The Work of Salvation - Happy Ever After

Speaking to the Young Adults of Southern Ontario and surrounding locales.  

I love the YSA.  I love them because I was them.  I love them because they are so beautiful and so wonderful and so powerful.  The chapel is high energy.  That energy is a spiritual power.  The power of possibilities.  The power of change and of making a difference.  The power of truth and righteousness.  I love them because they have their future in mortality before them and they are all going to make it real.  They are all going to hold on and build each other.  They have the strength to hold on.  They have the faith to move and they have a voice.   

Take your journey to learn, act and become and find your voice.  This is your time.  

Hasten the Work of Salvation on Your Journey to Happiness

David and Goliath - according to Malcolm Gladwell, a very popular modern author, we have misunderstood the story of David and Goliath.  We are often invited to imagine ourselves as David and then admonished to have faith like David in overcoming the obstacles in our lives.  Goliath is the ultimate difficult obstacle.  He wants to kill you and he is a scary man.  He is like a boggart to the armies of Israel, something that appears to be what we would fear more than anything else.  

"So the boggart sitting in the darkness within has not yet assumed a form. He does not yet know what will frighten the person on the other side of the door. Nobody knows what a boggart looks like when he is alone, but when I let him out, he will immediately become whatever each of us most fears."

—Professor Lupin to his Third year class in 1993^[src]

A boggart is an amortal shape-shifting non-being that takes on the form of the viewer's worst fear. When facing a boggart, it is best to have someone else along, to try to confuse it, since facing more than one person at once would make it indecisive as to what form it must take, usually a mixed-up amalgam of the victims' fears. Because of their shape-shifting ability, no one knows what a boggart looks like when it is alone, as it instantly changes into your worst fears when you first see it.  Boggarts sometimes do not have the same strength or magic as what they imitate, for example, a Boggart transformed into aDementor has weaker magic than a real Dementor, according to Lupin, or having a deadly scream as a true Banshee, which would otherwise have slaughtered the entire class. This was partly why he chose to simulate a Dementor attack in Harry's presence to help him perfect the use of the Patronus Charm.

A boggart in the form of Professor Snape, while Neville Longbottom casts the Riddikulus Charm.

The charm that combats a boggart is Riddikulus. The charm requires a strong mind and good concentration. The incantationand wand movement alone will not affect a boggart.

The correct way to perform the charm is to push past the fear, and concentrate on something that will make the boggart look amusing. The charm does not, in fact, repel a boggart; it just forces it to assume a shape that the caster will find comical, inspiring laughter, which will defeat a boggart  

So what is the perspective with which we should face our Goliath?  The Harry Potter fictional approach to facing a boggart is a good clue.  The approach that Malcolm Gladwell takes is to transform our understanding of the battle between David and Goliath.

Three thousand years ago on a battlefield in ancient Palestine, a shepherd boy felled a mighty warrior with nothing more than a stone and a sling, and ever since then the names of David and Goliath have stood for battles between underdogs and giants. David's victory was improbable and miraculous. He shouldn't have won. 

Or should he have? 

In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell challenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, offering a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, or cope with a disability, or lose a parent, or attend a mediocre school, or suffer from any number of other apparent setbacks.

Gladwell begins with the real story of what happened between the giant and the shepherd boy those many years ago. From there, David and Goliath examines Northern Ireland's Troubles, the minds of cancer researchers and civil rights leaders, murder and the high costs of revenge, and the dynamics of successful and unsuccessful classrooms---all to demonstrate how much of what is beautiful and important in the world arises from what looks like suffering and adversity. 

In the tradition of Gladwell's previous bestsellers---The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers and What the Dog Saw---David and Goliath draws upon history, psychology, and powerful storytelling to reshape the way we think of the world around us.

The Work of Salvation - Our personal journey in this life is to overcome the Goliaths we face and gain salvation from Death and Sin.  As a group, we can overcome and bring every one of us and many, many more to fulfill the full measure of our creation.  Our Potential is unimaginably powerful.  Our potential is all about simple doctrines and truths and developing patterns of life that are in harmony with correct principles.  These are "magical" in that we only partially understand their workings.  We are here to increase in learning, to act in doctrine and to fulfill our power to become.  Learn of Jesus and his powers and purposes and plans, act according to his doctrines, patterns and fulfill all that you have the potential to become and to be.

To quote Elder David Bednar, 
"Increase in Learning, focused upon the doctrines, principles, and patterns related to the learning imperative. Act in Doctrine focuses upon the doctrines, principles, and patterns related to our obligation to translate what we know into what we do. And learning and acting in accordance with revealed gospel truth ultimately can invite into our lives the “power to become” (Doctrine and Covenants 11:30) all that the Father’s plan of salvation makes possible for us."

Learning by faith and learning from experience are two of the central features of the Father’s plan of happiness. The powerful examples of latter-day learners—including Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Gordon B. Hinckley, and some less well-known members of the Church—highlight for us the importance of continually seeking learning by study and also by faith (see Doctrine and Covenants 88:118).

You and I are here upon the earth to prepare for eternity, to learn how to learn, to learn things that are temporally important and eternally essential, and to assist others in learning wisdom and truth (see Doctrine and Covenants 97:1). Understanding who we are, where we came from, and why we are upon the earth places upon each of us a great responsibility both to learn how to learn and to learn to love learning.

