Living in Truth Challenge

I've been pondering on how to make this blog more useful and I've decided that every Friday I will suggest a Living in Truth Challenge for all of us to work on during the week.

Too often in our quest to better ourselves and make life more enjoyable we take on too much and get overwhelmed and discouraged. But when we break the process of growth down into steps and take it one step at a time, growth and change become much more doable and especially much more enjoyable.

With that said, let me be your personal Living in Truth Life Coach. I know what peace and joy Living in Truth has given me and the wonderful changes it has made in my life and I want to share that with you. So let's get started with week one!

 LIT Step #1:

Live in the Present Moment

This week watch your thoughts and when they start to drift into worry or fear or discouragement or anything vexing don't try to fight them. Simply Anchor (click here)  yourself back to the present moment.
The present moment always holds an abundant source of joy, peace, hope, love, and gratitude that is just waiting to be yours. So go for it!

Feel free to look back over past posts on being in the present or the Truth Tool Anchoring (click here) if you think it will help. And share your comments about your experience. By sharing we encourage and help each other find a more abundant life.

When you Live in Truth you live in Happiness.

A Little Rejoicing!

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It's a beautiful day in my neighborhood! How about yours?

I am so blessed. On the days I don't teach I walk with two wonderful friends along the Provo River. As we walk and talk I learn so much from them. And the scenery along the way is exquisite. Last week we saw lots of ducks floating, dunking, playing in the water, and watched as a crane took flight, its wings stretching out majestically as it gracefully lifted and disappeared into the trees.

Appreciating the things around me is one of the great blessings of Living in Truth. I know that in the past worry, vexation, and fear kept me from noticing so many beautiful things in my life. But when I live in the present, live with what is,  my mind is free of the vexation and able to notice and enjoy so many wonders. I don't take things as much for granted, and the noticing and enjoying fills me with encouragement and joy that enriches other aspects of my life.

So today I'm rejoicing and enjoying life. It is a beautiful day, but then every day is beautiful if you know how to find the beautiful!

The Power of Association

Way back in the days of manual typewriters—before word processing and before electric typewriters—I learned to test out the touch of a typewriter by typing this sentence: “Now is the time for all good boys to come to the aid of their country.” Supposedly this sentence covers most of the keys on the typewriter so you can get the feel of it. To this day, every time I put my hands on a key pad those words start go go through my head.

Touching my fingers to key pads also brings back another memory. In my freshman year of college I was taking a linguistics class where we had to memorize the phonetic symbols for sounds. I transcribed the "good boys" sentence into phonetic symbols figuring if it had most of the keys it would be an easy way to learn most of the sound symbols. To my surprise the final exam asked us to write out that “good boys” sentence in phonetic symbols. I aced the exam!

The fact that forty-plus years later the simple act of putting my fingers on a key pad brings back those memories is intriguing to me. Our minds are powerful and if instead of just letting things happen we recognize the power of the mind and memory we can make them work for us. We can purposely make associations that will constantly remind us of the things that will make us better, bring us closer to God, and help us remember His ways.

For example: the first thing I see when I wake up every morning and something I stared at when I was recently sick is the light and fan that hangs from the ceiling over my bed. It has five big brown blades and five is the numeric symbol for the Atonement of Jesus Christ. As I open my eyes each morning and see those five blades, I think about the Atonement. Those thoughts encourage and lift me and they get my heart and mind ready for the day. 

 

This is something all of us can do. We don't have to wait for memories to just happen. We can make associations with things we encounter every day that will remind us of our Father in Heaven and our Savior and thus empower and encourage us.

Be Perfect? Ouch!!!

We are all familiar with the scriptural injunction to be perfect. As the Savior instructed, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48).But there is a lot of misunderstand as to what that means.

 

Later, after His resurrection, the Savior gives this same command to the Nephites but He adds something significant. In 3 Nephi 12:48 He says, "Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect." The important question here is why didn't He include Himself in the command when He delivered it to the people before His death?

 

The key to understanding is in the definition of the word perfect. The first definition in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary is, "Being entirely without fault or defect." In other words "being flawless." (That's where the OUCH!!! comes in.)  But the second definition says, "Satisfying all requirements." I'm thankful that's the definition of the Greek word that is translated in our New Testament as perfect and it is the definition intended in the scriptures! And how do we know?

Remember before His resurrection the Savior challenged us to be perfect like our Father in Heaven is perfect. But after His resurrection He includes Himself and asks us to be perfect like our Father in Heaven and like He is. Jesus was at all times flawless, so if that was the meaning He could have included Himself the first time. But when he first challenges us to be perfect He had not yet "satisfied all the requirements." That didn't happen until He was resurrected. Only then was He perfect or completed. 

