My brother Jay shared this with me. It is a powerful talk--one that should eventually be considered an all-time great one, I think.
Be 100 Percent Responsible
LYNN G. ROBBINS
of the Presidency of the Seventy
Aug. 22, 2017 • Devotional
Brothers and sisters, I am grateful to be with you in this opening session of the 2017 BYU Campus Education Week. This year’s theme comes from Doctrine and Covenants 50:24, with special emphasis on these words: “And he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light.”
I am going to take a different approach to this theme than might be expected by exposing and illustrating some very cunning and effective ways that the “wicked one” prevents people from progressing and receiving more light (D&C 93:39).
Many gospel principles come in pairs, meaning one is incomplete without the other. I want to refer to three of these doctrinal pairs today:
Agency and responsibility
Mercy and justice
Faith and works
When Satan is successful in dividing doctrinal pairs, he begins to wreak havoc upon mankind. It is one of his most cunning strategies to keep people from growing in the light.
You already know that faith without works really isn’t faith (see James 2:17). My primary focus will be on the other two doctrinal pairs: first, to illustrate how avoiding responsibility affects agency; and second, how “denying justice,” as it is referred to in the Book of Mormon (see Alma 42:30), affects mercy.
The Book of Mormon teaches us that we are agents to “act . . . and not to be acted upon” (2 Nephi 2:26)—or to be “free to act for [our]selves” (2 Nephi 10:23). This freedom of choice was not a gift of partial agency but of complete and total 100 percent agency. It was absolute in the sense that the One Perfect Parent never forces His children. He shows us the way and may even command us, but, “nevertheless, thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee” (Moses 3:17).
Assuming responsibility and being accountable for our choices are agency’s complementary principles (see D&C 101:78). Responsibility is to recognize ourselves as being the cause for the effects or results of our choices—good or bad. On the negative side, it is to always own up to the consequences of poor choices.
Except for those held innocent, such as little children and the intellectually disabled, gospel doctrine teaches us that each person is responsible for the use of their agency and “will be punished for their own sins” (Articles of Faith 1:2).1 It isn’t just a heavenly principle but a law of nature—we reap what we sow.
Logically then, complete and total agency comes with complete and total responsibility:
And now remember, remember, my brethren, that whosoever perisheth, perisheth unto himself; and whosoever doeth iniquity, doeth it unto himself; for behold, ye are free; ye are permitted to act for yourselves; for behold, God hath given unto you a knowledge and he hath made you free. [Helaman 14:30; emphasis added]
THE KORIHOR PRINCIPLE—SEPARATING AGENCY FROM RESPONSIBILITY
One of Satan’s most crafty strategies to gain control of our agency isn’t a frontal attack on our agency but a sneaky backdoor assault on responsibility. Without responsibility, every good gift from God could be misused for evil purposes. For example, freedom of speech without responsibility can be used to create and protect pornography. The rights of a woman can be twisted to justify an unnecessary abortion. When the world separates choice from accountability, it leads to anarchy and a war of wills or survival of the fittest. We could call agency without responsibility the Korihor principle, as we read in the book of Alma “that every man conquered according to his strength; and whatsoever a man did was no crime” (Alma 30:17; emphasis added). With negative consequences removed, you now have agency unbridled, as if there were no day of reckoning.
THE NEHOR PRINCIPLE—DENYING JUSTICE
If Satan is not successful in fully separating agency from responsibility, one of his backup schemes is to dull or minimize feelings of responsibility—what we could call the Nehor principle, also found in the book of Alma: “That all mankind should be saved at the last day, and that they need not fear nor tremble . . . ; for the Lord had created all men, and had also redeemed all men; and, in the end, all men should have eternal life” (Alma 1:4).
What an attractive offer for those who seek happiness in wickedness! The Nehor principle depends entirely on mercy and denies justice—a separation of the second doctrinal pair aforementioned. Denying justice is a twin of avoiding responsibility. They are essentially the same thing. A common strategy of each Book of Mormon anti-Christ was to separate agency from responsibility. “Eat, drink, and be merry; nevertheless, fear God—he will justify in committing a little sin” (2 Nephi 28:8).
Faith without works, mercy without justice, and agency without responsibility are all different verses of the same seductive and damning song. With each, the natural man rejects accountability in an attempt to sedate his conscience. It is similar to the early sixteenth-century practice of paying for indulgences, but much easier—this way it is free!2 No wonder the broad path is filled with so many. The path parades a guilt-free journey to salvation but is, in reality, a cleverly disguised detour to destruction (see 3 Nephi 14:13).
Agency without responsibility is one of the foremost anti-Christ doctrines—very cunning in its nature and very destructive in its results.
THE ANTI-RESPONSIBILITY LIST
To illustrate, I want to share a list of things that Satan tempts people to either say or do to avoid being responsible. This list isn’t all-inclusive, but I believe it covers his most common tactics.
1. Blaming others: Saul disobediently took of the spoils of war from the Amalekites; then, when confronted by Samuel, he blamed the people (see 1 Samuel 15:21).
2. Rationalizing or justifying: Saul then rationalized or justified his disobedience, stating that the saved livestock was for “sacrifice unto the Lord” (1 Samuel 15:21; see also verse 22).
3. Making excuses: Excuses come in a thousand varieties, such as this one from Laman and Lemuel: “How is it possible that the Lord will deliver Laban into our hands? Behold, he is a mighty man, and he can command fifty, yea, even he can slay fifty; then why not us?” (1 Nephi 3:31).
4. Minimalizing or trivializing sin: This is exactly what Nehor advocated (see Alma 1:3–4).
5. Hiding: This is a common avoidance technique. It is a tactic Satan used with Adam and Eve after they partook of the forbidden fruit (see Moses 4:14).
6. Covering up: Closely associated with hiding is covering up, which David attempted to do to conceal his affair with Bathsheba (see 2 Samuel 12:9, 12).
7. Fleeing from responsibility: This is something Jonah tried to do (see Jonah 1:3).
8. Abandoning responsibility: Similar to fleeing is abandoning responsibility. One example is when Corianton forsook his ministry in pursuit of the harlot Isabel (see Alma 39:3).
9. Denying or lying: “And Saul said . . . : I have performed the commandment of the Lord. And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears . . . ?” (1 Samuel 15:13–14).
10. Rebelling: Samuel then rebuked Saul “for rebellion.” “Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king” (1 Samuel 15:23).
11. Complaining and murmuring: One who rebels also complains and murmurs: “And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and . . . said . . . , Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt!” (Numbers 14:2).
12. Finding fault and getting angry: These two are closely associated, as described by Nephi: “And it came to pass that Laman was angry with me, and also with my father; and also was Lemuel” (1 Nephi 3:28).
13. Making demands and entitlements: “We will not that our younger brother shall be a ruler over us. And it came to pass that Laman and Lemuel did take me and bind me with cords, and they did treat me with much harshness” (1 Nephi 18:10–11).
14. Doubting, losing hope, giving up, and quitting: “Our brother is a fool. . . . For they did not believe that I could build a ship” (1 Nephi 17:17–18).
15. Indulging in self-pity and a victim mentality: “Behold, these many years we have suffered in the wilderness, which time we might have enjoyed our possessions and the land of our inheritance; yea, and we might have been happy” (1 Nephi 17:21).
