Sunday, July 14, 2013

For a Season



I’m leaving.   Many of you know that I’m headed out to the Provo Missionary Training Center this Wednesday to start training to serve as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Tokyo, Japan for 18 months.  Woo-hoo!  I shared this talk in Sacrament meeting and wanted to share it here too, though I’m not sure this version exactly follows the talk I gave in Sacrament meeting.  I really loved thinking about this talk and how I’ve seen it in my life hope that it helps you see how it happens in your life as well. 

I am excited to share what I’ve learned from thinking about Elder Quentin L.  Cook’s talk from this April’s General Conference titled “Personal Peace: The Reward of Righteousness”.  I hope that I can express the thoughts in my head and the feelings in my heart. 

I really love that Elder Cook puts the focus of his address on “the role of Jesus Christ in helping each of us obtain lasting personal peace.”  In this light, personal peace is a gift from God because of the Savior’s Atonement.  I know that He is eager to bestow this gift (and many other blessings) upon us and also that it is conditioned on our efforts to keep His commandments and follow the Christ’s example.  When we are righteous, peace comes as part of the blessing of the Spirit. 

As I studied this talk, I realized that personal peace is quite different than world peace.  In the world’s definition (and in a few dictionaries) peace is associated with absence—the absence of turmoil, stress, or sorrow.  Yet personal peace is a state of being we can have in the midst of distress.  I think that part of this beautiful paradox is that one way we have personal peace is that our perspectives are less confined to this life alone; that is, they are less temporal and more eternal.  We trust that all will be made right through the Atonement in a way that we don’t quite understand. 

As part of his address, Elder Cook focuses on the relationship between peace and agency.  He recounts some sobering recent events, including the December shootings at Newtown, Connecticut, the uncertainty, turmoil and hardship of the African country Abidjan, and the attacks of September 11, 2001.  These events he says “rob us of our peace and heighten our sense of vulnerability.”  He also notes that “our pain and suffering in this life, even when caused by things we do not understand and the choices of others” can be traced back to agency. 

            Yet while the ability to choose sometimes results in tragedy, Elder Cook reminds us that in the premortal life “ we…knew that the Savior’s Atonement would overcome and compensate us for all of the unfairness of mortal life and bring us peace.”  As Ugo Betti says “To believe in God is to know that all the rules will be fair and that there will be wonderful surprises”.  When we decide to believe in God, we trust that all things will be made right.  As Elder Cook says,  “peace comes from knowing that the Savior knows who we are and knows that we have faint in Him, love Him, and keep His commandments, even and especially amid life’s devastating trials and tragedies.”  When we trust the Savior and strive to remain loyal to His commandments, He imparts to us His Spirit and encourages us to accept peace (see D&C 121:7-8 and John 14:26-27).

I think it is such a generous gift that even in the midst of our trials, God has promised us a way to have peace through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  Thus as we are stretched, pushed, tried, and refined, we can be calm and assured.  I have such peace often in my life, whether it be during uncertainty about a test or my interactions with another person.  These experiences have led me to love Philippians 4:7 which reads, “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep (or according to the footnote, guard) your hearts through Christ Jesus.”  To me, this scripture means that even when events in our life seem unfair or don’t seem to add up, or to any sort of logic should unbalance us, the peace of God can—and does—surpass that. 

I’ve been really grateful to have had the opportunity to reflect on true, personal peace, as it is the last week that I have had before entering the MTC to prepare to serve as a missionary in Tokyo, Japan.  There have been a few moments where I’ve thought “I should be nervous.  I mean, I’m about to go to a foreign land, speak a language I don’t really know right now, and share thoughts, feelings and truth that is very close to my heart. And I am leaving a life that I LOVE with people that I LOVE in it.”  While I’ve had a few freak out moments and these thoughts go through my head, the dominant, prevailing feeling of this week especially has been a beautiful, almost unfathomable unruffleable peace.  That blessing has helped me look forward to the future, despite the uncertainty that is part of it.  I feel that peace helps us be courageous and do things that are hard, which the story of Jeremiah illustrates well.  Jeremiah was called to preach to a hardened people.  Jeremiah hesitates and says “Ah, Lord GOD!  Behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child.”  The Lord responds saying “Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go unto all that I shall send me, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.  Be not afraid of their faces, for I am with thee to deliver thee” (Jeremiah 1:6-8).  This declaration must have given Jeremiah much confidence and peace and teaches us that as we do as God commands, He will be with us to help us. 

Personal peace allows us to be content, thoughtful, strong, hopeful, and loving.  It is a gift for being righteous that in turn, helps us become more Christlike.  To illustrate the effects of peace, I want to share a literary example from a pair of books that I love—Gilead and Home by Marilynne Robinson.  These books describe the homecoming of a wayward son to a small town in Iowa in two different perspectives.  In these books, there are two characters with nearly the same name:  John Ames, an aged minister in this small town and John—or Jack—Ames Boughton a son of the former’s dear friend.  John Ames is in his final days, about to leave his wife and young son, but reflects such contentment and hope in the future.  I think this passage illustrates that wonderfully.  “The twinkling of an eye.  That is the most wonderful expression.  I’ve thought from time to time it was the best thing in life, that little incandescence you see in people when the charm of a thing strikes them, or the humor of it.  ‘The light of the eyes rejoiceth the heart.’  That’s a fact.  While you read this, I am imperishable, somehow more alive than I have ever been, in the strength of my youth with dear ones beside me.  You read the dreams of an anxious, fuddled old man and I live in a light better than any dream of mine—not waiting for you though, because I want your dear perishable self to live long and to love this poor perishable world, which I somehow I cannot imagine missing bitterly…well this old seed is about to drop into the ground.  Then I’ll know.”  I think that John has such calm in the face of his death because he has chosen the path of peace—belief and actions that reflect that belief. 
           
Jack Boughton on the other hand is sort of a black sheep in his family.  He is a deep, wise soul yet the most common description of him is “weary” and uses the phrase “I’m so weary of myself” quite often.  To me the difference between these two men stems from the exercise of their agency.  One has chosen faith and righteousness and thus received peace while the other is uncertain if he can believe and grieved by the mistakes of his past.  My heart aches for Jack and so desires him to try to believe in the Atonement of Jesus Christ. His experience stresses to me that peace is a gift made possible by that Atonement and that we must desire it and receive it rather than oblige it to be forced on us. 

In this book too, the author explores the idea of angels in the wilderness and I want to thank so many of you for being angels in my wilderness of this world or of growing up.  I know that God does provide for His children, that He is gracious and generous and that peace in the midst of hardship testifies to that.  I am grateful for the opportunity to publish peace by serving as a missionary.  I hope that if I find people like Jack that I can be an instrument in the hands of the Lord in helping them believe.  I hope too that I can be a conduit for the Spirit to help God’s children recognize His outreach to them and receive the great blessings He desires for them, including personal peace.  I know that He is eager to recognize our efforts to come to Him.  I know that this is the true church of Christ.  I’d like to close with John 14:27: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the word giveth, give I unto you.  Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid”.  I know that He wants us to be happy and have peace through obedience and closeness to Him and I close in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.  

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