Hope though the Atonement of Jesus Christ as an Antidote to the Denethor Syndrome

Posted on by nathanwritesstuff

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy trilogy, The Lord of the Rings (LotR), the character Denethor is an inheritor of a powerful, but dangerous magical artifact, a palantir. The palantir were a set of crystal balls that allowed the user to browse images from anywhere around the world and to chat with other people who also had palantir. Unfortunately, Sauron, the supreme representative of evil in the LotR, had a palantir and used it to feed Denethor fearful images. Denethor’s fears and anxieties, constantly fed and updated by Sauron, “overthrew [Denethor’s] mind.” (1) Denethor not only decides to accept the false futures on his magic feed, but also attempts to kill his own son to bring one of these fears to life.

This story, although only fantasy, is tragically moving to read. This misery of avoidable despair becomes even more poignant as we observe the exact thing happening to so many of us today. Like Denethor, many of us have access to a seemingly magic artifact that feeds us information through a glass surface. As humans, we are often drawn to sensation and tragedy; accordingly, our social media and news feeds increasingly feed us more sensation and tragedy slowly educating our choices. Soon we willingly search out doom and gloom. The internet has dubbed this condition, “doomscrolling.” (2) Like the situation in the LotR, Satan has access to our magical devices too and as taught by Lehi, “[the devil] seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself” (2 Nephi 2: 27). He wants us to be afraid; he wants us to be depressed.

Like Denethor, our increased access to information can convince us that we are wise and far-knowing. We may believe that we are preparing for a current or future threat, but when we are confronted with fears that we are unable or unwilling to do anything about, our fears won’t only not help us, but will surely hurt us. Fear leads to failure, is a principle culled from a prophecy by the prophet Joseph Smith: “men’s hearts shall fail them; for fear shall come upon all people” (D&C 88:91). Fear is a tool of the adversary, not the Lord. “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). Power, love, and a sound mind are gifts we should seek from the Lord.

We have to use the word to check the information from the world, the internet, or our social media feeds. Our prophet counseled us, “I plead with you today to counter the lure of the world by making time for the Lord in your life—each and every day. If most of the information you get comes from social or other media, your ability to hear the whisperings of the Spirit will be diminished. If you are not also seeking the Lord through daily prayer and gospel study, you leave yourself vulnerable to philosophies that may be intriguing but are not true. ” (3)

Unfortunately, the feeling of despair is so thick today you can feel it. Everyone is talking about how terrible the world is, and almost no one is talking about how great it is. Is our situation really as bad as the internet depicts, or as Satan wants you to think it is? No. It is not. Yet, regrettably, even our youth, the ones who have the most to be excited about for the future, are afraid; they are depressed. A recent study from BYU highlights this growing fear in our youth, “anxiety and depression is becoming increasingly prevalent among young adults in the US. with both disorders increasing by 63% from 2005 to 2017.”

Sadly, social media platforms, the very tools used to connect us, also isolate us, which leads us to anxiety and depression. This same study finds that “young adults who use 7 or more social media platforms are statistically 3 times more likely to experience increased levels of depression and anxiety than young adults who use 2 or less. Although more research needs to be done. individuals may be up to 46% more likely to have depression if they are using social media more than 60 minutes per day.” (4) Our prophet is aware of this phenomenon and has taught: “The Lord has declared that despite today’s unprecedented challenges, those who build their foundations upon Jesus Christ, and have learned how to draw upon His power, need not succumb to the unique anxieties of this era.” (5) It is beneficial to realize that people are unique with unique problems that require individually-tailored solutions.

For example, my father and I dealt with fear and anxiety differently. Fear motivates him to action and I admire his courage. In contrast, fear demotivates me; it paralyzed me. I have unknowingly struggled with anxiety my whole life. What I have to do is rid myself of fear first. I have found that humbling myself before the Lord and surrendering to him helps me conquer fear. After Christ’s atoning power helps me dispel my fear, I can move. And so, in the words of Moroni, I say “I would commend you to seek this Jesus of whom the prophets and apostles have written” (Ether 12:41). Faith in Jesus Christ will give us hope.

Alma taught: “faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true” (Alma 32:21). Faith and hope are connected in this definition. The apostle Elder Neal A. Maxwell expounded upon this connection, “Faith and hope are constantly interactive and are not always easily or precisely distinguished…Yet in the geometry of the restored theology, hope corresponds to faith but sometimes has a greater circumference. Faith, in turn, constitutes ‘the assurance of things hoped for’ and the proof of ‘things not seen’ (JST, Heb. 11:1; see also Ether 12:6). Thus hope sometimes reconnoiters beyond the present boundaries of faith, but it always radiates from Jesus.” (6) Jesus is the center of our faith, our faithful acts create a radius as we confidently walk the “straight and narrow” out from him towards the circumference of our hopes’ edges.

Our hopes are strengthened as our faith increases in Christ. Jacob instructed his people, “we search the prophets, and we have many revelations and the spirit of prophecy; and having all these witnesses we obtain a hope, and our faith becometh unshaken” (Jacob 4:6). As we study the gospel, we find that the most important victory has already been won; Christ broke the chains of sin and death. When we meditate on Christ’s atonement, the spirit can increase our awareness of the resurrection’s reality. We will begin to hope more fully for the moment when we will meet Him. We might begin to “look forward with an eye of faith, and view this mortal body raised in immortality, and this corruption raised in incorruption, to stand before God” (Alma 5:15). We might imagine the Lord saying to us in that moment, “ye shall have eternal life” (2 Nephi 31:20). This moment should excite us!

As our “confidence [waxes] strong in the presence of God,” we will be more confident in our day to day lives too. Because of Christ’s resurrection, we will be able to have hope even when it is hardest to hope. Near the end of the LotR series, when darkness seemed poised to overcome the world, some found hope through one of the three types of Christ in the story. The resurrection of the wizard Gandalf in the following vignette helps two soldiers after they beheld one of the supernatural enemies flying over their head.