16. Being indecisive or being in a spiritual stupor: The irony with indecision is that if you don’t make a decision in time, time will make a decision for you.
17. Procrastinating: A twin of indecision is procrastination. “But behold, your days of probation are past; ye have procrastinated the day of your salvation until it is everlastingly too late” (Helaman 13:38).
18. Allowing fear to rule: This one is also related to hiding: “And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth. . . . His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant” (Matthew 25:25–26).
19. Enabling: An example of enabling or helping others to avoid responsibility is the instance when Eli failed to discipline his sons for their grievous sins and was rebuked by the Lord: “Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice and . . . honourest thy sons above me . . . ? (1 Samuel 2:29; see also verses 22–36).
When you consider this list with Laman and Lemuel in mind, you will see that they were guilty of nearly everything on the list. It is this list that destroyed Laman and Lemuel. It is an extremely dangerous list.
When reading 1 Nephi and 2 Nephi, we can only try to imagine how difficult it was for the members of Lehi’s family to leave their home, obtain the brass plates, camp out for eight years in the wilderness, and build a large ocean-going vessel. The responsibility that faced the family was indeed formidable. Yet, as difficult as a responsibility may be, “difficulty is the excuse history never accepts,”3 as is so graphically illustrated in the case of Laman and Lemuel.
Difficult situations are the test of one’s faith, to see if we will go forward with either a believing heart (see D&C 64:34) or a doubting heart (see D&C 58:29), if at all. A difficult situation reveals a person’s character and either strengthens it, as with Nephi, or weakens and corrupts it, as with Laman and Lemuel, who epitomize what it means to be irresponsible (see Alma 62:41).
EXCUSES DO NOT EQUAL RESULTS
It is important to recognize that excuses never equal results. In the case of Laman and Lemuel, all the excuses in the world could never obtain the brass plates. The reason Nephi obtained the plates and Laman and Lemuel didn’t is because Nephi never went to the anti-responsibility list. He was a champion, and champions do not turn to the list. As Elder David B. Haight of the Quorum of the Twelve stated, “A determined man finds a way; the other man finds an excuse.”4
If the anti-responsibility list is so dangerous, why do so many people frequently turn to it? Because the natural man is irresponsible by nature, he goes to the list as a defense mechanism to avoid shame and embarrassment, stress and anxiety, and the pain and negative consequences of mistakes and sin. Rather than repent to eliminate guilt, he sedates it with excuses. It gives him a false sense that his environment or someone else is to blame, and therefore he has no need to repent.
The anti-responsibility list could also be called the anti-faith list because it halts progress dead in its tracks. When Satan tempts a person to avoid responsibility, that person subtly surrenders their agency because the person is no longer in control or “acting.” Instead they become an object who is being acted upon, and Satan cleverly begins to control their life.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MAKING AN EXCUSE AND GIVING A REASON
It is important to note that everyone occasionally fails in their attempts at success, just as Nephi did with his brothers in their first two trips to Jerusalem when they were trying to obtain the plates. But those who are valiant accept responsibility for their mistakes and sins. They repent, get back on their feet, and continue moving forward in faith. They may give an explanation or a reason for their lack of success but not an excuse.
At first glance it may appear that Adam was blaming Eve when he said, “The woman thou gavest me.” However, when Adam subsequently added “and I did eat,” we are given to understand that he accepted responsibility for his actions and was giving an explanation, not blaming Eve. Eve in turn also said, “And I did eat” (Moses 4:18–19; see also verses 17–20; 5:10–11).
THE POWER AND REWARD OF BEING RESPONSIBLE
Turning to the anti-responsibility list is an act of self-betrayal. It is to give up on oneself and sometimes on others. As I share the following stories, I hope you will observe how going to the anti-responsibility list is counterproductive, even if you are right.
Story 1: 100 Percent Responsibility in the Distribution Center
In 1983 a few partners and I started a new company that taught time-management seminars and created and sold day planners.
For corporate seminars, we sent our consultants to the client’s headquarters, where they taught at the corporate training facilities. Prior to the seminar, two employees in our distribution center would prepare and ship several boxes of training materials, such as the day planners, binders, and forms. Also included was a participant’s seminar guidebook of around a hundred pages with quotes, fill-in-the blanks, graphs, and illustrations.
The two distribution center employees would normally send the seminar shipment ten days before the seminar. At the time that the following incident occurred, we were teaching around 250 seminars each month. With so many seminar shipments, these two employees would often commit errors, such as not shipping sufficient quantities or omitting certain materials or not shipping on time. This became an irritating and often embarrassing frustration for the consultants.
When these problems occurred, the seminar division would file a complaint with me, as the distribution center was one of my responsibilities. When I spoke with these two employees about errors and system improvements, they never wanted to accept responsibility for the errors. They would blame others, saying things like, “It’s not our fault. The seminar division filled out the Seminar Supplies Request form incorrectly, and we sent the shipment exactly according to their specifications. It’s their fault. You can’t blame us!” Or they might say, “We shipped it on time, but the freight company delivered it late. You can’t blame us!” Another excuse was, “The binder subsidiary packaged the individual seminar kits with errors, and we shipped the kits as they were given to us. It’s their fault.” It seemed these two employees were never responsible for the errors, and so the errors continued.
Then something critical happened. The director of training for a large multinational corporation attended one of our seminars and was so thrilled with it that she invited us to teach a pilot seminar to its fifty or so top executives. On the day of the seminar, our consultant arrived and opened the boxes of materials and discovered that the seminar guidebooks were missing. Without the seminar guidebooks, how would the participants follow along and take notes? Their training director was panic-stricken. Our consultant did the best he could by making sure each participant was given a pad of paper on which to take notes throughout the day, and the seminar turned out reasonably well, even without the guidebooks.
Extremely embarrassed and angry, their training director called our seminar division and said, “You will never teach here again! How could you have made such an embarrassing and inexcusable error with our pilot seminar?”
An upset senior vice president of our seminar division called me and said, “This is the last straw. We are about to lose a million-dollar account because of the distribution center’s errors. We simply can’t tolerate any more errors!”
As one of the owners of the company, I couldn’t tolerate such errors either. At the same time, I did not want to see these two breadwinners fired. After pondering possible solutions, I decided to implement an incentive system to motivate these two men to be more careful. For each seminar shipped correctly, they would receive one additional dollar, or a possibility of an extra $250 each month—hopefully enough to focus their attention on quality. However, if they made one error, a one-dollar penalty wasn’t much of a loss. I therefore decided to also include two $100 bonuses for no errors. With the first error they not only lost one dollar but also the first $100 bonus. If they made a second error, they lost the second $100 bonus.
I also told these employees, “If there is an error, you will lose your bonus, regardless of where that error originates. You are 100 percent responsible for that shipment.”
“Well, that’s not fair,” they responded. “What happens if the seminar division fills out the Seminar Supplies Request form incorrectly and, not knowing, we send the shipment with ‘their’ errors?”
I said, “You will lose your bonus. You are 100 percent responsible for that shipment’s success.”
“That’s not fair! What happens if we send the shipment on time but the freight company delivers it late?”
