On Being Strong Men
Recently, this scripture caught my attention: “Or else how can one enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house.” (Matt. 12:29)
These words were spoken by the Savior in the context of casting out devils, but I wonder if a simple application to modern homes and families wouldn’t be appropriate. Isn’t it true that the best way for Satan to take down a family is to bring down the father? I don’t know, but it certainly seems true on too-many occasions.
Men are particularly susceptible to sexual frustration, addiction, and misconduct. Some struggle emotionally to cope with anger and other negative emotions. Men are also more likely than women (at least in my observation) to struggle with faith. A man’s divine tendencies toward the practical and logical can be a double-edged sword. Those thought processes may either strengthen or weaken his resolve to exercise faith.
Meanwhile, the good that can be done by men is truly awesome. Wives desire husbands who are kind and faithful. Like God, himself, many wives are willing to overlook a man’s imperfections when his heart is sincere and true. Children love fathers who are kind, loving, honest – and act like they’re going somewhere that is good and purposeful and includes the family. Not in every case, but generally, wives and children will follow such a man, wanting to be where he is and go where he’s going.
A man’s role is to protect and lead his family. Of course, protecting them means spiritually and emotionally and not just physically. Protecting them doesn’t mean over-protecting them. On the contrary, it means creating a safe environment through which they can increase their own capacity to protect themselves and others.
When a man is, as the Savior mentions, “strong” – meaning less that he has large muscles than that he is faithful, generous, devoted and accepts his role as a stand-in, of sorts, for the Savior – the family is far more likely to be safe in every important sense. If, however, the Adversary can find a way to “bind the strong man” through sin or faithlessness (or both), the risk of the family becoming “spoiled” increases dramatically.
May I – and all the men I know and love – be “strong men” as the Savior desires, as our families desire, and as our true, divine, masculine natures incline us to be. Doing so not only brings safety; it is a critical part of living after the manner of happiness.
Three Keys to Happy Relationships
A year or two ago, we administered an anonymous, on-line survey in the Highland 22nd ward among the adults. 62 people responded, including 25 men and 37 women. Most had been married between 10 and 25 years, but some less and some more – and a few not at all.
In the survey, we asked five questions, including these three for which they had to come up with their own answers:
- If I had a daughter, I would advise her to look for the following 1-3 characteristics in a potential husband.
- If I had a son, I would advise him to look for the following 1-3 characteristics in a potential wife.
- I appreciate these three things the most in my spouse.
After tallying up the answers and identifying the top three responses to each of the questions, it was interesting to note that all three questions yielded the exact same top three answers. The more I have thought about those three things, the more profound they have become to me – their simplicity contributing greatly to their profundity. It you want to be a good spouse, you should (in no particular order, according to our survey):
- Be nice
- Be committed
- Be productive
Recently I’ve wondered if these aren’t also three critical keys to being a good parent. I’m fond of thinking that parenting might be best measured using the same yardstick Preach My Gospel promotes for measuring missionaries – by our commitment to bringing souls to Christ. The three ideas of being nice (including a whole host of kindness-related attributes), being committed (to Christ; and also to our families), and being productive (demonstrating our commitment through discipline and hard work) seem like three important ways we can help our children know and love the Savior.
Here’s a quick look at what these three things do and don’t look like. Without beating yourself up about your imperfections (seriously! my goodness, ladies, give yourself a break – God does!), ask yourself if being better at something here wouldn’t improve your effectiveness as a spouse or parent (or probably fill in the blank for any other relationship).
Being nice looks like:
- Being patient
- Showing interest in their interests
- Being gentle
- Being affectionate
- Acting happy to be with the person
- Pulling your weight
Being nice does not look like:
- Being critical or sarcastic
- Using harsh language
- Ignoring people or being non-communicative
- Being manipulative or controlling – even with kids
Being committed looks like:
- Acting as well at home as we do at church
- Worshipping privately
- Attending the Saturday evening session of stake conference (and similar)
- Serving in callings; loving those we serve; and magnifying the calling
Being committed does not look like:
- Putting anything else in our lives ahead of the Savior, his gospel, and his church
- Worldliness, including the pursuit of things or excessive emphasis on our own appearance
- Selfishness or a lack of humility
Being productive looks like:
- Being busy / “anxiously engaged”
- On the things that matter to the Lord
- And that matter to our spouses and children
Being productive does not look like:
- Watching T.V.
