On Marriage

This was in my Gems email today (well, a quote from it was there).  I read the article and found it insightful into marriage.  I think I have often found myself in the "independent" camp in my own marriage. I recognized the need to become interdependent with Clorinda.

Crossing Thresholds and Becoming Equal Partners

By Elder Bruce C. Hafen, of the Seventy, and Marie K. Hafen

Bruce C. Hafen and Marie K. Hafen, “Crossing Thresholds and Becoming Equal Partners,” Liahona, Aug 2007, 26–31

His house key is in the lock. He’s home from work and about to step inside. In the kitchen, real life is scattered all around. The baby is crying. The three-year-old just poured milk—not in a glass but all over the counter. The seven-year-old needs some daddy attention. And dinner isn’t ready.

With a deadline at work tomorrow, a head buzzing from rush-hour traffic, and a Church meeting tonight, he’s hoping she will greet him with some relief.

Hearing him come in, she is glad a relief party has arrived! But when she sees his face fall as he looks around, she defends herself: “Look—I work all day too. I’ve been with these kids nonstop, and I really need a break. Will you please fix this macaroni and cheese and help with the kids?”

In the heat of her request, his hope evaporates into exasperation, and he is about to react.

At this crossroads of their busy day, these two have some choices. Will they use this moment to practice being the kind of companion each has covenanted to become? Or will each one default to past conditioning—familial and cultural? Certain attitudes and ideas have crept into the very air they breathe, challenging them as they try to work with each other rather than against each other.

Suppose he grew up with a father who was a dominant husband and a mother who was a subordinate wife. The cheery husband calls out, “Honey, I’m home!” as he strides through the polished front door. The calm wife—not a hair out of place and wearing fresh lipstick and a starched apron—greets him with, “Your dinner is ready, dear. Take off your tie and sit down.” Everything is in its place.

Suppose his parents believe that a wife’s first duty, as one U.S. church wrote recently in its creed, is to “submit graciously to her husband.” And suppose they believe that a husband’s duty is to give directions—leading out, assigning tasks, and expecting results.

Now suppose she grew up with parents who aligned themselves with women’s liberation. Her mother is grateful to live in a day when women no longer feel pressured to conform to a rigid, self-sacrificing role that seems to deny their sense of self.

Perhaps her mother, even her father, would say that a smart wife keeps boundaries around how much of her time and self she will give to support her husband and children because she first needs to look out for herself and her personal priorities in this new age of female freedom.

Becoming Interdependent

Correcting these two extremist attitudes, “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” teaches a husband-wife concept that clearly differs from both households where this hypothetical couple grew up. It states that fathers “are to preside” and “to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families,” while mothers “are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children.” Fathers and mothers are to “help one another” fulfill these duties as “equal partners.”1

Our young husband’s parents believe the old idea that women are fully dependent on their husbands. Our young wife’s parents believe the new idea that women are independent of their husbands. But the restored gospel teaches the eternal idea that husbands and wives are interdependent with each other. They are equal. They are partners.

The incorrect idea in Christian history that wives should be dependent began with the false premise that the Fall of Adam and Eve was a tragic mistake and that Eve was the primary culprit. Thus women’s traditional submission to men was considered a fair punishment for Eve’s sin.2

Thankfully, the Restoration clarifies Eve’s—and Adam’s—choice as essential to the eternal progression of God’s children. We honor rather than condemn what they did, and we see Adam and Eve as equal partners.
The modern liberationist idea that married people are independent of each other is also incorrect. It typically claims that there are no innate differences between men and women or that, even if some differences do exist, no one has the right to define gender-based roles.

In some ways, the excessive selflessness of the dependent wife allowed and perhaps even encouraged male domination. In reaction to this, the radical wing of the women’s liberation movement swung to the other extreme of independence, moving past the possibilities of interdependence. This cultural motion, and emotion, pushed some women from being overly selfless to being overly selfish—causing them to miss the personal growth that can come only from self-chosen sacrifice, which makes possible a woman’s ability to thrive from nurturing all within her circle (see John 17:19).

The concept of interdependent, equal partners is well-grounded in the doctrine of the restored gospel. Eve was Adam’s “help meet” (Genesis 2:18). The original Hebrew for meet means that Eve was adequate for, or equal to, Adam. She wasn’t his servant or his subordinate. And the Hebrew for help in “help meet” is ezer, a term meaning that Eve drew on heavenly powers when she supplied their marriage with the spiritual instincts uniquely available to women as a gender gift.3

As President Boyd K. Packer, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, has said, men and women are by nature different, and while they share many basic human traits, the “virtues and attributes upon which perfection and exaltation depend come [more] naturally to a woman.”4

Genesis 3:16 states that Adam is to “rule over” Eve, but this doesn’t make Adam a dictator. A ruler can be a measuring tool that sets standards. Then Adam would live so that others may measure the rightness of their conduct by watching his. Being a ruler is not so much a privilege of power as an obligation to practice what a man preaches. Also, over in “rule over” uses the Hebrew bet, which means ruling with, not ruling over. If a man does exercise “dominion … in any degree of unrighteousness” (D&C 121:37; emphasis added), God terminates that man’s authority.