“You will lose your bonus. You are 100 percent responsible.”
“That’s not fair! What happens if the binder division commits errors in prepackaging the individual seminar kits? You can’t blame us for their mistakes!”
“You will lose your bonus,” I once again responded. “You are 100 percent responsible for that shipment’s success. Do you understand?”
“That isn’t fair!!”
“Well, it may not seem fair, but that’s life. You will lose your bonus.”
What I did was eliminate the anti-responsibility list as an option for them. They now understood that they could no longer blame others, make excuses, or justify errors—even when they were right and it was someone else’s fault!
What happened next was fascinating to observe. When they would receive an order from the seminar division, they would call the seminar division to review the form item by item. They took responsibility for correcting any errors committed by the seminar division. They began to read the freight company’s documents to make sure the correct delivery date was entered. They began to mark the cardboard shipping boxes “one of seven,” “two of seven,” etc., with each box’s contents written on the outside of the box. They began sending shipments three or four days earlier than they had in their previous routine. A few days before the seminar they would call the client company to verify receipt of the shipment and the contents. If they had somehow omitted any materials, they had three or four extra days now to send missing items by express shipment. Errors finally stopped happening, and the employees began to earn their bonuses month after month. It was a life-changing experience for them to learn firsthand the power, control, and reward of being 100 percent responsible.
What these two employees learned is that when they blamed someone else, they were surrendering control of the shipment’s success to others—such as the seminar division or the freight company. They learned that excuses keep you from taking control of your life. They learned that it is self-defeating to blame others, make excuses, or justify mistakes—even when you are right! The moment you do any of these self-defeating things, you lose control over the positive outcomes you are seeking in life.
Story 2: “Putting My Marriage Before My Pride”
Let me quote from the experience of a young wife:
Like any couple, my husband and I have had disagreements during our marriage. But one incident stands out in my mind. I no longer recall the reason for our disagreement, but we ended up not speaking at all, and I remember feeling that it was all my husband’s fault. I felt I had done absolutely nothing for which I needed to apologize.
As the day went by, I waited for my husband to say he was sorry. Surely he could see how wrong he was. It must be obvious how much he had hurt my feelings. I felt I had to stand up for myself; it was the principle that mattered.
As the day was drawing to a close, I started to realize that I was waiting in vain, so I went to the Lord in prayer. I prayed that my husband would realize what he had done and how it was hurting our marriage. I prayed that he would be inspired to apologize so we could end our disagreement.
As I was praying, I felt a strong impression that I should go to my husband and apologize. I was a bit shocked by this impression and immediately pointed out in my prayer that I had done nothing wrong and therefore should not have to say I was sorry. A thought came strongly to my mind: “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be married?”
As I considered this question, I realized that I could hold onto my pride and not give in until he apologized, but how long would that take? Days? I was miserable while we weren’t speaking to each other. I understood that while this incident itself wouldn’t be the end of our marriage, if I were always unyielding, that might cause serious damage over the years. I decided it was more important to have a happy, loving marriage than to keep my pride intact over something that would later seem trivial.
I went to my husband and apologized for upsetting him. He also apologized, and soon we were happy and united again in love.
Since that time there have been occasions when I have needed to ask myself that question again: “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be married?” How grateful I am for the great lesson I learned the first time I faced that question. It has always helped me realign my perspective and put my husband and my marriage before my own pride.5
In the story, this sister learned that even if she may have been right and it was her husband’s fault, blaming him was counterproductive, causing her to lose control over positive outcomes. She also discovered that there is power and control in the expression “I’m sorry” when it is used with love unfeigned and empathy—not merely to excuse ourselves.
In a marriage, a 50 percent attitude on both parts may seem logical, but only a 100 percent attitude on both parts closes the door to the anti-responsibility list. A final lesson that this sister learned is that you cannot control the agency of another person—only your own.
A loving mother once gave the following wise counsel to her daughter, who was unhappy with a struggling marriage. She had the daughter draw a vertical line down the middle of a sheet of paper and write down on the left side all the things her husband did that bothered her. Then, on the right side, she had her write down her response to each offense. The mother then had her cut the paper in half, separating the two lists.
“Now throw the paper with your husband’s faults in the garbage. If you want to be happy and improve your marriage, stop focusing on your husband’s faults and focus instead on your own behavior. Examine the way you are responding to the things that bother you and see if you can respond in a different, more positive way.”
This mother understood the power and wisdom of 100 percent responsibility.
THE GREATEST EXAMPLE OF ALL
Of course the Savior was the most responsible person in the history of the world. His is the greatest example. Even in His moments of excruciating pain and anguish, He showed no self-pity, one of the dysfunctional items on the list. He was always thinking outward with His ever-selfless care and concern for others—restoring a soldier’s ear in Gethsemane and, later, on the cross, praying for those who had despitefully used Him—in fulfillment of His own commandment to do so: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).
The more we are like Jesus Christ, the less likely we are to judge unrighteously, to give up on someone, or to quit a worthy cause. Even though we may sometimes give up on ourselves, the Savior never gives up on us, because He is perfect in His long-suffering: “Notwithstanding their sins, my bowels are filled with compassion towards them” (D&C 101:9).
Jesus Christ did not come to find fault, criticize, or blame. He came to build up, edify, and save (see Luke 9:56). However, His compassion does not nullify His expectation that we be fully responsible and never try to minimize or justify sin. “For I the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance” (D&C 1:31; see also Alma 45:16). If the Lord cannot look upon sin with even the least degree of allowance, what law of the gospel demands complete and full responsibility for sin?
That would be the law of justice. “What, do ye suppose that mercy can rob justice? I say unto you, Nay; not one whit. If so, God would cease to be God” (Alma 42:25; see also verse 24). Not in the “least degree” and “not one whit” are other ways of saying that God holds His children 100 percent responsible for the use of their agency. The danger of the anti-responsibility list consists in the fact that it blinds its victims to the need for repentance. Laman and Lemuel, for example, didn’t see a need to repent because it was all Nephi’s fault. “If it’s not my fault, why should I repent?” The one blinded can’t even take the first step in the repentance process, which is to recognize the need for repentance.
Alma understood very well how excuses keep us from repenting, as we discover in this verse where he counseled his wayward son, Corianton:
What, do ye suppose that mercy can rob justice? I say unto you, Nay; not one whit. If so, God would cease to be God. . . .
O my son, I desire that ye should deny the justice of God no more. Do not endeavor to excuse yourself in the least point because of your sins, by denying the justice of God; but do you let the justice of God, and his mercy, and his long-suffering have full sway in your heart; and let it bring you down to the dust in humility. [Alma 42:25, 30]
As we learn from this verse, those who use excuses are “denying justice”—the Nehor principle—and believe that the law of justice doesn’t apply to them. Alma was pleading with his son not to go to the list. “Do not endeavor to excuse yourself in the least point.” He was teaching his son to be 100 percent responsible.
To deny God’s justice—or to say we are not accountable for sin—is to also deny His justification in the forgiveness of that sin: “The Lord surely should come to redeem his people, but that he should not come to redeem them in their sins, but to redeem them from their sins” (Helaman 5:10; emphasis added).
