God speaks today. So don't sleep through His talk.

"I'm thankful for my family. I know the church is true. I know Thomas S Monson is a prophet..."

President Thomas S. Monson.
Prophet, Seer, and Revelator

I've heard this testimony given every month, sometimes multiple times a month. I gave it myself as a child or heard it given by other children. Adults also give a varied version of this as well. A little more elaborate than those of their children, but still hitting on all the same points. One of those points invariably is the actuality of a living prophet.

We believe the prophet to be the voice of God for us today. It's stated many times in the scriptures and we hear infrequently in sacrament meeting. So why don't we believe it?

I'm not talking about a superficial belief here. I'm talking about the belief that is followed up by action. The belief that drives you towards actually living those principles you believe and not just proclaiming them. Too many of us are guilty of lip-service. If we believe so much in a living prophet then what is the last thing he said? Think about it. We're about to hit General Conference again. How many of us remember what President Thomas S Monson told us last conference?

For those few of you who actually do remember I congratulate you! For the rest of us though, I'll admit that I'm just as guilty as the next man who does not remember what was told us last conference by our prophet. I've reread and, even watched his talk again once, since April, but his message is not yet truly written in my heart. Because that's what happens when you truly believe something.

If you do remember what he said then I hope you've been able to truly apply it in your lives. For the rest of us I would recommend a small review here. (Click on the link)

A Living Prophet
The Jews of Christ's time were obsessed with the ancient prophets to the point of rejecting the Messiah they had with them. The Jews professed allegiance to Moses and lineage through Abraham. They said "If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets" (Matt 23:30), but then they turned around and killed their Savior.

Now I'll need to be careful with this application, but aren't we somewhat similar to those Jews in terms of our apathy? Or rather, application?

I think we've all had the thought, at once in our lives, of what it would be like to live during the time of Jesus Christ. To walk with Him and learn from Him. Maybe we've thought what it would be like to be a sibling of Nephi and what we would've done, how we would've listened. Possibly we've tried to imagine following Moses and how much more faithful we would've been than those slothful and idolatrous Israelites. Can you imagine what it would've been like to sit at his knee with the other Nephite children?

You know where I'm going with this:

"What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same."

(D&C 1:38, emphasis added) 

We all believe this. We all know in our heads that this is true. I can see you nodding your heads now and thinking: Yes, yes, the prophet speaks for God. Now I know where you're going with all that. But Andrew, we already know this.

Yes we know it. But perhaps we don't yet believe it.

The Most Important Prophet
Other that Jesus Christ, who certainly was a prophet even though He was so much more than that as well, who is the most important prophet for you? Was it Adam our first father? Maybe Noah who saved mankind from the flood? Was it Mormon who compiled the records for the Book of Mormon? Or was it Joseph Smith who translated that record and restored the church to the earth? I think you know where I'm going with this too.

The most important prophet for you and I right now is the living prophet. If all the records and writings of the ancient prophets were destroyed, and if every church building and temple were destroyed, and if every book and document of spiritual value on the earth were burned, we could still follow the living prophet. He would lead us and guide to follow the will of God and our souls would not be lost, the priesthood line of power would remain intact, and the keys, ordinances, and blessings of the temple could be restored and again distributed among the earth.

We too often take for granted the actuality of a living prophet and living 12 apostles.

A prophet in his own house
Christ said "A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house." (Mark 6:4) Those who grew up with Jesus and knew him personally before He began His holy ministry were the most reluctant to accept Him as their Savior while some who never did see Christ in the flesh were some of the most faithful to their testimony of His divinity.

This is similar to us. We are in the "prophet's country." We are his "kin" and his "house." Social media, the internet, and various other technologies have made access to the prophet and apostles so easy that with a few clicks of a button I can see what events they recently attended and the words they spoke there. This has poisoned us with apathy and tainted with procrastination the attention we might have given their words.

