Moving Mountains

God built them.  He can move them.

Nothing we face today, individually or as a nation, is insurmountable to God.

Everything can be healed, in His time and through His power.


We stand on the brink of great challenges and adventures.  Those butterflies you're feeling as you look over the edge of the cliff are real, and they're good for you.  Get yourself and your family ready.

The News

I chased around all over the Salt Lake valley today for my new job.  I spent a lot of time in the car and listened to the world ending according to the voices across the airwaves.  The funny thing is, I was at peace even as I listened to chaos and worry.

I guess what's going on in my own head impacts my happiness more than what's going on in the world outside.

Interesting...

Spiritual Beings

We are not meant to live by bread alone.  We are not meant to scratch in the dirt for bare sustenance.  We are spiritual beings, sent here by a loving Heavenly Father.  We are meant to live with rich spiritual abundance in our hearts.  We are meant to live free.

Satan has set his hand to oppose God's work.  In this, he seeks our captivity.  In this battle there is only ever good and evil, light and darkness, virtue and vice.  As uncomfortable as it is to live in a world without shades of gray, when it comes to the spiritual contest it is pure love against pure evil.  Rise with me this morning, sing a song of praise in your heart, and set yourself in a firm covenant to serve the Lord.  In doing so, the scales will fall from your eyes and you will begin to see the glories of God's work all around you.  He speaks even now to your heart, is it quiet enough to hear His small voice?

and...GO!

I finished my training with flying colors, I returned home and enjoyed a blissful week with close friends and family.  I had the opportunity to serve my brothers and sisters and be served in return.  I asked my father for a favor tonight, and was reminded just how nice it is to have him here to ask favors of.  He is my friend and I am grateful to have his influence in my life.

I begin again tomorrow to go out into the world and seek to conquer it through the strength of my integrity and my wit.  To battle!

Quiesce

I have to focus on the labors right in front of me for the next three weeks.  I am pausing the blog while I finish up here in Massachusetts.  I will return on October 3rd.

10,000 days

A godly man leaves an inheritance to his children's children.

The long view is the only view that makes sense.  God's view encompasses the eternities.  This is why He is no respecter of persons.  If we are to become more like Him, if we are to see Him as He is, we must set aside the "Me, Now" perspective and embrace the eternities.

What are you doing today that is of enduring importance?  I find that my son is a useful barometer for this question.  Right now, I ask myself: will this thing I'm focused on be of importance when he is old enough for me to explain it to him?  I hope a little further down the road to stretch my views further and ask: will this be important to Ethan's son?

Lastly, the 10,000 days.  10,000 is just shy of 30 years.  It's just about the amount of time I have been on this earth, and it is the scope for the planning that my wife and I are doing.  When we make decisions, we try to ask ourselves how it will impact our lives 30 years from now.  This is one of the meanings.  The second meaning is more personal, and I share it with you now.

I have been shaped by 10,000 days under the burdens of sin and addiction.  I will spare the details, but it is enough to say that I seek a new life and new heart for the next 10,000 days.  I keep a journal in conjunction with this blog and every day that I spend seeking that new heart, I increment the journal.  Today was day 56. Tomorrow is day 57.  I put my trust in the Lord to carry me through each day from now until 10,000 and beyond.

Overcommitted

I make commitments too easily.  I say yes, often because I either fear conflict or am seeking the grand gesture.  It leads me to under-deliver.  I am working on this, but need to work on it more.  In the meantime, I am grateful for multiple chances to improve.

Blank Pages

One of my childhood memories is sitting in front of an early PC and loading up a word processor.  I remember a feeling of wonder as I scrolled through the limitless blank pages.  I remember wanting to create something, to fill that blankness.

This blog is a beginning for me to fulfill that child's dream.  I'm still not very good at filling the blankness, but I will persist.  I cannot say where this road will end, but I will walk forward in it.  Is my blindness towards the blank pages ahead a blessing from Heavenly Father?

Present

Most of us spend very little time being completely present wherever we are.  Our culture has raised distraction to an art form.  Being present is something that I've been trying to develop recently, and it takes a surprising amount of work.  I've noticed some pretty nice benefits, although only in seed form.  We'll see what we harvest from this new seed.

I'm learning that all of my decisions have consequences, whether I like them or not.  I guess I just finally decided to start making decisions that led to consequences I like.

Persistence

They say that good things come to those who wait.  I can see some truth in that statement.  I can also see the value of persistent action.  Often the most valuable things in life don't come on the first try, or the second, or the fifth.  Babe Ruth lives in history for his home runs.  What you don't hear about is that he was also the strikeout leader of his day.  He swung for the fences every day and persisted in the face of his strikeouts.  He was incorrigible in his pursuit.

Persistence requires two things: a clearly defined goal and stubborn effort.  I have set my goals: freedom from debt and freedom from addiction.  Now comes the stubborn effort.  Persist, persist, persist.

Joy

We survived the hurricane intact.  There is a strange peace over me today.  I am grateful for it, but I need to understand it.  I know that it has something to do with my obedience in recent weeks, but I will explore it further tonight.

A little full

I appreciate that at the end of a long day, my heart can feel full and at peace.  I think one of the ways to keep my heart at peace is to take a moment from time to time to express those things that I am simply grateful for:

Work that matters
A virtuous wife
A healthy baby
Personal health
Sunshine on my face
A family that pulls together under pressure
The Gospel of Jesus Christ
Intelligence
A heritage of faith
Boundaries
Chastisement
Humble circumstances
Fuzzy kittens
Humor
Friendly competition
Common ground
High expectations
A strait gate

"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God."

Nerd School

What are my days like here in Massachusetts?  To show you the answer to that question, first a few things that I have learned about myself:

I am a detail oriented guy.  When I say that, I mean that I care deeply about the tiny facets of my life.  It is important to me that a comma is in exactly the right place on a billboard.  It matters if the network cables coming out of the switch I'm working on are all routed correctly.  I care about these things, and so when I see things that are amiss, I want to correct and improve them.

I am intelligent, although hardly the smartest kid you'll ever meet.  I care about making the people around me smile, but I'm quite introverted.  In my travels I have found that I am an unusual person, I don't often fit in.  As I have gone through school and work, I have from time to time stumbled upon someone a lot like me.  I usually latch onto that person for my own sanity and we become friends.  I have never really found a peer group.

Here in Massachusetts, I have found my peer group.  I have met a group of guys that are a whole heckuvalot like me.  A new friend of mine coined the phrase Nerd School for our little group.  I spend each day surrounded by other introverts who care greatly about the details and want to make things exactly right.  It's exhausting, but its also exhilarating.  And that's my life right now.

30

Well, it finally happened.  I left behind the carefree 20's and I'm now forced to admit that I, too, am mortal.

All of you who disparaged my skinnyness, you can relax now...I'm getting fat. :)

As I go back to work and dive into a new day, I leave you with one thought:

Getting older is an opportunity to do new things for yourself, instead of the God's gift of a body doing them for you.  Sort of like teaching a teenager to do their own laundry, we have to manually watch over the health and well-being of our body; like a stewardship.

Family Home Evening

We were invited to join a family that we met here in Mass. for dinner tonight.  Afterwards, we enjoyed a nice family home evening.  They have four small children and they spent most of the time climbing all over us and chasing each other around the yard.  The lesson and the games were simple, but I could see the value of the simple interactions between the children and child to parent.  It continues to amaze me just how many of the keys to success that I use over and over in my life I learned in similar situations as a young child.

I contrast this to our trip to Boston.  We had two different complete strangers walk up to Kristen on the train and ask her if Ethan was hers.  I have to assume that they took her for a nanny, but it caused me to ponder how different Ethan's life would be if he were to spend the bulk of his time being cared for and not parented.

As I work on parenting a tiny child, I grow to appreciate my own parents more.

Staying Honest

I didn't write every day last week.  I kept up with my journaling, but took a day or two off from writing.  I did this for a couple of reasons.

First, because I'm pretty busy these days, and the blog got pushed off the schedule.

Second, because I began to feel as though I was running out of things to say.  I've found that I must continually strive to balance the revelation coming into my life through scripture study and prayer with the contributions I make in the lives of those around me.  If I focus too much on my internal spiritual life, I have nowhere to go with the blessing I am given; too much on the outer and I have nothing to give.  When I felt like I had nothing to say, I took it as a warning sign that I had too many draws, not enough sustenance.  That left me with two alternatives: I could take a step back and recharge, or, I could lie to you and make up an entry that I didn't honestly feel.

I chose to take a step back.  It felt good to take a few days to recharge, connect with my wife and baby, and re-center myself on the things of greatest importance.  Now I'm back and anticipate continuing my previous publishing schedule.

Have a great Monday!