Perhaps because false teachings had twisted original scriptural meanings, President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) preferred “preside” rather than “rule.” He said: “No woman has ever been asked by the Church authorities to follow her husband into an evil pit. She is to follow him [only] as he follows and obeys the Savior of the world, but in deciding [whether he is obeying Christ], she should always be sure she is fair.”5 In this way, President Kimball saw marriage “as a full partnership,” stating, “We do not want our LDS women to be silent partners or limited partners” but rather “a contributing and full partner.”6

Spouses need not perform the same functions to be equal. The woman’s innate spiritual instincts are like a moral magnet, pointing toward spiritual north—except when that magnet’s particles are scrambled out of order. The man’s presiding gift is the priesthood—except when he is not living the principles of righteousness. If the husband and the wife are wise, their counseling will be reciprocal: he will listen to the promptings of her inner spiritual compass just as she will listen to his righteous counsel.

And in an equal-partner marriage both also bring a spiritual maturity to their partnership, without regard to gender. Both have a conscience and the Holy Ghost to guide them. Both see family life as their most important work. Each also strives to become a fully rounded disciple of Jesus Christ—a complete spiritual being.

Equal-Partner Marriage

Elder Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said that for too long in the Church, the men have been the theologians while the women have been the Christians.7 To be equal partners, each should be both a theologian and a Christian.

When Elder Maxwell learned in 1996 that he had leukemia, the diagnosis was discouraging. He had worked for years on making himself “willing to submit” (Mosiah 3:19) to the Lord’s will. If it was time to face death, he didn’t want to shrink from drinking his bitter cup.

But his wife, Colleen, thought he was too willing to yield. With loving directness, she said that Christ Himself earnestly pleaded first, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” Only then did He submit Himself, saying, “Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26:39). Elder Maxwell saw his wife’s doctrinal insight and agreed. As a result, they pleaded together that his life might be spared. Motivated by their determination, Elder Maxwell’s doctor found a new medical treatment that prolonged his life for several years. Elder Maxwell was grateful that he was not the only theologian in their marriage.8

In an equal-partner marriage, “love is not possession but participation … part of that co-creation which is our human calling.”9 With true participation, husband and wife merge into the synergistic oneness of an “everlasting dominion” that “without compulsory means” will flow with spiritual life to them and their posterity “forever and ever” (D&C 121:46).

In the little kingdom of a family, each spouse freely gives something the other does not have and without which neither can be complete and return to God’s presence. Spouses are not a soloist with an accompanist, nor are they two solos. They are the interdependent parts of a duet, singing together in harmony at a level where no solo can go.

Each gives abundance to the other’s want. As Paul wrote,

“For I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened:

“But by an equality, that … your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality” (2 Corinthians 8:13–14).

Temple marriage covenants do not magically bring equality to a partnership. Those covenants commit us to a developmental process of learning and growing together—by practice.

That couple we saw at the kitchen threshold share a commitment to the promise of eternal family unity. But equal partnerships are not made in heaven—they are made on earth, one choice at a time, one conversation at a time, one threshold crossing at a time. And getting there is hard work—like patiently working through differing assumptions about who was bringing relief to whom that night or any of thousands of nights like it.
As milk drips from the counter, she holds a box of macaroni and cheese in her hand, he faces a deadline and a meeting, and both feel the pull of weariness on their faces. How would people in a covenant, balanced relationship handle such a moment, and how could the next few moments help create an equal partnership?

Young wife, do you see in him someone who has worked all day to bring sustenance to your table? Young husband, do you see in her someone who has worked all day to make nourishment of that sustenance? Can you both see beyond the doing of the day and remember the inestimable worth of the being to whom you are married?

