9-13-11 “He did deliver me from bondage” p. 82, day 5

9-13-11                     “He did deliver me from bondage” p. 82, day 5

There is this evil little voice in the back of my head constantly trying to get me to seek glory for myself; to build myself up; or to try to sound profound.  It tries to get me to think in a way in my learning mentality that will “change them instead of me”.   I suppose it is trying to get me to not live my mission which is to “Change me, not them.”  There is no real influence in arrogance.  I’m sorry if this comes out sometimes.  I also am constantly fighting the temptation to think of myself as better, more advanced, or superior in any way to any of my heavenly brothers and sisters here on the earth.  I easily see my own desire of who I want to become and my reality in my heart is that person I see in my mind.  Then I have a double-standard to see others for who they are today.  I see their weaknesses or actions that are not becoming of who they truly are and I see them for who they are today.  This is not what I want.  I want to truly be Don Quixote.  I want to see others as I see myself: for the potential of their eternal selves. I am fighting against it, but I have not yet overcome it.  This seems to be one of my weapons of rebellion.  I pray for humility but it is slow to release me.  I will continue to seek and wait for deliverance.

I would rejoice if I could stop fighting against God; that if my every thought and every action were to glorify Him, and not myself.  I would that I could see all the ways I fight against Him, but I am blind.  He shows me only what I can change in today.  I want my life to be as the Savior’s was: to do the Father’s will not His own.

I know in seeking the Father’s will, it is truly what is best for us personally and completely.  Not only us individually on the micro-scale of our lives, but also on the macro-scale of how everyone’s lives weave together.  I know that living His will for us is truly what will help us to be happy.  Yes, I desire to lay down ALL my weapons of rebellion.  Someday I hope God will grant me victory.

9-9-11 “He did deliver me from bondage” p.82, Day 4

9-9-11  “He did deliver me from bondage” p.82, Day 4

“Why do you think God can share the mysteries only with those whose hearts are softened?”

I have a story that can illustrate the answer to this question.  I was at the library one day because my computer was down and I needed to type something.  I was at a stage in my learning path where God was helping me to desire to understand others and see into their hearts.  He taught me this lesson to help me understand why it is such a hard gate to get through.  I was pounding away at my computer when someone else I didn’t know came to sit at the computer beside me.  As my fingers were flying over the keyboard when I noticed he was kinda a hunt-and-peck typer.  At first I was feeling “pretty cool” (prideful) that I could type so much better than him. (I have since repented of this pride.)  Then thoughts like these went through my mind of “I wonder how much typing experience he has had?  Maybe he hadn’t ever had a typing class, or had that much time at the computer.  His ‘tool box’ of experiences has given each of us just the skills we have right now.  Why do I feel like that makes me better than him?  Maybe he has not had the same opportunities for learning to type as I have.  Maybe that is not part of his mission or what he is good at.  I’m sure there are other things he is really good at that I am not very good at.  With that my pride was swept away and I was able to focus on own work I had to do.  Sometime later,  the sacred nature of the human heart began to dawn on me.  To me it all made perfect sense in my mind and heart at the time- all flowing together.  The epiphany struck me when this question entered my thoughts, “What kind of Father would He be (meaning God) if He were to let ‘just anyone’ into a heart when they were not willing to truly understand them?”  I realized that to truly understand others at heart, we have to be willing to pay the price to strip ourselves of pride and seek through the Spirit of truth to understand them.  This was a gift I wanted and I have been paying that price since that day two years ago. 

The way I see that this is the same principle is by what I call “the Law of More” described in Alma 12:9-11.  Here’s a link to the full text.  It will help immensely to read these two verses to see this. http://lds.org/scriptures/bofm/alma/12?lang=eng

 It is the same price that must be paid for more love, money or truth.  If we desire to gain MORE light and truth then it is earned on the principle of obedience.  As we “do the best we can with what we have” we qualify for more; if was waste, then less will be given to us.  You see, God feels His gifts are very sacred and precious, just as He feels about the sacred nature of the human heart.  He wants us to treasure them so that no misuse or damage comes to them.  He feels hurt and sad when we trample on that which He holds so precious.  So, He gives us a little bit at a time to test us to see what we are going to do with what we have been given.  Do we use our gifts and resources to gratify self or to serve others?  Have we proven ourselves worthy of more?  What will we do with it?  How will it affect us and others?   Will it lead us to greater pride or more humility?  Will it help us grow closer to Him?

So to answer the question in the book, “Why do I think God can share the mysteries only with those whose hearts are softened?”  After we gain more, we are accountable for more.  We are growing in stewardship responsibilities. 

