“He Did Deliver Me from Bondage”, p. 29

"He Did Deliver Me from Bondage”, p. 29

2 N 2:1-2

“Jacob, in thy childhood thou has suffered afflictions and much sorrow, because of the rudeness of thy brethren.  Nevertheless… though knowest the greatness of God; and He shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain.”

consecrate, v.t. [L., to consecrate, sacred. See Sacred.] (Webesters 1828 online)

1. To make or declare to be sacred, by certain ceremonies or rites; to appropriate to sacred uses; to set apart, dedicate, or devote, to the service and worship of God; as, to consecrate a church.

Thou shalt consecrate Aaron and his sons. Exodus 29.

All the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated to the Lord. Joshua 6.

2. To canonize; to exalt to the rank of a saint; to enroll among the gods, as a Roman emperor.

3. To set apart and bless the elements in the eucharist.

4. To render venerable; to make respected; as, rules or principles consecrated by time.

CONSECRATE, a. Sacred; consecrated; devoted; dedicated.

I felt the Lord comfort me with this scripture about a month ago when I was trying to work through forgiving my brother for teasing me as a child.  I love this principle that the Lord will take our pain and turn it for our gain.  I think that is one thing that makes Him the Almighty God.  Because He can take any choices made by the agency of man and use it for His purposes.  That is why the work of God cannot be frustrated.  It is so powerful to me. 

I have seen all the pain I have suffered in my life be turned from confusion and loneliness into purpose and understanding.  My pain brought me to inquire of my Mission from the Lord.  And now living that Mission, I have the greatest joy I could ever know by fulfilling the measure of my creation and knowing it; doing the most important thing and knowing it is the most important thing.  It is because of the pain that I have suffered that I have the motivation to want to change, not only for myself, but for those that will come after me.  There is potential in the pain that it does not have to be for naught.  The pain in my prison is a torturing hell, but after I have learned the truth from God that will pull me out of that pit, I am not only changed permanently and completely for myself, but I can also take that truth that God has given me and help others to see the truth to help them out of their pit.  Whether or not this will be a possibility in reality or if it just a hope I don’t know.  It may be that others have to learn that truth for themselves from God, and God alone.  But testimony and hope is first kindled by hearing the testimony of others.  There is no light in the darkness until there is first a spark.  It must begin somewhere, and if it be possible that I can help because of the pain and truth that I have learned, then let it be done. 

6-24-11

6-24-11

Yesterday was a good day.  I’m not sure how it happened but I thought a lot about the question, “How can I trust the Lord more?”  I realized that somewhere in my thoughts I am still trying to do it all myself; that I am still trying to bear the full weight of my burdens by myself.  I felt so overwhelmed yesterday I had two an extra prayers in the morning to plea for strength to help me lift my burdens.  The results were amazing.  He not only lifted me but magnified me.  The blessings of the day were that I was able to be patient with my children, even during Scouts.  I was able to help a lady get started with herbs to heal an 8 year old c-section incision (an oozing abscess) and other 20 year chronic conditions.  She is very excited and ready to commit.  She told me that she liked how I was living my life and that she wanted to become like me.  That was very sweet of her, yet in my heart I recognized that she was seeing the light of Christ in my life.  She was seeing His mercy of lifting me up in my weakness.  She saw me being loving and patient with my children; she liked that I make my own popsicles, and did herbs to take care of my family.  I told her about the Dr Christopher’s Family Herboligist home study course that I just got done with, and she wants to take it.  So far she has kept her word and done everything she said she would do.  I am happy for her, and I am confident that she is going to feel like a new woman.  She said her condition has been so bad that she didn’t take her oldest child to the play at the park until he was 12 years old.  He is now about 17. The last blessing of the night was that a lady I serve with at church came by to drop off the key to the car.  She confirmed my feeling to set up appointments with the Sisters for visiting teaching supervisor- which affirmed my witness of the Spirit that I was doubting.  And she also said that I was the most honest person she knows- because I told her sometimes I do make myself miserable by not being flexible and not trusting the Lord enough.  Now that I think about it, she masterfully turned a compliment I gave her into praise for me…  I told her “you are so flexible, I love it!” and she said, well you have to be otherwise we’d make ourselves miserable.  That’s when I said, “Sometimes I do.”  Then she told me I was the most honest person she knows.  She is SO amazing.  I want to be like her!  Maybe in another 20 years, I can traverse part of the way.  I was also able to tell my Cub Scouts that I believe in them and help them know I love them.  The Spirit bore me up to teach them well.

Summary of Step 1

STEP 1, BOOK

I’m not sure weather my ‘anger addiction’ is really an addiction.  I have dealt with addiction in the past.  This offers no euphoria or escape from reality.  I find no pleasure in it.  I am certain, however, that it is a trap; my prison: and that I am powerless to escape it without complete and total reliance on my Savoir.  I have believed for so many years I am a victim and have waited.  There is part of the work required of me that I did not believe I was capable of acting on.  Now that I have found the door of my prison, I see that even though I hold the keys in my hand, He has to show me how to use the key.  He is my deliverer.  There is no escape without His might.  He is mighty to save and has all power to snatch me from the bottomless pit.   But weather or not it would be called an addiction; I feel the prompting of the Spirit that this is the process I need to go through to get out. 