TWO WAYS TO DENY THE LORD’S JUSTICE
Satan successfully divides the complimentary principles of mercy and justice when a person succumbs to the temptation to deny the Lord’s justice. Denying the Lord’s justice comes in at least two forms. The first, which I have already mentioned, is to deny the law of justice in regard to one’s own sins, something both Korihor and Nehor advocated. A second and equally damaging denial is not trusting in the Lord’s justice or in His wisdom in dealing with the injustices others have perpetrated against us.
In the movie based on the masterfully written classic The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, Edmond Dantès, the protagonist, is an honest and loving man who turns bitter and vengeful after three covetous men bear false witness against him and frame him in a treasonous plot. When a corrupt public prosecutor becomes complicit, Dantès is arrested on the very day he is to be married to his beautiful fiancée, Mercédès. At age nineteen he is given a life sentence in the infamous island prison of Chateau d’If for a crime he did not commit.
After many tortuous years in solitary confinement, he finally meets another prisoner, the elderly Abbé Faria, who in his search for freedom has miscalculated and tunneled his way to Edmond’s cell rather than to an outside wall and freedom. With a tunnel now connecting their cells and nothing but time on their hands, Faria begins to teach Dantès history, science, philosophy, and languages, turning him into a well-educated man. Faria also bequeaths to Dantès a treasure of vast wealth hidden on the uninhabited island of Monte Cristo and tells him how to find it, should he ever escape.
Knowing that vengeance could consume and destroy Dantès, Abbé Faria teaches him a final lesson before he dies. The lesson is to not deny the Lord’s justice.
Abbé Faria says, “Do not commit the crime for which you now serve the sentence. God said, ‘Vengeance is mine.’”
Dantès responds, “I don’t believe in God.”
Abbé Faria then says, “It doesn’t matter. He believes in you.”6
Dantès remains unconvinced. Upon the death of Faria, Dantès devises a clever plan by hiding himself in the death shroud of Faria and is finally able to escape his fourteen years of torment from Chateau d’If. After securing the treasure, he becomes extremely wealthy and assumes a new identity as the Count of Monte Cristo.
For the evil men who conspired against him, he devises an elaborate plan of revenge with a painful and prolonged punishment—a just recompense for the fourteen years he barely survived in the dungeon to which they had unjustly sent him.
With precision Dantès sets in motion his plan, and his enemies suffer the punishment he has carefully devised for each one of them.
When we read the book or watch the movie version of The Count of Monte Cristo, there is something in us that wants to see justice served against those cruel and conspiring men who inflicted so much pain on an innocent man. There is a sense of fairness and a desire in each of us that good must prevail over evil, that things lost must be restored, and that broken hearts must be mended. Until these things happen, there is an injustice gap that is hard for us to reconcile in our minds and even more so in our hearts—leaving us troubled and finding it difficult to move on.
People try to reconcile this injustice gap in many ways: through seeking revenge, justifying their anger and bitterness, or seeking legal redress and imposed consequences. We ultimately discover that the Lord’s way is the only way for true and complete reconciliation.
The error of Dantès was not necessarily seeking redress and justice according to the law of the land and bringing devious facts to light with appropriate penalties for the guilty but in letting his desire for justice turn to hatred, anger, self-pity, self-justification, and other disabling behaviors on the anti-responsibility list. He essentially descended to his enemies’ level of ungodliness, and he used deception, lies, and fraud to entrap them—all outside the lawful process—just as they had done to him and just as Abbé Faria had prophesied.
By relying on the law of Moses—an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth—rather than on the law of the gospel, including forgiving and praying for one’s enemies, Dantès imposed a life sentence of misery and bitterness upon himself. In denying the Lord’s justice for others, he unwittingly denied the Lord’s mercy for himself and chose to serve the sentence that Christ had already served in his behalf. It robbed him of a life of happiness that could have been his but for the want of revenge.
Having faith in Jesus Christ is to trust that because of His atoning sacrifice, He will correct all injustices, restore all things lost, and mend all things broken, including hearts. He will make all things right, not leaving any detail unattended. Therefore, “ye ought to say in your hearts—let God judge between me and thee, and reward thee according to thy deeds” (D&C 64:11).
Like Edmond Dantès, many victims have been so cruelly injured, such as in abuse cases, with no apparent justice forthcoming, that they felt like the Lord was requiring the impossible by asking them to forgive.
As hard as forgiving may be in such situations, not forgiving is even harder over the long run because it puts a person on the disabling anti-responsibility list. Not forgiving is a synonym with blaming, anger, self-justifying, and self‑pity—all things that are on the list. When Satan taps into any of these negative emotions, he begins exercising control over a person’s life.
One of the most difficult times to forgive is in the case of spouse abuse, with its accompanying anguish, pain of betrayal, and cruelty. There is an interesting and common pattern with abuse cases: the abuser nearly always blames the victim, just as Laman and Lemuel blamed Nephi for their abuse of him. The Lord warned Nephi to separate his family from his brothers and their wicked intentions so he could protect himself and his family (see 2 Nephi 5:1–7). Let’s assume that a woman who has been cruelly abused receives similar revelation, and she separates from her extremely abusive husband.
Even though the abused woman is now free from the abusive environment, she is finding it hard to forgive her husband for the sustained and escalating cruelty. It seems unfair to ask her to forgive his brutality when he seems to be unrepentant. It doesn’t seem fair for her, the innocent one, to be suffering while he, the guilty one, appears to get off scot-free. Is there peace to be found without justice?
Like Edmond Dantès, until the abused wife learns to forgive, she is also denying or not trusting in the justice of God and His ability to judge wisely.
Justice is an eternal law that requires a penalty each time a law of God is broken (Alma 42:13–24). The sinner must pay the penalty if he does not repent (Mosiah 2:38–39; D&C 19:17). If he does repent, the Savior pays the penalty through the Atonement, invoking mercy (Alma 34:16).7
If the former husband does not repent, he will pay the penalty—“how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not” (D&C 19:15). The wife will know if he truly repents because his restitution will include humbly and sincerely asking for her forgiveness and his striving to make amends.
Even though the wife may understand the law of justice, what she is feeling is the need for justice now. Elder Neal A. Maxwell wisely taught that “faith in God includes faith in His purposes as well as in His timing. We cannot fully accept Him while rejecting His schedule.”8 Elder Maxwell also said, “The gospel guarantees ultimate, not proximate, justice.”9 “Behold, mine eyes see and know all their works, and I have in reserve a swift judgment in the season thereof, for them all” (D&C 121:24).
The law of justice and trusting in the Lord’s timing allows the wife not to worry about justice anymore and places judgment in God’s hands: “Behold what the scripture says—man shall not smite, neither shall he judge; for judgment is mine, saith the Lord, and vengeance is mine also, and I will repay” (Mormon 8:20).
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland shared this helpful insight:
Please don’t ask if it is fair. . . . When it comes to our own sins, we don’t ask for justice. What we plead for is mercy—and that is what we must be willing to give.
