Helaman 4:25 Cleaving Unto the Lord

After being delivered and protected by the Lord’s hand the church struggles because of the wicked Nephites. Many Nephites are slain and they lose all the cities in the land southward because of their wickedness and abominations, even among those who belong to the church. Their wickedness resulted from the pride of their hearts, oppression to the poor, mocking that which is sacred, denying the spirit of prophecy and revelation, murdering, plundering, lying, stealing, committing adultery, and joining the Lamanites (v. 11-12).

Even in such an awful state the Lord offers to deliver his children through his strength.

Therefore the Lord did cease to preserve them by his miraculous matchless power… and except they should cleave unto the Lord their God they must unavoidably perish (v.25).  What does it mean to cleave unto the Lord? Why is cleaving powerful enough to avoid perishing and deliver a people from such abominations?

Behold according to your desires, yea, even according to your faith shall it be done unto you

Keep my commandments. Hold your peace. Appeal unto the spirit. Yea, cleave unto me with all your heart that [I] may” become who the Lord would have me become and do that which he would have me do (D&C 11:17-19).

“That I repent, and come with full purpose of heart, and cleave unto God as he cleaveth unto [me]. And while His arm of mercy is extended towards you in the light of the day, harden not [my] heart” (Jacob 6:5).

Even if I am living like the wicked Nephites, on the verge of destruction, the Lord is waiting with his arms of mercy extended and only requires that I repent and cleave unto him, while promising that I not perish. Cleaving is rooted in the desires of my heart. When I desire with real intentions to cleave unto God, He will receive all my available heart and soften hard places, or unavailable parts, so I can off up more of my heart. The components of softening and changing my heart are obedience to the commandments, holding my peace, and appealing unto the spirit. Seeing his mercy in my life is seeing how He cleaves unto me, a knowledge that will enable me to more fully cleave unto Him, a process that enables me to receive both the enabling and sanctifying power of the Atonement.

A Look at Faith and Reason

Truth needs to be sought by faith and reason to create a balanced perspective. Gödel’s incompleteness theorem explains some of the limitations of arithmetic and logic. He found that any axiomatizable system, such as science, is either incomplete or inconsistent. A complete set has a proof, or rational explanation, for every truth within the given set, and a consistent set is void of contradictions. Thus to avoid contradictions, there are inherently problems with no solutions and truths with no explanation, such truths go beyond the reach of science and call for faith. Similarly, faith is just as dependent on reason, the tool used to determine the difference between revelations from God or a schizophrenic person. The pursuit of truth is merely faith and reason correcting for the limitations of the other. The need for the balance can be seen in the fact that science only accepts something that cannot be disproved, never actually proving the idea, while faith initially accepts an idea as truth and then acts. On one hand there is the extreme skeptic, and on the other hand the extreme optimist. Together they create a powerful team for discovering both complete and incomplete truths. We are to learn by study, reason, and by faith.

Since complete truths are accepted as true because their rational justifications provides sufficient evidence to cast off doubt, our understanding is limited to a set of knowledge that is considerably smaller than the set of truths without explanations, or equations without answers. Seeking greater wisdom and knowledge must be done in faith with real intentions; as explained by Michael Wesch in his address to BYU students given January 22 2013. In describing the learning process, he taught about the importance of asking questions, an act that transforms the internet and technology from an extremely distracting medium to the most powerful knowledge machine known to man. Questioning requires uncertainty, a lack of evidence, and a desire to seek after this evidence. The desire can be strong enough to carry man onward past more than 2,000 failures to find tungsten and invent the light bulb. Thomas Edison probably took each failure as a learning opportunity, learning that each element could not produce light. This process is taught in Proverbs 1:5 “A wise man will hear and will increase learning.” Wisdom is hearing and then increasing in learning. The passion derived from one’s own curiosity will drive the learner to listen (or hear) very attentively. Similarly failures can be turned into successes as they increase a person's learning. Dr. Wesch taught that asking such powerful questions requires the inquirer to experience awe, to appreciate the simple things in life with a sense awe and wonderment. In the scriptures this awe is considered to be a deep reverence for God “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (proverbs 1:7). Seeking truth requires us to go beyond reason with faith unto acquiring a deep reverence and respect for God. Such reverence combined with reason provides the evidence for incomplete truths, just as logic provides evidence for complete truths. Seeking truth by reason alone may provide knowledge, but it does not instill divine truths in the learner and denies them the joy of awe, The joy of strengthening the child’s relationship with their Father in Heaven.

Alma 41:3-6 A Look at the Imperfections of Mortality

As I pondered these verses I realized that a restoration of happiness meant happiness in this life. The spirit will be restored to a perfect body. Mortal bodies give great reason to not be happy. The biological factors that make one prone to depression, addiction, or any other mental disorder will be corrected, which will make for quit the adjustment if I let my biology dictate my desires. Having a perfect healthy body with desires of depression will make for an interesting combination. Will the next life have a new array of somatoform disorders? However, if in this life, even with genetics stacked against happiness, I learn to choose to desire happiness and rejoice in the Lord’s promises, how much better off will I be? Learning to choose happiness with the odds stacked against me will act just like a runner’s drag suit. When the resurrection removes the challenges, I will be left with my strong desires to be happy and a body capable of fulfilling those desires.