Thresholds of Love

After a lifetime of practice and patience together, what will your last earthly threshold look like? Will it look and feel something like John and Therissa Clarks’? In 1921 John Haslem Clark of Manti, Utah, wrote what became his last journal entry:

“The folks have been here today, but have gone to their homes. The clatter of racing feet, the laughter and babble of tongues have ceased. We are alone, We two. We two whom destiny has made one. Long ago, it has been sixty years since we met under the June trees. I kissed you first. How shy and afraid was your girlhood. Not any woman on earth or in heaven could be to me what you are. I would rather you were here, woman, with your gray hair, than any fresh blossom of youth. Where you are is home. Where you are not is homesickness. As I look at you I realize that there is something greater than love, although love is the greatest thing in earth. It is loyalty. For were I driven away in shame you would follow. If I were burning in fever your cool hand would soothe me. With your hand in mine may I pass and take my place among the saved of Heaven. Being eight years the eldest—and as the years went by and I felt that the time of parting might be near—it was often the drift of our thought and speech: how could either of us be left alone. Alone, after living together for 56 years. I scarcely dared think of it and though a bit selfish comforted myself thinking [that] according to our age I would not be the one left alone.”

Another handwriting then appears later on the same page. It is Therissa’s voice, gently closing John’s journal:

“Almost two years and a half since the last writing, and its following events are so sad, so heartbreaking for this, his life’s companion that this pen has been laid down many times ere this record is made. Loss and loneliness [are] ever present and will be with me to the end. … Will time soften this sadness, will I be able to leave the Old Home and not feel that he is waiting for me, calling me? I am only content at home where I feel that he is watching over me, his presence always with me.

“On March 11, 1923, John Haslem Clark passed away after an illness of only one week. He seemed so like himself, talking and active. We had no thought that the end was near until he passed into unconsciousness a few hours before his death. Oh, may we all be as clean and pure, ready to go before our Maker.”10

We do not know the details of John and Therissa’s life as they crossed over the thresholds of their days. But we do know how 56 years of daily conversations finally shaped the kind of people they became, the kind of love they knew.

If our young couple could only know that this love is what they could feel and understand at the end of their lives, what wouldn’t they give! They’d listen more and choose better, over and over, day after day, crossing after crossing. They would learn, by patient experience, that “work is love made visible.”11 They would realize as the years pass that their marriage is helping them become better disciples of Jesus Christ, even becoming a little more like Him. Then they would understand as they cross the final threshold of mortality that the extent to which they have become one with Him is the extent to which they are one with each other.

Notes

1. Liahona, Oct. 2004, 49; emphasis added.

2. See Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (1988), 68.

3. Donald W. Parry, Brigham Young University professor, helped with the Hebrew translations.

4. “For Time and All Eternity,” Ensign, Nov. 1993, 22.

5. “The Blessings and Responsibilities of Womanhood,” Ensign, Mar. 1976, 72.

6. “Privileges and Responsibilities of Sisters,” Ensign, Nov. 1978, 106.

7. See Wherefore, Ye Must Press Forward (1977), 127.

8. See Bruce C. Hafen, A Disciple’s Life: The Biography of Neal A. Maxwell (2002), 14–15, 555.

9. Madeleine L’Engle, The Irrational Season (1976), 98.

10. In Bruce C. Hafen, Covenant Hearts: Marriage and the Joy of Human Love (2005), 265–66.

11. Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet (1973), 28.

A Disciple's Journey

This talk was one I stumbled upon and read at lunch over a couple of days. Elder Hafen describes our progression as disciples in great terms. The images didn't want to transfer here, but they show up on the pdf.

A Disciple’s Journey

BRUCE C. HAFEN

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Bruce C. Hafen was a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy
when this devotional address was given on 5 February 2008.

© Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.
Complete volumes of Speeches are available wherever LDS books are sold.
For further information contact:
Speeches, 218 University Press Building, Provo, Utah 84602.
(801) 422-2299 / E-mail: speeches@byu.edu / Speeches Home Page

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Oh, how we miss President Hinckley! The entire Church weeps and, in Zechariah’s words, even “the land [mourns].”¹ Thousands filed by his casket last week. They said things like “He made me want to be a better person.” “He helped me believe in myself.” “He made it so easy to follow the prophet.” You, and those your age, have felt close to President Hinckley all of your lives. He connected intimately with all of us, which helped us connect to God.
He was incredible: such magnificent vision, yet such mastery of detail; so clear about right and wrong, yet such compassion; such a sense of history, yet such bold contributions to the future; so powerful in his ideas, yet so practical and unpretentious in his daily walk; so good-humored, yet so wise. I love President Hinckley. And now I bear you my solemn witness that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God—chosen, schooled, and prepared by a divine process for over four decades. May the Lord open heaven’s windows upon President Monson, President Eyring, and President Uchtdorf.
A few years ago our teenage daughter was feeling quite unsettled, asking some very honest questions, such as “Why is life so hard?” As we talked over dinner one night, I prayed like a missionary for the right things to say. After all, our children are our most important investigators. In the very moment, I received a prompting about “gravitational pull.” I grabbed a paper napkin and drew a sketch I’d never thought of before. It sparked a lively discussion. I felt so close to her that night. She is the child of our covenant, and I want to be with her always.
I’d like to share with you today the ideas from that sketch on the napkin. Let’s just pretend that you and I and my wife, Marie, are in some cozy Italian restaurant here in Provo and I’ve been lucky enough to find a white napkin with no tomato sauce on it. Let’s call this sketch “a disciple’s journey.”

