This is a talk that I wrote and gave in church a little while ago that I felt really good about. I thought I would post it here so that more people could reap the benefits of it.
Living the standards at all times
My definition of Living the standards at all times can be defined by a phrase I coined from my father. The words that he used were meant to define his relationship with my mother but with considerable thought I came to the conclusion that this phrase should match how each member of the church should feel towards there relationship with the gospel. The phrase is this: Fiercely Loyal. I would define being fiercely loyal as an act of determination, an unstoppable force, a knowing, not just thinking and doing everything in your power to hold to it. The way I want to feel about living the church standards at all times is that there is no other option than to just do it. So over the course of the week I have been going through my old notes and I have gathered up a few things that I had written down over the years revolving around bettering yourself as a person. I don't want the focus of my talk to be on ways that you can live the standards at all times, we already know what those are. But I want to put an extreme emphasis on the way we should feel about ourselves that allows us to follow these commandments.
The first thing I want to talk about is responsibility. And that is a subject that is tied closely to the gift of free agency, or in other words, choice. 2 Nephi 2:27 states: "Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man." President Monson in the October General Conference of 2010 talks about the various aspects of agency and comes up with the 3 R's of choice. These are, the right of choice, second, the responsibility of choice and third, the result of choice.
In my younger years of being a selfish teen I used to think that my actions only affected me. Yes, I was given the right of choice, but between here and the second of the 3 R's, I got lost before responsibility. I remember coming home from College to see my family and my brothers commenting that I never looked happy anymore, that I never smiled in pictures anymore and even though I was mostly just lost in my own world I couldn't believe that they could notice! I remember once that my dad told me I had this aura that I carried around me that would "reek through the walls", as he would say. And what I didn't realize is that you carry your experiences with you in your countenance. In my patriarchal blessing there is a line that says something like, "your beauty will grow as you grow in the gospel". I used to think that was so weird. What are you saying i'll be prettier if I follow the commandments? But then I realized. Yes! You will be! There is a reason they say you can tell a mormon apart from a crowd. Its because they hold it in there entire being that they are happy and they shine because of it. It took me a long time to realize that everything I do affects the other people around me. I have younger brothers that look up to me to be there example, I also have a multitude of younger cousins that I affect and even though you may not think that its my responsibility to be a good example to them, it is.
I would like to now quote Spiderman, when Peter Parkers uncle says, "With great power, comes great responsibility." We are given power as members of the church because we know the truth. In the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet, it says: "You have a heritage: Honour it. You will meet sin: Shun it. You have a truth: Live it. You have a testimony: Share it." Abraham 3:25 says, "And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them."
The next thing I want to talk about is the word praiseworthy. At the end of the 13th Article of Faith it says, "If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things." This is an article of what we as members believe. To understand this idea fully, I want to link it with self fulfilment; things that are praiseworthy, not to be confused with acts of pride.
A few years ago i was sitting in church and a member of the stake presidency was speaking. He was talking about our actions and the consequences thereof. A word that stuck out to me at this time was self-confidence. And the point he was making was that your actions can cause you to have a lack of self-confidence. Well for me it was just like hitting a button. Boom! That was how I felt. I didn't like myself, I didn't like my actions, I didn't think I was pretty, I was overly concerned with what people thought about me and overall I thought that everyone else was also thinking these negative things about me too. Well what I learned is summed up by Richard G. Scott who made a last minute appearance in Lethrbidge a few years ago that I was lucky to see. He said, "Be a worthy young lady that radiates the lightness of being righteous."
I gave a family home evening lesson one night to all my cousins and I brought up what it means to have a lack of confidence. The definition I have written down is this: To lack confidence is to have feelings of low self worth. We are preoccupied with our weaknesses, and we lack faith in the Lord's ability to use those weaknesses for our good. We do not understand our inestimable power and worth in the eyes of God, nor do we appreciate our divine potential. Ironically, both pride and a lack of self confidence cause us to focus excessively on ourselves and to deny the power of God in our lives. President Monson says, "Joy and happiness come from living the way the Lord wants you to live and from service to God and others."