Can we see the tragic irony of not granting to others what we need so badly ourselves?10
Those who have experienced permanent damage, prolonged suffering, or loss from an offense face a far more difficult challenge in forgiving and turning justice over to the Lord. Hopefully they can find comfort in something the Prophet Joseph Smith taught: “What can [these misfortunes] do? Nothing. All your losses will be made up to you in the resurrection, provided you continue faithful.”11
Until the abused woman can turn justice over to the Lord, she will likely continue to experience feelings of anger—which are a form of negative devotion toward her abuser—and this traps her in a recurring nightmare. President George Albert Smith referred to this as “cherish[ing] an improper influence.”12 With her husband having hurt her so deeply, why would the wife allow him to continue victimizing her by haunting her thoughts? Hasn’t she suffered enough? Not forgiving her abuser allows him to mentally torment her over and over and over. Forgiving him doesn’t set him free; it sets her free.
Part of understanding forgiveness is to understand what it is not:
Forgiving her abusive husband does not excuse or condone his cruelty.
Forgiving does not mean forgetting his brutality; you cannot unremember or erase a memory that is so traumatic.
Forgiving does not mean that justice is being denied, because mercy cannot rob justice.
Forgiving does not erase the injury he has caused, but it can begin to heal the wounds and ease the pain.
Forgiving does not mean trusting him again and giving him yet another chance to abuse her and the children. While to forgive is a commandment, trust has to be earned and evidenced by good behavior over time, which he clearly has not demonstrated.
Forgiving does not mean forgiveness of his sins. Only the Lord can do that, based upon sincere repentance.
These are things that forgiveness does not mean. What forgiveness does mean is to forgive the husband’s foolishness—even his stupidity—in succumbing to the impulses of the natural man and at the same time still hope that he will yet yield “to the enticings of the Holy Spirit” (Mosiah 3:19). Forgiveness does not mean giving him another chance to abuse, but it does mean giving him another chance at the plan of salvation.
It is also helpful if the wife understands “that we are punished by our sins and not for them.”13 She then recognizes that her abuser has inflicted far more eternal damage upon himself than temporal damage upon her. And even in the present, his true happiness and joy diminish in inverse proportion to his increased wickedness, because “wickedness never was happiness” (Alma 41:10). He is to be pitied for the sorrowful and precarious situation he is in.
Knowing that he is sinking in spiritual quicksand might begin to change her desire for justice—which is already occurring—to a hope that he will repent before it is too late. With this understanding she might even begin to pray for the one who has despitefully abused her.
This Christlike change in her heart helps her to forgive and brings about the healing she so desperately wants and deserves. The Savior knows exactly how to heal her because He precisely knows her pain, having lived it vicariously.
In this scenario of the abused wife, we have two parties—the abusive husband and the victim-wife, both of whom need divine help. Alma teaches us that the Savior suffered for both: for the sins of the man and for the anguish, heartache, and pain of the woman (see Alma 7:11–12; Luke 4:18).
To access the Savior’s grace and the healing power of His Atonement, the Savior requires something from both of them.
The husband’s key to access the Lord’s grace is repentance. If the husband doesn’t repent, he cannot be forgiven by the Lord (see D&C 19:15–17).
The wife’s key to access the Lord’s grace and then allow Him to heal her is forgiveness. Until the wife is able to forgive, she is choosing to suffer the anguish and pain that He has already suffered on her behalf. By not forgiving, she unwittingly denies His mercy and healing. In a sense, she fulfills this scripture:
I, God, have suffered these things . . . that they might not suffer. . . .
But if they would not repent [or forgive,] they must suffer even as I. [D&C 19:16–17]
CONCLUSION
In summary, being 100 percent responsible is accepting yourself as the person in control of your life. If others are at fault and need to change before further progress is made, then you are at their mercy and they are in control over the positive outcomes or desired results in your life. Agency and responsibility are inseparably connected. You cannot avoid responsibility without also diminishing agency. Mercy and justice are also inseparable. You cannot deny the Lord’s justice without also impeding His mercy. Oh, how Satan loves to divide complementary principles and laugh at the resulting devastation!
I invite each one of you to eliminate the anti-responsibility or anti-faith list from your life, even when you are right! It is an anti-happy and an anti-success list even when you are right. It is not a list for the valiant sons and daughters of God who are seeking to become more like Him. It is one of Satan’s foremost tools in controlling and destroying lives. The day a person eliminates the list from their life is the day they regain control over positive outcomes from that point on, and they begin moving forward in the light at an accelerated pace (see D&C 50:24).
I bear my certain witness of the name of Jesus Christ and of the power and happiness that the fulness of His gospel affords us. He is the Life and the Light of the World. These principles that I shared today are His. I so testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Lynn G. Robbins, a member of the Presidency of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, delivered this devotional address on August 22, 2017, during BYU Campus Education Week.
NOTES:
1. There are three exceptions to this principle:
a. Children younger than the age of accountability (see Mosiah 3:16–18; Mosiah 15:25; Moroni 8:8; D&C 29:46–47; 68:27; 137:10).
b. The intellectually disabled (see Moroni 8:10; see also “Persons Who May Not Be Accountable,” Handbook 1: Stake Presidents and Bishops [Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2010], 16.3.5 [p. 144]).
c. Those who have not received the law or the gospel (see 2 Nephi 9:26; Mosiah 3:11; Mosiah 15:24; Alma 42:21).
2. In the early sixteenth century, Pope Leo X and the Catholic Church sold “indulgences” that supposedly absolved one of past sins and/or released one from purgatory after death. Martin Luther saw it as a corrupt attempt to sell salvation, prompting him to write his Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences, also known as Ninety-Five Theses, and then post it on the door of the Wittenberg Castle church in 1517. See “Martin Luther and the 95 Theses,” History Channel, history.com/topics/martin-luther-and-the-95-theses.
3. Samuel Grafton, in his syndicated column “I’d Rather Be Right” (included in Edmund Fuller, Thesaurus of Quotations [New York: Crown Publishers, 1941], 272). Edward R. Murrow referred to this quote in his last newscast (22 January 1961) in a remark about John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address (see In Search of Light: The Broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow, 1938–1961, ed. Edward Bliss Jr. [New York: Da Capo Press, 1997], 346).
4. Attributed to David B. Haight, General Authority training meeting, April 1993.
5. Irene Eubanks, “Putting My Marriage Before My Pride,” Ensign, January 2008.
6. IMDb’s page for quotes for The Count of Monte Cristo (2002), imdb.com/title/tt0245844/quotes.
7. Guide to the Scriptures, s.v. “justice,” scriptures.lds.org.
8. Neal A. Maxwell, That Ye May Believe (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1992), 84.
9. Neal A. Maxwell, Wherefore, Ye Must Press Forward (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1977), 116.
10. Jeffrey R. Holland, “Amazed at the Love Jesus Offers Me,” New Era, December 2008; see also original version, Holland, “I Stand All Amazed,” Ensign, August 1986.
11. Joseph Smith, HC 5:362; see also Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2007), 51.
12. George Albert Smith, CR, October 1905, 28; see also Teachings of Presidents of the Church: George Albert Smith (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2011), 252.
13. Elbert Hubbard, The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard: Mottoes, Epigrams, Short Essays, Passages, Orphic Sayings and Preachments (New York: W. H. Wise, 1927), 23; emphasis added.
© by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.