- Living an unordered life in an unordered home
- Over-indulgence in hobbies and personal interests
- Being the person who never shows up to help someone move or clean their home
The Savior showed us these three things. Living prophets today also demonstrate them. The better we are at them, the better our relationships can be. And relationships are everything. Don’t you think?
“…it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath…”
The Sabbath, it seems to me, is one part blessing, one part opportunity, and one part test.
The blessings are many! Through our Sabbath worship, attitude, and change of pace, including church attendance, our spirits, bodies, and minds are rejuvenated. Honoring the Sabbath keeps us “unspotted from the world.” It also results in the Lord blessing us in ways that are scripturally broad (“I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth” and “the fullness of the earth is yours” and “therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days,” for example)—but which become individual and specific as we recognize distinct blessings in our lives. As in many aspects of our covenant relationship with God, those blessings flow generously depending upon the sincerity and contrition of our hearts.
The opportunities are also many! “The Sabbath was made for man!” And: “it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath!” (My exclamation points.) The Sabbath is for doing good. The Savior taught this over and over again as he healed a man with a withered hand, another with “the dropsy,” a woman bent 18 years with infirmity, and, no doubt, others. He taught of “weightier matters,” which certainly place people and worship and principles and attributes over rules. He taught that an ox in a pit must be pulled out and that people who hunger must be fed.
James taught about visiting the widows and fatherless. In fact, the phrase “unspotted from the world” is found twice in the scriptures: once as an introduction to the Savior’s teachings on keeping the Sabbath in D&C 59 and also connected to James’s teachings about “pure” and “undefiled” religion. Clearly the Sabbath is for serving others and is an opportunity to give of ourselves, typically in quiet ways, to lifting, building, encouraging—and maybe even helping heal—others. True Sabbath worship consists of more do’s than don’ts.
The Sabbath is also a test—a test of our hearts. The Sabbath might be made for man, but it was given as a “sign” and a “covenant” and is about our relationship with God. Of the ten commandments Moses received on Sinai, the first four specifically refer to our worshipping and respecting God. The fourth of those is “Remember the Sabbath.” That probably means remembering more than that the day of the week is Sunday and that that’s the day we’re supposed to go to church. Remembering the Sabbath might mean remembering the Savior, remembering God’s love, remembering that He provides for us, remembering His mercy, and remembering to have grateful hearts. It might mean remembering that our hearts should be broken and our spirits contrite. It definitely means worshipping and demonstrating that we “have no other gods before [Him].”
Keeping (or honoring or remembering) the Sabbath is yet another way to live after the manner of real happiness. Lasting and meaningful joy is found neither in Super Bowl games, Super Bowl outcomes, Super Bowl commercials, nor in Super Bowl parties. Nor is it found in demonstrations of isolated piety or in sleeping all day. Joy and happiness are found in placing God first, knowing that we sincerely strive to place Him first, knowing that He knows that we strive to place Him first, and in serving Him by serving our neighbors: family, friends, and strangers. May we seize the day.
“…the very essence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ”!
This week we covered the topic. I won’t claim it’s the most important topic there is, considering that the atonement, faith in Christ, and covenants are awfully important topics (to say the least). But. This topic strikes at the very core of how we see our Father in Heaven, how we see the Savior, how we see others, and how we see ourselves. We cannot live after the manner of happiness if we do not live this principle. We certainly do live after the manner of misery when we don’t live it.
The topic? Forgiveness.
Gordon B. Hinckley said, “A spirit of forgiveness and an attitude of love and compassion toward those who may have wronged us is of the very essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” The very essence!
Five forgiveness-related principles clearly taught in the scriptures seem important:
- I must forgive others if I am to be forgiven. This is taught in the Lord’s prayer—and in the next two verses following the Lord’s prayer in the Sermon on the Mount: “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” The Savior teaches a wonderful and critical parable in Matthew 18 about the servant who, though readily forgiven by a compassionate king, failed to pay it forward and so was “delivered to the tormentors” by that same compassionate—and just—king. How quickly he went from bondage to freedom and back to bondage again! I cannot hope for much needed forgiveness from the Savior as long as I withhold forgiveness from another.