That every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment” (Doctrine and Covenants 101:78; emphasis added). This volume builds upon and extends the patterns described in Increase in Learning and discusses why we should and how we can “act in doctrine.”

We are admonished to search and understand “great knowledge” (2 Nephi 32:7)—even the true knowledge of our Redeemer (see Mosiah 27:36; Helaman 15:13; 3 Nephi 16:4). But we do not learn just to know, and we do not act just to comply or conform. Rather, our learning and acting are to be lastingly transformational as we become new creatures in Christ (see 2 Corinthians 5:17) and offer our whole souls unto God (see Omni 1:26).

Recall that Joseph Smith did not pray simply to know which church was true. He prayed to know which church was true so he would know which church to join (see Joseph Smith–History 1:18). And the same truth that led Joseph to the Sacred Grove to “ask in faith” (James 1:6) applies precisely to you and to me. We need to increase in learning of revealed truth so we can act in doctrine and thereby apply what we know and do for righteous purposes.

“Behold, I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I am the life and the light of the world.

“I am the same who came unto mine own and mine own received me not;

“But verily, verily, I say unto you, that as many as receive me, to them will I give power to become the sons [and daughters] of God, even to them that believe on my name. Amen” (Doctrine and Covenants 11:28–30; emphasis added; see also Doctrine and Covenants 39:4; 42:52; John 1:12).

In the tenth and final chapter of the book of Moroni, he declares that a testimony of the Book of Mormon comes by the power of the Holy Ghost, that spiritual gifts are dispensed to the faithful, and that we are to come unto Christ and be perfected in Him. As he then concludes his record, he says good-bye to his future readers and proclaims his final witness and testimony.

“And now I bid unto all, farewell. I soon go to rest in the paradise of God, until my spirit and body shall again reunite, and I am brought forth triumphant through the air, to meet you before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the Eternal Judge of both quick and dead. Amen” (Moroni 10:34).

The phrase I find most interesting in this verse is “the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the Eternal Judge of both quick and dead” (emphasis added). Please note that Moroni described the judgment bar of the great Jehovah as pleasing. Many individuals likely find the thought of standing before the Eternal Judge to be frightening, intimidating, overwhelming, tormenting, and daunting—many things other than pleasing. But Moroni was not fearful of or apprehensive about this inevitable day of reckoning. He looked forward to meeting us at the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah! Moroni understood before his death, at least in part, what awaited him beyond the veil.

A simple question arises in my mind and heart from this benedictory scripture: How could and did Moroni come to know in mortality that the judgment bar of the great Jehovah would be pleasing?

Can you and I, like Moroni, truly come to know that the path we are pursuing in our lives pleases God? And if it is possible to know these things, how can we know? Such questions indeed are some of the most pointed and poignant questions of the soul.

As we increase in learning about the Savior and His gospel, as we strive with ever greater consistency to act in His doctrine, ordinances, and covenants, then we are blessed with power through His Atonement to increasingly become like Him. Our hearts and natures are changed, and our desires are directed to Him and His purposes. His will supersedes our will. His desires supplant our desires. His purposes become our purposes. These changes rarely occur quickly, dramatically, or all at once; rather, they come into our lives “line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little” (2 Nephi 28:30).

I started by indicating that you have a voice.  Through social media, you each have an enormous megaphone that is akin to the still small voice.  USE YOUR VOICE.  Hastening the Work of Salvation is a pattern that if acted upon will transform you and thousands of others of your brothers and sisters.

At the beginning of this blog, I inserted a family picture and I inserted a picture of friends and loved ones.  Women love missionaries.  Men love missionaries.  Missionaries are truly learning, acting and becoming in a most powerful way. Can you see more clearly now why serving as a missionary is such a powerful experience in our journey?   

Overcoming sin is no more difficult than overcoming a boggart or a Goliath.  This is the work of salvation.  Your real Goliath is sin.  Death has already been overcome for you.  Sin is standing at the door every day inviting and enticing you to embrace it's seductive and false beauty.  

Use your faith to slay this Goliath with the most certain victory - you need not fear sin.  The atonement slays sin and death.  You are David and you have the most certain victory and your victory will be no less glorious than David's.  Humbly gird yourself with armor (learning and patterns), with the right weapons (your voice and your media and the most powerful weapon for soldiers on the front lines - the spirit) and with the best horses (today we use planes instead of horses - a very small plug for aeronautical engineers).  Your car is a horse that can transform lives - please use it to take people to church and to the temple and to.....  Make no mistake - you are today's warriors in the eternal battle for the souls of men. 

The warfare is continued in mortality in the conflict between right and wrong, between the gospel and false principles, etc. The same contestants and the same issues are doing battle, and the same salvation is at stake. Bible Dictionary

MAKE THE ATONEMENT real in your life and the lives of many, many thousands through your voice.  I haven't even started on the temple.  Imagine your God constructing a house where he will personally teach you (endow you with learning), invite you and teach you to act (endow you with the patterns for life) and give you the power to become (endow you with trans-formative experiences of eternity)   You are His sons and daughters.    Take your journey to learn, act and become and find your voice.  This is your time.  You can hasten the work of salvation on your journey to true happiness.

Dad