Showing posts with label Agency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Agency. Show all posts
Thursday, November 16, 2017
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Spiritual Crocodiles
This is a favorite, because of the Seminary video that the Church produced based upon it. President (then-Elder) Packer is an extraordinarily good teacher, and is able to take things, like crocodiles in Africa, and use them to teach gospel principles, such as temptations. This talk is a prime example of that ability.
Spiritual Crocodiles
I speak today to the youth of the Church, the Aaronic Priesthood and the young women, and these wonderful young people in our choir. In order to teach a lesson not easily learned, I will relate an experience.
I have always been interested in animals and birds and when I was a little boy and the other children wanted to play cowboy, I wanted to go on safari to Africa and would pretend I was hunting the wild animals.
When I learned to read, I found books about birds and animals and came to know much about them. By the time I was in my teens I could identify most of the African animals. I could tell a klipspringer from an impala, or a gemsbok from wildebeest.
I always wanted to go to Africa and see the animals, and finally that opportunity came. Sister Packer and I were assigned to tour the South Africa Mission with President and Sister Howard Badger. We had a very strenuous schedule and had dedicated eight chapels in seven days, scattered across that broad continent.
President Badger was vague about the schedule for September 10th. (That happens to be my birthday.) We were in Rhodesia, planning, I thought, to return to Johannesburg, South Africa. But he had other plans, and we landed at Victoria Falls.
“There is a game reserve some distance from here,” he explained, “and I have rented a car, and tomorrow, your birthday, we are going to spend seeing the African animals.”
Now I might explain that the game reserves in Africa are unusual. The people are put in cages, and the animals are left to run free. That is, there are compounds where the park visitors check in at night and are locked behind high fences until after daylight they are allowed to drive about, but no one is allowed out of his car.
We arrived in the park in the late afternoon. By some mistake, there were not enough cabins for all the visitors, and they were all taken when we arrived. The head ranger indicated that they had a cabin in an isolated area about eight miles from the compound and we could spend the night there.
Because of a delay in getting our evening meal, it was long after dark when we left the compound. We found the turnoff and had gone up the narrow road just a short distance when the engine stalled. We found a flashlight and I stepped out to check under the hood, thinking that there must be a loose connection or something. As the light flashed on the dusty road, the first thing I saw was lion tracks!
Back in the car, we determined to content ourselves with spending the night there! Fortunately, however, an hour or two later we were rescued by the driver of a gas truck who had left the compound late because of a problem. We awakened the head ranger and in due time we were settled in our cabin. In the morning they brought us back to the compound.
We had no automobile, and without telephones there was no way to get a replacement until late in the day. We faced the disappointment of sitting around the compound all day. Our one day in the park was ruined and, for me, the dream of a lifetime was gone.
I talked with a young ranger, and he was surprised that I knew many of the African birds. Then he volunteered to rescue us.
“We are building a new lookout over a water hole about twenty miles from the compound,” he said. “It is not quite finished, but it is safe. I will take you out there with a lunch, and when your car comes late this afternoon we will bring it out to you. You may see as many animals, or even more, than if you were driving around.”
On the way to the lookout he volunteered to show us some lions. He turned off through the brush and before long located a group of seventeen lions all sprawled out asleep and drove right up among them.
We stopped at a water hole to watch the animals come to drink. It was very dry that season and there was not much water, really just muddy spots. When the elephants stepped into the soft mud the water would seep into the depression and the animals would drink from the elephant tracks.
The antelope, particularly, were very nervous. They would approach the mud hole, only to turn and run away in great fright. I could see there were no lions about and asked the guide why they didn’t drink. His answer, and this is the lesson, was “Crocodiles.”
I knew he must be joking and asked him seriously, “What is the problem?” The answer again: “Crocodiles.”
“Nonsense,” I said. “There are no crocodiles out there. Anyone can see that.”
I thought he was having some fun at the expense of his foreign game expert, and finally I asked him to tell us the truth. Now I remind you that I was not uninformed. I had read many books. Besides, anyone would know that you can’t hide a crocodile in an elephant track.
He could tell I did not believe him and determined, I suppose, to teach me a lesson. We drove to another location where the car was on an embankment above the muddy hole where we could look down. “There,” he said. “See for yourself.”
I couldn’t see anything except the mud, a little water, and the nervous animals in the distance. Then all at once I saw it!—a large crocodile, settled in the mud, waiting for some unsuspecting animal to get thirsty enough to come for a drink.
Suddenly I became a believer! When he could see I was willing to listen, he continued with the lesson. “There are crocodiles all over the park,” he said, “not just in the rivers. We don’t have any water without a crocodile somewhere near it, and you’d better count on it.”
The guide was kinder to me than I deserved. My “know-it-all” challenge to his first statement, “crocodiles,” might have brought an invitation, “Well, go out and see for yourself!”
I could see for myself that there were no crocodiles. I was so sure of myself I think I might have walked out just to see what was there. Such an arrogant approach could have been fatal! But he was patient enough to teach me.
My young friends, I hope you’ll be wiser in talking to your guides than I was on that occasion. That smart-aleck idea that I knew everything really wasn’t worthy of me, nor is it worthy of you. I’m not very proud of it, and I think I’d be ashamed to tell you about it except that telling you may help you.
Those ahead of you in life have probed about the water holes a bit and raise a voice of warning about crocodiles. Not just the big, gray lizards that can bite you to pieces, but spiritual crocodiles, infinitely more dangerous, and more deceptive and less visible, even, than those well-camouflaged reptiles of Africa.
These spiritual crocodiles can kill or mutilate your souls. They can destroy your peace of mind and the peace of mind of those who love you. Those are the ones to be warned against, and there is hardly a watering place in all of mortality now that is not infested with them.
On another trip to Africa I discussed this experience with a game ranger in another park. He assured me that you can indeed hide a crocodile in an elephant track—one big enough to bite a man in two.
He then showed me a place where a tragedy had occurred. A young man from England was working in the hotel for the season. In spite of constant and repeated warnings, he went through the compound fence to check something across a shallow splash of water that didn’t cover his tennis shoes.
“He wasn’t two steps in,” the ranger said, “before a crocodile had him, and we could do nothing to save him.”
It seems almost to be against our natures, particularly when we are young, to accept much guidance from others. But, young people, there are times when, regardless of how much we think we know or how much we think we want to do something, that our very existence depends on paying attention to the guides.
Now, it is a gruesome thing to think about that young man who was eaten by the crocodile. But that is not, by any means, the worst thing that could happen. There are moral and spiritual things far worse even than the thought of being chewed to pieces by a monstrous lizard.
Fortunately there are guides enough in life to prevent these things from happening if we are willing to take counsel now and again.
Some of us are appointed now, as you will be soon, to be guides and rangers. Now we don’t use those titles very much. We go under the titles of parents—father and mother—bishop, leader, adviser. Our assignment is to see that you get through mortality without being injured by these spiritual crocodiles.
All of the training and activity in the Church has as its central purpose a desire to see you, our young people, free and independent and secure, both spiritually and temporally.
If you will listen to the counsel of your parents and your teachers and your leaders when you are young, you can learn how to follow the best guide of all—the whisperings of the Holy Spirit. That is individual revelation. There is a process through which we can be alerted to spiritual dangers. Just as surely as that guide warned me, you can receive signals alerting you to the spiritual crocodiles that lurk ahead.