Great Work

How do I magnify my calling to provide for my family while honoring the Lord's mandate to "seek ye first the kingdom of God"?  I am entering into a professional career that requires that I invest large portions of myself out into the world.  I am doing this to feed my family and provide for our future.

I have been counseled by my priesthood leaders to be very careful to "not seek for great wealth, or the honors of men".  This has confirmed my quandary and proven to be difficult advice to follow.  I think I might have found a way forward that does not violate either mandate.

Seek for great work.

Great work is work that matters.  It is work that requires a servant's heart.  A man could hold the loftiest position on the planet, and if he holds the servant's heart, he will not abuse that power.  If I make every single professional decision through the lens of "how best can I serve my brothers and sisters in this position and through these actions?" then I can and must succeed in my efforts to provide for my family.

The scene for the coming battle is set, I know where I will stand and who I will be standing with.  I now know why I am standing and that the Lord will sustain me.

The deep breathe before the plunge...

Center or Re-Center

Today I had a stressful day at work.  I came home and felt disconnected from the anchors of my life.  My son happened to be sick today and so when I came home I took him from my wife and sang hymns to him to calm him. The funny thing is, the singing calmed me more than him.  It re-centered me on the true priorities in life.  It gave me strength to face another day and new adventures.

I am grateful for the atonement of Jesus Christ.

Monday Morning

Why is it so hard to find contentment on a monday morning?  It seems that I have an easier time finding peace and contentment in my life once I'm into the swing of my work week, but my heart still knows some fear when I'm here in the dark of the early morning, looking forward into the week.

I guess I still have something to learn.

Test

Today I will be tested again.  I passed the preliminaries earlier this week, now it is on to the main event.  This week reminds me that we are all to stand ready to be tested every day, because we do not know when the Lord will call us to service.  I ask myself every morning as I get ready for the day: "am I willing to put in the work necessary to prepare to serve the Lord today?"  If I prepare, I am being obedient; if I am obedient, I am blessed by the Lord.

Sounds like a win/win to me.

Simple

I find peace in simplicity.  I gave a presentation earlier this week introducing myself to a group of new co-workers.  I spoke about the family I came from and where my little family is going.  I told them that my family is why I do what I do.  It's true, without them, I would not be giving the same sacrifices.  My needs aren't important enough to give that much up.

My wife and my baby smiled at me today, and so today goes into the books as a success.

Advancing without opposition

In military strategy, there is a methodology for advancing your lines with minimal risk to your troops.  Essentially, you fire from under cover in order to suppress enemy action and you advance your fortifications towards their lines.  If you've ever seen Last of the Mohicans, this is what the French are doing to the British fort.  It is slow, labor-intensive, and extremely difficult to counter.


I find that I have spent most of my life growing in this way.  I am a pathologically late bloomer.  I never spoke baby talk, my first words were complete sentences.  I read aloud very little until I could read sentences fluently.  I never dated until I was looking for a wife.  I don't chase jobs I'm not very qualified for.  And I've never pushed back really really hard against the devil and his snares.

I hope it is wisdom for me to see that I can move faster to retake ground against the wiles of the devil.  I believe that through the atonement of Christ, I can gain the wisdom and perception to move myself and my family forward until we are standing where He needs us.  Sometimes God commands movement, and when that is the case even the slightest pause can be disobedient.  But once we've moved to where He needs us, often the command is to hold, and there even the slightest move can be disobedient.

I see God in my life.  I feel His urging to move.  I can also sense that it will soon be time to stand.  I hope that we can hold in the coming days.

Smart Enough

I've been pretty smart.  If I apply myself, I can usually puzzle out most problems.  When I was younger, I would rely on my intelligence to get away with less work.  As I have matured, I have discovered something interesting.  As with most attributes, intelligence has diminishing returns.  If you look at IQ scores as a measure of analytic intelligence, an IQ score of 100 means you are exactly average.  If you are lucky enough to be smart enough to score a 115 on an IQ test, that means you are smarter than 84% of the adult population.  A score of 130 makes you smarter than 97% of the population.

Being smart is useful, going from 100 to 115 can help you compete in the marketplace and make wise decisions in how you run your home.  Going from 140 to 155 moves you just a smidge in the land of the already intelligent, but doesn't do much to help you in the day to day struggle of life.

This has helped me to understand a few new things about the challenges in my new job.  It is highly technical, and so it requires that I am smart.  But it really only requires that I am smart enough.  Past a certain baseline for grasping the technical details, additional intelligence doesn't buy me much.

What helps me move past the boundaries of mere intelligence?  Work.  One man I admire told me his motto is: "I'm smart enough, and I'll outwork you."  If you take smart enough and couple it to an indefatigable will, you can move pretty large hills.  If you couple smart enough with work ethic and underpin the pair with faith, mountains find a new home.

Revelation

You're entitled to personal revelation, but not necessarily twice.  Write it down.

We all pass this way only once, what are you saving for your children?

35 pages

In the last 7 days of class, I have taken 35 pages of typewritten notes.  Those notes are only significant because of the time, effort, and mental sweat they represent.  The thing is, if I hadn't written them, then a large portion of my work over the last 7 days would be lost.  In a real way, if we don't write it down, it never happened.

What did you have for lunch two days ago?  I'm betting you can't remember very easily, and I'm also betting you didn't write it down.  What was the last thing you said to your mother?  Keep in mind, these examples are recent history, once you take the human mind back through years and decades, this exercise quickly becomes impossible.

We are not designed to remember most things unless they are either written down or seared into our brain through the power of emotion.  In addiction psychology, there is a concept called an ECE: an emotionally charged event.  Every single person who reads this can tell me exactly where they were on the morning of September 11th.  I don't even need to say the year.  They can tell me what the weather was, who they were with, what they felt, and why it matters.  This is because the emotions of that experience seared those memories into their brains.

It is possible for one emotion to override another. In the years since September 11th, some have chosen to seize on the emotions of September 12th, when our brothers and sisters rallied around the cause of freedom.  The powerful emotions of unity and purpose of the 12th served to partially override the pain of the 11th.

Since we can't easily control our emotions, particularly if we are in the middle of battling an addiction, I suggest that we look to an activity much more within our control: writing.  If you write it, it happened.  If you have a victory, write it.  If you have a problem, write until you find the solution, then write the solution.  If you miss a friend, write and tell them so.  Write a handwritten letter and mail it to your grandmother, it just might be the highlight of her year.

If you're struggling with negative emotional patterns, and powerful old addictions and habits that stem from ECE's, you can help to re-write your brain in a more healthy manner by writing out a new world for yourself.

I will always remember the last two weeks, and I can sincerely say that it will largely be due to those 35 pages of notes.

The Privilege of Being Tired

Fatigue makes cowards of us all.

How a man handles fatigue is a true test of his character.  I’ve had periods in my life where I have never had to be tired.  I could sleep when I wanted, wake when I wanted, work when I felt like it, and watch TV the rest of the time.  I avoided fatigue, but I ended up a shell of myself: the walking dead in a way.  I’ve recently changed career paths and with that change I made a trade.  I bought fatigue and found out that it’s a package deal.  With fatigue, I also got career satisfaction, a stay-at-home mother (my wife), training and professional growth, eventual freedom from debt, and the personal purification that comes from sacrifice immediate wants.

Sacrifice brings for the blessings of heaven.

Fatigue is a privilege.

Note: My apologies for the publishing delay.  I had a scheduling conflict last night.

New and Deep

Kristen and I have been encountering new adventures every day on this trip.  In several ways, this trip has served as a type of "reboot" for our relationship.  I interact with her and with Ethan differently while here.  I am a lot less available, both physically and mentally; yet I find that their needs are met in new and often better ways than before.  Kristen's expectations of herself have begun to shift as well.  Her day consists of a lot less laundry, cleaning, and other household chores, and more one on one time with Ethan.  We are moving into new circles and new pools of experience, and we are finding them to be deep water.

The funny thing is, I wouldn't have chosen this end from my available beginnings.  I only got where I am right now, going the direction I'm going, by removing addiction from my life.  In a very fundamental way, I couldn't get here from there.  Now that I'm here, my heart is full of gratitude and peace.

How do I Reach Them?

Our class had a quiz today.  It was a single question verbal quiz.  We failed it.

Most of the details don't really matter in the end.  It doesn't matter that I was well prepared.  It doesn't matter how badly I wanted to reach out and help my classmates.  In a very real way I couldn't.  As a class, as a group, as a team, we failed the quiz.  The question is: did I fail personally?

To put your mind at ease, it was not a major test, and anything impacting on my job is done individually, so my ability to provide for my family is unimpacted.  I take this as an opportunity to look at the men around me and see if there is something more I can do.

I held another study group tonight.  Three people showed up.  I don't know how to help more than I am.  How do I reach out to people and share the knowledge I have?

