Line upon Line

Even at an early age a certain tension can develop between two choices: possessing something as one’s own or sharing it with others. For a child this could be a small toy, food, an article of clothing, or the attention of parents. For example, during a summer vacation at a beach I was walking and gathering interesting seashells with our two oldest grandchildren, Ian and Grace, when a gentle debate ensued between them over ownership of certain shells that we were finding.

The sense of possessing something, of making something our own, can continue as we grow up, can’t it?  Sometimes it remains clothing or toys – just bigger toys like cars, computers, or whatever else we seem to admire, accumulate and possess.

I don’t think any of us would ever characterize a child’s feeling that something is his or her own as bad and certainly not evil. It is natural in childhood, and perhaps it is simply a part of what is described as “the natural man” that persists as we grow up. But it can grow up out-of-balance in some instances and become an agenda in life that sees only self and not the needs of others.

Sometimes the struggle is not about things, but about time and what we personally plan or want to do each day or each moment. I often find that I struggle with my own agenda – what I want to do versus what the Spirit may prompt me to do at a particular moment.

Here’s an example, again from the beach vacation. One morning I headed for the beachfront porch with a book in hand. I’m on my first real vacation in months and my well-practiced sense of ownership tells me it’s my vacation too. I sat down, having found a great porch chair. The tide is out; it’s the cooler, quieter time of the day. I opened my book and began reading. But here came my son-in-law, Brent, with his 9-month-old in one hand and his own breakfast in the other. My agenda was I wanted to read my book. The Spirit, however, prompted me to go get Oakley and play with him so that Brent could eat his breakfast. The Spirit won in this instance. After a few minutes Brent retrieved Oakley, thanked me, and I was free to return to my book. But moments later 7-year-old Ian excitedly ran up from the beach out of breath and told me (or anyone he could interest) to come and see the little octopus he had found in the rocks and coral at low tide. After hesitating to see if anyone else would take him up on his request (but actually while I again argued with the Spirit for a moment), the Spirit won once more on this day and I went on an octopus hunt with Ian, much to his delight.

The Natural Man

The problem with me is that the Spirit doesn’t always win. Sometimes my own agenda wins. The natural man with an agenda of his own, with THINGS I WANT or feel I MUST do, often wins over the “clear annoyance” of the Spirit.

“For the natural man is an enemy of God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, (King Benjamin tells us) UNLESS he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a SAINT through the atonement of Christ.” (Mosiah 3:19)

King Benjamin shared with us a key to overcoming natural tendencies to be possessive, even selfish of what we have. It comes through yielding to the Spirit.  I am coming to appreciate that this is one of the most important missions of the many missions of the Holy Ghost. I love the word ENTICE as used here.  Lehi, in 2 Nephi 2, also talked about this in this same context of opposite choices when he said we “are enticed by one or the other.”  In many circumstances, the Spirit will gently invite us to consider what our Father in Heaven would have us do. It will occur, I’m discovering, almost any time of the day. It will especially occur in decisions about our relationships with others, with our spouses, or our brothers and sisters, our parents, our children, our neighbors and friends, etc.

Another problem I have is that I’m still in the Needs-To-Always-Be-Enticed stage. Some, and I know many of them, are in the Becometh-A-Saint stage that King Benjamin talked about. The Spirit no longer has to entice them all the time. It has become part of their nature. I’m married to a real Latter-day Saint who does not need much enticing when it comes to giving up whatever little agenda she may have had for the needs of others. It is just who she has become.

A Temple Covenant

In the temple, one covenant we make relates to consecration. There we are also provided a subtle hint that we may learn more about consecration by searching the Doctrine and Covenants. In nearly the entire D&C we can learn what it means to live a more consecrated life. Let me frame something about what one may learn from such a study of consecration by first focusing on three misconceptions. We error (#1) if we think that consecration only applies to High Priest Quorum discussions or quiet conversations in the temple, or that it is something that applies only to an ancient Zion society, early attempts in establishing Zion in church history, or to a someday yet-to-come transition to a true Zion society – and that it doesn’t really apply to us in the here and now.