“‘What was that?’ Asked Beregond, ‘You also felt something?’

‘Yes,’ muttered Pippin. ‘It is the sign of our fall, and the shadow of doom, a Fell Rider of the air.’

‘Yes, the shadow of doom,’ said Beregond. ‘I fear that Minas Tirith shall fall. Night comes. The very warmth of my blood seems stolen away.’

For a time they sat together with bowed heads and did not speak. Then suddenly Pippin looked up and saw that the sun was still shining and the banners still streaming in the breeze. He shook himself. ‘It is passed,’ he said. ‘No, my heart will not yet despair. Gandalf fell and has returned and is with us. We may stand, if only on one leg, or at least be left still upon our knees.’” (7)

As it was for Pippin, so can it be with us. Our testimonies of Christ and His resurrection can sustain us in our trials and challenges. It can bring us hope. We know how our stories end. We know who wins. All our trials will end and we will enter into His rest. Because of Christ, we can also know what we are supposed to be doing right now. And having this knowledge can bring us confidence and hope. The prophet Joseph Smith taught, “such was, and always will be, the situation of the saints of God, that unless they have an actual knowledge that the course they are pursuing is according to the will of God they will grow weary in their minds, and faint.” (8) We are entitled to know by revelation what the Lord’s will is for us specifically. This is how we “live by every word that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God” (D&C 84:44).

This is my favorite part about the story of Ammon and the servants at the water of Sebus. Ammon is confident and full of so much hope, he can see opportunity in trials. He is this way because of revelation. He knows what God wants him to do. His father, king Mosiah, prayed and received direction from the Lord (Mosiah 28:6-7). Ammon and his brothers were sent by revelation (Alma 17:11) to the Lamanites and they were given promises (Mosiah 28:6-7). When difficulties arose, Ammon was not shaken, because he knew he was on the Lord’s errand. His confidence compared to the other servants at the waters of Sebus is so stark, it is comical.

Therefore, as Ammon and the servants of the king were driving forth their flocks to this place of water, behold, a certain number of the Lamanites, who had been with their flocks to water, stood and scattered the flocks of Ammon and the servants of the king, and they scattered them insomuch that they fled many ways. 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 by the wickedness of these men. 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; for, said he, 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. And now, these were the thoughts of Ammon, when he saw the afflictions of those whom he termed to be his brethren. (Alma 17:27-30)

Our experiences living by revelation will also give us faith and hope. When we have proven how “faithful” the Lord is to His servants (1 Corinthians 10:13), us, we will also become more faithful to Him. These experiences with God can inform our hopes, so when new trials come upon us, we can see them as opportunities to manifest God’s power. We can also see this at work in the story of the young shepherd David. When he sees the giant Goliath defying the armies of the Lord, he volunteers. He knows that the Lord will deliver him. He has history with the Lord. When Saul expressed doubts about sending a youth out to battle Goliath, David rehearsed two experiences when the Lord delivered David from harm: once against a lion and once against a bear (see 1 Samuel 17:34-37).

We too can compile our past successful experiences with the Lord into a portfolio of sorts, to bring out when we need to encourage ourselves or others. In this way, we can “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh [us] a reason of the hope that is in [us]” (1 Peter 3:15).

However, even with the memories of our previous successes, sometimes when we face Goliaths, we can still “misread” the situation. In fact, the scholar Malcolm Gladwell has argued that we may even be reading the David and Goliath conflict all wrong. (9) David with his sling actually had the advantage on that battlefield. A stone in the right person’s sling could have the equivalent “stopping power” of “a fair-size modern handgun.” Goliath has brought a sword to a metaphorical gun fight; it is actually the giant who should be terrified, not David. Gladwell reminds us that “the powerful and the strong are not always what they seem.”

The story of David teaches us repeatedly to look beyond the surface (1 Samuel 16:1-13). In this story, we can see ourselves as David, but we can also see Jesus as David. When we are up against giants in our lives, like the Israelite army, we can become scared. We may even doubt that Jesus has the power to deliver us from our challenges. But in the same way that David had the obvious and clear advantage over Goliath from the beginning, we can misread our own situations and forget that Christ is God. And “with God nothing shall be impossible” (Luke 1:37). He is “mighty to save” (2 Nephi 31:19). We can trust Him and have a “perfect brightness of hope” through his atonement (2 Nephi 31:20).

ENDNOTES

(1) J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King (New York; Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994), 838.

(2) https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/lord-of-the-rings/22353128/denethor-lotr-movies-story-doomscrolling

(3) Russell M. Nelson, “Make Time for the Lord,” (October 2021).

(4) https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=ballardbrief

(5) Russell M. Nelson, “The Temple and Your Spiritual Foundations,” (October 2021)

(6) Neal A. Maxwell, “Hope through the Atonement of Jesus Christ,” (October 1998).

(7) J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King, 749.

(8) Joseph Smith Jr., Lectures on Faith, 6:4-7.

(9) Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2013),6.

(10) Gladwell, David and Goliath, 11.

(11) Gladwell, David and Goliath, 14-15.

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Yet It Pleased the Lord to Bruise him (Isaiah 53:10)

Posted on by nathanwritesstuff

As narrated in holy writ, Christ’s suffering in Gethsemane and death in Golgotha are traumatic to read; these are moments fraught with a perturbing welter of emotions: poignant grief, calming peace, fearful anxiety, quivering joy, suffocating guilt, and tearful gratitude. The “awful arithmetic of the atonement” is an incomprehensible calculus for humans1. Truly, “how sore,” “how exquisite,” and “how hard to bear,” “[we] know not” (D&C 19:15). As unfathomable as it is to contemplate Jesus’ atoning experience, it may also lay beyond our capacities to empathize with the Father during these moments. 