I am once more open to suggestions.

The Power of Preparation

I am in the middle of an intense corporate training class.  Each day new obligations are put on us, each day we find ourselves deluged with additional technical information.  And each day I find myself ready for the challenge.

Why?

Because I prepare.  I set personal deadlines ahead of the official ones.  I stay ahead in the reading.  I spend a portion of my morning re-centering on the gospel of Jesus Christ and my role within it.  This step in particular grants me the perspective to make the best choices possible that day.

The day we have tomorrow is the day we prepared for today.

The Servant's Heart

There are two things that I learned from today:

Having Kristen in my life is my light and motivation.  My world is simply not whole when she is not here.  While my feelings for Ethan are not yet as powerful, they feel of the same kind.

I spent my entire day at work searching for and executing on opportunities to serve those around me.  It lightened my heart and actually gave me energy, rather than draining me as yesterday did.  I will not learn this in a day, but today was a good start.

Thank you to everyone who responded to yesterday's post.

The Waiting Game

I'm doing much better today.  Headache is gone and mind is much clearer.  I am starting into the technical content of my training, so that wait is over; but, funny thing, now I find my heart "waiting" for Kristen to arrive.  I guess there's always something to wait or worry over if you allow it.  I wonder when I'll learn how to just be content with who I am and where I am.  I wonder when I'll learn to let gratitude fill my heart.

"Doubt not, fear not"

Adventure and Anxiety

I'm sitting in my hotel room at the start of a new adventure.  For the past two days I have been plagued by headaches, mostly caused by the tremendous amount of anxiety I feel.  For some reason, the waiting for trials and struggle is hugely harder than the struggle itself.  If I can master the waiting, I will be able to do anything the Lord asks of me.

I'm open to suggestions.

Everything Takes Longer With a Baby

This baby makes everything an adventure.  He turns grocery shopping into a wild ride of noise and excitement.  We also spend more time cleaning up messes.  Because of the additional constraints on our time and schedules, we find ourselves focusing on the small, family-oriented things more.  We take walks in the evening.  We read the scriptures together.  We talk and nap and smile more.

Getting rid of the "stuff" in our lives has made us happier, not sadder.  What a strange thought.

Change and Whatnot

Today is my last day at my current job.  In a few days I fly across the country to train for a new job.  Adventure is on the horizon.  God is sustaining us day by day.

Carpe Diem!

Slop

My wife and I have been fighting recently over time and priorities.  It drives us both crazy that our house is not better organized and our days are filled with errands, yet our to-do lists just keep growing.  One of the things that we realized tonight is that before we had a child and before I became serious about my career we had a lot of slack time.  We would use this time to play catch-up on our errands and cleaning the house, etc.  Much like the strive/indulge cycle, our works were sporadic and built around play time and inefficiency.  We got away with it because of the slack time.  Now that the slack time is gone, the pain of our inefficiencies is driving us both crazy, and so we fight.

If you have to carry a bowl full of hot soup, you're more careful if it's filled to the brim.  Just because you can get away with swinging the bowl around willy nilly when there's hardly anything in there doesn't make the slop any less sloppy.  To put it another way, pain is God's mechanism for teaching us incorrect behaviors.  The more we fill in our Funnels and start to build Spires, the more painful slop becomes.

And that's a good thing.

Admiring the Problem

Sometimes Heavenly Father blesses us with enormous problems.  Problems so daunting and complex that we tremble to even face them head on.  When faced with a problem like this, we can sometimes get caught in the trap of admiring the problem.  Whether its a troubled teen, government corruption, or a sermon we don't agree with, if we pour our energies into admiring how large and difficult and exceptionally challenging our problems are then we'll never solve them.

It takes humility to accept the nature of our trials and focus our hearts on solving or enduring the trial, as God directs.

Rally!

Our neighbor is a single woman with some major health issues.  She's a teacher with a passion for teaching her children, and yet her struggles continue.

During the last week, we have seen her family rally around her and provide support and encouragement.  More than that, I imagine they help her feel part of a whole, larger than herself.  That's what families do.

Even now, there's a spontaneous kickball game going on in the yard and laughter and warmth fills the air.  We're not made to go through this life alone.  We are relational beings.  When we rally around a loved one, our service fills our lives, even as we give it away.

Who can you rally around today?

How God Gives...

I re-read the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand.  I was struck by the way the Savior interacted with His disciples.  Upon seeing the hungry multitude, the disciples asked if they should disperse the crowd to the surrounding villages to buy food.  This fits in with the principle of revelation that states that when we have a question, we should study it out in our minds and ask if our conclusion is correct.  The Savior responds that they people don't need to leave to find food, and asks the disciples to feed the multitude.

The disciples explain that they have only a few loaves and fishes, not nearly enough to feed the multitude.  The Savior responds "bring them to me".  He blessed the food and then gave the food to the disciples, who in turn fed the multitude.  There is one particular aspect of this story that I want to draw out:

We always have enough when we consecrate our resources to the Lord, and turn them over to Him, and then turn around and serve our fellow men at His direction.  If we rely on our own strength, we will fail.  If we refuse to serve the poor and the needy because "God will take care of them" then we will be held accountable for our inaction.  This pattern is how God gives to His children.

Perfecting the Saints

As followers of Christ, we have a mandate from our Savior to become perfect "even as (he) is perfect".  This can be horrendously frustrating if pursued incorrectly.  If we attempt to obey Him in this by presenting perfect smiling faces to the world around us, our worship will ring hollow.  As with most things in the gospel, true obedience targets things below the surface.

The pursuit of perfection has everything to do with repentance, humility, patience, work, work, and work.  Remember this next time you see a "perfect" couple.  Remember it also when you see a quiet family quietly struggling in obedient sacrifice.  That quiet family is closer to perfection than the "BMW/perfectly white teeth"brigade.

The Bulwark

This life is a time to prepare to meet God.  As such, it is designed to test us and to try us, to prove whether we will serve the Lord under any and all circumstances.  That means that temptation doesn't quit.  Ever.  However, the Lord does not allow us to be tempted beyond that which we can bear, and so He provides refuge from temptation.

One of His refuges is protection against temptation.  By that, I mean a bulwark of strength that absorbs the fury of hell.  God makes this available in our lives through the principle of integrity.  As we seek to be more like Him, we become more whole, more intact as human beings and children of God.  As we become more whole, we have a greater and greater power of integrity: the power to see reality as it truly is and to face its challenges.  That integrity is the first and great bulwark against temptation in this life.

Every time you cracked under the pressure of a particular temptation, you first cracked your integrity.

Bravery

Most addictive behaviors stem from a desire to avoid.  Sometimes a person wants to avoid confrontation, or pain, or doubt, or just the uncomfortable knowledge that they are less than they hope to be.  The addiction's siren call is to let someone else into the driver's seat, that way you can hide from the pain.

There is an antidote to this fear.  It is courage.  Fear drives us to inaction, courage drives us to action.  Courage is the ability to stand up straight, face your fears, and quietly and calmly move in the right direction.  I suggest that you could solve a problem in your life today by embracing courage and speaking the truth.

Better Than I Deserve

This post is a tribute to my wife.  We have been going through a difficult time in our marriage; a time of adjustments, trials, and just plain pain.  I'll spare you the details, but today I want to share one thought with the world.

Because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and my amazing wife, I am better than I deserve.

My Son...

He turned one month old today.  I'm getting to know his personality and learning how to speak in his language.  I still marvel how each new life is introduced to us as a massive service project: we volunteer to feed them, clean them, teach them to speak and listen, to read and write, to persuade, negotiate, and to stand firm on their principles.  We get no pay for these labors, yet year after year people choose this path.  It's insanity, but it is also exactly right.

Sleep

Sleep restores us, reinvigorates us, makes us whole from injury and disease.  With a new baby, even a well behaved one, I'm learning to live with less sleep.  Even though sleep does so many amazing things for me, I cannot afford to have it be my highest priority.  Sometimes we put our own needs behind another's need.  Is that what defines a stewardship?

Adventure!!

An adventure is any endeavor that we attempt where the outcome is uncertain and we walk away with a story.  Some things we do a lot of, and are hardly ever an adventure: television, talking a walk around the block.  Other things can be continual sources of adventure, but only if we approach them with the right heart: work and worship for example.  True communication with the living God of Israel is always an adventure.

What adventures will you have today?  Who will you tell about them?

What I Was Born To Do...

I reread yesterday's post and realized that I had ended it by saying "This is what I was born to do".  That sentiment is a conclusion that has been growing gradually for me as I have worked on my own addictions and as I have written this blog.