- I must forgive repeatedly—even the same person, even the same offense. (Note: Forgiving someone does not mean becoming their doormat or tolerating being their victim.) Peter asked plainly, “How oft shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?” The Lord’s answer was less plain, but its point is nevertheless clear. Surely “until seventy times seven” means each and every time and does not suggest that we stop after 490. How dangerous of us to forget, when we become frustrated or worse by the repeated failures and offenses of a loved one, that the Savior passed 490 times with us a very, very long time ago. When losing patience with another, we might ask, “How oft shall I sin and need God’s forgiveness in order to live with Him again?”
- I will be judged as harshly—or as mercifully—as I judge. “With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged,” the Savior said. And, paraphrasing Him, “The measuring stick you use for others shall be used to measure you.” On the other hand—and how beautiful this is!—“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Peter, after objecting to the Savior washing his feet and then understanding that it was necessary if Peter were to live again with the Savior, cried, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.” Similarly, when we come to realize that the merciful obtain mercy and that we need mercy, we should become enthusiastic about extending mercy and the most generous judgment possible to others. Before Moroni exhorts us to pray about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, he instructs us to remember and ponder on the mercy of God. Interesting how the pondering of God’s mercy brings the Spirit into our hearts.
- I commit the bigger sin when I fail to forgive. Really? My spouse cheats on me and I fail to forgive and I have the bigger sin? Somebody abuses my small child and I withhold forgiveness and I have the bigger sin? Do any of us actually believe this principle?! Perhaps it’s easy for me to say I do when I’ve never been offended to those degrees, but what’s the logic behind it? Isn’t failing to forgive someone a rejection of the atonement? Isn’t it a rejection of the idea that the offender can and may very well be forgiven by God? And isn’t it a rejection of the idea that I need forgiveness, myself—that I am the very beggar and unprofitable servant King Benjamin talks about? Am I not even, in a sense, placing myself above God? What could be worse than that?
- I must respond to offense with charity. The “eye for an eye” days are over—and not just for everybody else! Instead… “love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you.” Do good to them! Not snarky good. Genuine good. We have heard, even in General Conference, about the exemplary ability of the Amish to forgive. Anabaptists have a long history of loving their enemies and blessing them that curse them. We should all remember the example of Dirk Willems.
Forgiveness benefits the forgiver. President Kimball said, “The essence … of forgiveness is that it brings peace to the previously anxious, restless, frustrated, perhaps tormented soul.” Interesting that words like frustrated and tormented are used here to describe not the offender, but the offended. Such words probably describe both parties. Relief comes through forgiveness, which comes from seeing the offender, myself, and God all accurately: the offender as someone trying and sometimes (perhaps often) failing just like me, myself as someone in infinite need of forgiveness, and God as generous and benevolent toward all his children.
We should remember just how willing the Savior is to forgive. “There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both.” The phrase “when they had nothing to pay” is notable. I think of it as meaning that their hearts were broken and their spirits contrite. At that point, he forgave them “frankly.” Frankly means (at least according to Webster in 1828) “without reserve or constraint; liberally; freely.” When our hearts are broken, forgiveness comes freely. Yet! “I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men,” whether their hearts are broken or not—for “the Lord looketh on the heart”—and sees what I cannot.
Our willingness or unwillingness to forgive says so much about us!
Do I see myself, in spite of my awareness of other people’s shortcomings, as being desperately in need of the grace of God, myself? Do I recognize myself as the servant who truly owes “ten thousand talents”? Do I see those who offend me as owing me much less than that? Do I avoid even taking offense because I see my own shortcomings reflected in those of the person who wrongs me? Or do I respond to others with indignation because of my failure to see both my shortcomings and their pain and disadvantages? Am I adequately generous with other people when I try to explain their behavior to myself? Do I see God as the kind, generous, compassionate father He is? Do I forget in my moments of self-absorption that his kindness, compassion, generosity, and willingness to forgive extend to those I am not forgiving? Or do I sincerely celebrate the fact that they do and let Him deal with whatever justice must be dealt with?
Do I appreciate the fact that other people are trying; that they, too, yearn for happiness; that they, too, regret their repeated shortcomings; and that they have spiritual and emotional scars with which I may lack both awareness and understanding?