 

Being perfect in a gospel sense isn't about flawlessness. God knew we couldn't be flawless and so He provided a Savior for us. But He wants us to be completed in that we receive all the covenants, and we won't receive them all in this life. We, like our Savior, need to move on to the next life and be resurrected before we will be completed.

Now that certainly is GOOD NEWS! Forget about working to be completely flawless or feeling shame because you aren't flawless or trying to put on a front so others think you are flawless. Instead, relax and concentrate on being your wonderful, natural, flawed self that is working toward completion. There is so much peace and hope in that!

All These Things . . .

While I was sick a few weeks ago with the flu and pneumonia all at the same time, I had some dark moments when I wasn't sure I was going to make it. One night I awoke and had to use the bathroom. I was so weak it took great effort to walk the twenty-five or so feet to the room, but afterward I found myself too weak to make it back. I fell to the floor and lay there a long time finally falling asleep.

On the cold carpet before I slept vexing thoughts began to bombard me. I had a high fever. I could barely function. But I had faith to be healed. So why wasn't I healed? I knew God had the power to heal me so why didn't He? Why was I so sick? Why hadn't the priesthood blessing pronounced upon me that I would experience a miracle come to pass? Why was God letting this happen to me?

But as the thoughts began to come, I began to recite a scripture the gist of which is found several places in scripture including Romans 8:28, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God." Actually I wasn't quoting the whole verse. In my weakened state I just kept saying, "All things work together for good. This must be for my good. There is something about being too weak to get to the bed and something about being this sick that is good for me."

The thoughts finally faded and I slept. After awhile the cold awoke me and by then I had gathered enough strength to make it to the bed. But the feelings and encouragement that the words I had recited stayed with me and helped me endure. Over and over I kept repeating snatches of scripture such as, "All these things shall give thee experience and shall be for thy good" (D&C 122:7).

I was aware how much the words were helping me at the time. I could feel them lifting and helping me. But looking back now, I am even more grateful that I knew those words and was able to call upon them to give me the strength and encouragement I needed. It is only now that the trial is past that I am beginning to realize what I learned from this experience and why it was important that I learn those things. It is also only now and looking back that I realize that a miracle did happen. No I didn't heal instantaneously, but the miracle is I did not die. I came close, but I did not die and that is a miracle.

Last night Elder Bednar gave an amazing talk at a CES fireside on this very subject and if you did not hear it go to this site and watch or listen to it. It answers so many questions about the relationship between faith and adversity and encourages us to endure whatever adversity befalls us with faith, hope and charity.

Happy Rowing

I've never met a person who doesn't have a problem. Problems seem to be the stuff of life. And problems become the problems. By that I mean that problems overwhelm us and keep us from thinking about others. Problems blind us to the world around us and make us think of ourselves as isolated and different.

But when we consciously make an effort to look beyond our own problems and reach out to comfort and help others with their problems, our own problems become easier to deal with.

To really Live in Truth we need to get outside our own problems and realize that the Truth is that everyone has problems and we are not in this boat alone. If we can help row the boat for all who are on board (all those around us!) we will get to our destination a lot faster.

So here's to Happy Rowing.

Sick Hearts

In Proverbs I found a piece of advice that I like. It says, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23). The Complete Jewish Bible translates that same verse as, “Above everything else, guard your heart; for it is the source of life's consequences.” And the NIV translates it, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”

This past few weeks as I fought off the flu and pneumonia all at the same time I had a lot of time to ponder and I began to think about what the world would be like if people spent as much time worrying and striving to keep their hearts healthy as they do about keeping their bodies healthy. When negative things like jealously, anger, resentment, grudges, or fear enter our hearts do we seek for ways to inoculate ourselves against them? Many of us stock up on cold and flu medicine at this time of year. But are we seeking out and storing up knowledge of how to rid ourselves of spiritual illnesses? When we feel negative things creeping into our hearts do we act immediately and fight off the negative emotions like we would fight off a headache, fever, or cough. Or do we sit back and say, “Well that’s part of life” And let it fester and grow?

Negative feelings are sickness to the heart. But the Truth Tools are medicine that heals the heart and keeps us living in Truth. It takes effort, but it is worth it. There is only bitterness to be had by drinking from the sickspring that is found in the Pit of Illusion. Instead, we can drink from the Wellspring of Living Waters and be filled with joy and peace.