Hello friends.
I've had a lot on my mind about the last general conference lately. [For any of my readers who might not be aware, General Conference is a world-wide, weekend-long series of addresses from the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It's amazing(!) and I, along with many other members of the Church, look forward to it every six months.] Many of the talks from this last conference (October 2019) hit at exactly what I've been pondering for myself/in my life. Maybe because...
- Conference talks have been somewhat correlated with the Come Follow Me manual
- Conference talks are often correlated to each other because of the Spirit
- the Spirit has bee directing my thoughts, OR
- my own brain has been mushing everything together and trying to make something coherent out of all of it.
It's probably all four of those reasons. Because of these four things, I have a lot I feel I should share. I will be sharing a lot of my own recent spiritual/emotional thoughts and journey, and I hope that the questions I've been asking myself will be able to help you ponder and discover as you read through them. The topics I am going to share here are things that made me ask some complex questions of myself, so I want to take a self-reflective journey with you today. My hope is that you allow room for wherever our loving Heavenly Father will guide your thoughts as you read mine.
With that being said, I ask that you pause your reading for a moment. I encourage you to mentally do whatever you need to in order to get into an open, pondering, discovering frame of mine. Think a silent prayer. Take out notes. Clear distractions. Focus. Whatever you normally do when you want to deeply listen to your thoughts (and to God).
...read on once you're ready...
The two topics my thoughts will be centered on are:
- How the Gospel (or following God's plan for us) helps us be happy
- Emotional independence
I have been discovering that these topics are closely tied together. A talk in this last General Conference, given by D. Todd Christofferson, was the talk that initiated these thoughts for me. He reminded us how living God's plan for us (often called the Plan of Salvation by members of the LDS Church) and becoming Christ-like will bring us joy.
Question: What is it about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and living it that is supposed to bring us joy in this life?
We've heard time and again how living the Gospel is meant to help us be happy. How? Why? I'll repeat Christofferson's answers: living the Plan of Salvation and becoming Christlike will bring us joy.
Christ is the ultimate example of, well, everything we should strive to be. That applies to his example to us of living the Gospel. And while he likely wasn't constantly happy in a peppy, smiley, bubbles and sparkles sort of way (which is the imagery that comes to mind for me when I think of the concept of "happy"), I like to think He was/is pretty emotionally well-adjusted.
The harsh words of others didn't crush Him.
Things looking stressful or chaotic didn't send Him into a frenzy (read: totally me)
Most days, He didn't even know where He would eat or sleep, and that didn't seem to effect His mood or His ability to love and reach out to others.
He was so in tune with His Father that the things that weigh you and me down in this life had less effect on Him and He was able to simply listen to and follow the Spirit (fairly calmly, it seems to me) throughout His life. I'm not yet wise enough to know how exactly to define happiness, but I think the peace and assurity of living 100% in line with the Spirit is pretty dang close to what happiness is meant to be. Let's think about that prospect for a second See how this statement sits with you:
Happiness is the peace and assurity that comes
from living 100% in line with the Spirit.
Do you agree with that? What about it rings true for you? What about it doesn't feel quire right, or what would you edit about it?
For me, when I think of how the Gospel is meant for us to be happy, my brain searches for examples to show me how that could be true. Christ is the ultimate example of that. Studying His life helps me know what it could look like to have a life 100% in line with the Spirit, because He lived that life. And I don't doubt He's still living it.
How else does the Gospel bring us joy? Christofferson focused on the Plan of Salvation. Why? Is it because we look forward to a better life in the eternities than we have now? My mind initially resists that notion, because I've found that having a "grass is greener on the other side" or an "I'll be happy when fill-in-the-blank" attitude usually leads to disappointment. Isn't looking forward to eternity simply expecting that everything problematic in our lives will magically go away when we die? What about joy now? Doesn't our Father in Heaven want us to have joy now, not just at the prospect of something better in the future?
Think about that for a second. Do you think God loving us means He wants us to be happy now? Does He care about our immediate, present happiness, or just the happiness we will feel when we return to Him after this earthly journey?
This is a BIG question. And because it's such a big question, I am going to leave the question with you to think about until I finish these thoughts in my next post.
Here is the question again: Do you think God loving us means He wants us to be happy now? Does He care about our immediate, present happiness, or just the happiness we will feel when we return to Him after this earthly journey?
Here are two thoughts to consider as you ponder on that question:
One: I have found that I feel more joy when I learn more about God's love for me. Learning just how much God loves me produces a kind of intangible, joyous effect -- kind of like magic. So, how can we come to understand more about God's love for us so we can have more of those happy-making effects?
Two: I want to insert a disclaimer here that I'm not talking about happiness as a peppy-smiley, bubbles and sparkles. I mean happiness as I described it earlier: as the peace and assurity that comes from being 100% in line with the Spirit. This doesn't mean achieving/finding happiness will get rid of all our problems. It doesn't mean all of our emotions will be pleasant and positive. I think happiness and joy are deeper and more complex emotions than that.
Here's the question one more time: Do you think God loving us means He wants us to be happy now? Does He care about our immediate, present happiness, or just the happiness we will feel when we return to Him after this earthly journey?
Sit with that for a while. Ask God to help direct your thoughts so that you can discover what HE has in store for you to learn. And then write down the answers you receive. I am a firm believer that writing something down helps our minds learn it better.
Until next time. (Click here for the second part of this post.)
<3
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