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?

Tiny brainstorms

Sam Walton was once complimented on being "an overnight success".  In response, he commented that most overnight successes take twenty years.  Everyone's looking for the next big idea, the next Google, lightbulb, flight, microchips.  Everyone's looking for the grand gesture they can do once to fix their marriage, their job, their children.  You can't become an overnight success in life or marriage by big ideas or grand gestures.

God grants us more revelation than we notice.  Most of His ideas that He grants to us come as tiny brainstorms that barely warrant paying attention.  Tiny brainstorms will be lost if they are not captured, planted, and nurtured.  How often do we miss revelation because it's not what we were looking for and resembles hard work?

The next time you're confronted by a behavior you need to change, avoid using the drastic "I'll never do this again" vow.  That's not how we change and that's not how God teaches.  You do what you're doing because you learned that behavior.  If you want to remove that behavior, you need to learn a new one.  If you want to learn how to live in accordance with God's will for you, you must ask Him to teach you a new behavior.

"Line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little."

Sounds like tiny brainstorms covered in work.

Limited resources

We are blessed with limited resources.  In the Garden Adam was instructed that the earth would turn against him and he must earn his bread with the sweat of his face.  Because the earth no longer volunteers its bounty, it is up to us to maintain our efforts in order to sustain life.  This limitation is a blessing, because it focuses our efforts on work that truly saves.

If food was free, would we be careful with its use?

My dad always used to say that we have only two truly limited resources: Time and Money.  It seems that he knew what he was talking about.  As I look around, I see so many people who squander their time, their money, or both; and then wonder why they're miserable.

How we manage our time and money directly affects our quality of life.  Our ability to handle our limited resources is controlled by our character.  I wonder if you can perceive a man's character by watching how he spends his time and money.  I think that perhaps that is the only true measure of a man.

Investments

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

"Children are an heritage of the Lord."

I believe that children are your longest-term investments.  And the only way to leave an inheritance to your children's children is by shaping the lives of those under your direct care.

What sort of inheritance are you giving your children's children?  How would it change your daily actions if you asked yourself "Is this the best way that I can shape the lives of my descendants?"

"And Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart."

Happy Mother's Day.

Failure is the only option

Failure is the most powerful learning force we know.  We are here to learn to obey God's commandments.  We must obey in order to be trusted stewards of He who created the universe.  Using failure to teach requires two key components:

Failure is not Fatal
If failure in a particular endeavor kills the relationship/job/person/health/etc, then the price is too high.  Often, the fear of such Fatal Failure causes the learner to avoid even trying, thus preventing any lesson from happening.

Failure has Consequences
Failure cannot be free.  If it is, then the learner becomes cavalier about his actions.  Effectively communicated consequences can cause the learner to pay attention.

The Garden of Eden is a perfect example of failure as a learning mechanism.  When God put Adam and Eve in the Garden, he gave them the commandment to not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  He clearly explained the consequences of failing to keep this commandment, and he provided a mechanism to keep their failure from being fatal.  This experience sparked our life on this earth.

"And the days of the children of men were prolonged, according to the will of God, that they might repent while in the flesh; wherefore, their state became a state of probation, and their time was lengthened, according to the commandments which the Lord God gave unto the children of men.  For he gave commandment that all men must repent: for he showed unto all men that they were lost, because of the transgression of their parents."

"And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden.  And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.

"And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin."  (2 Nephi 2:21-23)
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What things in life require daily maintenance?

As I've mentioned, my wife and I are expecting a baby soon.  This new arrival has caused some upheaval in our life, making it more difficult to accomplish all those simple daily tasks that maintain our home.  It leads me to wonder what things require daily maintenance.  I thought I'd brainstorm a list.  Feel free to comment with your own.

Dishes
Bathing
Spiritual renewal
Compliments
Exercise
Laundry
Cleaning
Expressing gratitude
Making peace
Saying "I love you."
Writing in a journal
Flossing

Funny thing is, as I wrote this, I compared to what I actually spend a lot of my time doing daily.

