In preparing for a priesthood lesson tonight, I was struck by the following quote by Elder Neil Anderson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles:
We are a very large worldwide family of believers, disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are a very large worldwide family of believers, disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We have taken His name upon us, and each week as we partake of the sacrament, we pledge that we will remember Him and keep His commandments. We are far from perfect, but we are not casual in our faith. We believe in Him. We worship Him. We follow Him. We deeply love Him. His cause is the greatest cause in all the world.
The sentence that struck me most was, "We are far from perfect, but we are not casual in our faith." That seems to be what the world wants most from us, all of us, not just Mormons, not just Christians, but all believers, any faith, any creed--the world wants Seinfeld casualness at the deepest level. In an effort to tolerate conflicting faiths, conflicting cultures, conflicting creeds, the world asks that we believe at the shallowest level. It is one thing to celebrate our culture, but quite another thing to have enough faith in the teachings of our Lord and prophets to subdue our personal will and follow something greater than ourselves.
There is an assumption that guides almost all thought in the twenty-first century, which is as follows: truth is an illusion and therefore anyone who claims to know it is a huckster. In other words, all holy men are but conmen one way or another. They might teach some good principles, but the higher power they tap into is but a product of the imagination.
This thinking is not unwarranted. At least in my lifetime the news has been splattered with self-declared spokesmen for God who are taken down for great hypocrisy and crimes. The world's priesthoods often seem to protect the authority of guilty men over the innocence of young children.
It is no wonder doubt soars and faith beats against a glass ceiling with battered wings. The sky seems empty, the soul caged by reality: life is like a Seinfeld episode--there's friendship, there's conflict, there's laughter, but in the end, it's all about dining out, riding in taxis, going movies, and not much else. In short, life is a show about nothing.
Even science teaches us nothing is as it seems. Apparently, I never actually sit on my chair. A force repels me before I actually touch the wood. And the wood isn't really there either. Made up of billions of atoms, which are mostly space, it isn't solid. Solid too is only a perception.
What a life? We are told that truth is relative, that the only reality is the here and now, the material world, but even that, according to science, is an illusion. We are actors upon a stage of mirrors. Everywhere we look, the audience is just I, repeated over and over again, for eternity, but when I reach out to touch myself, I'm not there--I'm just an illusion along with everything else.
So grab a napkin and a cocktail, have some cheese, and entangle yourself in some witty conversation about nothing so that you never have to stand alone in a field on a sharp cold night and wonder what do all those stars have to do with I, me? So, you never have to answer those big questions:
Who am I?
Why am I here?
What is my purpose?
I am not perfect, but neither am I casual in my faith. I know enough to the answers of those questions that I can promise you that you are not living an episode from Seinfeld. The scientists are right. The Buddhists are right. The Christians are right. The Muslims are right. The Native Americans are right. This world is an illusion.
It's alright that it feels fake. That doesn't take away its meaning. That is its meaning. It is a stage, and sure we are actors with our mortal parts to carry out in this earthy drama, but we are meant to walk off this stage having learned a few lessons and then we are to join our creator, in whose image we are made, as we continue on our journey towards perfection.
Our bodies may literally be the stuff of stardust, which is pretty amazing in itself, but our souls are the stuff of God.
And not only can we know these things, but we are built to know these things. It's in our DNA. There is a reason man has been praying since the dawn of time. It's who we are: obedient sons and daughters of God. It's just sometimes we get so caught up in the drama happening on this stage, we forget there is a director, a script, a purpose.
If you are feeling lost in your role and need assistance from the director, you are promised in the Epistle of James, first chapter and fifth verse, that you will receive a reply:
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
It may require work; it may not come all at once; it may require leaving some of the world behind; but if you ask in sincerity, you will receive an answer. It's your birthright. God did not send us off without a way to phone home.
There are ways of knowing more solid than this world of illusions. But we have agency too. We can choose not to see beyond the end of the stage.
When members stood up and testified that they knew God lives, that Jesus Christ is His son, and that He personally answers prayers, I use to think, There is no way you can know that. Believe, sure--but know, impossible.
I now can add voice to that testimony. Faith is not only belief in things unseen. Faith is knowledge of things unseen. You can't know until you know. There is no reason to hide doubt. But doubt is not the human predicament as I once thought. We can know what our purpose here on earth is. Maybe not all of it, but enough of it to keep us moving forward. It starts with the humility to ask.
Of this I testify, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
It is no wonder doubt soars and faith beats against a glass ceiling with battered wings. The sky seems empty, the soul caged by reality: life is like a Seinfeld episode--there's friendship, there's conflict, there's laughter, but in the end, it's all about dining out, riding in taxis, going movies, and not much else. In short, life is a show about nothing.
Even science teaches us nothing is as it seems. Apparently, I never actually sit on my chair. A force repels me before I actually touch the wood. And the wood isn't really there either. Made up of billions of atoms, which are mostly space, it isn't solid. Solid too is only a perception.
What a life? We are told that truth is relative, that the only reality is the here and now, the material world, but even that, according to science, is an illusion. We are actors upon a stage of mirrors. Everywhere we look, the audience is just I, repeated over and over again, for eternity, but when I reach out to touch myself, I'm not there--I'm just an illusion along with everything else.
So grab a napkin and a cocktail, have some cheese, and entangle yourself in some witty conversation about nothing so that you never have to stand alone in a field on a sharp cold night and wonder what do all those stars have to do with I, me? So, you never have to answer those big questions:
Who am I?
Why am I here?
What is my purpose?
I am not perfect, but neither am I casual in my faith. I know enough to the answers of those questions that I can promise you that you are not living an episode from Seinfeld. The scientists are right. The Buddhists are right. The Christians are right. The Muslims are right. The Native Americans are right. This world is an illusion.
It's alright that it feels fake. That doesn't take away its meaning. That is its meaning. It is a stage, and sure we are actors with our mortal parts to carry out in this earthy drama, but we are meant to walk off this stage having learned a few lessons and then we are to join our creator, in whose image we are made, as we continue on our journey towards perfection.
Our bodies may literally be the stuff of stardust, which is pretty amazing in itself, but our souls are the stuff of God.
And not only can we know these things, but we are built to know these things. It's in our DNA. There is a reason man has been praying since the dawn of time. It's who we are: obedient sons and daughters of God. It's just sometimes we get so caught up in the drama happening on this stage, we forget there is a director, a script, a purpose.
If you are feeling lost in your role and need assistance from the director, you are promised in the Epistle of James, first chapter and fifth verse, that you will receive a reply:
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
It may require work; it may not come all at once; it may require leaving some of the world behind; but if you ask in sincerity, you will receive an answer. It's your birthright. God did not send us off without a way to phone home.
There are ways of knowing more solid than this world of illusions. But we have agency too. We can choose not to see beyond the end of the stage.
When members stood up and testified that they knew God lives, that Jesus Christ is His son, and that He personally answers prayers, I use to think, There is no way you can know that. Believe, sure--but know, impossible.
I now can add voice to that testimony. Faith is not only belief in things unseen. Faith is knowledge of things unseen. You can't know until you know. There is no reason to hide doubt. But doubt is not the human predicament as I once thought. We can know what our purpose here on earth is. Maybe not all of it, but enough of it to keep us moving forward. It starts with the humility to ask.
Of this I testify, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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