In the case of Christ, modern revelation has given us a first-person account from the Savior about his torment in D&C 19; however, there isn’t very much in scripture, modern or ancient, to describe the Father’s experience observing the death of his “only begotten Son” (John 3:16). There is at least one scripture that describes a sentiment that contradicts the natural response that a human reader may imagine for the Father. In Isaiah’s poetic prophecy of Christ’s atoning anguish, the emotion attributed to the Father during His son’s suffering was pleasure and satisfaction: “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him”2 and “He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied”3 (Isaiah 53:10 and 11). What Isaiah’s prophecy seems to suggest is that Heavenly Father was proud of his Son; He was pleased with Jesus’ choice to sacrifice for humanity, and satisfied with Christ’s salvific suffering. This sentiment is also shared at Christ’s baptism, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). 

Although it is often assumed that Heavenly Father suffered4 as He witnessed Christ “[pour] out his soul unto death” (Isaiah 53:12), I feel it is instructive to hypothesize this alternative view suggested by Isaiah. If the Father felt proud of Jesus during His terrifying travails, the feeling exuded by the Father was likely a confidence in his son, who was proving that he “[was] mighty to save” (Alma 7:14). Perhaps, it might be helpful at times to imagine a God who is confident in me as well, when I go through my human-sized sufferings or face my seemingly Goliath-sized temptations. I think part of understanding God’s confidence in us comes through discovering that although we don’t “know the meaning of all things,” we can know that “[God] loveth his children” (1 Nephi 11: 15). The discovery of God’s love for us can improve our confidence in him and in ourselves.

It is easy to become bitter during an especially long series of trials and think, “haven’t I done enough?” “Why is God still testing me?” It may be comforting at those times to avoid thinking of God as someone trying to “prove [us],” and instead imagining a Father who is watching us, confident that we can handle our current trials or temptations (Abraham 3:25). The goal of our tests, ultimately, is not for him to learn what we will do, he already “know[s] the end from the beginning” (Abraham 2:8), but for us to “prove ourselves”5 and find faith in Him. In a sense, we are actually proving God through our ordeals, to learn that “God is faithful” (1 Corinthians 10:13) even when we are not faithful to Him. It is also through our trials that we can feel God’s confidence in us and therefore gain confidence in Him, His processes, His plan, and even in His “presence” (D&C 121:45). 

Our life is less about us performing perfectly in our trials and more about us relying on Christ’s atoning power to help us overcome our trials. As we humbly “apply the atoning blood of Christ” we will find “[his] grace is sufficient for [us]” (Mosiah 4:2 and Ether 12:27). Although our life may lead us into situations where the “elements combine to hedge up the way” (D&C 122:7), we can find comfort in knowing that the Lord is with us cheering us on, much like he did for Jesus. 

Endnotes

  1. Neal A. Maxwell, “Willing to Submit,” April 1985. 
  2. In Hebrew, the verb חפץ means to “delight in” or “have pleasure in.” Francis Brown, S.R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon: Coded with Strong’s Concordance Numbers (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2003), 342-343. 
  3. In Hebrew, the verb שבע means to “be sated, satisfied, surfeited.” The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, 959-960. 
  4. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/new-era/1976/01/classic-discourses-from-the-general-authorities-the-sacramental-covenant?lang=eng “In that hour I think I can see our dear Father behind the veil looking upon these dying struggles until even he could not endure it any longer; and, like the mother who bids farewell to her dying child, has to be taken out of the room, so as not to look upon the last struggles, so he bowed his head, and hid in some part of his universe, his great heart almost breaking for the love that he had for his Son.” 
  5. “Now is the time to prepare and prove ourselves willing and able to do all things whatsoever the Lord our God shall command us.” (Elder David A. Bednar, “We Will Prove Them Herewith (Abraham 3:25),” October, 2020. 

Al Caminar con Dios y La Imaginación Espiritual

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José Smith enseñó que en el jardín, “[Adán] recibió instrucciones, y anduvo y conversó con [Dios], como un hombre habla y se comunica con otro…” (1) Esta imagen de andar con Dios es muy poderoso para mi!

Recientemente tuve una experiencia de caminar con Dios. Recientemente tuve la oportunidad celebró La Pascua. Por “Anastasi,” una celebración por la Resurrección de Jesus, hay una llama de Jerusalem que fue traído a Grecia y esa llama se uso para encender a todos las velas en todas las iglesias en Grecia. Recibí esa llama en una vela pasado por la congregación durante “Anastasi.” Después tenia el desafío de caminar a mi hotel con el fuego. El viento no soplaba violentamente, pero si intenté a caminar de prisa, o no cubrí bien la llama con la mano, o mantuve la vela demasiado lejos de mi cuerpo, la llama bailaba e iba a apagarse. Sentí que esta llama fue un símbolo de mi fe en Cristo. Al caminar cuidadosamente, mi atención fijado en la condición de la llama, pensé, “¿cuido yo mi testimonio con la misma nivel de atención que estoy dando a esta llama?” Y esta experiencia caminando con la llama era una oportunidad de caminar con Dios!

Habían otras veces cuando estaba a solas caminando y pensando acerca de la vida, me imaginaba que Dios estaba conmigo caminando. Este pensamiento me daba un montón de paz. Pueden imaginar el gozo que podríamos sentir, si Dios caminaba con nosotros en realidad como lo hizo con Adán y Eva. Infortunadamente, la situación por Adán y Eva cambio después de la caída. Las escrituras nos explica que “Adán y Eva, su esposa, invocaron el nombre del Señor, y oyeron la voz del Señor que les hablaba en dirección del Jardín de Edén, y no lo vieron, porque se encontraban excluidos de su presencia” (Moisés 5:4).