Thoughts From a Funeral

This morning I listened as a dear friend said the prayer starting the funeral service for the babe she carried 39 weeks. Rather than resentment, fear, and anger, she expressed faith filled gratitude for the Lord's mercy and wisdom and humbly asked for strength from the atonement of Jesus Christ. I also saw the fulfillment of scripture as her husband spoke about this unbearable burden becoming bearable through the grace of God (Mosiah 24:15). It is only through the atonement of Jesus Christ that a death of a child becomes an edifying experience. I now better understand what is thought in John 14:27 "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." May we turn to our Father in Heaven in both life and death to find peace that is not of this world. (this was a facebook post that I wanted to keep)

Alma 32 Looking Forward With an Eye of Faith

“And thus, if ye will not nourish the word, looking forward with an eye of faith to the fruit thereof, ye can never pluck of the fruit of the tree of life” (v40).

Looking forward with an eye of faith to the fruit, or promised blessings, of my faith. Faith is primarily concerned with the condition of my heart. Am I brought to a lowliness of heart? Is my heart humble enough to learn wisdom? Is my heart teachable? The Lord can compel me to repent and become humble, but it is greater to choose to believe on His word and truly humble myself. I will set aside my own stubbornness of heart to receive the light an joy of His word.

Since faith is not a perfect knowledge of things, it implies a certain degree of uncertainty that directs the believer to God. The believer turns to God because they cannot trust in their own uncertain strength. They can only hope in things that are promised and are true. (Rather than using hope as a wishful thinking, I am using it as an assurance affirmed by the Holy Ghost that the Lord will fulfill his promises.) For, God is merciful to all who believe on his name.

So now, what does it mean to have faith? What is done with uncertain knowledge? The answer is explained from Alma 32: 26-43. While exercising, or acting upon, faith is vital; it is not the first step in the learning process. Actions must be performed with a humble and willing heart believing in the truthfulness of the promised blessing. Testing truth starts with the believers desires, a desire to believe in the suggested truthfulness of the word of God independent of the word’s source or controversial topics, such as Proposition 8 in California. With the slightest desire to believe action will gain power as the actor looks forward, past the uncertainty, with an eye of faith to the promised blessings. If the initial belief is of God then it will increase and enlighten the individual, a process that creates a positive feedback loop by softening that heart to receive more truth.

Therefore learning weather or not something is of God is a simple but powerful process that requires uncertainty, as suggested by the following steps:

1.      Approach uncertainty with a humble and willing heart

2.      Desire to believe truth about the uncertainty

3.      Set aside the scientific skepticism and replace it with a hope or assurance inherent in truth

4.      Act in this assurance judging whether or not the initial uncertainty increases in goodness and edifies the believer

5.      If the initial belief is true, than acting will soften the believer’s heart bring them closer to God

a.       Note: there are two components to this kind of truth. First the believer must truly approach the issue at hand with real intent. Secondly the issue at hand must actually be true. Meeting both conditions brings the fruits of truth, such as a changed heart.

6.      Faith now becomes a perfect knowledge and uncertainty become certain.

Spiritually Self-Reliant

“Those with firm spiritual foundations are blessed with peace, reassurance, and greater faith when calling on Heavenly Father for help. . . . If we lose our emotional and spiritual independence, our self-reliance, we can be weakened quite as much, perhaps even more, than when we become dependent materially” (March Ensign p. 65).

Now the servants of the king began to murmur, saying: Now the king will slay us, as he has our brethren because their flocks were scattered … And they began to weep exceedingly, saying: Behold our, flocks are scattered already.  Now they wept because of the fear of being slain. Now when Ammon saw this his heart was swollen within him with Joy” (Alma 17:28-29).

While all the servants were in the exact same situation, their reactions could not be more opposite: the servants wept in fear of their lives and Ammon rejoiced.

Ammon continues to explain why he was filled with joy: “I will show forth my power unto these my fellow-servants, or the power which is in me , in restoring these flocks unto the king, that I may win the hearts of these my fellow-servants, that I may lead them to believe in my words” (Alma 17:29).

Rather than fearing for his life, Ammon found joy in the hope that the Lord would fulfill his promise to deliver his people, in other words Ammon was spiritually self-reliant as described in the first part of the chapter

Ammon and the sons of Mosiah

·         had waxed strong in the knowledge of truth

·         were men of sound understanding

·         searched the scriptures diligently to know the word of God

·         gave themselves to much prayer and fasting

·         received the spirit of prophecy and revelation

·         taught with power and authority

These insights were rather timely considering I faced several temporal realities that come with graduating from college. While both graduate schools I applied to interviewed me, I was faced with choosing a school before I heard back from either school. While sitting in elder’s quorum the thought to drop my anthropology class came to mind. My initial response was I can’t do that. I will just man it up and work hard. I can read the several hundred pages and write the reaming 20 pages in reports. After talking it over with several friends, I realized the University of Utah was the only program that required me to take Anthropology 101. If I withdrew from the class, I would become ineligible to attend the U’s occupational therapy program, which was okay because I did not want to attend the program after all. The day after I withdrew from Anthropology 101 I heard back from Pacific University. I had been placed rather low on the wait list. However, there was a peace reassuring me that things would be okay. Now that I only had 15 credits I would have the time to do well in my classes and raise my prerequisite GPA. I also realized that it was okay if I did not make it into the program. Questions such as grad school, jobs, and where to live after graduation are all temporal concerns that could have consumed and overwhelmed me, but I trusted that becoming spiritually self-reliant would enable these temporal concerns to fall into place. My focused turned from my situation to my own heart and desires. I began seeking to become more spiritually self-reliant. I searched for the weapons I could bury, such as the anti-Nephi-Lehies