If we want to unlock passion and enthusiasm in our daily lives, I believe that we have to be able to say: "This is what I was born to do.  This is why God put me on the planet!"  We are in a war here on earth.  What we do every day matters.  I believe that my small efforts are part of a larger scheme.  I hope that my simple contributions will help to save families from addiction.  That is why this is so important to me.  I hope that He can use my efforts for a wise purpose.  I trust in Him.

Steps

Hey all,

As I mentioned last week, I've started to work on gathering these scattered thoughts and metaphors and whatnots into some form of a manuscript.  My amateur philosophizing aside, my purpose in writing is to help other people who might be in my similar situation deal with addictions in general and pornography addiction specifically.  As such, I feel that it is important to condense this material into a series of specific, concrete steps, that anyone dealing with an addiction could use to step their way out of their personal funnel.

I recognize that other people and groups have covered this ground in the past.  AA and other types of counseling, both amateur and professional, come to mind.  I hope to accomplish two purposes with this work: first, by talking about it, I might be able to educate a spouse or parent of an addiction sufferer; second, by approaching it from a pragmatic and direct perspective, I hope to pierce through some of the false walls the devil has set up around this problem.

I approach this from the simple perspective that addiction is a problem, not a disease.  It is a disorder of the human mind that Satan uses to trap and ensnare us, in order to prevent our progression.  It is a learned behavior that can be unlearned.  A specific type of brain, personality, and spiritual upbringing is most susceptible to pornography.  Our culture needs the wealth of creativity, genius, and personal spiritual power that is currently trapped in the minds and hearts of those who are addicted.  Addiction leaves scars on a person's heart that are beyond the healing power of anything except the Atonement of Christ.  Fighting this battle is what I was born to do.

The Power of Final

I was listening to a radio show a few days ago, and the guest was discussing the passing of her father.  She talked about how death holds such power over us because it is so final.  I have pondered this for the last few days, and I think that we can learn something from this.

Death is indeed final, and its power over us is increased by this attribute.  We can look at that as a bad thing, but I'd like to try and turn it around and see if we can glean some value from it.  A final decision, either by God or by ourselves, can shape our lives and the lives of those around us.  Can we use the power of a death-like finality earlier in our lives?

I've also been pondering integrity.  It has many definitions, but one definition could be simply this: integrity is the personal power to make your word into the limit of your behavior.  If you have integrity, then when you say no, you mean no; when you say yes, you mean yes.  (See Matthew 5)  If you have integrity, then you can make your word final.  To be clear, I don't mean that integrity allows you to impose your will on others.  It's actually quite the opposite.  Integrity is your power to affect your own actions, not someone else's.

Back to finality.  Death is scary because it's a one-way door.  It may be one-way, but if we believe God, the other side of that door can be an infinity of experience in the presence of God.  What if we practiced going through that one-way door while we're here on earth?  What if we made some decisions and developed the integrity to hold the walls those decisions make so firmly that they are final?

I suggest looking at your life and finding the pain.  Be bold enough to look straight into your soul and all your relationships and point to the spot that is causing pain and speak out loud exactly what the problem is.  Then take that problem in prayer before God, counsel with the scriptures, your spouse, your parents and your church leaders.  Decide on a course of action that has the power to resolve that pain and then walk through that one-way door.  If you follow those steps, I believe it will result in a life more filled with the Spirit, closer to the presence of God if you will.  If you walk through that one-way door, you open yourself to a multitude of experience in the presence of God's Spirit.  You'll also be able to heal the pain, true healing that only comes from approaching the Savior in humility.

I'd say that's worth an experiment.  I have a few points of pain in my life that I'm going to try this on.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Lift

I've been thinking a lot recently about how to sustain an upward trajectory in my life.  I find my own moods, emotions, energy, and focus are just too variable.  Instead of a smooth upward path, I'm kind of all over the map from day to day.

I think the concept of Lift might help me with this.  In heavier-than-air flight, lift is generated by the right shaped wing and the air that flows over it.  I have to wonder if my life can be lifted by shaping it right and then going fast enough.  Yeah, I know it's not a great analogy, but this is a rough-formed thought.  I'll have to see if I can polish it in the coming days.

p.s.  I am going to start putting together the skeleton of my book this weekend, so be on the lookout for some sample chapters and whatnot.

The Power of No

We live in a permissive culture.  We're surrounded by messages that we must say yes or we're some how less than our neighbors.  It's the spirit behind keeping up with the Joneses.  We fill our lives with "To Do" lists and work like crazy to cross them off one at a time.  Because we've given ourselves to so many different things, our efforts diffuse and our progress is slowed.  If we could narrow the things we say yes to, we will be better at doing those things we do accept.

Have you ever written a "To Don't" list?  Have you ever put in the conscious effort to exclude certain activities, thoughts, behaviors, poisonous relationships, etc?  It's an exercise in setting boundaries, and it can breathe life into a tired soul.  Try it some time, and tell me what you think.

Why We Fight

I have recently become a father.  This duty is the greatest blessing I have ever received.  In the last few weeks, it has called me to re-evaluate what I do with my life and why I do it.  It has also shown me that there is a magic and miracle to new human life that is beyond my understanding.  My wife's nature as she nurtures our son, shows me that God has entrusted her with powerful and unique gifts.  And that is something Satan wants to destroy.

I thought I understood my role as protector when I got married.  I thought I saw why I was asked to intercede between my wife and the world.  I didn't.  Now that I see my wife raising my son, I understand the importance of protecting this tiny home from the storms outside.  I see now that my primary purpose in this home is to stand between my loved ones and the world's desolation; to create a bubble where my wife and son can be at peace and the lessons of the gospel can be imparted.  In time, it will be my duty to call my son out of the bubble and ask him to take his place on the line, defending his home and his children.

We fight because the devil will destroy our children if he can.  We fight because it is the only language that he will listen to.  We fight because God entrusted our wives with the power of creation, and He needs us to  make sure that power is protected.

As a man, if you allow pornography to enter into your heart, you take yourself out of the fight.  If you have children, you have left them vulnerable to the power of Satan.  If you partake in pornography, you are party to the abuse of someone else's son, someone else's daughter.  I say this not as condemnation, but as a call to stand up and be counted as one of God's sons, a protector of life and creation.

I Choose Daily

I was on my mission when I discovered the concept behind this quote: "Motivation is like bathing, it needs to be renewed daily".

I've been a hard sleeper most of my life, and so it often takes me a little while to get going in the morning.  When serving on my mission, I struggled to rev up my internal engines each morning.  As I would study and proselyte, my spirits would rise and my motivation would increase.  By the time the day's work was done, I would return to my apartment riding a wave of hope and optimism; but regardless of how I ended the day, I would start the next one at a stone cold stop.

This really frustrated me.  Several times I tried to rebel against this enemy called sleep.  I would stay up late and try to maintain that high that I cherished.  But fatigue would inevitably claim me, and I would pay for the lack of sleep the next day.

As I have faced different challenges in the days since, I have often hit the same wall.  Each time I would just grin and bear it, making the best of a limitation that I had decided was hard-wired into me.  I think I might have come to a new understanding just today.  It follows:

The great power that causes excellence in innovation, leadership, worship, and work is choice.  Our free agency is not only the freedom to choose, but the power to choose.  God granted us our agency, as well as space and time to exercise it in.  What we do with this gift is important, perhaps the most important element of our lives.  What I failed to understand all these past years is that it is a great blessing to start from a stone cold stop each morning.  That stop allows us to choose to pour concentrated effort into sending that particular day a particular direction.  Just like peddling a bike, each individual downstroke stands as an independent action with a beginning and an end, but if you string enough downstrokes together, and point the bike in the right direction, the vistas available to you are unlimited.

Each of us chooses daily what to make of that day.  As we exercise that choice muscle, we grow it, making that downstroke and all that follow stronger, quicker, more efficient, and more enjoyable.  This choosing is what we were born to do.

In Knots...

In order to enjoy sin in any degree, we have to tie ourselves into knots.  In order to "indulge", we have to turn ourselves into someone who is a taker.  When we do this, it hurts our ability to love God, ourselves, and our fellow men.

Just this week, I decided that I would lay my life out in straight lines, and avoid anything that required knotting up to pursue.  I wonder where that decision will take me...

The Wound

Vulnerability has a deceptive power to it.  I choose to share what I share because I trust in the Lord to shape my relationships.  To put it another way, I trust that God will find a way for my efforts to help my brothers and sisters.

In a book I read recently, the author discussed how men often are hampered in their development when their male role model wounds their hearts.  Whether or not the wound is intentional, the boy's development is necessarily formed around the wound until he is brave enough to expose and heal it.