The scriptures have some beautiful, touching examples of forgiveness. One of the best is the story of Joseph. After debating killing him, Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery where he suffered temptation, ended up in prison, but rose to great power. (You know the story.) Yet when Joseph finally reveals himself to his brothers, his thoughts and feelings are for them. They are not about how he was wronged. Rather, they reveal his anxiousness to provide comfort to them!
“Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God… Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto him… thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children’s children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast: And there will I nourish thee; for yet there are five years of famine; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty. And he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. Moreover he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them…”
May we be like Joseph. May we reflect the character of Christ, and, at all times, even during the hard moments, turn our thoughts to the other person and have our hearts and minds, inviting compassion.
“…for the Lord seeth not as man seeth…”
What do we see when we encounter or interact with other people? Whether it’s your best friend, a teacher at school, a clerk at the 7-Eleven, your mother, the person in your rear-view mirror tailgating you, an old rival from high school, a co-worker, someone standing near a road holding a sign asking for money… When you see these people, what do you see? Which “them” do you see?
Numerous scriptures refer to seeing incorrectly or not seeing at all in spite of having the ability. We read things like:
- “they seeing see not” (Matthew 13:13)
- “having eyes, see ye not?” (Mark 8:18)
- “wo unto the blind that will not see” (2 Nephi 9:32)
- “we see through a glass, darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12)
- “seeing many things but thou observest not” (Isaiah 42:20)
The promise is that the Savior, who “seeth not as man seeth,” will help make it so “that they which see not might see.” (1 Samuel 16:7 and John 9:39) To illustrate his ability to do so, he gave sight to many physically blind people during his ministry—one of whom emphatically declared, “One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.” (John 9:25)
What is it, exactly, that we should see so much differently—so much more clearly—than we normally do? Some things high on our list might be: God, the nature of his love for us, and his role in our lives; ourselves and who we really are; also, our correct relationship to God. Thursday we discussed seeing other people more clearly.
The 13th Article of Faith says that we believe in being benevolent. Benevolent means having an inclination to be good and generous toward others, wishing others well, and having goodwill toward others. It is the opposite of having malice or ill will toward others.
The Savior showed us myriad examples of benevolence. He seemed to see people in a way that looked right past typical interpretations from outward appearances and status, and focused on their goodness, potential, and efforts. How did he react to the woman taken in adultery? To the publicans Matthew and Zacchaeus? To children (who were apparently annoying to some)? To the paralyzed man lowered through a roof to him? To the man at the pool of Bethesda? To the woman who touched the hem of his garment? To dozens or hundreds or thousands of others he healed? To thousands who came to hear him teach—and didn’t have enough to eat? To Nephites and Lamanites who longed to be with him? And so on.
Who did you encounter yesterday and how did you see them? Did you see someone who annoys or angers or offends you? Did you see someone who is less than you or better than you? Did you see someone you’re competing with or someone you need to appear a certain way to? Or did you see someone deserving of compassion, patience, and respect because, just like you, they have worries and struggles and pains and shortcomings (which probably trouble them more than they trouble you)? Was your first inclination to appreciate them for their humanity?
The good people at the Arbinger Institute have a lot to say about these topics. The principles they teach in The Anatomy of Peace and The Peacegiver are worth studying because they teach a practical approach to seeing others properly and exercising benevolence from our inside out, the way the Savior does. Among the principles they teach are the ideas of a “heart at peace” (which sees and reacts to people as humans like me) and a “heart at war” (which sees and reacts to people negatively). Perhaps my favorite principle is the concept that people actually perceive the state of our hearts toward them and reciprocate. However, they do it, people we encounter have a sixth sense which tells them whether we are viewing them with empathy and respect or not. If I am, they tend to react to me the same way and good things happen between us. If I am not, they tend to reciprocate my coldness and wrong thinking and we generally take nothing of any good meaning away from our encounter.
The point is that people are people. And people live and love and struggle and endure and laugh and cry and regret themselves and a million things—just like you and I. Mostly, they are good and trying and even though they frequently come up short, they continue to struggle and try and look for peace and happiness just like the rest of us. We owe them benevolence. We believe in benevolence. The Savior’s heart was (is) always at peace. He sees people with concern for them more than concern for himself. To the extent that I do the same, my life is richer and fuller and more rewarding—and the people I spend either brief encounters or a lifetime of companionship with also enjoy greater happiness. Seeing others the way Jesus sees them is one important way to live after the manner of happiness.
Living "after the manner of happiness" 