A Disciple’s Journey

A disciple moves from darkness into light, which increases from the dim light of the stars to the moon and then to the brightness of the sun. Joseph Smith compared these heavenly bodies with the telestial, terrestrial, and celestial kingdoms. As the temple teaches, we can and should move toward that celestial light during mortality. We need not be of the world, even if we must live in the world.
Imagine that two vertical lines separate the stars, moon, and sun into three sections. Each line suggests a major transition as we move from one stage to the next. However, our journey is not rigidly sequential. Our experiences may move us back and forth.
Envision also two circles, each with a center point, located in stage one and in stage three. These circles represent the gravitational pull from the opposing poles of our journey. In the darkness of stage one, he who claims to be the god of this world exerts a constant force to hold us back from moving toward the light. As we cross the first barrier, we will leave the strongest satanic tugging—though he will always try to ensnare us wherever we are in the journey.
Reaching out from the center of light in stage three, Jesus also “entices” us with a spiritual gravitational pull toward Him. Think of the father of the prodigal son, praying his son home. When the father saw his son coming from afar, the father “had compassion, and ran” to the boy “and fell on his neck, and kissed him.”²
I compare that father to Christ, who is so eager for our return that He comes to meet and strengthen us all along our way. Nephi wrote, “It is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.”³ Christ’s running to us is a vivid symbol of that grace. We talk often in the Church about coming to Christ. Perhaps we should talk more about how Christ also comes to us. No matter where we are on that path, we are never lost to Him. We often sing “Who’s on the Lord’s side? Who?”⁴ Let us also sing “Be still, my soul: The Lord is on thy side.”⁵ We never have more value in the Lord’s sight than when we are feeling completely worthless.
Various terms describe this process. Mormon called a disciple a “true follower” of Christ⁶—one who follows the Son to return to the Father. Moroni said, “Come unto Christ, and be perfected in him.”⁷ Jesus asked, “What manner of men ought ye to be? . . . Even as I am.”⁸ Our Primary children sing “I’m trying to be like Jesus.”⁹ Whatever we call it, this journey is the gospel’s central concern.
Some non-LDS observers of our Church think we haven’t made this concept very clear. One of them said that while Mormons emphasize “Christ’s dying for humanity,” they don’t go on and “link the atonement to that part of the [LDS] ‘plan of salvation’ that involves progression toward godhood.”¹⁰ In other words, she thinks we haven’t explained what the Atonement has to do with becoming like Jesus.
Another prominent observer recently chided us for not explaining in a public way what he called our “doctrine of the perfectibility of mankind into divine form.”¹¹ In fact, however, the Restoration answers these questions with stunning clarity.

Initiation

As an act of will, we must take the first step that initiates our journey. Some people take that initiative through their own desire to find and follow God. Think of Nephi, a believer who wanted to see what his father saw.¹² Think of Abraham, who desired “to be a greater follower of righteousness.”¹³
Some who live worldly ways finally decide they’ve had enough of Satan’s darkness, like the prodigal son, who “came to himself” and headed for home.¹⁴ Some, like Enos or young Alma, start moving when they remember the teachings of their parents. Many others initiate their journey when they accept a missionary’s invitation to “come and see.”¹⁵
Often the Lord gives us a nudge by “calling” us, perhaps to serve a mission, inviting us to become what Mormon called “a disciple of Jesus Christ” who is “called of him to declare his word among his people.”¹⁶ Mormon referred to his own Church calling as a “gift,”¹⁷ probably because he discovered that his calling gave him experiences that let him truly come to know Christ. However we get started, the choice to begin this journey is an act of will. God Himself cannot and would not force us to take that step.