This afternoon, at work, I found one of my wounds.  I am a quiet, introverted soul.  I grew up in a rambunctious home where the kids outnumbered the parents 3:1.  I couldn't find a place where my quiet soul fit, and so I felt alone in a sea of noise and love and emotions.  Satan latched onto that aloneness and lied to me.  He convinced me that I was supposed to be alone, that I wasn't worth keeping company with.  In the years that followed, I latched onto books as relationships that would never abandon me, computer games as adventures without risk, and put on a face of cheerful competence to my friends, employers, and families.  As I have been trying to grow into a man, the devil has lied to me again, saying that I would have to figure out how to be a man all by myself.

Masculinity is imparted, not grown in a vacuum.  Male role models wound a boy, but healing from that wound is part of what makes him the man.  And that healing comes only from the Savior, the ultimate male role model.  To put it another way, the father's role is to wound his son, so the son will seek out the Savior in order to become who the Lord wants him to be.

At the same time that God showed me my wound, he reaffirmed to me that He would never leave me alone.  I am grateful for His spirit.

See The Future, See The Now

Yesterday I talked a little about seeing with your heart.  Its a phrase I like to use to denote looking beneath the surface of things in order to see their true nature.  This skill can be learned, although it is essential to have the Spirit of the Lord to aid you.

I also spoke about seeing into the future, seeing the potential of all the different pieces of our lives.  I sincerely believe that God will show us our futures as we are able to listen to His voice, which often speaks directly to our hearts.  One thing I've found is that the timing of blessings can make or break me.  After all, if I'm disabled tomorrow, my baby needs to eat tomorrow.  Our needs coincide with divine providence.

As we explore this heart sight, keep in mind that God can show your heart things about today as easily as tomorrow or the end of the world.  For me, it has been easier to practice seeing today clearly...I'll let him teach me how to see through time later.

Practice accepting the validity of your emotions.  If a co-worker makes you angry, accept to yourself that you are angry.  Don't lose your temper, don't hurt someone else or yourself; that fixes nothing.  But it blinds your heart sight to deny that you are actually angry.  God has the power to heal your anger, but He can only heal what you can/will see.

See With Your Heart

Why are we blind-sided by the biggest events in our life?  When I met my wife, I had no bolt of lightning that this was the person that would have the largest share in my life and fortune.  When I look at my son, I have great hope for him, but I can't see what is in store for him.  I started to fill out the paperwork for long-term disability insurance today.  That insurance is really scary, it says that I might be crippled tomorrow, and if I am, who feeds this tiny baby?  I buy it because of the simple fact that I cannot see what is in store for me tomorrow.

God asks us to look to eternity in our decision making.  He asks us to follow Him, trusting to a crown of glory in heaven, and hatred from the world right now.  To avoid the strive/indulge cycle, we must put our hearts in heaven now, looking at eternity for our reward.  If we expect our reward sooner, Satan can trap us in disappointment because the Lord didn't bend His timeframe to ours.  How do I look at eternity if I can't even see tomorrow?

Look with your heart.  When I look at my son objectively, I see a tiny human being that makes a lot of noise and is pretty stinking cute.  When I look at him with my heart, I feel hope for my future, bright anticipation for his adventures, and companionship forever.  I see his eternal nature with my heart.  When is the last time you looked at your spouse, your job, your children, your home, your yard, your calling, your health, with your heart?  When was the best moment when you felt that eternal nature the clearest?  Are you letting that quiet voice guide your actions today?

Father's Day

Babies are funny things.  Every time we get them to the point where they are cute and manageable, they change.  I guess it's possible that the purpose of babies isn't to be cute and manageable.  That's too bad, because my son is really adorable and I'll hate to see that end.  But I trust in God that His end is right and just.

Walls

Tidbit I learned today: In landscaping, you never remove a wall until you know why its there.

When you are first assessing your personal funnels, be aware that you have built walls around this subject your entire life, and your discovery of all the walls will be a process over time.  When you find a new wall, be patient with yourself.  Honestly assess each wall, do your best to determine what the wall is supporting and what progress it is stopping.  Begin to cast your mind into the future to see what a new wall would need to do instead.  Re-landscaping your mind to heal the funnels is dirty, hands-on work.  Dig into it.

Music

We are created in the image of God.  He is our Father.  A corollary to these truths is that we are relational beings.  God seeks to bring our our immortality and eternal life.  He counseled us to love God, and love our brothers and sisters as we love ourselves.  God's commandments are all relational commandments, i.e. how should we treat our parents, our neighbors, Him, etc.

Satan seeks to cut those ties.  He is fundamentally alone, and so he seeks to make us so as well.  If we are divided, we fall.  Satan uses addictions to cut us off from the rest of creation.  If we let him, he will use our addictions to isolate us and frustrate God's plans for us.

One of the blessings God granted to us to help in the struggle against isolation is music.  Music is, at its heart, relational.  It draws its power from the ability to speak, heart to heart, across the distances of time and space that would otherwise be impenetrable.  Does the music you choose draw you closer to others, or pull you into your own emotions?

I'd love to hear any other things that you find useful to keep yourself connected to God and your fellow man.

Strive/Indulge

Living the gospel is hard. The scope and importance of the work that is available to do is immense. After all "the field is white already to harvest." Us laborers can get overwhelmed pretty easily. For myself, as a child i quickly accepted that it was right and important for me to serve my fellow men. I would strive with all the diligence I could muster to follow God's commandments.


Then I would get tired. And when I was tired, a little voice would whisper in my head: "you've done so much today, you've been a fruitful servant, why don't you indulge just a little. Turn on the t.v., turn off your brain, play a computer game, eat a little extra dessert, etc.

The funnel here is that the devil tries to teach your brain that striving should be "rewarded" by indulging. If you buy that lie, then you strive in the gospel, even in the highest and holiest of activities, with a growing portion of your brain looking forward to your own personal indulgence. Eventually, your focus on indulging locks the Spirit out of your heart, and your striving becomes empty and draining.

Indulging has cut you off from the Spirit.

I'd love to hear your alternatives to the Strive/Indulgence cycle.

What Everyone Is Thinking...

How often do we look at a situation and quickly perceive some key element?  Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called "Blink", where he discusses the idea that we all have a portion of our brains that grabs a thin slice of a situation and makes a snap judgement.  Since this ability is common to human nature, perhaps those of us who are inordinately successful have taken the time to hone this ability.

A silly example:

I am not a clothes snob.  When I was a kid, I wore what my mom bought me.  When I was a bachelor, I wore whatever didn't stink too badly. Now I'm married, so I wear what my wife hands me.  It's a little embarrassing how little thought I put into my wardrobe, but it's just not that important to me.

And yet...

I still have favorite shirts.  I still have certain dress slacks or ties that I really enjoy wearing.  When I find the right pair of boots, I wear them into oblivion.  But I stink at choosing them, since about 85% of my wardrobe doesn't fall into those categories.  I wonder if I didn't correctly thin-slice during the minute and a half that took me to decide to buy the shirt/slacks/boots?

Back to the title.  Having a baby has reminded me just how many elements of the human existence aren't unique.  They're significant, but not unique.  The choicest experience of my life was being there for my son's birth.  But there's 6 billion people on the planet right now...birth is not unique.  Sometimes we step into a situation with co-workers, squabbling children, feuding aunts/uncles, where we quickly know what the right thing to do is.  The trick is this: everyone else sees it too.  They may not be willing to say it, they may actively speak or act against it, but right is still right.

What does it take to have the courage to say what everyone sees?

Perspective

My wife and I had the great blessing to welcome a new life into this world.  God has put this tiny soul into our care, and it is already changing us.  I was walking through Smith's and I saw a 35 year old man with about 15 tattoos, leather jacket with a motorcycle gang insignia, ripped jeans and a scowl; but I saw a tiny baby, parents filled with hope and fear, and the power that baby's choices held.  I'll admit, it kind of freaked me out.

I've pondered this verse quite a lot in the past year or so: "A godly man leaves an inheritance to his children's children".  Now that I have a son, not an abstract concept, it deepens that meaning for me...makes it real.

I feel like I'm done watching at the window, and my life has started.  What dreams will fill my heart tomorrow?

Growing Your Way Out

There's a lot of discussion today about the American economic and political turmoil going on.  To briefly touch on this subject, I'd like to discuss the idea of growth as a key to freedom.

One of the potential solutions to the fiscal difficulties that our country faces is to adopt pro-growth policies and turn the market free to work its "creative destruction" and increase the available pool of wealth to help meet the needs we are presented with.

Leaving aside the ramifications of such a macro-economic concept, I'd like to apply it on a personal level.  If you find yourself challenged by an addiction, grow your way out of it.  Look to expand your horizons, your giving, your service, your dedication to work and family.  You did this already as a child.  Many things are tremendously difficult as a child, but you grow up and they become small things.

Ask God to help you outgrow your addiction, so that it becomes a small thing, easily healed.