9-8-11 “He did deliver me from bondage” p.81, Day 3

9-8-11  “He did deliver me from bondage”  p.81, Day 3

“What weakness do I hold on to?”

This is so ironic!  I used to be so focused on the problem that I couldn’t see anything else.  Now I seem to be so focused on the solution that I cannot see my weaknesses. 

I really feel like God has given me a gift to have good desires.  I don’t have to work very hard on that part.  I pray for them and they come as I work hoping they’ll come, and they do.  I do have to work on the follow-through and believing that I can solve problems.  Sometimes I just have to WILL myself to believe.  Doubt comes so easy.  I have to choose to put out the darkness and decide I am going to believe.

Oh!  I got one!  Growing up planning and problem solving was really really hard for me.  I muttled through my problems doing the best I could cut lacked the desire or capacity to go figure out something better.  I used to have good ideas and talk about doing nice things for others, but when it came right down to it they didn’t get done because I lack follow-through.  Well, yesterday I had a victory moment!  Last Christmas I told my Mom that I wanted to redo her bathroom.  I had good intentions, but it’s now September and nothing has been done.  Well, I needed to borrow some money  and she said I could work it off by doing the bathroom.  I’ve gotten slowly better at planning and writing down what I need to do.  Recently I am gaining the follow through to actually DO the things I plan on doing.  So I had written in my planner that yesterday I was going to call Home Depot to see how much renting a wallpaper steamer is.  I know it sounds stupid and silly that this has been my block, but there is something in the ‘figure it out’ that I had not been able to conquer.  I mean, how do you see how to do what you have never done before?  If there is no one there to show you how, and if you don’t ask for help all you can do is remain stuck- muddling through as best you can.  That’s what I used to do. But today, I changed and actually researched the solutions.  I did it! And then I got online to see a ‘how to’ video which helped me see the tools I needed to bring or buy.  I now have a plan and feel confidence that I can figure it out.  I know I cannot foresee everything.  I have a tendency to over-plan and never act.  So now I’m jumping in with my best foot forward.  I know I’m going to make mistakes, and I get to learn from those.  It will be great.

This weakness also applies to the way I approach meals in our home.  I also do not enjoy creating beauty in our home because I don’t want to stay here.  Meal-time has been a mountain that I believed I could not move for a long time.  In this I am still on survival mode.  I tolerate the existence of food because obviously we have to have it.  I just have not learned yet how to enjoy making it or eating it.  This is where I have to decide to conquer.  The pain grows the longer I procrastinate.  I have done some research and now it has come down to time to act.  I have to try making new recipes, which I really do not enjoy.  My husband does and I have gladly let him cook for 8 years.  But I also feel victim to his choices.  I am trying to get away from eating meat, and want to eat more fruits and vegetables.  He is still in the mode of past thinking meat and potatoes.  It’s so hard to switch our brains to think differently.  So really it’s up to me to change our food habits.  If I see it needs to be done, then I have to be the one to do it.  It is wrong and puts unnecessary stress on our relationship to expect him to follow-through with what I am want him to do.  He doesn’t see the need, I do.  I think he will be willing to change if I get into action.

9-8-11 “He did deliver me from bondage” p.81, Day 2

9-8-11  “He did deliver me from bondage”  p.81, Day 2

2 N 4:31 “O Lord, wilt thou redeem my soul? … Wilt thou make me that I may shake at the appearance of sin?”

Thoughts I had never considered...  The only real remission of our sins-  a real change of desire – the removal of the addiction because we now abhor what we used to crave.   It brings to mind another scripture that ‘truly their hearts were changed’.  Sometimes in my rebellious ways, I like doing the wrong thing- like getting that feeling of swearing like I was cool, or the psychological ‘kickers’ we get when we talk about other people.  There may be a temporary high in doing the wrong, but surely it cannot last because ‘wickedness never was happiness’.  Every person who has ever taken a mind-altering drug into their bodies knows about this type of high.  Yet even while taking it they know that they are going to have to come crashing down later.  But later doesn’t matter because now we crave the addiction.

Let me describe the kind of life that the Lord has given me now that my heart is changed.  By no means do I mean to say that I have no more sins.  I know there are, but I also know that I am changing through grace as fast as I can, and that is all I can do.  To some extent, I do feel that my heart has changed and I have ‘no more desire to do evil’.  I am working on being focused in my time and my energy to live my mission which is my small part in God’s great plan.  I am focused on the solution and making adjustments toward doing better.  I no longer abhor myself.  There is no more guilt.  I can really say for the first time in my life that I love myself and I love my life.  I have never felt like this before.  I feel like I am on fire in ‘doing many good things to build up the kingdom of God’.  I still have to put out doubts all the time.  The dark dot voices still try to tell me I can’t do it and that my contribution doesn’t mean anything to others, but I am fighting it.  I am swimming upstream and I am getting stronger.  Like Rapunzal said on the movie ‘Tangled’, “No I will never stop fighting you.  Every second for the rest of my life I will never stop trying to get away from you!”  In the fight I have victory in the moment; as long as I keep on going I will win. 