Aunque nosotros todavía viven en un mundo caído, Dios no espera que permanezcamos caídos y excluidos de su presencia. De hecho, después de la caída, había dos personas, Enoc y Noé, de quien las escrituras dicen que caminaron con Dios (2). Es decir, que ellos ya no eran excluidos de su presencia. Quizás ustedes recuerden de la vida del hermano de Jared, quien vio al Señor. Cuando Cristo se le mostró al hermano de Jared, dijo a el, “eres redimido de la caída; por tanto, eres traído de nuevo a mi presencia” (Éter 3:13). Esta es nuestra meta, vencer este mundo caído y regresar a la presencia de Dios.

Por medio de su hijo amado, Dios nos ha dado un método de ser redimido de la caída y regresar a su presencia. Este método simplemente requiere que seamos humildes y tengamos fe en El. Jesus nos invita, “[caminen] en la mansedumbre de mi Espíritu.” Este es un camino que empieza con nuestras debilidades. Escuchen por favor a las siguientes palabras del Salvador:

Y si los hombres vienen a mí, les mostraré su debilidad. Doy a los hombres debilidad para que sean humildes; y basta mi gracia a todos los hombres que se humillan ante mí; porque si se humillan ante mí, y tienen fe en mí, entonces haré que las cosas débiles sean fuertes para ellos (Éter 12:27).

En la ultima Conferencia General Elder Hamilton nos enseñó acerca de esta escritura en Éter: “Observemos más detenidamente lo que el Señor nos enseña. Vemos que primero dice que da a los hombres y a las mujeres debilidad —en singular—, lo cual es parte de nuestra experiencia terrenal como seres caídos o carnales. Nos hemos vuelto hombres y mujeres naturales debido a la caída de Adán, pero mediante la expiación de Jesucristo, podemos vencer nuestra debilidad, o naturaleza caída.

Luego dice que Su gracia es suficiente y que si nos humillamos y tenemos fe en Él, entonces Él ‘har[á] que las cosas débiles [en plural] sean fuertes para [nosotros]’. En otras palabras, a medida que primero cambiemos nuestra naturaleza caída —nuestra debilidad—, entonces podremos cambiar nuestro comportamiento, nuestras debilidades.” (3) Así vemos que nuestra debilidad, al fin, no es una debilidad verdadera, sino más bien es un paso importante para nuestro progreso a regresar a las presencia de Dios. Pablo lo dijo bien, “cuando soy débil, entonces soy fuerte” (2 Corintios 12:10).

Hay otra manera en que una debilidad nos da fuerza. La fe, en un nivel básico es una debilidad porque es limitada. Según su definición de Alma, “La fe no es tener un conocimiento perfecto de las cosas; de modo que si tenéis fe, tenéis esperanza en cosas que no se ven, y que son verdaderas” (Alma 32:21). Aunque la fe es un conocimiento limitado y es ciega, y entonces se parece que es una debilidad, en realidad, es una fuerza. Al “ejercitar [nuestra] fe para arrepentimiento” (Alma 34:17) llegaremos a ser mas fuerte en maneras que el mero conocimiento no puede hacer. De hecho, tenemos que andar en fe, antes de andar con Dios.

Pablo enseñó que “por fe andamos, no por vista” (2 Corintios 5:7) y cuando andamos por fe estamos “and[ando] en el Espíritu” (Galatas 5:16). Tener fe es tener más acceso al Espíritu Santo, quien testifica de Cristo. Es por medio del Espíritu que podemos ver Dios “con el ojo de la fe” (Alma 32:40) —en singular— en preparación por el día en que lo veremos “con [nuestros] propios ojos” (Éter 12:19) —en plural. Es posible que el ojo de la fe es singular, porque el objeto de nuestra fe, Cristo también es singular. Alma enseñó, “hay otro modo o medio por el cual el hombre pueda ser salvo, sino en Cristo y por medio de él” (Alma 38:9). Así fue el progreso del hermano de Jared y muchos otros, según Moroni:

Y hubo muchos cuya fe era tan sumamente fuerte, aun antes de la venida de Cristo, que no se les pudo impedir penetrar el velo, sino que realmente vieron con sus propios ojos las cosas que habían visto con el ojo de la fe; y se regocijaron (Éter 12:19).

Alma considera el ojo de la fe equivalente con nuestras imaginaciones espirituales. Cuando Alma pregunta a su gente, “¿Miráis hacia adelante con el ojo de la fe y veis este cuerpo mortal levantado…para presentaros ante Dios…?” Alma también pregunta “¿Podéis imaginaros oír la voz del Señor…diciéndoos: Venid a mí, benditos?” Y “¿podéis imaginaros llevados ante el tribunal de Dios…? (Alma 5:15-18) ¿han imaginaron ustedes este escenario antes? ¿El día en que nosotros estamos arrodillados ante el Señor? La imaginación espiritual es un instrumento eficaz para el arrepentimiento. Nuestro Profeta, Presidente Nelson, han dicho, “El caminar por la senda de los convenios, en combinación con el arrepentimiento diario, aviva el ímpetu espiritual positivo” (4).

En el tiempo del Nefita Jarom, los profetas, los sacerdotes, y los maestros enseñaron a la gente “persuadiéndolos a mirar adelante hacia el Mesías y a creer en su venida como si ya se hubiese verificado.” (Jarom 1:11). Así que los Nefitas imaginaron que el Mesías ya vino a ellos, y se ajustaron sus comportamientos según esta realidad imaginada. El Espíritu puede guiar nuestras imaginaciones para que nos sentamos la realidad de un encuentro con Dios. ¿Han tenido ustedes algunas oportunidades de sentir la realidad de Dios?

Me recuerdo cuando era un joven, a veces durante las oraciones de my padre, me sentí que Dios realmente estaba en el cuarto con nosotros. En estas ocasiones pensé que si abriera los ojos yo vería a Dios. Así me sentía que Dios estaba tan cerca a nosotros. Y a veces cuando leo las escrituras con el Espíritu, me siento como estoy recibiendo las escrituras por la primera vez, es decir estoy el que recibe la revelación originalmente. Es como si “es [su] voz la que [me] las declara” (DyC 18:35). Y según las palabras de Doctrina y Convenios sección 18, “[puedo testificar] que [he] oído [su] voz y que [conozco sus] palabras” (DyC 18:35).