A Pain Free Life

I was reviewing some of my recent posts, and I noticed a tone to my writing that I didn't like.  A tone of superiority that I think I used to keep the world at arm's length.  I can look into my heart and see where we need to go, but its a place we can't get to from here, if I continue to need that distance.

A good friend reminded me tonight that effective writing requires vulnerability.  That's a tough one for me. It's far easier to hide behind my intelligence and five dollar words and throw out a flurry of words that deflects most people's interest.  But that's not what I'm writing for, so here goes...

A vulnerability: for as long as I can remember, I have sought the pain-free life.  I developed a pathological avoidance of risk, and I was stubborn enough to actually engineer a life that was largely devoid of risk.  I take the "safe/good enough" route most of the time.  The nice thing about the girl I married is that she doesn't buy that...it's not what she married me for, and she's not one to settle.  I still don't know how I managed to win her heart, after all I always felt safest when I was alone.

A pain-free life is a fallacy, and its not why God put us on this earth.  Some of the things I write might hurt your feelings or mine.  Some of the boxes I'm opening scare me on a terrible level.  But I have a new dream now, and it requires open boxes...After all, I have to put something new in these boxes, this old stuff simply won't do.

The Next Dream

Watched Tangled last night.  I really liked the idea that we should celebrate achieving our dreams with new dreams.  As I sit here and ponder, I realize that I am not as happy as I could be.  I hold old dreams in my heart, and don't appreciate the new ones that God has given me.

May your new dreams bring you happiness and peace.

Self Government

Self government begins as we accept that our desires, appetites, and passions must be kept within boundaries.  This is actually self evident, everyone places boundaries on their desires.  The only question is where you set the walls.  Even an addict places boundaries on their behavior.  Even a crack addict won't often take a hit in front of their infant, their spouse, in church, etc... instead they create habitual patterns that both reinforce and privatize their behavior.

Don't curse the habits that reinforce your addiction.  These habits are actually GREAT news for someone seeking to genuinely become free of addiction.  It is my experience that since our brains learned the new behaviors that pull us into the funnel, we can replace those habits and learn new behaviors that keep us free.

Successfully changing those boundaries is built on the premise that you will accept the walls that you put up.  In order to be governed by walls, you must consent to be governed.  For someone who refuses to accept their own walls, family and society must work to contain them...hence the phrase "under arrest", literally that their movement without walls has been arrested.

Some people refuse to accept the adult responsibility of maintaining their own walls.  When this happens, sometimes a spouse or a family member steps in to act as an external wall.  When a person has abdicated their own walls and a loved one attempts to be those walls, it poisons the relationship and causes grief to all parties.  Loving support from family and loved ones is an entirely separate thing.

Summary: all desires have walls.  We choose to set those walls, or else others set them for us.  By accepting that walls are both real and that we can choose new ones, we begin to set the path to freedom.

Government

All government arises from the consent of the governed.  Even tyranny only functions after sufficient fear has been created to "force" compliance.  But tyranny never actually forces behavior; it only sets the price of non-compliance so high that nearly no one chooses to fight.  But human history teaches us that someone always fights.  Tyranny is a non-stable form of government.

I bring government into the discussion because a subset of governing applies in our fight against addiction.  There are two main sections of government, group government and self government.  Government over groups of people is a topic outside the scope of this blog, but self government is a key element.

For our purposes, we can define government as the power to set certain boundaries that establish particular behaviors as "out of bounds".  Government is not very good at incentivizing positive behaviors, but it is excellent at banning negative behaviors.  These boundaries function as wall that prevent us from harming ourselves and others by acting inappropriately.

Speaking of tyranny, addiction is the internal representation of a tyrant.  Addiction can not be bargained with or bought.  Addiction is a tyrant that accepts no limitations, reasonable or otherwise that we seek to place on it.  By definition, addiction tramples our boundaries, regardless of the cost.  As with human history, the human spirit is supremely resilient.  A portion of your spirit will always fight the tyranny.  That a point for our side, because no matter how long you've lived as an addict, you have a built in resistance, ready to fight for your freedom.  We just have to learn how to utilize it.

Foundations of Creation Part V

"You go where you look."  What you build as you go to work depends on where you are looking.  Think about the funnel, if you put your face in the hole, your vision is constricted.  Even if you are sitting in the hole, and you're looking up, you can see where you need to go.

Keep your chin up, forward motion is always possible.

My apologies for the brevity, it's kind of late.

Foundations of Creation Part IV

Creation is God-driven.  Creation is the power of God on this earth.  Whether it be a garden, a book, a child, or a nation, the fundamental nature of Creation is the same.  Because of this, it means that we must ask God to aid in any of our creative efforts, because without Him, we fail.

I read a book recently on the military and political maneuvering in America during the year 1776.  It was the first time I undertook a specific study of this time period in American history.  As I listened, I marveled.  I know the fruits of that time, I am blessed to live free today because of their sacrifices.  I marveled at how insurmountable the obstacles were.  My heart hurt as I read about defeat after defeat.  I kept waiting for the tide to turn, for God to show His hand.  And then I realized, God's hand was in it from the beginning.  He first had to form and shape the character of the American people and their leaders; then He had to harden that character in the furnace of affliction.  When He was finished, He held a tool that He could use to cast the light of liberty across the world and generations.  He Created man's freedom, and He is not finished with it today.

Pick an element of your life.  Be brave enough to look at your life and spot your largest funnel.  Face that void, and "with firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence" get on your knees and pray for God's hand to fill in the void, and lay a foundation for a life of godliness.

Then get to work.

Foundations of Creation Part III

We are on this earth to be enticed by two opposing forces: God and Satan.  It stands to reason that if God has a vision for us, then Satan does to.  A way that I like to think about Satan's plan for us is as the Funnel.  Satan tries to take us down a path where our options get narrower and narrower, our vision gets clouded and blind, and we end up in the perpetual crisis of Me and Now.

God's plan for us is exactly the opposite.  He invites us to focus our lives on His service, and by doing so we build on a broad foundation of good works until we end up creating a Spire.  To stand on the Spire, we must school our actions and desires to be perfectly in line with His will, but from the top of the Spire we can see and feel Creation and Eternity.

I would contend that every single action you take today will either drop you further into the Funnel or lay a piece of the Spire.  Our lives are full of Spires and Funnels.  Our kids, or finances, our religion, our friends, our health, etc.  Every Spire and Funnel are paired.  You cannot build a true Spire unless you have laid a foundation underneath it, and you cannot lay a foundation over a Funnel.  Pay attention to your life tomorrow and think about whether or not a relationship, a habit, a pattern of thinking, or even a food is shrinking your perspective or expanding it; inviting God's love or chasing pleasure.

The DSM-IV is the disagnostic manual that psychiatrists use to analyze disorders in their patients to determine if they have a recognized clinical issue.  One of the key criteria used across almost every disorder is the idea that "the disorder causes significant detrimental impact on the person's life".  If we borrow this concept, we can understand that an addiction is any Funnel that has gotten big enough that we can't control it any more, can't hide it, and can't run from it because it's running our lives.  All we do when we admit we have an addiction is point at the Funnel and say: "This is real and I'm finally going to do something about it."

Foundations of Creation Part II

Since a foundation must be finished before proceeding with the structure, the vision of the completed work is paramount.  What is the necessary vision and where do we get it?

The vision is simple: to be healed of sin and the addictions that go with it.  To live in the world and have God live within us.

The power that can make this vision a reality in your life is the Savior, Jesus Christ.  The Son of God atoned for our sins and stands ready to bring us Home.  He said it best: "I have graven thee on the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me."  His purpose is to save us.  He lives and strives to fulfill that purpose.  He laid his foundation and is currently striving to heal you.  Let Him in.

"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and the finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God"

Every step on this journey we take must be taken under His direction.  Your journey to healing begins when you accept that God holds the complete blueprint for both your foundation and your life and wants to help you build it.  The necessary vision is His vision.  Where do we get it?  From Him.

Be patient with yourself as you begin to lay your personal foundation.  This work may be worship, but it is often painful as well.  Remember that no one else sees you with the clarity that God sees you with.  That means that you may not feel initial support for your actions from friends, family, or even strangers.  As you turn your back on harmful habits and embrace the healing power of the Atonement, be prepared for pushback from both internal and external demons.  As you bring more Truth into your life, you'll discover that you've been believing the exact same lies from the devil for years.  If you pay close attention, you'll notice that you stopped progressing in a particular area the moment you believed the first lie.

Lastly, remember that the purpose of this labor is a life of freedom and joy in the gospel of Jesus Christ.  In the end, you will know in your heart if you are right with God, and that will grant you "the peace that passeth understanding".