Checking email
Checking the news
Texting/phone apps/instant messaging
Complaining about the weather
Complaining about co-workers
Watching TV/movies

Which list would make you happier?  Are you allowing your habits to make you unhappy?

"Loving Well"

God is Love.  The gospel of Jesus Christ commands us to love God and to love our fellow men.  Love is the common theme in the counsel that the Lord has given us through His scriptures.  It is worthwhile to examine love in all of its flavors.  We start out in this life loving our parents.  If we're lucky, we also love our siblings.  As we branch into the world, we love friends and extended family.  Eventually, we might marry and love a spouse.  And then we love our children, and the cycle perpetuates.  We often give and receive counsel to love the people I just mentioned, but how often do we ponder whether or not we are loving them well.

Is Love a skill that must be practiced, refined, perfected, and presented at the last day?

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called "Outliers".  He analyzes people in various fields who far outperform their peers.  One of the strongest common themes that he found among these outliers was time. On average, it takes 10,000 hours of dedicated, focused, mentored practice at a given activity to break out of the pack and become truly excellent at something.  Is Love any exception?

When you relate to your spouse during day-to-day things, do you pay attention to whether you are loving them with your words and your actions?  Or are you taking "love" for granted?

Is "No" sometimes more loving then "Yes"?

I would suggest that Godlike Love is a skill that we can learn.  I think it's the main thing He's trying to teach us.  I also suggest that upon practicing the skill of Love with sufficient intensity, it changes our nature, making us more like God.  After all, you go where you look.  Ponder this the next time you are challenged in one of your relationships.  Examine whether or not your Love skill is a little rusty.  Apply a diligent effort to not love your family on autopilot, but with diligence and patience.

The atonement of Jesus Christ was the greatest example of God's Love that we know.  Of all the actions available to the Son of God, he chose to redeem us from our sins.  That is the embodiment of not just love, but loving us well.

Pull and the art of leadership

When a man marries a woman, he is commanded to cleave unto her.  Together they are to become one.  This is only possible if the couple is equally yoked.  A yoke is designed to aid a team of oxen in pulling a heavy load.  Marital unity is more than a suggestion.  This commandment from God is designed for our happiness and success in life.  Many marriages struggle because each member of the couple decides to chase after their own dreams.  After all, it's hard work to communicate genuine feelings.  It's even harder to solve genuine differences.  Instead, they each run towards their own goals and then chafe at the bonds of their marriage.

Marriage bonds prevent us from straying too far from each other.  If we insist on living separate lives, the bonds eventually break.  Sometimes one partner succeeds in pulling the other one along against their will, but this is not what marriage was intended for.  Marriage was intended to provide the strength necessary to raise children.

Child-rearing is a heavy load.  It requires patience, perseverance, and more patience.  The marriage bond is designed to draw two people together and point them in the same direction, so that when they pull, they pull the intended load.

Are you making your marriage harder than it has to be?

Can you lead your children home if you're not pulling together?

Currency

I wonder why we seek static solutions?  It's doomed from the start.  

"There, I'm married, glad that's taken care of."

"There, got my job, I'll just work here until I die."

"There, I talked about money, sex, drugs, discipline, clothes, respect, and work with my kid.  Glad that's out of the way."

This view is patently ridiculous.

Life has a current to it, a flow of give and take, need and bounty, peace and striving.  If we learn to embrace this currency we can find contentment in daily movement, even as it stretches us.

Embrace your personal brand of weird

My father taught me one crucial lesson.  I had my own personal brand of weird, and I must embrace it.  It's taken me decades to start to understand the power of this one lesson.  But living this lesson has brought me my greatest joys.

It's costly to be strange, but it's worth it.  It takes courage to buck the trend.  Most people do not love what they do, because it takes courage.  Courageous love is not a very popular position.  Many people miss the key component required to truly love.  You must start by loving God.  The first and great commandment is first for a reason.  God is the easiest thing in the world to love.  The more perfectly you love Him, the more He can change your nature.  He will always change us to become more like Him if He can.  The more we become like Him, the greater our capacity to love becomes.  Eventually we can love ourselves as well as others, and at last we gain the capacity to truly love what we do.

And then we change the world.