sept 25

Sept 25

Just out of curiosity, but were you in a hurry when you typed this?  Not to try and sound like an editor or a critic, but it seems like you were paying more attention to the subject matter than the grammar, but to be frank it does not matter all that much anyway I guess it's just something I noticed, guess I'm funky like that.

anyway, with all this remodeling going on, almost seemingly to be all of a sudden, it sounds almost like you guys had a train run through the house, but I guess it probably seems like that when you're doing any kind of remodeling, aye?  

but any who, I recently saw a church news article that talked about the dedication and some of the history of it and Elder Packer's and Elder Nelson's connection with it, sounds like it was a great meeting!  About that thought and the talk you mentioned, that reminds me of some of the things I have been studying over the past few weeks.

firstly it's connection to desire, our lives are constructed around what we desire, if you look at everything you do, it can all be traced back to a desire of some kind or another, this involves everything from disobedience to goal setting, from what to wear that day to whether or not our next action will be to hurt something. while so many of the things we do may seem unconscious or out of habit or whatever, if we really look hard enough we will find that there was never a choice we ever made that cannot be connected to a desire.

now many things we do are influenced by our circumstances or by someone else's choices but in full honest inspection the choice was our own, and thence connected to our own desires.  you might at this point bring up the question of: well what about the things we do that we don't want to do? almost all of us at some point or another are compelled to do something we don't want to do.  in response to that I would bring up the question: well in the end, when the choice was made you made it for some reason or another, didn't you? 

I am sure that more often than not the answer would be: yes, but I didn't want to do it though..  and at first that would be true, but at some point in the process you either decided you wanted to do it because of some reason or another, or you just wanted to just find the easiest way out of the situation, but in either circumstance, you acted because you wanted to. and so we find that even in the situations that we are compelled to do something in the end we do it because we desired to, for some reason or another because we desired something, we acted.

and so relating directly to obedience and disobedience, it comes down to why we are being one or the other, why we do or do not obey the commandments, why we do or do not like church.

people are always asking questions like: why would God do this to me? or why is this happening to me?  Do we ever stop to think about why we are asking the question in the first place?  another question can also be asked, what is wanted? or like the savior himself puts the question: what desirest thou? we know that God knows our needs and what is best for us but almost all the time we find that what HE wants to know(even though he already knows what we want and/or need) is what is it that WE want.

if we really think about it, we might notice that when the lord is dealing with man he is mostly concerned with what it is we desire most. think about it in this light, if you truly thought about it, true, sincere prayer is when we have the opportunity to approach the most powerful being in the universe, and put our wants, needs, and other matters before him. and how often do we find that we usually face our prayers with, in a sense, a level of fear.

why do I use the word fear? because if you think about it almost all of us tend to be afraid to put our full desires on the table, maybe because of a sense of embarrassment if we were to put all our cares and desires on the table and address them, or maybe because we don't feel that some of our desires are important enough to bring them up with our heavenly father - but for whatever reason we just don't bring all of our desires before our father in heaven in our prayers.  not realizing what it is that we are failing to take advantage of, to have all our fears, doubts, wants, and needs all addressed and, in some cases, reconciled. truly having our thirst for something satisfied, a need truly filled, and, yes, a want fully satisfied or at least put into the right perspective and no longer a source of emptiness  pain, or (in probably quite a few cases) envy, and thus we can see that quite a few of our "inner voids" are there because we never quite take the time to ask the one person who can fill them to help us.

now, I am sorry that I just went on and on and on, on this subject, but it is something that I have been thinking about for some time, and I think it is a very crucial thing to understand when trying to understand ourselves, and what it is God wants for us.

this relates to the law of consecration and to the concept of Zion, neither will happen here in this life until our desires lead only to what we need and the needs of everyone else, in a very real sense, when we all WANT to meet the NEEDs of everyone around us and when we really WANT to be ONE with all our brothers and sisters, thats when things will change.

sorry to drag on like that and finish all quick like, but ya know me, right? anyway love you all and Dad, I wish you an early HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!;-}