Foundations of Creation Part I

We begin to discuss the work of laying the foundation for a new life.  By definition, foundations are the unseen underpinnings of our lives.   Laying a new foundation is hard work.  We must hold in our hearts the truth that this work is worship.  As we lay a new foundation, we must remember that foundation work has a few peculiar qualities to it:

We must lay the entire foundation before proceeding forward.  We must have the vision to see the end from the beginning or the foundation we lay will not meet our needs.  We must have the patience to be diligent in completing the foundation before moving on.

Foundation work will only be praised by the wise observer.  We must be willing to lay a foundation greater than the credit we will receive.  The devil and the world will try to speak doubt into your life to get you to stop your foundation.  Our own doubts will often go unanswered while we labor in the trenches, with only our faith and our vision to guide us.

We are building for eternity.  So these foundations are part of a living system, and they must be maintained.  A building's foundation can be largely ignored after construction, but our foundations must be cared for perpetually.  Neglect will cause damage that can go unobserved until the damage is irreparable.

The Grand Gesture

"The natural man is an enemy to God..."

"Know thy enemy." - Sun Tzu

There are many ways in which the natural man seeks to ensnare us and cause us to lose sight of God's wisdom for us.  One of those ways is something I call the Grand Gesture.  When presented with a genuine need, you have three choices:  ignore it, meet it, or meet it in such a way that you point the attention back to yourself.  This self-aggrandizement cheapens your service.  It has another consequence that is not as noticeable: it teaches you that BIG moves are what fix problems.  Very very often, a big move is the wrong move.

As an example, which is the better retirement investment strategy: investing $100 every month into mutual funds or buying $100 worth of lottery tickets every month?  The mutual funds aren't sexy or flashy, and there is the visible risk of losses with market movements.  The lottery pays out MILLIONS of dollars, all at once!  It's exciting, it's fun to daydream about, and it is the wrong move if you want to retire with any kind of wealth.

If you want to become more healthy, your options are usually pretty obvious: eat right and exercise.  But if you want to get in shape, then you want to do it right, you want to WOW your spouse and co-workers.  You get up at 5:00 am and run several miles, throw out all your junk food and buy wheat germ and a blender.  This big move lasts four days and if your body changed, it was probably for the worse.

Instead, if you want to make moves that really fix problems, follow this rule: "aim small, miss small".  If you can teach yourself how to create small consistent behaviors in yourself, you can move the world.  And I know you can learn small consistent behaviors.  I'll even prove it to you.  The next time you brush your teeth, pay attention to how you are standing.  The next time you're driving, have someone take a picture of your "driving face".  The next time you wake up to the alarm clock with too little sleep, pay attention to the thoughts and emotions running through your head.  You learned those behaviors.  Time to learn some new ones.

Work is Worship

Our culture holds an unhealthy fascination with the myth of the indolent wealthy.  The common dream seems to be to hit a lottery and then "call in rich" to work.  This dream breeds envy for those who have more than you and despair if you are blessed with riches.  Even wholesome recreation cannot grant us purpose, and addictions of any stripe will cause bring pain.  What is the Lord's alternative then?  After all, "the blessings of the Lord have no sorrow added unto them".

God built us to work.  He created our minds, bodies, hearts, and souls to find joy in honest labor.  If you look at the bulk of human history, it is filled with mind-numbing and often back-breaking work.  The rule of human existence has often revolved around providing simple sustenance for your family.  Hunger is a loud enough need that we will all work rather than starve.  But to reap blessings beyond a full belly, work must be approached with the right attitude.  If we hold in our hearts that work is a blessing from God, then we can consecrate our efforts and turn our work into worship.  If we worship God through the actions of our hands, then we will surely be blessed for our diligence.

Silent Needs

A friend of mine had a heart attack over the weekend.  He is 35.  He’ll recover, but it set me to thinking a little bit about the things we all need.  It seems to me that we can all agree on some of the obvious needs: food, shelter, water, air, sunlight, physical security, companionship.  I would suggest that the reason why these are obvious to us all is because they scream at us when they’re not met.  I’d like to talk a little bit about those needs that don’t scream at us: our Silent Needs.

Elder Uchtdorf shared a story about one of his silent needs:

“When I was 11 years old, my family had to leave East Germany and begin a new life in West Germany overnight. Until my father could get back into his original profession as a government employee, my parents operated a small laundry business in our little town. I became the laundry delivery boy. To be able to do that effectively, I needed a bicycle to pull the heavy laundry cart. I had always dreamed of owning a nice, sleek, shiny, sporty red bicycle. But there had never been enough money to fulfill this dream. What I got instead was a heavy, ugly, black, sturdy workhorse of a bicycle. I delivered laundry on that bike before and after school for quite a few years. Most of the time, I was not overly excited about the bike, the cart, or my job. Sometimes the cart seemed so heavy and the work so tiring that I thought my lungs would burst, and I often had to stop to catch my breath. Nevertheless, I did my part because I knew we desperately needed the income as a family, and it was my way to contribute. 

Many years later, when I was about to be drafted into the military, I decided to volunteer instead and join the Air Force to become a pilot. I loved flying and thought being a pilot would be my thing.

To be accepted for the program I had to pass a number of tests, including a strict physical exam. The doctors were slightly concerned by the results and did some additional medical tests. Then they announced, “You have scars on your lung which are an indication of a lung disease in your early teenage years, but obviously you are fine now.” The doctors wondered what kind of treatment I had gone through to heal the disease. Until the day of that examination I had never known that I had any kind of lung disease. Then it became clear to me that my regular exercise in fresh air as a laundry boy had been a key factor in my healing from this illness. “

He had a need and he didn't even know it.  My friend’s heart also had a need, and he couldn't hear it.  How do we learn to see the silent needs all around us?  To start with, we have to know what they are.  I’ll return to explore this idea further, but I’d like to start a list.  Feel free to add your own.  

Prayer

Work

Structure (especially for a child)

Blood Pressure

Cholesterol

Accountable Action

In the last post, I spoke about the Law of the Harvest.  God has taught us that we will reap what we sow on this earth.  If we take that at face value, then all of us are condemned by God's immutable laws.  "All have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God."  But God is merciful as well as just.  "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whomsoever would believe on him would not perish, but would have everlasting life."  Clearly, God has laid out a path for redemption and a path for condemnation.  I believe that He has also left us free to choose either path.  He has given us the Gospel in plain language and then He set a boundary on Himself by choosing to leave the wrong options open to us.  In this He is a perfectly patient teacher.  No matter how many times we push him away and willfully choose to harm ourselves and others, He always returns to us, ready to show us the way out.

So how do we receive God's redemption?  It's quite simple really: you reap what you sow.  In order for God to return you to His presence, He must change your very nature.  You must be reborn through the atonement of Christ.  How is this done?  Through Accountable Action.

Accountable Actions are those actions that we take where we have full knowledge of the consequences possible and then we make a choice.  If a child has never seen a hot stove, he may still burn his hand, but he is not accountable for that mistake; he did not know.  If I am envious of my friend's iPod and I steal it, then I have made an accountable action.  Two actually: the Sermon on the Mount teaches us that we will be held accountable for even our thoughts.  "Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery already in his heart."  Accountable Actions are not all negative.  If you risk your life to pull a wandering child out of traffic, you are accountable for that action too.

Why is accountability important?  Is it simply enough that at the end of our lives, the cosmic scales balance our good deeds and bad and we are blessed or doomed by which way the scales tip?  I think that this is not so.  And here is where a proper understanding of emotion comes into it.  See, emotions are just another word for Spirit.  I stole the iPod because I first let in a spirit of envy.  Why did I envy?  I made a choice that fostered that spirit and diminished others.  If I play violent video games for three hours and then snap at my wife, I believe that I invited in a harsh spirit into my home and relationships.

Back to the cosmic scales, I don't think redemption is a matter of math.  Redemption is offered to all men who can accept it.  Redemption is a gift offered in the Spirit of perfect love.  In order to receive that gift, we must match that Spirit.  "Bridle all your passions, that you may be filled with love."  The act of bridling your passions makes your heart more able to love, makes you more eligible for the gift of God's redemption.  "For that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world."

To summarize:  We can find happiness in this life and redemption in the life to come by having the Spirit of God's love within us.  We can obtain that Spirit through making Accountable Actions that foster it.  "No man can serve two masters..."

The Law of the Harvest

Last week I talked about preparing, acting, and avoiding. I mentioned that in my experience, actions are driven by our emotions. But while emotions cause our actions, what causes our emotions?  Before we get too deep into cause and effect, an anecdote from Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time":

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

Sometimes we can get ourselves stuck when thinking about cause and effect, but bear with me a moment and we'll try to unsnarl it.  I'm pretty sure it's not actually turtles all the way down.