Think for a moment how things would be different if you only got to hear a prophet once every 5 years, and the only record you would have of his words were your own personal notes. How would that change your priorities. Would you go camping general conference weekend? Would you sleep through the talks? Of course not! You'd make great preparations to enable yourself to be there and to pay attention to every word!

"Awe don't watch it now.. You can just download it all later...
You'll be much more prepared to watch it later...
Think of all the other things you should be doing right now..."
Cordially, The Devil

It's too easy for us to think "Oh I can watch it later. I'll just download it from lds.org" or "Why would I take notes? I can just find the whole thing online." or "We're just gonna hear the same stuff in another 6 months. Missing this one won't make that much of a difference." Technology is amazing and is provided for us from God to give better access to His word, enabling us to fight against the waves of evil pounding our lives. Unfortunately technology has also enabled a level of procrastination that was not even possible in the time of our ancestors.

We've all heard the whole "don't procrastinate the day of your repentance" bit. In fact I think it's lost some of it's potency because of how often it's repeated. So I'll use a different scripture: "But behold, your days of probation are past; ye have procrastinated the day of your salvation until it is everlastingly too late, and your destruction is made sure; yea, for ye have sought all the days of your lives for that which ye could not obtain" (Hel 13:38)

What if at the Judgement bar of God we are asked for 50 things thing a living prophet taught us during our lifetime and how we applied it. Could we answer? Then perhaps the Lord, as with Lot, asks for forty, then thirty, then twenty, then only ten. The populations of Sodom and Gomorrah were substantial and yet Lot couldn't find even 10 men who were righteous enough to be spared. In our lives the number of times we have had an opportunity to hear a prophet or an apostle speak are even more numerous! And yet can we mention even 10 things that our living prophet and apostles have specifically told us recently?

The Scriptures
In talking about living prophets and apostles I want to make it clear that I mean no disrespect or down-playing of those prophets, seers, and revelators, whom have gone before. They all took pivotal roles in God's plans for His children, particularly those in the scriptures.

Taken to an extreme one might say that we have no need for the scriptures as we have living prophets and apostles. This is a very misguided approach to Gods word.

We will be judged out of the best books. Including these. ^

The scriptures are provided for our day just as much as living prophets and apostles are provided for us. We should not leave off reading our scriptures just to exclusively focus on the most recent general conference talks. The prophets and apostles have many times counseled us to daily scripture study. Perhaps their talks are given as augmentation of scriptural concepts, rather than to replace them. Any way you look at it we can not discount in the least the scriptures we have been so abundantly blessed with.

Prophetic Contradictions?
The words of the living prophets trump those of past prophets such as in OD 1&2. Understand that neither prophet were "wrong" or "right." They spoke what God revealed to them.

God teaches "line upon line, precept upon precept." We are told this many times in the scriptures. We don't get everything all at once. Also, God has warned us "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:9) We mere mortals might look at something and with our limited knowledge think "That does not make sense. God's contradicting Himself." But that is like an ant watching a man pick up a rock and thinking "He's breaking the law of gravity! He can't do that!" But it's merely the understanding of the higher law of physics that brings things back into focus.

The most effective way to reconcile perceived contradictions is to pray. Perhaps not to pray for an answer, but for patience and faith to put doubts behind you until the day when you can ask the God of Heaven and Earth for yourself. Ask if the living prophet is indeed chosen of God and if you should follow him. Then follow in faith the answers you receive.

"...whether by mine own voice 

or by the voice of my servants, 

it is the same."

(D&C 1:38)

General Conference
I'm very excited to be able to hear from our prophets and apostles this coming month. I promise to all of you and to myself that I will not only pay even better attention this time around, but that I will strive to apply into my life their teachings. I invite all of you to do the same.

Keep Pushing On.

Andrew

Eat Or Be Eaten

Humility is Weakness
Eat or be eaten. That's natural law. It's also an accurate representation of Jr high to high school. It was make fun or be made fun of. Be popular or be a looser.