9-7-11 “He did deliver me from bondage” p. 81, Day 1

9-7-11  “He did deliver me from bondage”  p. 81, Day 1

It is interesting to note that the bad comes in only after we turn away from the Lord.  I believe this truly happens in the moment of choice:  When my kids are whining (there’s nothing that drives me nuts quicker) for attention or impatient for food: Do I get impatient and be annoyed or do I pray for strength beyond my own.    The cycle is set up because we fell into a trap and make the wrong choice therefore leading us down to captivity.  I know every time I let myself get angry it is because I am not “looking to the Lord to live” as I ought.  Joy is there, but I have to choose it by looking to Him.

9-7-11 “He did deliver me from bondage” p. 80

9-7-11

“He did deliver me from bondage” p. 80

Yet knowing “that it is in harmony with the principles of the Gospel to be self-disclosing to others about our weaknesses” will not help us feel safe enough to do it.  We first need to be healed by Him, and then He fills our cup.  Then we will have security from within that no man can neither give nor take away.

“He did deliver me from bondage” p. 75 - 78

“He did deliver me from bondage”  p. 75

Thoughts from p.75

I think before I was being honest, but at the same time not having forgiven myself.  The result was a feeling of guilt as I confessed my sins, thus communicating the feeling of my prison.  Now that I have forgiven myself and placed my ‘inventory’ on the alter, when I am open and honest now there is a feeling of liberation communicated because of forgiveness: thus hopefully giving them the desire and hope of liberation too. 

Epiphany while exercising today: 

p. 78  JS quote “I told them I was a man and they must not expect me to be perfect, … but if they would bear with my infirmities and the infirmities of my brethren, I would likewise bear with their infirmities…  I don’t want you to think I am very righteous, for I am not very righteous.”  (think of how this would effect the people’s attitudes if this were the attitude of political figures who are good and moral.)

Do I want others to see me as righteous?  I think in the past for sure, especially with my family, I wanted them to accept me and see the good in me- that I was righteous.  I think the result of that was that they perceived me as self-righteous.  The desire for others to see me as righteous is a bad seed.  Yesterday when I confessed my sins and asked for forgiveness of our ward, I wanted them to see me as ‘one in the struggle’ (Eyre’s) a ‘struggling mortal’ (this book) just like them.  I think that portrays a more honest and real feeling of equality.  The result was that they saw that I was striving and I had a desire for charity, which is worthy of note.  The scripture comes to mind: “He that exalted himself shall be abased, and he that abaseth himself shall be exalted.”

“He did deliver me from bondage” p. 74

“He did deliver me from bondage”  p. 74

I had not considered that trying to ‘appear to be perfect’ would put one in an emotional prison.  We were talking about prisons yesterday in our lesson on charity, and how Christ said that we are to visit those in prison.  I am struggling to figure out this principle because of my daughter who often hurls herself there in her temper tantrums.  My husband says that we should not ‘wallow’ with someone in their prison who does not want to move on.  Perhaps he lacks the compassion or patience to love them in these unlovable moments.  When I was in prison and felt this way I wished that someone would have been there to show me the way out. But really I had to be left alone so that I could turn to the Lord, knowing that I had no other options, and let Him help me figure it out.  I think this is part of the necessity.  We have to pay our ‘utmost farthing’ to get out of prison, and He is the only one that can get us out.

I used to feel my Husband was cruel in the first years of our marriage.  My victim mentality blamed him and I felt abandoned.  But the very fact that he let me alone was exactly what I needed so I could figure it out with the Lord, and thereby win my personal victory and gain the Savior’s power and love. 

I have notice lately, even people like Elder Cook, who by confessing their humility and weakness doesn’t make me love them any less.  The fear that I will subject myself to public disapproval by public confession in a myth.  When Elder Cook was here for Stake Conference last month He said that he feels so inadequate to fulfill his calling.  He shared his struggles and helped us feel like he is a ‘struggling mortal’ just like the rest of us.  He is an Apostle of the Lord, and we felt as He ‘witnessed’ of the Savoir that he really has seen Him face to face.  His confessing his ‘small-ness’ before us did not decrease our opinion of him, but in reality helped us to elevate our own status up to his level.  We did get a feeling of equality, but it was not because we were wallowing in the mud.  It was elevated and beautiful.