Opposition

But as soon as you start moving toward the light, the gravitational pull of darkness will immediately try to jerk you back, “for Satan desireth to have you.”¹⁸ He will tempt, frighten, and fight you. Missionaries know all about this. In some way, opposition hits virtually every investigator. The first time Adam and Eve taught their children the gospel, for example, Satan came among them, saying, “Don’t believe your parents.” And so the children, we’re told, “believed [them] not, and they loved Satan more than God. And men began from that time forth to be carnal, sensual, and devilish.”¹⁹ (“From that time forth” tells us that these children chose to be devilish after the Fall, after they heard that message. They were not born devilish.)
Satanic opposition does have great power in today’s world. Satan holds “a great chain in his hand,” which symbolizes such addictions as drugs, alcohol, and pornography—and the prince of darkness looks up and laughs at the poor souls he captures.²⁰
But that opposition cannot destroy us. Remember Joseph praying in the grove: an enemy power, he said, bound his tongue so he “could not speak.”²¹ Remember Moses when he first saw his grand vision: “Satan came tempting him” until Moses feared exceedingly, and “he saw the bitterness of hell.”²² But both Joseph and Moses called upon God, who gave them power to drive Satan away. That is a key insight: Satan may rattle us, but he cannot overcome us, for God can cast him from our presence.
Lehi said, “It must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things.”²³ So wherever you are on your journey, there will always be a reason not to go on. Don’t wait until all the obstacles disappear. The purely rational mind will always find a good reason to hold back, for Satan places those obstacles in our path. But opposition can strengthen us, not stop us. The skills of human growth are best “learned slowly against difficulty.”²⁴

First Sacrifice

When an investigator breaks free from the worldly pull enough to repent and make serious covenants with God, he or she is ready for baptism—the clearest symbol of the first barrier of sacrifice. This sacrifice requires, at a minimum, giving up the most obvious sins. As King Lamoni’s father said, “I will give away all my sins to know thee.”²⁵ By giving up short-term pleasures, he could find far more lasting satisfactions.
This sacrifice asks us to live the most basic temporal commandments, like tithing and the Word of Wisdom—which is “adapted to the capacity of the . . . weakest of [those who] can be called saints.”²⁶ Often these are physical temptations. In the Judean wilderness, Satan first taunted the hungering Christ to make bread and eat.²⁷
For Church members who want to become serious disciples, the sacrament represents this first level of sacrifice. They also commit not only to give away their sins but also to remember Him and to follow Him until they know Him.
These early sacrifices do fix one’s feet on a disciple’s path. For example, when Elder Neal A. Maxwell was an 18-year-old infantryman fighting on the island of Okinawa, he faced the most frightening night of his life. As enemy mortar shells began exploding ever closer to his foxhole, he knelt in the mud and pledged his life to the Lord if only he could be spared.
God answered his prayer. But soon afterward, days of hot, rainy weather turned Okinawa into a giant mud puddle. The supply trucks could seldom bring the soldiers food or water. They became unbearably thirsty. One historian said the only thing that saved those soldiers from thirst was coffee, boiled and hand carried from distant supply points. Neal wrote his parents a card, saying he was keeping all the commandments, but he wrote, “The coffee is tempting some times.”²⁸ That wasn’t about the smell. He was constantly thirsty, but he wouldn’t drink the coffee. He had committed otherwise. He did find a way to get just a little water. He said he caught rainwater in his helmet to bless his sacrament each week. Young Neal Maxwell knew that God had heard him, and he showed his gratitude by sacrifice. His disciple’s journey gained traction in the mud of Okinawa.
As a young missionary, Elder Gordon Hinckley found himself in a foxhole of a different sort. From the spiritual trenches of England, he became so discouraged that he wrote his father he might as well come home.
His father wrote back: “Dear Gordon, I have your recent letter. I have only one suggestion: forget yourself and go to work.”²⁹
Stung by that counsel, Gordon Hinckley threw himself into the work. After his mission, his mission president sent him to tell the First Presidency why they needed better missionary materials. That visit to Church headquarters was supposed to last 15 minutes and ended up lasting over 70 years. Gordon B. Hinckley’s entire life was about forgetting himself and going to work. His willingness to sacrifice kept his feet moving on a disciple’s path.