Testifico como Alma que “hoy es el tiempo y el día de [nuestra] salvación” y “es cuando el hombre debe prepararse para comparecer ante Dios” (Alma 34:31-32). Si andamos por la senda de los convenios, “hasta al fin,” podremos oír la voz del Padre diciéndonos: “Tendréis la vida eterna” (2 Nefi 31:20). Espero que todos nosotros podamos imaginar esta escenario, pero te garantizo que ninguno de nosotros podemos imaginar todo lo que Dios nos dará en esa ocasión. Por que, “Cosas que ojo no vio, ni oído oyó, ni han subido al corazón del hombre, son las que Dios ha preparado para aquellos que le aman” (2 Corintios 2:9).

Esta publicación es parte de un discurso dado en Mayo 2022.

(1) Enseñanzas de los Presidentes de la Iglesia: José Smith, capítulo 2

(2) En el antiguo testamento, Enoc y Noé también fueron traídos de nuevo a la presencia de Dios, pero las escrituras describen esta situación así; “caminó Enoc con Dios” (Génesis 5:22) y “con Dios caminó Noé” (Génesis 6:9).

(3) Kevin S. Hamilton, “Entonces haré que las cosas débiles sean fuertes” April 2022 o https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2022/04/28hamilton?lang=spa

(4) Presidente Nelson, “El Poder de Ímpetu Espiritual,” Abril 2022 o https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ftsoy/2022/05/04-the-power-of-spiritual-momentum-excerpts?lang=spa

The Interpreter Published “Joseph Knew First: Moses, The Egyptian Son”

Posted on by nathanwritesstuff

The Interpreter published my article “Joseph Knew First: Moses, The Egyptian Son” on their website on the 10th of May, 2018 (https://www.mormoninterpreter.com/joseph-knew-first-moses-the-egyptian-son/). Here is the origin story for the article:

Origin

The idea behind this article came from two unique events. First, I took an Egyptian history class from Dr. John Gee, who inspired me to start learning hieroglyphs (unfortunately, I never was motivated enough to get very far). Second, I attended a fireside by Dr. Royal Skousen, who spoke about the Book of Mormon critical text project. The idea that struck a chord with me was Dr. Skousen’s emphasis on a collaborative effort (collaborating with all sorts of people, even students) to identify apparent errors in the text of the current Book of Mormon. I was so jazzed that I went straight home to the Book of Mormon on a mission to look for apparent errors.

That next week as I was reading in 2 Nephi 3:17, I noticed something odd in the phrase “I will raise up a Moses.” The indefinite article “a” before Moses seemed an odd insertion there. I immediately thought that this might be evidence of the original Egyptian language of the Book of Mormon coming through the English translation, a vestige of an original Egyptian pun on the name of Moses and it’s meaning of  thougchild. I thought of this possible error being a remnant of the translation process based on Dr. Gee’s article, “La Trahison des Clercs.”

It was thrilling to contact Dr. Skousen and have a summary of our correspondence published in the addenda material of the Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon Part Six available in https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/atv/p6/. (see page 553 of 627.) I also started a paper discussing this odd phrase, but I got stuck on the approach of trying to prove that parts of 2  Nephi 3 may have originally been in Egyptian. I was, and still am, woefully unqualified to do this type of study, so the paper languished for years (I started it in 2005). Egyptian was only one of a handful of problems with this original approach. Needless to say, I didn’t come up with another approach until 2016, which turned into the current paper published by The Interpreter.

 

Love First, Love Last

Posted on by nathanwritesstuff

As powerful as human love can be, it cannot compare with the unique love Jesus taught and exemplified. In fact, Christ’s love is so specialized the scriptures sometimes employ a different word to distinguish it from the ordinary concept. This word in the English scriptures is Charity. Unlike Charity, “which never faileth”, but “endureth forever” (Moroni 7:45, 47), worldly love is fickle, prone to fall in and out of our hearts depending on circumstances. Like ordinary love, Charity needs to be experienced to be understood. God shares his love with us, and after realizing how deeply he loves us, we might be inspired to reciprocate or even emulate His love. “We love him because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).  

Charity does not come naturally to the natural man. Instead it is a gift we receive through prayer. Prayer is a form of work, something we must exercise regularly; this is especially true for the reception and retention of Charity. The scriptures urge us to “pray unto the father with all the energy of heart” to be “filled with this love” (Moroni 7:48). The exercise of this type of prayer can have a cardiovascular effect, which increases the capacity of our hearts to love with more breadth and depth for longer. Receiving Charity trains us in the art of loving first. 

Although very common, measuring another’s interest in loving us as a condition to loving them is more shallow than the love we are capable of through Christ. Christ “first loved us” and his love pushes us to do the same (1 John 4:19). So before we have enough information about someone to judge whether they merit our time and effort, we can choose to love them first. We don’t have to wrap our minds around someone else’s world until we find common ground in order to love. We can push past loving people just because we can see in them things we understand and love about ourselves to loving them just because. When we pray for Charity, we can include an object, a specific person, for whom we can learn to love first. Sometimes this object we are praying to love should be ourselves.

Being “filled with Charity” is not an ability limited to loving others despite their weaknesses, but also ourselves. Sometimes we can learn to appreciate the sordid pasts of others and love them today regardless, but find ourselves loathing our own history so much that we become restlessly uncomfortable in our own skin. Christ’s love comes to us as a comfort, precisely because it comes to us through the “Comforter” (Moroni 8:26). The reception of Charity reminds us that we are not only meant to be the messenger of Christ’s love, but also a receptacle; we are meant to believe the message too. When we read that “[Christ has] loved the world, even unto the laying down of [his] life for the world” (Ether 12:33), the world is not some wholly abstract phrase here, we are the world to him. Spiritual syntax demands that his loving us first not only move us to love him in return, but also love ourselves more completely, which multiplies our ability to love, period.