If we can train you to listen to these spiritual communications, you will be protected from these crocodiles of life. You can learn what it feels like to be guided from on high. This inspiration can come to you now, in all of your activities, in school, and dating—not just in your Church assignments.
Learn how to pray and how to receive answers to your prayers. When you pray over some things, you must patiently wait a long, long time before you will receive an answer. Some prayers, for your own safety, must be answered immediately, and some promptings will even come when you haven’t prayed at all.
Once you really determine to follow that guide, your testimony will grow and you will find provisions set out along the way in unexpected places, as evidence that someone knew that you would be traveling that way.
The basic exercise for you to perform in your youth to become spiritually strong and to become independent lies in obedience to your guides. If you will follow them and do it willingly, you can learn to trust those delicate, sensitive, spiritual promptings. You will learn that they always, invariably, lead you to do that which is righteous.
Now, my young friends, I would like to make reference to another experience, one I think of often but one I seldom talk about. I shall not mention it in detail; I only want to refer to it. It happened many years ago when I was perhaps not quite as young as you are now, and it had to do with my decision to follow that guide.
I knew what agency was and knew how important it was to be individual and to be independent, to be free. I somehow knew there was one thing the Lord would never take from me, and that was my free agency. I would not surrender my agency to any being but to Him! I determined that I would give Him the one thing that He would never take—my agency. I decided, by myself, that from that time on I would do things His way.
That was a great trial for me, for I thought I was giving away the most precious thing I possessed. I was not wise enough in my youth to know that because I exercised my agency and decided myself, I was not losing it. It was strengthened!
I learned from that experience the meaning of the scripture: “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:31–32.)
I have not been quite as frightened of spiritual crocodiles since then, because I have been alerted on many occasions as to where they were lurking.
I have been nipped a time or two and on occasion have needed some spiritual first aid, but have been otherwise saved because I have been warned.
Fortunately, there is spiritual first aid for those who have been bitten. The bishop of the ward is the guide in charge of this first aid. He can also treat those who have been badly morally mauled by these spiritual crocodiles—and see them completely healed.
That experience in Africa was another reminder for me to follow the Guide. I follow Him because I want to. Through the other experience I came to know the Guide. I bear witness that He lives, that Jesus is the Christ. I know that He has a body of flesh and bones, that He directs this Church, and His purpose is to see all of us guided safely back into His presence. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Addiction or Freedom
This was sitting in my inbox this morning with one of my LDS GEMS mailers. The part on agency, that is highlighted below, was the quoted text that caught my attention. I just returned from sitting in the Dean's office at Clayton's school, and had confirmed to me the reality of Elder Nelson's promise, that our exercise of agency ties us to the consequences. If we make poor choices, we suffer the consequences for those decisions.
Addiction or Freedom
I am impressed to speak out on a problem of deep concern—the worldwide epidemic of drug addiction. As a medical doctor, my study of drugs began early in medical school. Each doctor spends months in specialized courses learning potential benefits and risks of medicinal agents. Proper prescription of drugs is the forte of skilled physicians. Generally, when their advice is carefully followed, results are remarkably successful. In addressing this topic, I specifically exclude such application of modern knowledge by educated professionals.
But I raise my voice with others throughout the world who warn against abuse of drugs beyond prescribed limits, and the recreational or social use of chemical substances so often begun naively by the ill-informed.
From an initial experiment thought to be trivial, a vicious cycle may follow. From trial comes a habit. From habit comes dependence. From dependence comes addiction. Its grasp is so gradual. Enslaving shackles of habit are too small to be sensed until they are too strong to be broken. Indeed, drugs are the modern “mess of pottage” for which souls are sold. No families are free from risk.
But this problem is broader than hard drugs. Their use most often begins with cigarette smoking. 1 Tobacco and alcoholic beverages contain addicting drugs. They lead the list in incidence and cost to society.
As I speak with governmental and medical leaders of many nations, they voice grave concern over the consumption of alcohol and other substances by their citizens. Though the extent of the challenge is international, data from the United States of America will be cited solely to indicate the monstrous scope of this worldwide problem.
Tobacco
Consider the magnitude of tobacco’s harm. Cigarette smoking is the most frequent preventable cause of heart disease, artery disease, lung disease, and cancer. 2 In the U.S.A. in 1982, 16 percent of all deaths (314,000) were attributed to the smoking of tobacco. 3
For the year 1985, the estimated cost of both smoking-related health care and lost productivity amounted to $65 billion. That calculates to an average of $2.17 per pack of cigarettes sold. 4 Social consequences of smoking far exceed the price paid to purchase cigarettes.
An insurance company recently reported that one-fifth of all its claims were for afflictions that could have been prevented by simply not smoking. 5 We all bear this financial burden of illness that need not be.
Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop and his team of more than fifty scientists recently published a landmark report. For the U.S.A. alone, they attributed 320,000 deaths annually to tobacco, 125,000 to alcohol, and lesser mortality to cocaine (2,000) and other opioids (4,000). They declared nicotine to be a powerfully addicting drug in the same sense as are drugs such as heroin and cocaine. 6 Comparable views have been recorded by medical authorities in many other nations. 7 Yet many of our good friends who use tobacco may not believe it to be addicting. Some are reluctant to admit that their behavior is substantially controlled by a drug. We understand those feelings.
Alcohol
There is mounting concern worldwide over the consumption of alcohol. The U.S. government estimates that 10.6 million adults are alcoholics and that one family in four is troubled by alcohol. 8 It is a factor in half of all the nation’s traffic deaths. 9
Last year, a tragic milestone was reached. More Americans had been killed from alcohol-related motor vehicle accidents (1,350,000) than had been killed in all the wars America has ever fought (1,156,000). 10
Other Drugs
Drugs such as LSD, marijuana, heroin, and cocaine are also endangering people throughout the earth. The noble attributes of reason, integrity, and dignity, which distinguish men and women from all other forms of life, are often the first to be attacked by these drugs and alcohol.
Reaching Help
We reach out in love to family, friends, and neighbors, regardless of nationality or creed, who suffer addiction. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continues to help relieve this international plague.
The solution to this problem ultimately is neither governmental nor institutional. Nor is it a question of legality. It is a matter of individual choice and commitment. Agency must be understood. The importance of the will in making crucial choices must be known. Then steps toward relief can follow.
Agency
Agency, or the power to choose, was ours as spirit children of our Creator before the world was. (See Alma 13:3; Moses 4:4.) It is a gift from God, nearly as precious as life itself.
Often, however, agency is misunderstood. While we are free to choose, once we have made those choices, we are tied to the consequences of those choices.
We are free to take drugs or not. But once we choose to use a habit-forming drug, we are bound to the consequences of that choice. Addiction surrenders later freedom to choose. Through chemical means, one can literally become disconnected from his or her own will!Road to Recovery
For relief of an ailment, as a doctor of medicine I might write a prescription. As an ordained Apostle, I would invoke the spiritual blessing of eternal perspective. Combined, my spiritual prescription would return the gift of agency to its rightful owner.
Each one who resolves to climb that steep road to recovery must gird up for the fight of a lifetime. But a lifetime is a prize well worth the price.