When going through a repentance process there is a time when the bishop calls you to serve. Now everyone knows that by serving you are helping your fellow man and doing good unto the world. I would like to note that these would be acts which are praiseworthy. Well I want to focus on what service does to us. Personally in my life about a year ago, I was given this opportunity. I use the word opportunity because the experience that I had with this has changed, forever possibly, my opinion of service. In George Albert Smith's version of Teachings of Presidents of the Church he says, "The spirit of the Lord is the spirit of kindness, not harshness and criticism." Well, I started to to put a lot of effort into helping people. Like I said, I was told this truth about the self-image thing with regards to our actions and I thought, If my actions can be changed, maybe my opinion can be as well. I started to help people, mostly girls my age that seem to be struggling with confidence as well, and I started to focus on just lifting people up. Well the outcome of this experience, even after one time, was like fire in my bones. It was exciting! I was pushing people to be better, and without realizing it, I started to believe that I could be too. I started inviting people to church, which maybe because of shyness, I had never actually done before. My whole mind was changed. "I promise, this church brings you happiness." Is what I used to say to people. Mosiah 27:29 says, "My soul hath been redeemed from the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity. I was in the darkest abyss; but now I behold the marvellous light of God."
I now want to talk about freedom. I want to tell you a story that my dad actually told me about an experience he had when he was in his early twenties. At this time my dad had been struggling with an addiction problem that had been escalating over years. In his early teens he decided in his mind that rules, or at least the church rules, were not for him and that he was happy to do whatever he wanted. Well after years of this he finally came to the decision to change his bad habits. He went down to Utah for a 28 day program that is supposed to make you clean from your addiction and then it is up to you to hold to it. The boundaries of the institution are set by a simple median that separates each buildings' space from one another. The rules are, if you leave the boundary you are not allowed to come back. This is for the integrity of all the rest of the intakes in the program, seeing that you can't leave the boundary to potentially come back with something that they are fighting against. Well, my dad obviously made friends during his short stay and one day an idea came into the minds of his group that they wanted to leave the boundary. In this institution there was a pop machine filled with your regular sodas with the exception that their was no Coke. Instead of Coke, they had diet coke and for most, this wasn't going to cut it. Across the street in the building adjacent to them they could clearly see through the window that there was a Coke machine through the front door.
So, the group decided that they would gather up a few quarters and make the sprint during break time one day to get themselves some Coke. The time came and the crew went outside. Everyone started barreling toward this boundary and running over it, and my dad said that as he was running with them, something came over him and he stopped, standing right on the median; his friends hollered to him that it was ok and he should jump over. But what my dad said is that immediately, he had this flush of freedom come over him. He had been fighting for 10 years for the idea of freedom and that rules could not keep him but what he learned at this time is freedom from the bonds of your body and your mind. President Hinckley once said, "The gospel is a plan of freedom that gives discipline to appetite and direction to behaviour." President Monson has said, "When we choose to live according to God's plan for us, our agency is strengthened." This is the sum of learning control over your body. To give into your temptations is to lack the control to overpower your physical self. This means that without knowing it, you are losing the freedom of choice. Ether 12:27 states, "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give men weakness that they may be humble; And my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; For if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then I will make weak things become strong unto them."
At a later time in my dad's life, nearing the end of his full recovery with the church he was visiting with his bishop. Now thinking of others and having a new outlook on life, my father exclaimed, "Bishop I do not know how you do it! Having to deal with guys like me all the time that are screw-ups." The bishops response to this comment was simply this. "Darren, you are my biggest success story." The point that he was making with this comment is that all of his work as a bishop is worth it, to have helped someone like he had with my dad. Upon hearing this story a few years ago, I have never been able to shake the idea of how great it would be to be considered a success story. With the examples I have just shared, being that you are responsible to your standards, it is admirable and even character building when you are and that living the standards can help to set you free, I firmly believe that you need to be fiercely loyal to it, as it is so important to be. An excerpt from a talk Joseph Fielding McConkie gave states, "It is not the design of heaven that we be rescues from all difficult situations. Rather, it is the Lord's will that we learn to handle them." Russell M. Nelson in a talk from 1989 gives something he calls a "Spiritual Prescription", it says, "Choose to be alive. Choose to believe. Choose to change. Choose to be different. Choose to exercise. and Choose to be free."
I'd like to say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