When we believe Christ’s love for us, we naturally want to love like him (see John 13:34). Our role as an appreciative consumer of his love prepares us to become a distributor too as Christ’s Charity drives us to pour out our hearts in love for others; a marvelous work, from which we can grow weary. As we continue our commitment to loving others, we might fear to expend our coveted reservoir of God’s love, a reservoir carved out originally by our fervent prayers and miraculously filled by the Lord. Just like the widow of Zidon, when we faithfully use up our all for others, we will witness how God will not allow our reservoir to fail (see 1 Kings 17:8-16). Prayer, our connection to the power of loving first, will also enable this love to last, because “perfect love…endureth by diligence unto prayer” (Moroni 8:26). 

It can be overwhelming to realize the implications of an infinite love, but this weighty gift of Charity mercifully comes with a manual. The same Comforter that delivers the package of perfect love to us also is the manual for its correct application. Charity is not a mandate to become a perpetual doormat or an unflinching punching bag. The Spirit “will show unto [us] all things what [we] should do” (2 Nephi 32:5), including what we should do with this most precious gift of His love. The Holy Ghost will prompt us not only to turn the other cheek at times (see Luke 6:29), but also to “[reprove] betimes with sharpness” (D&C 121:43). This repeated spiritual process of seeking Christ’s love and wandering through paths unknown to deliver it, will one day walk us back to Him. In this way, “when he shall appear we shall be like him,” because Charity, above all other gifts, sculpts us most closely into Christ’s image (see Moroni 7:48). After all, Christ’s image needs to be seen on more than paintings and sculptures, it needs to be witnessed in our acts and on our faces as we choose to love first and love last. 

Special thanks to the editing wizardry of my friend Katherine.

Still

Posted on by nathanwritesstuff

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A pristine lake in stillness lies,

Bereft of wave and straying ripple,

Stilling the stillness of the skies,

Reflecting every celestial miracle.

A running river distorts every image,

By moving in feverish motion,

Never reflecting upon its visage,

The complete image of true devotion.

The perfection of divine design,

Reflected by man’s will,

Will remain unclear and undefined,

Until that soul is still.

The photo attached is of Papase’ea in Upolu, Western Samoa, taken in 2012.

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The Power to Get Back Up Again

Posted on by nathanwritesstuff

We live in a fallen world and so we encounter failure. We try to “take up the cross, and follow [Christ] (Mark 10:21), but fall again and again. Sometimes we get tired. We may feel it is too hard. We may begin to think that our failures are not mistakes, but we are, that we fail because we are failures. This is exactly what Satan would like us to think. When we recognize that we have failed in some aspect of the gospel or we have sinned, we may come in contact with two different types of sorrow: the “sorrow of the world” (2 Corinthians 7:10) also described by Mormon as the “sorrowing of the damned” (Mormon 2:13), or “godly sorrow” (2 Corinthians 7:10).

The sorrow of the world comes from Satan, it is designed to crush us under its weight. This weight is unproductive and deliberately debilitating, because “[Satan] seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself” (2 Nephi 2:27). He wants us to feel like him, like we are damned, and there is no way out. The sorrow of the world is paralyzing, but Christ has “overcome the world” (John 16:33), including its sorrow, so that he could give us a different way.

Christ’s way allows us to feel hope even in the midst of our sorrows. Unlike the sorrow of the world, the weight of “Godly sorrow” is meant to be lifted, so we can become stronger and better. Godly sorrow leads to repentance and links us to the power of an “infinite atonement” (Alma 34:12), which is the power to get back up when we fall, no matter how far or often. Part of the significance of having an “infinite atonement” is to teach us about infinite forgiveness, infinite healing, and God’s infinite love, which “faileth not” (1 Corinthians 13:8). The painful process of the atonement is itself an example of the power we can have over sorrow and sin.

The account of Christ’s agonizing atonement in the garden of Gethsemane progresses through a simple sequence of actions. The narrative in the book of Matthew reads, “and he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26:39, italics added for emphasis). The scholar Kent Brown* has taught that the three main verbs “went”, “fell”, and “prayed” as narrated in all the synoptic gospels use the imperfect tense in the Greek original. This tense is used to describe either an action that was customary, something someone used to do, or an action that was iterative, something done repeatedly. The intended meaning here is that Jesus repeatedly went forward, fell down, and cried out for the pain to stop. This cycle was repeated over and over again as he suffered for our sins and sorrows.

The critical verb that is absent, but implied in this sequence of suffering is that he got up. Jesus fell down repeatedly, but he also got up again and again, and so can we. We will fall and fail, often and hard, but we don’t have to stay down, we can get up. We can always rise from the ashes of our mistakes through Christ’s enabling atonement.

References

*From the documentary, “The Messiah: Behold the Lamb of God”, produced by the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, accessed on May 17, 2016 http://messiahjesuschrist.org/episodes/atonement. The script, also available on line, has the following commentary from Professor Kent Brown:

“So Jesus arrives with the eleven. Judas has already separated himself. They come inside the garden, somewhere on the lower slopes of the Mount of Olives. He leaves eight near the gate, near the entryway, and takes three with Him farther into the garden. These are Peter, James, and John, those who have been with Him from the earliest days after He began to call the Twelve.

There are two basic things to notice about this. The first is the intensity of the suffering which now descends upon Him. And he, He says to the three that He is sorrowful even unto death. The weight of our sins, our mistakes, falling on a sinless man, in such enormity, brings Him to the point at which He wishes that He could push this away. He leaves them there, He goes farther into the garden and prays. And this is the second part. Each one of the synoptic gospels repeats his actions in the imperfect tense in Greek, which is the tense of customary action: he used to do this, she used to do that. And it also has to do with iterative action, repeated action. So that we read that Jesus went forward and fell and prayed, went forward and fell and prayed, went forward and fell and prayed.