6-20-11 “He did deliver me from bondage” p.14, day 7

Moses 1:10

I read this yesterday but did not get to write.  I have thought about this with Moses: Why did he feel that man was nothing?  I must admit it has me perplexed.  The only thing I can come up with is that maybe after seeing some of the works of the Almighty that he realized the greatness of God’s power and the puniness of man’s power.  But to say that man is nothing is removes man from their role as God’s most precious of all His creations.  We are His work and His glory; his joy and where all His deepest hopes lie.  We are not nothing to Him.  We are precious to Him.  Maybe the difference lies in how the word nothing is used.  If referring to our power, yes we are nothing.  If referring to our importance we are not nothing.  Maybe before Moses could learn of God’s love, he needed to be humbled to learn of God’s power, so that he would be able to trust God.

We have been watching the cartoon “King of Egypt” a lot recently because we just got it from my sister.  Moses’ mind frame after being raised in Egypt as a Prince of Egypt was that he was ‘almost a god’.  The Egyptians in their theological beliefs thought that Pharaoh was God: “he was the morning and the evening star; so it is said, so let it be written” implying that Pharaoh’s word was is an unbreakable decree.  That was the whole aim of their society was to become a god and they believed they could do it by their own power. 

As for the author’s question:  Why do we resist relying on God’s power and choose to lean, instead, on self and the answers the world provides?

It my mind, it is a matter of faith.  Things which are seen are easier to believe.  Things which are not seen are much more difficult to believe.  If we have not seen for ourselves the works of God, we may be doubtful of His power to act.  If we do not know of His love for us, we would doubt His desire to act in our behalf.  It is one of the tests of mortality: to trust in God to see ‘if man will do all whatsoever God seeth fit to inflict upon him.’  Beginning at a very young age, a child acts on the feeling ‘I can do it by myself’.  We have a basic need to do all we can for ourselves.  Then in adulthood, in the childhood of our parenthood, we have to learn the opposite: that we can’t do it by ourselves, and we are powerless.  It is a symbiotic relationship.  There is only part which we have power to act on, and part which we do not.  We must learn how to appropriately work in our stewardship to invite the agency of our children so that they learn to choose for themselves the right way to go, and grow in the process.  There can be no growth where there is not choice.  That was the difference between God’s plan and Satan’s plan in the Pre-mortal council in Heaven.  God wanted to see us grow because He loved us.  Satan was only thinking of himself and his greed for power. 

p.17  “As I continued to study the Book of Mormon, I found no support for any of the ideas of [spiritual] self-reliance, self-mastery, or self-sufficiency.  Instead, I found testimony everywhere that all my efforts at goal-setting, life planning, or life-management were manifestations of vanity and unbelief if there were not first based on prayerful counsel with the Lord. (Alma 37:37)  and then empowered by His grace (power to carry them out).

I need to ponder on this today. 

“I finally realized as I once heard it said, “True self-mastery comes from turning our “self” over to the Master.”

I truly am nothing without God and cannot of myself, no matter how hard I try, answer the ‘ends of the law’ by my own power.  I am completely helpless and subject to His justice and mercy. 

6-18-11 “He did deliver me from bondage” p. 14, day 6

6-18-11 “He did deliver me from bondage” p. 14, day 6 

Helaman 12:7

It is true that all the creations of God obey Him, except His children.  We are quick to do evil and slow to do good.  It is easier to watch TV than it is to exercise.  It is the river of the opposition of life where all things flow like gravity down to that which is death; to be at rest; having no more life and no more forces to act upon it.  As mortals, it must be our “conscious and continual effort to fight against it.” (CS Lewis- The inner ring)  We must chose to act on our agency, to decide be an entity that lives to act upon things, and not be a thing acted upon.  We must be determined to apply the principle of work: to fight against the downward current and swim upstream.  Sometime we must decide to deliberately go against the grain if the grain is going the wrong way.   We have to be willing to stand alone and choose the right, even if we are the only ones doing it and we have to stand alone.  When, for example, was the last time you were driving down the freeway going with the flow of traffic?  How fast were you going?  I find that traffic usually flows 5-10 miles above the speed limit.  Is that a big deal?  Maybe not, maybe it is.  I am personally at a place on the path right now that I have to learn to “be quick to observe” and quick to obey.  I am asking a lot of the Lord to bless me in the goals and vision I am seeking to attain.  I have to be sure that I am strictly obedient, or else I have not ‘done all that I can do’.  Did not Joseph Smith, the mortal who ‘has done more for mankind than any other man, save it be Jesus Christ’; did he not say that we must obey the law of the land?   I have decided to obey this speed limit, even if I am the only one doing it.  Others my see me as a ‘old fuddy-duddy’ and the traffic may swirl around me, but I know I am choosing the right and doing all that I can do to be obedient.  Then when I get on my knees at night, or when I reach a critical juncture and need a miracle, I expect the Lord will hear my cry and grant my petition: because I have done all that I can do to be obedient.  Now do I do this all the time every time, no.  It is something I am conscious of and something I work to be aware of and careful to be obedient. 

You would think that a person in this place trying to be ‘strictly obedient’ wouldn’t have other problems like an anger addiction, right?  We all have to have areas we struggle it.  It is part of the mortal experience.  We are all subject to the flesh and therefore temptation.  We all must strive to overcome the flesh and the world.  We all must lay down our own will if we are to have a fullness of joy by seeking the Father’s will.  This is Christ’s victory, and he says, “Come, follow me.”  His victory will be our victory too if we trust in Him more than the arm of the flesh.