I was blessed to be able to share yesterday with
someone about spiritual dyslexia and the scripture of “come unto Christ and be
perfected in Him.” It was a great visit
and the Spirit filled my mouth with the words to say. It seems she knows her addictions are a
walking time bomb, but she said she procrastinates everything until she
absolutely has to because she works better under pressure. I hope she learns sooner than later so she can
minimize her suffering.
On p. A-8 she continues the results of our
spiritual dyslexia and says how we tend to mis-interpret the scripture in
Mosiah 4:14 that says, “And ye will not suffer your children that they go
hungry or naked; neither will ye suffer that they transgress the laws of God,
and fight and quarrel one with another…”
I have wondered this very thing myself. I have done and felt exactly as she
describes,
“Then, with those infamous
words (that become more infamous the more kids you have) still ringing in our
ears, you drive home with a van full of children who can’t make it out of the
parking lot before World War III erupts.
As each discordant sound falls on your ears, this seemingly impossible
mandate falls on your head like a pile driver – driving your sense of pleasing
God ever further from you and you ever further from Him. You feel confused, befuddled, discouraged, or
you feel frustrated, angry, determined to force this unrighteous behavior to
cease. In confusion we are left to
wonder, “Why would God give us such an impossible mandate and then call His
gospel the ‘good news’?...
“When read in correct
context, Mosiah 4:14 is not a
mandate or a command; it is actually a promise!... The truth is that the things
on the right side of our model (page A-25) are promised results that will begin
to happen automatically if we are willing to put all our effort into
establishing and developing the relationship outlined on the left side… “When we put God first [in our lives] all
other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives” President
Ezra Taft Benson.”
I am observing something strange in my
thinking. As I’m going through these
lists of steps along a path, I seem to be evaluating myself to see where I
am. In my mind I will recognize it as
done and kind-of mentally “check it off” or I will recognize that I need to
work on it, or haven’t done it yet. I’m
not sure if this is good or bad. I know
sometimes when we check something off as “done” we tend to forget about it and
don’t try to work on it anymore. My
concern is that I think I’ve been trying to do this in respect to the things I
do for the people in my life, and they can sense it. For example, giving a birthday card: I have it on a list, check it off when it’s
done giving myself a victory high-five…
but in my prayer the other day I was asking for feedback to know why my
relationships with the people in my life are not progressing. He said that they feel this; that I am
checking them off on a list. That the
things I do for them have, as of yet, been without true charity, and there is
something more I must learn if I want to build true trusting relationships with
them. This is SO hard!! Not only do I have to learn one “foreign love-language” but become fluent in all the
“love-languages” because these different people I’m trying to build trust with
all feel love differently. I have been
trying, but in a way that makes them feel like objects instead of people. It is painful, and hurts deeply to recognize
the incongruency between what I want to create for my life and what I in
reality have. I guess that’s why we have
hope in a vision, as something that we will someday be able to accomplish. I cannot be everything to everyone; I cannot
give more than I have; I cannot be more than I have ability in today. I am what and who I am and have only learned
so far what I have learned. I need to learn
to accept that as my best, and let go of the rest.
[9-18-11 ] I was talking to my Mom about
this afterward about the 5 love languages part and she said that possibly I was
making it harder than it had to be. She
helped me see that as I do the ‘one right thing’ that the Spirit directs to do
that it will be just the perfect thing for the perfect situation and it will
help progress the relationship. It is
like the story of Jesus where he directs his disciples to cast their net on the
other side of the ship. When and where
he says, they reap a harvest more than they can hold. I have seen this true in my life. He can make an minute as potent as an hour to
increase our time. He can tell us just
the right thing to do, if we will but trust Him. I want to trust Him more.
