I have been reading Elder Bednar's book "Increase in Learning…." Yep, I'm going there! I'm going to get all spiritual after my confession :) My husband has begun to worry about my state of mind because I am getting frustrated in my ability level. I'm comparing myself to someone on the spiritual olympic team and I can't even qualify for an event! I was born with the attitude that "if (insert name) can do it, than I can do it" and "how hard can it be?" Well, this kind of attitude can leave you frustrated with yourself if you're not careful. You need a certain amount of frustration to propel you forward but not too much that you give up.
Anyway, all I can say about the book is that it is inspiring while also producing feelings of defeatism. I'll explain.
A few days before I saw the movie and after feeling like a major failure in my calling because I can't seem to inspire anyone to do anything (insert a big Yes! I know, it's the holy ghost that does the inspiring, I'm just the outlet), I ended up giving my president a pep talk for the very same thing. After everyone left the bus stop we stood there and I ended up comforting her over the same things I was struggling with. Isn't life interesting how it works sometimes? I got to give myself a pep talk by giving it to someone else. That's why charity never faileth.
It's frustrating when you've been given all the tools for success, but then you have to remember that everything is on the Lord's timetable and everyone has free/moral agency and all you can do is strive to have the spirit with you and go where you are supposed to go as best as you can figure out. I feel like we are living in a time when the world's pull on our youth is so strong it feels debilitating sometimes. As leaders we are on the battlefield for souls and some of our youth are sitting down on the battle field and refusing to pick up their guns and go to the front lines. We've also got dissenters which is equally heartbreaking. Our job as leaders on the field is to never accept defeat and to keep pushing forward and to give tons of "you can do this!" pep talks.
After formulating this analogy of the battlefield I saw the movie. It only reinforced the feelings that I've been having. I told my husband that everyone should enter into navy seal training. That's one of the big things wrong with us. Our give up attitude. This is too hard. I shouldn't have to do this. Expecting a lot of people is too cruel. Everyone is special. All love is good. Tolerance and compassion have been twisted and defiled. Whatever you have should be mine too. I should never temper any desire. Work hard for something you want, what's that? (while I'm listing crappy things- this healthcare debacle will go down as the biggest theft of the american people's money of all time) All poisonous attitudes that could be cured by some seal training. So, how do you convince someone to enter into spiritual special forces training? I got sick with despair thinking about how hard it will be. I picture the scene at the end of Red Dawn -he newer one- (which was barely tolerable as a movie -the old one was better- especially because of the acting) where what's his name is standing on the hill telling everyone that he's not there to convince anyone to do anything because what they needed to do was hard and people were going to die, but it would be worth it - at least that's essentially what he said.
Back to my book and what got despair creeping in was Elder Bednar's answer to everything. "What doctrine or principle, if understood", would help me understand xyz. You've got to do the work yourself and it's hard and committed work! That's the only way you are going to be converted. You have to be an agent who acts, not one who is acted upon. Our youth are used to being acted upon. I realized that the principles in this book, if implemented, were the special forces training that I was thinking about. There have been so many great articles about the new teaching method and how positive the response has been and all the awesome success stories. Me? Not so much. I feel like I am surrounded by the taliban and there are only 4 of us to the couple hundred of them. What I've got to remember is the attitude of those brave men. "It's not over until you're dead." There is no time to think or entertain the idea of hope being lost. You fight with everything you got, take the hits that you get and keep moving forward. You never quit until your body gives out. The adversary would love nothing more than me to feel like the odds were not in my favor and I should just give up.
I've got a son that is super into science and we just got in an argument about cryogenics saturday night. If he can't explain it by science it doesn't exists or if it can be explained by science it holds no spiritual value. My goal is to get him to feel and recognize the spirit. We were talking specifically about the soul and the heart. I'm also having a hard time trying to find the balance between letting him make his own decisions and making some of them for him because he isn't capable of forcing himself out of his comfort zone. There are lots of battlefields.
I have also been called out (by my family) on my focusing too much on the things we don't do instead of the things we are doing. I feel that we are too quick to make excuses for ourselves and it frustrates me. I've got more of the attitude "yeah, you're hands blown off, so what? Use the other one." When you see an olympic team, it makes you want to be on that team…..at least for me. But I've got to keep the hopes up of my family of making that team. So, I've got to work harder at celebrating the successes and looking for ways to encourage rather than discourage and lighten up…..although, when you're on the battlefield and have a perfect understanding of what's at stake, it's easier said than done, but I've got to try.
A couple of the stand out things from the book that I like are: (it helps if you can get Elder B's voice in your head while you read these)
The nature of our spirt
Knowledge is the head
Understanding is the heart (or according to my son, the brain stem)
Intelligence is what we become as we act in accordance to what we know and feel
"If you give an answer to a question that information will never be retained but if you seek it out for yourself you will always remember it. Some lessons are better caught than taught."
So, I'm in the spiritual special forces or SSF. My job is to do the best I can and keep from ringing the "washout" bell and having to place my helmet on the ground next to the others who've quit. The great thing that I have (we all have) is access to the atonement to make up for all that I (we) lack so that I never need ring the bell.
Matthew 11:29
29 Take my a yoke upon you, and b learn of me; for I am c meek andd lowly in e heart: and ye shall find f rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is a easy, and my burden is light.
No comments:
Post a Comment