Some Decisions Made

I am happy to announce that I am going to be resuming my blog.

I do thank the many of you who left comments or who emailed me to express your thanks for the blog. Your kindness was much appreciated.

But I am not going to begin immediately. I have been doing a lot of reflection and study lately and I am going to take this opportunity to revamp the blog to make it more helpful, and when I resume it will have two parts. One part will be spiritual and scriptural insight and the other will be life-coaching on how to implement the principles of Walking in Truth! (The change from Living to Walking is one of the first changes.)

I am very excited, but the next few weeks are filled with family. (Our Johnson Camp is being held in St. George this year and my children are coming in from all over the United States to spend a week or two together.) So stay tuned and I'll let you know when I'm ready to launch again.

In the meantime, if any of you have stories of how living the principles of Truth have helped you, please either email them to me or leave a comment here. Let's help each other!

An Explanation

I can't believe a whole month has gone by since I last posted. Life got very busy for me and at the same time readers of Good News! dropped off dramatically so that very few people were dropping by each day. Because of both things I took a break to try and decide what to do. At this point I am still weighing the options. I will let you know soon whether I have decided to stop writing Good News! or whether I am going to reformat and try to do some new things that would be beneficial. If you have any suggestions let me know!

I do thank those of you who were concerned about why I wasn't posting. I appreciate it very much.

Hooray for the Truth!

I'm still alive! Besides the bathroom remodeling it is the end of the semester and yesterday I taught three classes and graded over 150 student journals. It is a fun thing to do because most of the students write things that are interesting to read, but it is also a tedious thing to grade that many journals in one day. But I got it done in record time! I went to work yesterday at 6:30 a.m. and came home at 9:00 p.m. It was dark when I left home and dark when I returned home, but I know that somewhere in between those dark walks to and from the car there was sunshine. (My office has no windows!)

I've been so busy, but have been waiting excitedly to share a scripture with you. It is a verse that talks about the Pit of Illusion which the Book of Mormon calls vain imaginations. (See 1 Nephi 12:18 and Roman 1:21.) This verse is found in Helaman 16:22;

"And many more things did the people imagine up in their hearts, which were foolish and vain; and they were much disturbed, for Satan did stir them up to do iniquity continually; yea, he did go about spreading rumors and contentions upon all the face of the land, that he might harden the hearts of the people against that which was good and agaisnt that which should come."

That pretty well sums up the opposite of Living in Truth and what it means to live in the Pit of Illusion. It is foolish and vain and people who dwell in the Pit are disturbed, or as I call it vexed, all of the time.

I might be busy, but today I'm celebrating the fact that I don't have to dwell in the Pit of Illusion. I know how to Live in Truth! Three cheers for Truth!

Beginning, Middle, End

I'm in the middle of a remodel job in my home and I've decided I missed my calling in life. I've enjoyed getting bids from contractors, lining up work crews, and making all the decisions about what goes where and when. But it has kept me busy so I've been a little sporadic with the Good News! I hope you haven't given up on me.

I did discover something fun the other day that I've been eager to share. The word for truth in Hebrew is transliterated as emeth and in Hebrew it consists of three letters. I had known that before, but what I didn't realize is that the three letters are the first letter of the alphabet, the exact middle letter of the alphabet (thirteen letters before and thirteen letters after), and the last letter of the alphabet. Jews teach that the word itself testifies that truth must be the beginning, the middle, and the end of all things.

When Living in Truth it is a good thing to remember--truth must be our beginning, our middle, and our end!

Skip and Sway

Last night, tired after teaching three classes ending at 6:40 pm, I walked out of the building to go to my car which was parked about 150 yards away and found the skies weeping profusely. I don't know what the sky was so sad about, maybe how cold it had turned, but I had to navigate to my car without an umbrella or other fixtures with which to protect myself from the tears.

But I Live in Truth and the Truth was that it was raining. Weeping skies are something I can't change so I had two choices. I could get all grumpy and ornery and fill myself with the pain that is better known as self-pity or I could live with the rain. Like I said, I Live in Truth so there was really only one thing to do and I did it. I started humming, "I'm Singing in the Rain" not at all like Gene Kelly does it, but you might recognize it if you heard it. (I'm not a singer!) Then the magic happened. The music began to dance in me so that I found myself skipping, swaying and splashing my way to the car, arriving wet but in very good spirits.

The water dried shortly after I arrived home, and I am still laughing about my dance to the car. Oh what a beautiful life Truth is!

Formula For A Satisfied Soul

There is an amazing promise found in the writings of Isaiah: “If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not” (Isaiah 58:10-11).

Most words here are translated very well, but the meaning is a little clearer when you know that in the first verse the word darkness could have been translated gloominess. What this says to me is that when we reach out to help and assist the poor and the afflicted, the Lord will heal our poverty and afflictions. But the most important promise is that when we help others, the Lord will guide us at all times and feed our hungry souls even in times of dire distress so that we won't be gloomy. His Living Waters will flow to us continually.

These verses are encouraging to me because they are doable. All of us have the capacity to reach out to others. We can give a smile, a note of appreciation, a hug, a meal, or whatever we have because we all have something to give. And in return for giving what we have, the Lord gives us more. He will “guide thee continually.” What a great blessing!

Seeing By the Truth

picture by André Kutscherauer © 2011
  http://www.ak3d.de/all/selfillumination-1/

We are doing some bathroom/kitchen remodeling in our home and at times electricity goes out, water is unavailable and chaos is everywhere all the time.

Yesterday the new lights were finally installed in my kitchen and as I turned them on for the first time last night my whole kitchen looked new. The wood of the cabinets was brighter, the stone on the counter tops looked like I had just polished it, but all that was different was the lighting. This make me think of a quote from my friend, C. S. Lewis; "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."  

Like my kitchen with new lights, when we Live in Truth (also known as Light) the world looks different. Truth illuminates the world so that we see things that we've never noticed before and we see them more clearly and distinctly. When we are deep in the Pit of Illusion there is little light so that the things we are trying to see are distorted and blurred and indistinct. Life doesn’t make sense. Teachings of the gospel don’t make sense. We don’t see any meaning to life or what we are doing because we can't see clearly.

But when we Live in Truth that Truth sheds its Light on all aspects of our lives so that meaning is apparent, beauty is illuminated, and the gospel message becomes clearer. When we Live in Truth we see everything around us as it really is and that brings peace to the heart and joy to the soul.