This series of repeated actions that the verbs convey to readers indicates the intensity of the suffering He’s going through. He doesn’t just pray once. He must have straightened Himself up and trying to relieve Himself in some way, went forward and prayed again. This is a scene which is compelling to me, and tells me just in the way that it’s written, that Jesus suffers deeply, unfathomably at this moment, for you and for me.”

(http://messiahjesuschrist.org/messiah-the-narrative/messiah-script-episode-5/messiah-script-episode-5-part-2)

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The Joy of Reverence

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rugged mountains of the Basque Country
The rugged mountains of the Basque Country (Euskal Herria) can easily instill a sense of reverence in a visitor. 
Fear and reverence are two different reactions to the unknown or the misunderstood. Historically speaking, no one or no thing has been misunderstood more than God, and sadly this has led to fear much more often than reverence. The irony is saddening, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2Timothy 1:7). Instead God has given every human the gift of faith, which allows us to face uncertainty. Faith by definition, presupposes a certain amount of uncertainty, it is not “a perfect knowledge of things”, but it is to “hope for things which are not seen, which are true” (Alma 32:21). Through faith’s singular eye, we are able to perceive the goodness of God, and we “shall be filled with light” (D&C 88: 67). Whereas fear cometh from disbelief, not just from ignorance or misunderstanding; these bring darkness to our minds and hearts.

We are commanded to believe that “man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend” (Mosiah 4:9). Yet, even within the faithful, for some not knowing everything, may be barely bearable, while for others it can be wonderful. Like Nephi, we can accept “not know[ing] the meaning of all things”, because we can “know that [God] loveth his children” (1Nephi 11:17). According to Nephi, this “love of God” is “the most desirable above all things”, and “the most joyous to the soul” (1Nephi 11: 22-23).

In the scriptures, the word joy is often used to describe the feelings of those who encounter the Divine. Joy can be traced back to the theoretical Indo-European root gau-, “to rejoice, to have religious fear or awe,”. For me, awe is an apt term to describe my response to those sublime moments of revelation, “when the arm of God is revealed” (D&C 123:17) or when in spiritual stillness I am made to know that He is God (see D&C 101: 16). This intense joy not only “passeth all understanding”, but also surpasses my ability to express them (Philippians 4: 7).

Although God is mysterious, He is not a nebulous cloud. He is real and revealable to those who diligently desire to know Him. He is tangible, with “a body of flesh and bone” (D&C 130:22). He feels, and therefore, in the scriptures we can see His wrath and His compassion; He has been seen to weep for our sins (Moses 7:27-33), to respond with tenderness to our pleas. Indeed, He loves us to the extent of allowing man the agency to inflict atrocities on others, and then He was willing to suffer the punishment for these sins, so that he could understand us and save us, if we would but listen.

And by this He understands humanity; and He will have us all stand before Him to give an account of our life here on earth. This is a monolithic event, one for which, if we are not prepared, we shall fear (see D&C 38: 30). This is one of our great missions on earth, to prepare to meet God. This preparation is done through repentance, the process of perfection, the remarkable gift given through the atonement of the Christ. For some receiving a remission of our sins is truly mysterious. Enos after crying unto God “in mighty prayer…for [his] own soul”, heard a voice tell him “[his] sins [were] forgiven”, in amazement, he said, “Lord, how is it done?” (Enos 1: 4-7).

Religious mystery is not mysterious, because religious truth is irrational or ineffable, but because it is sacred and wonderful, just like the experience of Enos. In fact, the word Mystery, for early Christians designated ordinances that were sacred. This connection between ordinances and mystery can be seen in D&C 84: 19-21:

“And this greater priesthood administereth the gospel and holdeth the key of the mysteries of the kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God. Therefore in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest. And without the ordinances thereof, and the authority of the priesthood, the power of godliness is not manifest unto men in the flesh”

This is the great mystery of the kingdom of God; that is, we come to know God and prepare to meet Him through the ordinances of the gospel. This begins with the ordinances of Baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. The covenants associated with them are renewed every time we partake of the sacrament. The sacrament is a sacred moment where we symbolically partake of the form of Christ in preparation for that day “when he shall appear” and “we shall be like Him” (Moroni 8: 48). Ordinances and their covenants whether baptismal or in the temple, all give us opportunities to glimpse the promises our hopes rest upon, this hope as Paul describes, “entereth into that within the veil” (Hebrews 6: 19).

Of course, it is not the ordinances alone, but our attitudes towards them and our faithfulness to the covenants we enter into, which allows our “confidence” to “wax strong in the presence of God” (D&C 121: 45), and then in turn makes it possible for his presence to wax strong in our lives.

At this point, we cease preparing to meet God, and are merely preparing to see him again, for we already know Him. He has made himself known to us, through our own actions.

As a young boy when we partook of the sacrament, I often mistook my Dad’s bowed head and silence as a sign of fatigue rather than of reverence. Upon completion, he would sometimes look at me with glazed eyes and an odd smile that I thought was an admission of guilt for sleeping. But as I have awoken spiritually, I have realized my dad’s expression was wrought by a renewal, a cup that was emptied and one that was filled till it ran over glazing his eyes with emotion. He has never told me this, but I know him well enough to understand the reasons for his reverence. For I too know that God lives, let us prepare to stand worthy before Him, so that we may enter into His rest.

A lightly edited version of a talk given in 2008.

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The True Order of Prayer

Posted on by nathanwritesstuff


When we are first taught to pray, we are often given an order of things to say. We may be instructed to: first, address our Heavenly Father; second, express gratitude; third, ask for blessings we need; and lastly, close in the name of Jesus Christ. As we gain experience in communicating with God, our prayers may change. The order of our prayers may change too as we face disorder in our lives.