Eighth grade was the toughest year of school for me. Not academically, but socially. I was made fun of for various things, the way I did my hair, the clothing I wore, the way I shot a basketball, etc. Names were thrown at me: "Comb-over kid" for my hair and "frog-stalker," a combination insult of the way I shot a basketball and the fact I had a little crush on a certain girl. I finally got some respect once I found ways to mock those who were mocking me, but I didn't like what mocking others did to me on the inside. The school year passed by and 9th grade was a little easier. The school was a little bigger, the taunts less personal, and I was able to find myself again.

Humility was and is not a trait highly valued in our the world for our children then or now. Rather it's the talent, the pride which we value. And we're not much better as adults.

In a society which downplays our strengths and magnifies our weaknesses humility is seen as a weakness.

Lets be honest, Wolverine has almost no humility.

Thousands of hours of television, movies, and video games have brainwashed us into thinking that the strongest man is the man who fights, not the man who controls his anger and walks away.

Admitting you're wrong is weakness rather than upstanding moral character.

The winners of arguments are those who can degrade furthest the character of their opponent, rather than the actual weighing of the facts.

Giving the benefit of the doubt is seen as ignorance and foolishly, misplaced optimism in a time when assuming the worst about people and jumping to worst-case scenarios are the go-to judgement-calls for "realists."

We are turning into the Nephites at their peak of pride. In fact, I would confidently say that we're worse than they ever were. The nearly ubiquitous attitude of pride-filled entitlement in this country is truly breath-taking.

A survey was taken concerning how people planned to retire. The top answer was lawsuit. People actually have a firm belief that they can just sue someone else out of all their money and then retire. Remind you of any other people? How about Ammonihah?

I think it's fairly obvious that humility, not oil, is the scarcest of our natural resources.

Humility is Strength
Enough of my rambling. What does the Lord have to say. In my list of Commandments and Blessings (which is by no means comprehensive) humility is spoken of no less than 22 times. That's kind of a lot.

Humility is often required in addition to other traits to be granted blessings, but there are a few sets of verses when humility in and of itself is the requirement. It's actually very instructive to me that the very first isolatable commandment linked to a blessing in the D&C is about humility.

"And inasmuch as they were humble they might be made 

strong, and blessed from on high, and receive knowledge 

from time to time."

(D&C 1:28)

Did anyone else catch that God wants us to know that humility is not weakness, but rather strength? God is trying desperately to help us understand that what the world is telling us is the exact opposite of what is actually truth. That shouldn't be a surprise to anyone by now. I think we all get that the world and God aren't exactly in alignment.

Humility, though it appears to be weakness,
will outweigh pride in strength every time.

Humility does so much for us! It's no wonder that Satan is trying to drive us away from it! "Be thou humble; and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand, and give thee answer to thy prayers." (D&C 112:10). Little can be done towards the salvation of a prideful person until they are brought down to humility.

Pride is the root of all sin. President Benson gave an iconic talk on pride appropriately titled Beware of Pride. He explains that pride has been around as long as we have. Even in the pre-mortal life pride is what caused Satan to rebel against God. So then, doesn't it make perfect sense that in trying to steer us away from God here in mortality the devil will try to poison us with the same draft that lead to his own rebellion?

Pride vs Self-Confidence
People will say that they're not prideful, they just have a lot of self esteem, a lot of self confidence. Well, 'scuse me for interrupting, but what passes for self-confidence most of the time now used to be called pride.

There is a distinct attitude in the world today, mostly among the youth and young adults, of "I don't care what anyone has to say or what anyone thinks or what anyone else does. I am me and if you don't like it then you can get out of my face and quit judging me cause I'm just the way I am and I'm not changing for you or anyone else." Hmmmm, yeah that's not self-confidence. That's straight up pride. But that's what's passing for self-confidence nowadays!

I don't even know what else I could say about that. It's so obvious once you look at it. Self confidence is not this "I don't care what you say or what you think" bit. Self confidence is deciding to care what some people think and deciding not to care what others think. Like this. You'd better care what God thinks first of all. And you'd better care about what your teachers and your parents think too. You don't have to let them run your life, but they can give you pretty good advice. Self confidence is knowing your imperfections. Not that you don't care about them, but that you're confident enough to recognize them and work on them!

