (If I haven't mentioned this yet, I am so completely excited about this weekend!)
For the first time in a while, I suppose, my mind is finally at peace. Maybe that's why I haven't felt like discussing as many spiritual topics as I have up until recently. There's no particular topic that my mind has been drawn to lately, including today. Life just seems to have reached that stage where I am not consumed by anything spiritually as far as my brain power is concerned. That's not to say that I'm not still growing continuously and still trying to better myself each day. But I think I have finally found peace within myself. Planning for the future doesn't seem to concern me as much any more. Trusting in the Lord is starting to become more a routine than a challenge. There is always of course the daily struggles with those things that don't come easy, but I think I have found the way to begin combatting those as well.
Not saying it is easy, and I think this is something I have discussed in a previous blog. But from my experience, the only way to deal with sin in a healthy way when you consider the long term, is not the way that seems obvious. A lot of people when they view repentance and "overcoming sin" break their lives down into the specific sins they commit. If someone has a problem telling the truth, they work on their honesty, sometimes to the point where they don't worry about other sins that may be creeping in (like pride, covetousness, etc). What has really been a moment of awakening for me recently has been the way I have begun to view sin as an entity all its own.
Just because you may struggle with one or a few particular sins doesn't mean that you should ignore things that may be easier for you to deal with. What I have realized is that it isn't the specific sins that we should be worried about, but the idea of sin itself. It takes a change of mind set for most people. People who fragment their lives into strengths and weaknesses. People who are constantly trying to better specific areas of their lives, often times at the weakening of a different area. What I have been slowly working on as of late is a paradigm change. To view sin as an all encompassing entity that should be avoided altogether. All sin should be reprehensible to us. Pornography, murder, pride, lust, false witness, all the way down to mere blips of an impure thought.
It has taken me a long time to get to this point, and I still have a long way to go. But some of the things that I believe have helped me get to this point are:
- Reading the scriptures EVERY day
- Paying attention in church, to EVERY word that is said, and trying to focus on the spiritual aspect of things while I'm there
- The musical diet I have been stringent about, WITHOUT EXCEPTION (read more on that here)
- This very blog/journal that I have been keeping DAILY
- Nightly AND morning prayers
- Attending institute EVERY thursday night
I capitalized certain words in each of those bullet points for a reason. They show commitment, they illustrate routine and repetition, they show discipline. These are very important to changing habits and paradigms. The reason for this is because you are trying to reconfigure the very things you have been hard wired to do and think. Most importantly in that last sentence is the word think. "As a man thinketh, so he is." Thoughts are so powerful, and the only way to change one's thoughts is to replace them with better thoughts (or, you can replace them with worse thoughts as I once did.)
I got thinking, "how did I get to the point where I thought unholy thoughts nearly 24/7 for a period of years?" And it dawned on me. The reason that I was constantly having perverse thoughts, the reason I couldn't focus on anything that may have resembled holiness, is because of the constant degrading things that I was doing and listening to. I was surrounding myself with people that used foul language. I was watching movies and shows that disrespected women, families, used foul language, and so forth. I was listening to music that used foul language, that was loud and coarse, that literally drove the spirit away. I was actively surrounding myself with things that worked against the spirit, not with the spirit, and I did them for a long enough period of time that my thoughts tended to follow that same pattern.
So, in trying to re-wire my thoughts, I realized the only course of action was to put myself in a saturated environment that worked in the complete opposite direction from those things I had previously been surrounded by. I started only watching movies that I would feel comfortable watching with member friends, started going to church weekly, stopped swearing, started going to institute, started reading the scripture daily, started listening to only uplifting and inspiring music; basically I took all of the activities I was previously doing, and REPLACED them with wholesome counterparts. And the most important part of that was being diligent and stringent in never letting the other influences surround me for even a day, even a moment. But surrounding myself with only uplifting influences, my thoughts couldn't help but follow suit eventually, and sure enough, I am well on my way to doing just that.
Instead of the thoughts I once had, I now find my thoughts drifting towards the scriptures, towards righteous options in the future, towards church, towards choir, towards uplifting music, and so forth.
And then I got thinking, "why does this ever have to change?" Even when I get married and start a family, why do any of the things I have been doing have to change? Is this not how Christ lived His life? by surrounding himself with the 12 apostles? By constantly being about His Father's business, by constantly being busy helping and healing and teaching others? He didn't take "time outs" from life and go listen to the music that the harlots and publicans listened to "just to chill" or what have you. No, He was adamantly righteous. He abhorred sin. His thoughts were so focused on that of righteousness that when an unholy thought came to Him, I imagine it was such a foreign thing to Him that He immediately recognized it and rejected it.
Isn't that what we should all strive for? Are there times when a thought pops into our head that doesn't seem like "such a bad idea" at first, and then it slowly grows on us as it festers in our mind? That's how Satan works, he presents an idea that seems harmless, but we can tell that there might be something slightly awry with it at first. But the more we ponder on it, the less alien it seems. That's exactly what we need to be actively working against. We should make our thoughts so focused on holiness and righteousness that when Satan plants a thought in our brain, it immediately feels alien to us, and that's how we recognize that it's of the devil and should thusly be cast out.
Christ lived a perfect life, that means He never sinned, that does NOT mean He was never tempted. Being tempted is not a sin, people often confuse the two. Being tempted is a test, and overcoming that temptation is where we show our true colors, that's how we grow and develop.
Just because my thoughts are beginning to align with those of righteousness does not mean that I have won or that my battle with Satan is over, that's just what he wants me to think. He lets us get feeling good about ourselves because of how good we've been, and then plants the idea in our brain that we "deserve" some me-time. Some time to not worry about those pressing matters of exaltation and eternal life. Those are hard to constantly be wrapped up in. And that's when he gets us. Instead I need to make sure that I continue doing those things that have brought me such peace, such joy, such comfort, such wonderful thoughts. Until they morph into thoughts that I haven't had before simply because Christ trusts me to have even better and more holy thoughts. The spirit can not dwell in an unclean temple. To qualify my mind for the presence of the spirit, I must be ever watchful to keep it clean. The operative word there is ever, never resting, never yielding, always moving forward and in the right direction.
Which brings me full circle to the verse I began this blog with. "O all ye that are pure in heart, lift up your heads and receive the pleasing word of God, and feast upon his love; for ye may, if your minds are firm, forever."
Pure in heart - there is nothing wavering about something that is pure. Only then can you receive the pleasing word of God and feast upon his love.
If your minds are firm, forever - again, nothing wavering. Firmness doesn't break, forever is not a short period of time. The scriptures speak in such absolutes and with such resoluteness. We must follow suit if we are to pass the fifth principle of the gospel: Endure to the End. This means the end, not just most of the way. Never let your guard down, never stop progressing. When you stagnate, that's when satan creeps in.
I pray that I will continue down this path.
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