This challenge uniquely involves the will, and the will can prevail. Healing doesn’t come after the first dose of any medicine. So the prescription must be followed firmly, bearing in mind that it often takes as long to recover as it did to become ill. But if made consistently and persistently, correct choices can cure.
Spiritual Prescription
My spiritual prescription includes six choices which I shall list alphabetically, A through F, and then comment about each:
1. Choose to Be Alive. Seek beloved family, friends, and physicians. Plead for their help. Your precious life is at stake. Cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves—to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life. (See 2 Ne. 10:23.)
- Choose to Be Alive
- Choose to Believe
- Choose to Change
- Choose to Be Different
- Choose to Exercise
- Choose to Be Free
The choice for life brings an outlook of optimism. It breathes hope. It rekindles self-esteem—regarding one’s body as a timeless trust. And it awakens a personal commitment to “see that ye take care of these sacred things, … that ye look to God and live.” (Alma 37:47.)
2. Choose to Believe. Believe in God. Accept yourself as His child, created in His image. He loves you and wants you to be happy. He wants you to grow through life’s choices and become more like Him. He pleads that you will “reconcile [yourself] to the will of God, and not to the will of the … flesh.” (2 Ne. 10:24.)
Reconciliation requires faith, repentance, and baptism. Be “born of God, changed from [your] carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness.” (Mosiah 27:25.) Renew covenants made at baptism by worthily partaking of the sacrament regularly, “that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world.” (D&C 59:9.)
Then “be meek and lowly in heart; … withstand every temptation of the devil, with … faith on the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Alma 37:33.)
Choose to believe in and be blessed by your Creator.
3. Choose to Change. “How long will ye suffer [yourself] to be led by foolish and blind guides? Yea, how long will ye choose darkness rather than light?” (Hel. 13:29.) Choose to change—today!
“The spirit and the body are the soul of man.” (D&C 88:15.) Both spirit and body have appetites. One of life’s great challenges is to develop dominance of spiritual appetites over those that are physical. Your willpower becomes strong when joined with the will of the Lord.
Addiction to any substance enslaves not only the physical body but the spirit as well. Therefore, repentance is best achieved while one still has a body to help attain spiritual supremacy: “This life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; … this life is the day for men to perform their labors. …
“Do not procrastinate the day of your repentance; … if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed.…
“That same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life … will have power to possess your body in that eternal world.” (Alma 34:32–34.)
To be carnally-minded is death, but to be spiritually-minded is life eternal. (See 2 Ne. 9:39; see also Rom. 8:6.) That blessing will come to those with the will to change.
4. Choose to Be Different. Distinguish yourself from worldly crowds. Defenders do not resemble offenders. Among them are clever merchandisers who plot to link beer with sports, tobacco with charm, and drugs with fun. Scripture warns of those who so deceive:
“Thus saith the Lord unto you: In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I have warned you, and forewarn you, by giving unto you this word of wisdom by revelation.” (D&C 89:4.)His Word of Wisdom includes sound nutritional guidance and simple instructions. We are not to drink alcoholic beverages. (See D&C 89:5–7.) We are not to use tobacco. (See D&C 89:8.) We are not to drink tea or coffee. (See D&C 89:9.) And in this same spirit, we are not to use addicting drugs. 11
So to modern Israel, God has given modern counsel, similar to ancient commandments recorded in the Old Testament:
“It is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink:Certainly modern medical research validates the physical benefits of obedience to the Word of Wisdom. The evidence is so great that many will be taught the right things for only half of the right reasons. With that limited understanding, could they then try a smoke, a drink, or a drug, rationalizing that “just one won’t hurt”? Could the prospect of only future physical rewards even be bait for foolish dares of defiance now? Or to phrase these questions another way, how many would be determined to obey the will of the Lord even if physical benefits were not assured? When God asked Abraham to offer Isaac in sacrifice, did they first seek scientific confirmation that their choice to obey was medically advisable?
“Lest they drink, and forget the law.” (Prov. 31:4–5.)
“Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken.” (Hab. 2:15; see also Prov. 20:1.)
The Word of Wisdom is a spiritual law. To the obedient He proclaimed: “I, the Lord, give unto them a promise, that the destroying angel shall pass by them, as the children of Israel, and not slay them.” (D&C 89:21.)
At the first passover, the destroying angel did pass over houses that were marked with blood on the doorposts. In our day, the faithful keep the Word of Wisdom. It is one of our signs unto God that we are His covenant people.
Choose to be different; you will be blessed both physically and spiritually.
5. Choose to Exercise. Exercising the body and the spirit will aid in the climb toward recovery. Appropriate physical activity helps to combat depression, which so often accompanies addiction.
But spiritual exercise is even more crucial. This battle will be more easily won with fervent prayer. If we truly “counsel with the Lord in all [our] doings, … he will direct [us] for good.” (Alma 37:37.)
Strength comes from uplifting music, good books, and feasting from the scriptures. Since the Book of Mormon was to come forth “when there shall be great pollutions upon the face of the earth” (Morm. 8:31), study of that book in particular will fortify us. President Benson has issued that challenge.
Exercise the body and the spirit and choose to exercise faith in God.
6. Choose to Be Free. Break “bands of iniquity.” (Mosiah 23:12; see also 1 Ne. 13:5.) Leave behind “an iron yoke, … handcuffs, and chains, and shackles, and fetters of hell.” (D&C 123:8.)
Choose to be free from feigned friends who first flatter yet later despise. (See D&C 121:20.) Drug abuse may have started with them, but you pay the price.
“Remember, my brethren [and sisters], that whosoever perisheth, perisheth unto himself; and whosoever doeth iniquity, doeth it unto himself; for behold, ye are free; ye are permitted to act for yourselves; for behold, God hath given unto you a knowledge and he hath made you free.” (Hel. 14:30.)The Lord has revealed His sacred standard to guide people in a troubled world. You and I were born free to follow His divine guidance. We may choose for ourselves. Those choices may bring addiction or freedom. For freedom and joy, choose to “be faithful in Christ.” He will lift you up. May “the hope of his glory and of eternal life, rest in your mind forever” (Moro. 9:25), I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes
1. The Health Consequences of Smoking: Nicotine Addiction, Public Health Service, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988, pp. 262–63.
2. Cigarette Smoking and Cardiovascular Disease 1985: Special Report to the Public, American Heart Association (50-075-A).
6. The Health Consequences of Smoking: Nicotine Addiction, Public Health Service, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988, pp. 14, 334.
7. Among them are Nigel Gray, Director, Anti-Cancer Council, Victoria, Australia; David Simpson, Director, Action on Smoking and Health, U.K.; Pamela Taylor, Spokesperson, British Medical Association, U.K.; Andrew Pipe, University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Canada; Roberta Ferrence, Addiction Research Foundation, Canada; Bernie McKay, Secretary, Commonwealth Department of Health, Australia. Times and Seasons, Documentary on Tobacco, July 1988.
9. Healthy People: The Surgeon General’s Report on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Public Health Service, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979, p. 125.
10. Accident Facts, Annual report of the National Safety Council, 1975, confirmed by telephone conversation 20 July 1988.
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