I would contend that emotions are the effect of something else.  Our inability to control, generate, or choose them is one of their defining characteristics.  How many times have we heard phrases like "I got so mad, I just couldn't help it!"  "I want to love him back, but I just don't feel it."  Phrases like these give us a clue: emotions drive our actions, and we cannot choose them.

Why can't we choose them?  The simple truth to that question is that we live in a world with actual cause and effect.  We live by the law of the harvest.  You reap what you sow.  "By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread all the days of thy life."  "He that is idle shall not eat the bread or wear the garment of the laborer."  "Look unto me in all thy thoughts, doubt not, fear not".  It really is the simple truth that when we take the first step on a road, we have taken the last.  Satan's greatest lie is to try and convince us that we can somehow separate cause and effect; that we can be happy in sin.

This can never be true.

It is therefore axiomatic that cause and effect are inextricably linked.  It is easy to see that our emotions are consequences of our choices, and that we can choose our emotions by choosing the proper causes.  "If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear."  The emotion of peace and freedom from fear is a direct result of preparation.  You can't choose peace, but you can choose to prepare against the coming storm, and peace is the what you will reap.

The first step in finding happiness in this life is to understand that there is a path that leads there, and that we can walk that path by following the Lord's commandments.  Truly, His grace is sufficient for all men.

To summarize:  If we are displeased with any action in our life we can trace that action to an emotion, and that emotion to a thought or behavior that caused us to reap that emotion, generating the action in question.

We walked through these thoughts for a specific reason: I seek to build the case that addiction can be healed and man can walk this earth free from its shackles through the atonement of Christ.  I have done this.  I am living this.  I want to help my brother and my sister.  Walk with me, if you will, and let us see if we can find this freedom together.

The Antidote

"Action is the antidote to fear"

God speaks to us always.  We can always hear Him, if we listen with the right ears.  Perhaps the best action we can ever take is listen to Him.  Only then can we be shaped into beings without fear.

May hope fill your hearts today.

Preparedness and Fear

"If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear."

Preparedness is not an accident.  It is a commandment from God.  As with all of His commandments, the purpose of this one is to bless us.  By asking us to prepare, He's asking us to actively look towards the future, weigh the risks, and then act today in order to be ready tomorrow.  That intentional action lays a firm foundation under our feet.  And when we have that foundation, fear has no power over us.

"Action is the antidote to fear."

As I have developed this topic, I have discovered that acting and preparing are more tightly linked than I initially expected.  I guess it's because preparing is an action with a powerfully positive effect on our future and an action's effectiveness is amplified by our state of preparedness.  I'm glad to have had this opportunity to search for truth in this blog.  I guess I'm trying to prepare for something to come, so I can be ready to act when I am called to do so.

What will you be called to do tomorrow, that you can prepare for today?

Action and Preparation: Part III

Action and Preparation are actually two sides of the same coin.  Preparation is a type of action, one geared towards an event in the future.  Action in this context is to endeavor to live the gospel more fully, to apply the atonement of Christ, and to bridle our passions that we may be filled with love.  We can Prepare to do these things, and many times we must prepare in order to be successful at them.

The antithesis of this concept of action is avoidance.  The devil seeks to blind us to the true nature of ourselves and of God.  He is the father of lies, and he starts by lying about us.  If you listen to the father of lies, you will first lose your ability to love yourself as God loves you.  Once you lose that, you are open to his manipulations.  The blindness that is possible through avoidance is total.  We can choose to close our eyes, God allows us even that.

Avoidance is a topic all its own, and I'd like to focus on Action/Preparation this week, so we'll table Avoidance for now.

You can always identify Action because it will lay a foundation for something greater to come.  "You're either growing or you're dying, there ain't no third direction."  Taking the bar exam is hard, but it lays the foundation for a career.  Planning a wedding is hard, but that experience of shared sacrifice lays the foundation for a joint life as helpmeets.  Raising children is a strain, but "children are an heritage of the Lord", laying the greatest foundation there is.  God's plan is for us to grow up, towards Him.  In order to climb that Spire, you must lay the foundation stones, piece by piece, in accordance with His will.

To do this is to Act.

Action and Preparation: Revisited.

I'd like to explore this principle in a little more detail, since it was pretty late when I wrote the last post.  Please bear with with me as I work through some of these principles, half of the reason for this blog is to have an opportunity to clarify the thoughts spinning through my head.

To begin with, the reason why defining action and preparation is so important is because of emotion.  Emotion is the fuel of human endeavors.  Good or bad, what we do is driven by what we feel.  Because of this, we must be cognizant of which emotions are driving our behavior.

Large life events can require a preparatory period while we store up, refine, and de-clutter our emotional reserves so that we can apply positive energy to difficult situations.  This is what I meant by preparation.  Procrastination is not preparation.

Difficult situations must be acted upon.  We earn our bread by the sweat of our face.  If sustaining life was meant to be effortless, God wouldn't have built us to get so cranky when we're hungry.  When confronted by an difficult problem, we use a portion of our available reserves to solve it.  This is what I meant by action.

I was asked for an example of a situation with a less clearly defined prepare/act boundary.  I recently had a situation at work where it became necessary for me to confront my superior about how he was treating me.  I have always feared conflict, and in the past would have been sorely tempted to postpone the conversation.  Instead, I prepared.  I took the time to write in my journal about my feelings and my understanding of his behavior.  I spoke with my wife about how I felt and what I wanted as an equitable solution.  I refined my position so that when I broached the subject, I could be clear and precise about what I needed; and present it in a way that was as nonthreatening as I knew how.  I got a good night's sleep.  Then I acted.

I asked him for some time in private at his convenience.  We scheduled a time that worked for both of us that day.  I presented my complaint and suggested that I would be unwise to allow the given situation to continue.  I presented him with a viable alternative.  I drew a boundary between him and I so that he clearly understood which behaviors I would tolerate and which I would not.  We discussed our relationship in light of this new understanding, and the issue was resolved.

Please let me know what you think in the comments.

Preparing/Doing

Some things in life require a lot of preparation.  Bar exams, weddings, having children, retiring, etc...  The reason why we put so much effort into getting ready for these tasks is because they can be disastrous if we don't prepare.  The funny thing is that if you prepare extensively, but then don't shift from preparing to doing at the right time, your preparing attitude can be just as disastrous.

It is equally fruitless to prepare when you should be doing and to try to do when you can only prepare.  We all have to make the call as to whether doing or preparing is appropriate.  If you find yourself short on time or energy, ask yourself how much you're spending on incorrect do/prepare calls.

"Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed."

Gardens

We are putting in a garden this weekend.  It is a neat experience to invest time, sweat, and money into building a living system.  We're really new at this, but its exciting to see the potential of every action.  The emotion I wasn't expecting when I started this was ownership.  The day after I did some of the preparation work, I walked outside and said "I did that, I own that labor."  It was a powerfully positive experience to see the fruits of my labors.

Living Systems

What we think about, we plan.

What we plan, we do.

What we do, becomes a habit.

Our habits become our destiny.

We all create systems with our actions.  We can't help it.  We learn by doing, and so what we do becomes easier.  Before long, something we chose to do once we are now doing every day, sometimes so easily that we don't even stop to ask ourselves why.  The danger to these accidental habits is that we can find our available agency bound up in a cloud of jell-o, and we despair of being free.

It doesn't have to be this way.

God gave us the Atonement.  He gave us the Gospel of Jesus Christ so that we might learn about the Atonement.  Therein lies the solution to our despair.  God is Free, and He wants us to become free like Him.  We do not do this through a grand force of will.  We don't have a showdown with the Devil: a duel at high-noon.  We do this through force of habit.

You see, a habit is a piece of a system.  And any system is greater than the sum of its parts.  Take your job for instance:  What do you do to get paid?  You perform the role you were hired in, but there is a mountain of habit underneath that role that makes you successful.  You brush your teeth every day, you bathe regularly, you wear clean clothes, you discipline yourself to wake up on time, you kiss your spouse goodbye so they'll pack you a healthy lunch, you smile at babies and wish the receptionist a good morning.  All of these actions are part of a system whereby you sustain yourself and your family.

There are two kinds of systems, living and finite.  

Finite systems have diminishing returns.  Addiction is a classic example.  All of your habitual actions are pointed to a purpose that is impossible: to be happy in sin.  As such, the system is doomed to failure, and the actions in that system chase themselves into a tighter and tighter loop over time, eventually consuming you in Me and Now.

Living systems have increasing returns.  Raising children is a good example.  The individual, habitual actions in raising a child seem to be dead ends, but diligence in maintaining this system reaps a harvest that is plentiful.  "Children are an heritage of the Lord."  These actions broaden the scope of what our heart sees so that we can live in God and Eternity.

How much of your day do you spend sustaining your Living Systems?