Forgiveness and the Holy Ghost

Repentance and forgiveness eliminate the rubbish and the bad habits that can hold us captive in the worldly orbit. But we can receive the Holy Ghost as a constant companion only after being cleansed by water. Christ told the Nephites to “be baptized in my name, [so] that ye may be sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost.”³⁰ Receiving the Holy Ghost is the baptism by fire, which truly begins the process of becoming like Jesus—meaning, to become saintly, or sanctified.
Let’s clarify a point here that we sometimes miss. Some describe the entire spiritual growth process as faith, repentance, baptism, and the Holy Ghost—as if once we’ve received the Holy Ghost, the hard work is done and our exaltation is assured, so long as we don’t do something seriously wrong. “Endure to the end,” we say, as if that means relaxing in some eternal rocking chair. God will just reel us in, like a fish hooked on a line. But it’s not quite that simple.
On the contrary, receiving the Holy Ghost marks the beginning of our real spiritual growth, not the end of it. Baptism and the Holy Ghost only let us enter “in by the gate.”³¹ Then the Holy Ghost leads us along the “strait and narrow path”³² of becoming sanctified disciples—not as passive spectators but by our straining every spiritual muscle, drinking in the power of temple ordinances, and feasting actively on Christ’s words to nourish us in becoming ever more holy.³³ And the long-term goal of that journey is to become like Him.
Does the Atonement have anything to do with this higher, developmental part of the journey or is it limited to the forgiveness part? Moroni taught that Christ’s grace helps us move well beyond forgiveness toward becoming like Him, or sanctified. He wrote, “Come unto Christ, and be perfected in him.”³⁴
So, after weeding out our worldly ways, Christ’s perfecting grace helps us replace those weeds with the divine flowers of Christlike attributes. You might say He wants to plant a garden in us. But we must satisfy certain conditions for this growth to occur, just as we had to satisfy the condition of repentance in order to receive forgiveness. The next steps in our journey illustrate those conditions.

Eye Single to God

Describing a disciple’s journey from darkness into light, the Lord told the early Saints: “And if your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in you.”³⁵ Having an eye single to God is then just one condition we must meet before the Atonement can bless us with the attributes of divinity. As Moroni said, “Touch not the evil gift, nor the unclean thing . . . and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; . . . then are ye sanctified.”³⁶
But that is hard to do today, because modern culture is saturated with being double-minded and indulging in unclean things. I heard President Hinckley once say that prosperity leads to indulgence, and indulgence leads to sin. Indulgence means gratifying our vain desires in the proud belief that we deserve to have it all, so we keep one hand on the wall of the temple and one foot on the dance floor at Club Babylon.
Every day we hear messages of indulgence like “Pampering yourself like this isn’t just indulgent, it’s decadent—but you deserve it.” I saw a billboard in Utah recently: “Modesty has never been sexier.” Talk about double-mindedness. We live in a society that seems to have no higher aim than its own indulgent satisfactions.
Many people feel they have a right to indulge themselves: eating too much, spending too much, and reveling in creature comforts. But, as one friend said, if you don’t get out of your comfort zone, you won’t learn. And if you don’t learn, you won’t grow. And without growth, you won’t find joy. That’s a high price to pay for indulging in self-satisfied comfort—no growth and no joy.
Today’s flood of pornography usually results from overindulgence. But note this irony. Alma told his son, “Bridle all your passions.” Why? So “that ye may be filled with love.”³⁷ Pornography addictions can destroy marriages, shattering the true romantic dream of eternal love. Imagine that! Fake love can destroy real love. What a cheap and dirty trick! And worse, yielding to porn is a classic example of touching the unclean thing, of refusing to deny oneself of ungodliness. This double-mindedness has consequences: We cannot then be perfected in Christ—not because He lacks the power but because we just lack the discipline. Thank heaven repentance can restore discipline.

Second Sacrifice

As we approach the second barrier of sacrifice, we move symbolically from the moon to the sun. All of the moon’s light is reflected from the sun—it is borrowed light. Heber C. Kimball used to say that when life’s greatest tests come, those who are living on borrowed light—the testimonies of others—will not be able to stand.³⁸ We need our own access to the light of the Son.
Baptism represents the first sacrifice. The temple endowment represents the second sacrifice. The first sacrifice was about breaking out of Satan’s orbit. The second one is about breaking fully into Christ’s orbit, pulled by His gravitational power. The first sacrifice was mostly about giving up temporal things. The second one is about consecrating ourselves spiritually, holding back nothing. As Elder Maxwell said, the only thing we can give the Lord that He didn’t already give us is our own will.³⁹ Seeking to be meek and lowly, disciples gladly offer God their will. As our children sing, “I feel my Savior’s love. . . . / He knows I will follow him, / Give all my life to him.”⁴⁰ And then what happens? In President Benson’s words, “When obedience ceases to be an irritant and becomes our quest, in that moment God will endow us with power.”⁴¹