This is especially true when the last drops of our faith are being wrung out under the weight of our sufferings. When the gravity of our circumstances force us to weigh whether our desperate prayers are working or not, we should realize that “prayer is a form of work” (Bible Dictionary, p. 753). It isn’t supposed to work, we are.

In desperation, we might take the approach of “wrestling with God in mighty prayer” (Alma 8:10), but do it incorrectly. We may expend a lot of spiritual sweat before we realize that we cannot pin God down into giving us the blessings we want or think we need; rather, we need to “ask for things it is possible for God to grant” (Bible Dictionary, p. 753). This can be frustrating, because “we know not what we should pray for”; fortunately, “the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8: 26). We can find peace in knowing that “it shall be given [us] what [we] shall ask” by the Spirit (D&C 50: 30).

We don’t wrestle against God, but with Him as we “labor[…] in the spirit” (Alma 8:10) to “feel” and understand the “still small voice” prompting us to ask for those blessings the Lord can give us (1 Nephi 17:45). Sometimes we need the rending wind, the earthquake, or the fire of our sufferings before we can hear this voice or even want to hear it (see 1Kings 19:11-12). Regardless of our circumstances, when we recognize His voice, we need to listen. Just like a child who initially repeats the promptings of a parent when he or she learns to pray, we can be open to the Lord’s voice and repeat His promptings in our prayers. This order of prayer may be termed a “true order of prayer”, because it reflects the true order of our relationship with God.

The awareness of our relationship with God should change our prayers. Our prayers might lengthen as we punctuate them with pauses to listen for promptings. They may grow beyond the bounds of discrete events into a lifestyle change where our “hearts [will be] full, drawn out in prayer unto him continually” (Alma 34:27). Even our grammar may change. Like the Savior, we may consider subordinating our own will with the adverb “nevertheless” from “nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). Jesus’ plea and subsequent submission in the garden of Gethsemane was not a moment of weakness, but of strength.

Our submissive prayers may not change our circumstances, but they will change us, strengthening us to meet our challenges with “sufficient” grace (Ether 12:27). With God’s additional strength, our burdens can “[be] made light” (Mosiah 24:14-15) or at least lighter. Even our longest trials can seem more like a “small moment” (D&C 121:7) when viewed in the context of an infinite timeline. Additionally, spiritual perspectives can help us glimpse the good a bad experience is doing for us (D&C 122:7) and fill us with gratitude.

Part of the equation for gaining answers to prayers is to “remember how merciful the Lord hath been” to us (Moroni 10:3). In the same way that the Spirit can prompt us to ask for certain blessings, he can also help us be thankful by bringing “all things to [our] remembrance” (John 14:26). Gratitude is a natural pride softener. When we are thankful, we are more likely to accept the answers the Lord knows we need, especially those times when the Lord’s will is at variance with our own. Thankfulness diverts our thoughts away from our own problems long enough to realize that there are others struggling under the weight of life’s burdens too. Gratitude may also prompt us to “look unto [our] God” in the midst of our trials to consider what God’s concerns are for us (1 Nephi 18:6).

God may not be interested in the problem itself but how he can use our trials to make us more like him and his son. Prayers are on-the-job tutorials for becoming more like Christ. As we recognize and follow promptings in our prayers we train ourselves to think and act like the Savior. When we close our prayers “in the name of Jesus Christ, amen”, we are making the statement that our prayers reflect the mind and will of the Lord. We are saying things for him and a little as him.

Thank you to my friend Katherine for her editing suggestions on this article and to my friend Brandon for the photo. 

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Solving the Equation of Our Own Suffering

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20160422_190517
Sometimes there are metaphorical boulders that fall in our path to peace, other times there are actual boulders that block our way.

When we suffer, the question we often ask is why. Why did event X happen? However, in the equation of our own suffering, why is not the variable we are trying to solve. The scriptures teach us why things happen. Nephi taught “[God] doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world” (2 Nephi 26:24). And the Lord himself revealed that “[His] work and [His] glory” was “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39). Thus the variable, for which we must solve, is how event X manifests God’s love to us or brings about His work and His glory through our experiences.

Instructively, the idea for the creation of algebra was not to dishearten future students, but to simplify problems so that we could solve them. The Lord does not give us problems we cannot solve either. Paul taught the Corinthians that “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Nephi was okay with “not know[ing] the meaning of all things” because “[he knew] that [God] loveth his children” (1 Nephi 11:17). Our faith in God can give us hope even amidst trials. This is likely why Nephi could be bound unjustly with cords helplessly watching the ship he built be thrashed around in a storm, and yet surprisingly comment, “I did look unto my God, and I did praise him all the day long; and I did not murmur against the Lord because of mine afflictions” (1 Nephi 18:16). Focusing disproportionately on comprehending what only the Lord can comprehend could be paralyzing instead of catalyzing our faith to action.

Although the word faith is more commonly used as a noun, in the grammar of the gospel, it is a verb whose object is God. Our faith in God inspires us to not only “hope for a better world” (Ether 12:4), but propels us to make this world better-one faithful act at a time. Sadly, sometimes our understanding of gospel grammar might allow a trust in faith’s object if only the subject were different. We may think, “sure ‘all things are possible to him that believeth’ (Mark 9:23), because the “him” in this scriptural sentence surely means someone else. Mathematically speaking; however, the scriptures can say all things are possible to you and I, because no matter how small we think our all is, anything multiplied by an “infinite atonement” would equal infinity (see Alma 34:8-12). Through the enabling atonement of Christ we can all “come off conqueror[s]” (D&C 10:5) against our trials, if we believe.

Photo provided by my friend Brandon. This article was under consideration by the Ensign for future publication, but is now being reviewed by the Liahona. As of October 2020, it is unclear if it will be published or not.

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