A few of the things we can surely learn from the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants about consecration include: (See D&C 38, 42, 104, and for extra credit see Mosiah 2 and 4)

• God created all things and He says they’re his – not ours.
• He says that there shouldn’t be inequality among men.
• He says that he created the riches of the earth and that there is enough and to spare (Mary Ellen Edmunds always says that “spare” sounds a lot like “share”).
• He says that work is an eternal principle and we shouldn’t be afraid to work because that is how we will provide for family and ourselves, plus have sufficient to help others as well.
• He says that we have an obligation always to care for the poor.
• He says we’re going to be held accountable for the stewardship of all that we have been blessed.
• Finally, he says, that if we learn to live this law, we will be blessed in ABUNDANCE and with our abundance we will certainly have even more in order to help others.

We error again (#2) if we think that these Doctrine & Covenants’ revelations and principles only talk about our personal possessions, our wealth or bank accounts (our things). Temple instruction teaches us otherwise.  Every talent, gift or attribute, even the time you and I have can (and should) be shared. Even an abundance of smiles or hugs can be shared with those in need of them. I always think of a stake president in our area who we affectionately call “the serial hugger.” Surely he has an abundance of enthusiasm for life that he easily shares.

We also error (#3) if we think it is only when we have an abundance, or only with an abundance that we are capable of sharing. We know that consecration does not stand independent from sacrifice. Sometimes we are called to do things when we don’t have an abundance of time. We are prompted to share a kind word or deed when our own day has been difficult and there just hasn’t been an abundance of kind words or hugs or smiles in us that day, yet sacrifice and consecration say we give anyway. We are often called to consecrate and sacrifice when it is not easy, not convenient for us, and when it is not part of our personal “agenda.”

King Benjamin, again, taught more clearly in less than a sentence what real consecration is. In Mosiah 2:34 he said: “.ye are eternally indebted to your heavenly Father, to render to him all that you have and are.” Yet somehow we sometimes lose sight of that fact and go about the business of trying to build our own earthly kingdoms.

And so this tension exists within us as mortal men and women – a tension between our own agendas and the agenda of God for each of his children.

A Lesson for His Disciples

The Savior’s once taught about consecration powerfully but in a way that we may not have perceived. Let’s refer to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 6. There is a context that I need to point out first. The apostles and others had been sent out two-by-two to teach the gospel. Upon their return, as we read in verses 30-31, things were busy in their coming and going; they had no leisure time, not even time to eat. So Jesus took them on a sort of retreat. They were going to get a break – a rest and some personal time with the Savior. At the other end of this context are verses 51-52. After the miracle of feeding the 5,000 and also the second miracle of seeing the Savior walk to them on the Sea of Galilee, the apostles are recorded as “being sore afraid, and they understood not the miracle of the loaves because their hearts were hardened.”

I have often wondered what was going on here? How was feeding 5,000 people, windblown seas and hard hearts connected? These disciples toiling all night on the sea may possibly have had a very different agenda, one that competed with the Lord’s updated agenda for them. Let’s look at just a few points in the narrative of this chapter.

The Lord and his apostles didn’t get away alone on their trip – a multitude followed them to where they landed. After Jesus taught them, the disciples wanted to send the people away to find lodging and food. “We don’t have anything to give them,” they said. “Let them go away and find their own lodging and food.” But Jesus asked his disciples a question – a question that He is really asking to each of us. “How much do you have to give?” “Not much,” we answer. He says, “Okay, first go and determine what gifts you really do have and bring them humbly to me.” Sometimes we even bring back borrowed gifts like the small supply of fishes and loaves received from a lad within the congregation. The Savior multiplies our gifts and then lets us use them in service to others.

Later, as the apostles were alone in the ship on the sea, it is recorded that they were “toiling in rowing for the wind was contrary.”  Life is like that sometimes. Our agenda is to do one thing, but there may be opposition and we are pulled in a different direction. That is the time when perhaps our hearts don’t want to yield, and an unyielding heart can become a hard heart. Again, I have felt just such feelings, and recognizing the difference between a yielding heart and hard heart is an important first step toward discipleship.

It is interesting to note, that there isn’t another reference in this chapter in Mark about any retreat or vacation. Upon reaching shore the next morning, Jesus and company were besieged by the sick and weary for help, and they all provided that help. The Lord’s agenda won, or it changed to accommodate the needs of the masses over their own needs. As we go through life, or even our everyday agenda, we may never know when or who or how many need our help, or when the Spirit may move us to change our plans because of them.