Divine Tutorial

As we feel the power of Christ’s love pulling us toward Him, we anticipate the joy of His promise: “Be faithful and diligent . . . , and I will encircle thee in the arms of my love.”⁴² He reflected that affection in the way He addressed Joseph Smith. During Joseph’s early years, Christ called him “my servant Joseph.”⁴³ But as Joseph’s life took paths marked by consecration and hardship, the Lord said, “From henceforth I shall call you friends.”⁴⁴ What’s the difference between a servant and a friend? The Lord had earlier said that a servant does not know what his lord does. But, He said, “I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.”⁴⁵
So the Lord’s “friends” feel His increased confidence in them, but they also discover, paradoxically, that His tutorial asks more of them, not less. Is it possible that the closer we come to Christ, the more aware we will be of what we yet need to do? Yes, for He said, “If men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness [and] if they humble themselves before me . . . , then will I make weak things become strong unto them.”⁴⁶ So if we are becoming more aware of our weaknesses, that doesn’t mean we are drifting away from Him; it may well mean that we are drawing closer. Like a good coach, a good tutor will always help his students see their mistakes and correct them. When we understand that, correction is motivating, not discouraging. For because of the Atonement, we can learn from our mistakes without being condemned by them.
The paradox of this divine tutorial also includes afflictions of some kind. Because Elder Maxwell was such a faithful student of discipleship, I draw again from him: “The very act of choosing to be a disciple . . . can bring to us a certain special suffering,” because affliction and chastening are “a form of learning as it is administered at the hands of a loving Father.”⁴⁷ He also said, “If we are serious about our discipleship, Jesus will eventually request each of us to do those very things which are most difficult for us to do.”⁴⁸ And so, he said, “sometimes the best people . . . have the worst experiences . . . because they are the most ready to learn.”⁴⁹
After Elder Maxwell learned he had the leukemia that eventually took his life, he said, “I should have seen it coming.” Why? Because ever since Okinawa he had wanted to become a fully consecrated follower of Jesus—no matter what the price. And the more he desired the gift of charity—to love as Christ loves—the more he sensed how dear the price might be. Christ’s love is so deep that He took upon Himself the sins and afflictions of all mankind. Only in that way could He both pay for our sins and empathize with us enough to truly succor us—that is, run to us—with so much empathy that we can have complete confidence that He fully understands our sorrows. So, to love as Christ loves means we will somehow taste suffering ourselves—for the love and the affliction are but two sides of the same coin. Only by experiencing both sides can we understand and love other people with a depth that even approaches Christ’s love.

Sanctification

Finally, sanctification is the stage when we are not only with God but like God—for only those who have become like Him can be with Him. Jesus said, “It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master.”⁵⁰ This state of being is the hope, the vision, and the heart of a disciple’s journey. Our deepest desire is, in the words of both John and Mormon, that “when he shall appear, we shall be like him.”⁵¹
Being like Him means we possess His divine attributes, such as charity. Do we develop charity by our own power or is it a gift from God? It is both. In the current BYU vernacular, we must be “fully invested” in Him—as He is fully invested in us. Only then will God “bestow” charity “upon all who are true followers of his Son.”⁵² We can’t develop a Christlike love by ourselves, but we can do all in our power to become a “true follower”—meek, lowly of heart, and submissive to correction and affliction. Then the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, “filleth” us “with hope and perfect love, which . . . endureth [forever], when all the saints shall dwell with God.”⁵³
On that day we will no longer be God’s “servants,” or even just His “friends.” In Liberty Jail, Joseph Smith suffered so much that he learned both the affliction side and the charity side of Christ’s love for him and for the Saints. Then Joseph was not just the Lord’s servant or even His friend. Rather, God addressed him this way: “My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment.”⁵⁴ Christ also invites us to grow from servant to friend to God’s son or daughter—and then we are joint heirs with Christ. Then we will receive all that the Father hath and be all that the Father is.
I talked earlier about our daughter. I said I want to be “with her” always. For me, the words with you capture the Atonement’s meaning in its simplest terms. If we do our part, Christ makes us “at one” with God, overcoming whatever separates us from Him. He is with me, with you, not only at the end of our lives but every day of our lives. And without Christ we could not be “with” our family and our friends. Once our daughter Emily had to leave her three-year-old boy Clark with a babysitter. As she began leaving, little Clark ran to her and cried poignantly, “Go with you, Mom. With you.” No longing runs deeper in us than our desire to be with those we love.
“With you” echoes Harriet Beecher Stowe’s lines: “Still, still with Thee,” which anticipates our return to God’s presence. Still, still with Thee. Still—always; and still—quiet. Like still water, the doctrine of Christ’s peace runs deep, and it deserves to be held in the most reverent spaces in our hearts. And for me, “still with Thee” means being not only with Jesus but also with Marie, with our family, always. My heart has no greater desire. On that day of celestial reunion we will fully comprehend what it means to be there, together—something we would never understand without that long, hard journey in the earth school. I believe we will gasp as we realize we are actually there, in that place, sensing “the glorious thought, I am with Thee!”
Soon after Sister Hinckley’s death, President Hinckley confided in all of us at general conference: “Before I married her, she had been the girl of my dreams. . . . And now in my old age, she has again become the girl of my dreams.”⁵⁵ Can you imagine the reunion now, beyond the veil? He is again with his Marjorie; with his gifted mother, Ada, who died when he was 20; and with his father, Bryant, who wrote that life-changing letter about going to work.
I testify that Gordon B. Hinckley will always be with the girl of his dreams, for I know that Jesus is the Christ, the great Uniter, the Atoning One. Because of what He did, we too can be with Him; with our dearest ones—still, always, to go no more out. I am so grateful for this heavenly gift.
Let us close now with the hymn “Still, Still with Thee,” sung by the BYU Singers—a musical tribute to President and Sister Hinckley and to the supernal doctrine their example taught us with such power: “with you” is forever.
The choir will sing these words:
Still, still with Thee, when purple morning breaketh,When the bird waketh and the shadows flee;Fairer than morning, lovelier than the daylight,Dawns the sweet consciousness, I am with Thee!