So be sure that when you're talking about pride you include those particular brands of "self confidence," cause if we're honest with ourselves, it's really just pride by a different name.

To Combat an Idea
For us to be able to turn ourselves toward humility we must see how the world is playing us, how we are being tricked into false definitions of strength and "winning" and "loosing." God defines humility and grounding in true principles as strength. The world defines strength as pride and the ability to beat the snot out of anyone who stands in your way.

In eighth grade we were playing basketball at recess. I don't remember the details of what happened, but I got in a bit of a scuffle with another boy. After a few swings I realized that, while I wasn't in the wrong, fighting wasn't the answer and so I backed away, he came after me but was pulled back by a teacher who saw the whole thing. I was still pretty mad, but didn't want to start anything else, so I went into the restroom to cool down for a minute. I splashed a little water on my face, and walked out after a few minutes. Well guess who was called the victor and who was called the looser. Because I had backed away first then I was the "looser." Because I had walked away from the situation I was called a "crybaby."

Haha it's alright I'm over it now, but that's pretty much how the world declares a "winner." Take big business for example. You've gotta be careful about admitting you're in the wrong when something bad goes down cause if people see a scapegoat they'll pile everything on top of you and kick you out the door.

When all is said and done it will matter very little how many
trophies are on the walls of your home, but rather the
quality of your heart.

We need to, as individuals, change our perception of winning and loosing, of strength and weakness. We must strive to see that the humble of heart are much further along this race of life than we are. Any missionary, anyone who has tried to share the gospel with another human being knows that the humble at heart are the most willing to turn their lives over to God.

To combat the false perceptions of strength and humility that the world has given us we must recognize the lies for what they are, and then wield against them truth.

Humility vs Weakness
So where then is the line between being humble and letting people take advantage of you? That's how most people see it at least. Either you're strong, prideful, and show people who's boss, or you're humble, weak, pitiful, and let people just walk all over you. The question is NOT whether we should be humble or be strong. Don't let Satan even tempt you to ask the question that way. We know that humility brings strength, not weakness.

Look at Christ. He was perfectly humble. He acknowledged His father's hand in all things. But no one can say that people walked all over Him. He cast the money-changers out of the temple, He called out the Scribes and Pharisees multiple times, He stood up for what was right with everything He did and said. Because of His perfect humility in deferring to the Father He was granted strength from the Father to do everything that was necessary for Him to do.

Humility is not weakness. Humility is strength.

Don't Pray for Humility, Cause Then You Might Be Humbled
I'm afraid this is one of the tools Satan has used to infiltrate the church. This phrase is absolutely true. If you pray for humility then God will grant you what you ask for and help you to have humility. What Satan has done, however, is turned that around and used it against us.

This frustrates me so much though! Are we so in love with our pride and so afraid of God that we refuse to pray for humility?? We refuse to ask an infinitely loving God, who has our best interest at heart and our exaltation as His goal, to aid us in the development of one of the most Christ-like attributes available to man?

No one, not one of us, is perfectly humble. This is something that we should all be praying for frequently! And you know why? Because if pride is the root of all sin then by the Law of Opposition humility must be the root of all righteousness! And it makes perfect sense!

If we are humble we will be able to develop charity towards our fellow man, we will trust God, we will serve others, we will follow the commandments, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera! We cannot become like God without humility. As we develop humility we will begin to develop other Christ-like attributes as a natural and instinctive outcome.

Humility, the Root of All Righteousness
May we not be fearful, but rather trust in God enough to pray for humility. See pride and aggrandizement for what it is and don't be pulled into the worldly definitions of "winning" and "strength." Learn to find your strength in humility, rather than looking for strength in spite of humility.

May we all find ourselves a little more humility today and forever.

Keep pushing on.

Andrew