A Heart-changing Trip

In our ward is a young man who has been my home teaching companion. His name is Ben. He is a priest; he has his own car, and sometimes he has his own agenda. Last year, at his parents urging (not his own free will as he has admitted to me about struggling with the decision) he accompanied his parents and several other volunteers to Mozambique. It was only to be for 2 weeks. He was supposed to come home after two weeks to go with his Priest Quorum to Lake Powell, an annual and highly cherished tradition in our ward that dates back nearly two decades. I guess, in a sense, he planned to go on a type of a retreat to Lake Powell.

The first two weeks for him in Mozambique were difficult. He had a reaction to anti-malaria medication and had sores all over his mouth. He didn’t know what he could do to help the volunteer team. But he soon found that his unique talent for fixing cars was put to good use, and he also found that he could hold babies at an orphanage, play with young children and learn to teach community health lessons with the other volunteers. As he approached the end of the first two weeks, he was moved to ask his parents if it would be possible to not go home with them but instead stay another two weeks with the other young volunteers. He would miss Lake Powell, a long planned for trip. But he was losing himself and finding himself anew through service. The Lord’s agenda was winning out over his own.

He came home, even after just four weeks, with the same sparkle in his eyes and spirit as does a returned missionary. When he gave a talk in church not long after this experience the one thing that he said that was so significant was that “there isn’t anything that feels any better than service.” What a great testimony and example of consecration and sacrifice.

Whisperings of the Spirit

The still, soft voice of the Spirit is, I think, never so still or so soft as when it whispers to us about what we can do to be more consecrated in our lives. On the other hand, the world and worldliness shout noisily in a quest to keep our attention on “our own agenda.” As Lehi said, we will be enticed by the one or the other. As Benjamin said, it will only be by yielding (in this clash of conflicting agendas) to the quiet enticings of the Spirit that we will succeed in overcoming the natural man and becoming Saints.

In covenants there is always an attached “obligation.” But aren’t covenant obligations really that which leads us to a higher way of being? Could it be that an obligation to share our time and resources, to even give up our personal agendas, is actually just a teacher that schools us to come unto Christ and be like him, and to act (sometimes spontaneously as moved by the Spirit) not solely as a matter of obligation but rather from love? President Brigham Young once said:

“If my heart is not fully given up to this work [of building the kingdom], I will give my time, my talents, my hands, and my possessions to it, until my heart consents to be subject; I will make my hands labor in the cause of God until my heart bows in submission to it” (Journal of Discourses, 1:202).

Friends of ours who have long been “mentors of the heart” invited us to their home to read together an entire little book titled Angels Among Us. [i] It is a true story of a woman who grew up in dismal circumstances in an orphanage, and about another woman who became her angel mother. It presents a powerful concept in contrasting those who have little with those who have much, and they discover their common need of gratitude, and a universal truth that we are ALL needy. It contains a profound truth in a few words:

To those who have time, talents, or means to give, I am not asking you simply to give others what they need. I am asking you to realize that what you need is to give others what they need.

Consecration is about greater equity on both sides of an equation. King Benjamin also touched on this interaction between those who have and those who have not. He cautioned us when he said, “Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give of him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just.” It may be possible in this counsel to hear ourselves saying, “Let them go and find lodging and food for themselves” or “my own agenda is too busy right now to help,” or “I’m not responsible for fixing all the inequities in the world.” But King Benjamin warns us, “O man, whosever doeth this has great need to repent . for behold, are we not all beggars?”

A covenant, consecrated requirement to share is actually schooling us to change our hearts – to really learn that we must share in order to learn to love, and to share because of love.

To share and to love in this way is to become one with Christ, to become like him, to do his work among those in need (whatever those needs may be), and to know not just later but now so “.that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure” (Moroni 7:48).

There are multiple and daily opportunities placed in our paths that, if we are sensitive by yielding-to-the-Spirit our hearts, we might feel the still, small promptings to share and sometimes sacrifice, of our abundant gifts. Such sharing will provide the very real, and possibly the only means of purifying our own hearts.