. . . . . . . . . . .

So shall it be at last, in that bright morning
When the soul waketh and life’s shadows flee;
Oh, in that hour fairer than daylight dawning,
Shall rise the glorious thought, I am with Thee!⁵⁶
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes
1. Zechariah 12:12.
2. Luke 15:20.
3. 2 Nephi 25:23.
4. “Who’s on the Lord’s Side?” Hymns, 1985, no. 260.
5. “Be Still, My Soul,” Hymns, 1985, no. 124; emphasis added.
6. See Moroni 7:48.
7. Moroni 10:32; see also verse 33.
8. 3 Nephi 27:27.
9. “I’m Trying to Be Like Jesus,” Songbook, 78–79.
10. Jan Shipps, Sojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years Among the Mormons (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 112.
11. Noah Feldman, “What Is It About Mormonism?” New York Times Magazine (6 January 2008): 37.
12. See 1 Nephi 11:1, 3.
13. Abraham 1:2.
14. Luke 15:17–18.
15. John 1:39.
16. 3 Nephi 5:13.
17. Moroni 7:2.
18. 3 Nephi 18:18.
19. Moses 5:13.
20. Moses 7:26.
21. JS—H 1:15.
22. Moses 1:12, 20.
23. 2 Nephi 2:11.
24. Stopford A. Brooke, “Browning’s Theory of Human Life: Pauline and Paracelsus,” The Poetry of Robert Browning (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1902), 136 (summarizing main character’s dying thoughts in Robert Browning’s Paracelsus [1835]; see part 5, lines 696–97: “the slow / Uncertain fruit of an enhancing toil”).
25. Alma 22:18.
26. D&C 89:3.
27. See Matthew 4:3.
28. Neal A. Maxwell, letter to his parents, 13 May 1945, in Bruce C. Hafen, A Disciple’s Life: The Biography of Neal A. Maxwell (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2002), 108; see pages 106–9.
29. In Gordon B. Hinckley, “First Presidency Message: Taking the Gospel to Britain: A Declaration of Vision, Faith, Courage, and Truth,” Ensign, July 1987, 7.
30. 3 Nephi 27:20.
31. 2 Nephi 31:18.
32. 2 Nephi 31:19.
33. See 2 Nephi 32:3–6.
34. Moroni 10:32; see also verse 33.
35. D&C 88:67; see also verse 68.
36. Moroni 10:30, 32, 33.
37. Alma 38:12.
38. See Orson F. Whitney, Life of Heber C. Kimball (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1967), 446, 450.
39. See Neal A. Maxwell, “Jesus, the Perfect Mentor, Ensign, February 2001, 17.
40. “I Feel My Savior’s Love,” Songbook, 74–75.
41. Quoted in Donald L. Staheli, “Obedience—Life’s Great Challenge,” Ensign, May 1998, 82.
42. D&C 6:20.
43. E.g., D&C 1:17.
44. D&C 84:77.
45. John 15:15; emphasis added.
46. Ether 12:27; emphasis added.
47. Neal A. Maxwell, All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1979), 32, 39.
48. Neal A. Maxwell, A Time to Choose (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1972), 46.
49. Neal A. Maxwell, remarks at Joseph S. Clark funeral, 23 February 1996, quoted in Hafen, A Disciple’s Life, 20.
50. Matthew 10:25; emphasis added.
51. 1 John 3:2 (see also verse 3); Moroni 7:48.
52. Moroni 7:48.
53. Moroni 8:26.
54. D&C 121:7; emphasis added.
55. Gordon B. Hinckley, “The Women in Our Lives,” Ensign, November 2004, 82.
56. Harriet Beecher Stowe, “Still, Still with Thee” (1855), in James Dalton Morrison, ed., Masterpieces of Religious Verse (New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1948), 75; emphasis added.