9-5-11 Public confession

9-5-11

Yesterday was fast Sunday.  I wasn’t planning on it, but I got up to bear my testimony.  The Spirit had been whispering things in the back of my mind that I had not fully recognized until I was taking the Sacrament.  I wrote down a couple thoughts.  I didn’t know how I was going to say what He wanted me to, but I went anyway.  I did it.  I said what the Spirit had whispered to me.  One of the things was the thoughts from the “Love Sandwich” from the book Unconditional Love.  I forgave, and asked for forgiveness to those in the congregation.  I looked right at someone I felt I have offended when I asked.  He was looking down and didn’t see me but I feel liberated anyway.  I now know that my sins are truly in the past and I have done everything I could possibly do.  If there is any offense of the past it is no longer my burden or responsibility. 

I think my openness and honesty makes some people uncomfortable.  I think in the past I used to be inappropriately open and divulged too much.  I think I have learned that balance now, but I still get the feeling they are squiring in their seats a little.  One Sister told me the other day that she is a very private person and doesn’t like to disclose things about herself.  That surprised me SO much because she is SO cheerful and service oriented.  She courageously reaches out with open arms and loves others and expresses her joy uninhibitedly, yet still I see now that she is still reserved about herself- and that’s ok.  That’s her personal preference and where she is right now.  I just had not thought that the two were possible in the same person, but they are.  I hope that as we grow closer to Zion that we will each come to feel safe enough to share our feelings: about truth, about gratitude, and about ourselves.  As someone said in church yesterday: your heart has to be broken so the Lord can fill it.  It’s all part of the process.  Another amazing thing that was said was that because of the Savoir and the atonement; that He is perfect, that it releases each of us from the needed of having to be (and I would say appear) perfect.

“He did deliver me from bondage” p.71-72, Day 7:

“He did deliver me from bondage” p.71-72, Day 7:

I don’t think other people at church know this scripture. =)  I share my challenges all the time and they say I am too hard on myself.  I think they are uncomfortable with me being so open, but maybe because that’s because in the past a feeling of guilt has been associated with this confession.  Maybe now since I have let go of the guilt, they will be able to feel that I have forgiven myself and then they too can gain the power to be open and honest.  This would be my ideal society: If all people were sincerely open and honest emotionally.  I truly think that it would disarm and destroy the Inner Ring game, at least in these ‘circles’ where it was practiced.   I really think it would strengthen us as the people of God, and allow us to ‘lift one another’s burdens’.  The question is, What can I do to create this environment?

I want to explore this more later, but my kids need me now…. More later.

“He did deliver me from bondage” p.71-72, Day 6

“He did deliver me from bondage” p.71-72, Day 6

I think it was about January or so that I got up in church and made a public apology of my judgmentalness and other mistakes.  I think I got the courage to do this because other guy before me was so open and honest.  It was so beautiful.  Some people were uncomfortable with the openness of the meeting and said it was a ‘sad’ meeting.  Because of that day, I have felt forgiveness from others from my mistakes and gained the power to change them.  Last night in that book, “Unconditional Love” he said that guilt is the most powerful destructive feeling.  Admitting my mistakes to others helps me to let go of the pressure of trying to be perfect, and gives me the power to forgive myself.  In this there is no more guilt;  it is truly ‘swept away’ as Enos said.

“He did deliver me from bondage” p.71-72, Day 5

“He did deliver me from bondage” p.71-72, Day 5

“Are you ready to take responsibility for my past choices? Why or why not?”

In working through this process, I felt the Lord promise me that He would hold my hand to help me have courage to see all my darkness.  With His promise I had the courage to ‘open up the closet’ to do the inventory.  Now that I have given Him that burden and feel like I have truly changed from the inside out, I feel these things are really in the past.  They are not part of me anymore.  Yes, absolutely I would be willing to take responsibility for them.  I don’t want others to hurt because of my past actions.  That is the opposite of truly being a Christian and everything that the Sermon on the Mount teaches.  By this very repentance process we reverse the downward spiral and change the flow from destructive to constructive. 

“He did deliver me from bondage” p.71-72, Day 4

“He did deliver me from bondage” p.71-72, Day 4

“Is my desire to know the Lord becoming stronger than my fear of being honest?”

Absolutely.  I am willing to pay what ever price is necessary, cut and carve myself (talk by Oaks on desire) so that I can know the Lord.  It is my deepest desire, and some of my desires run pretty deep