Food For Thought

Lately I’ve had a few thoughts that have occurred to me as I’ve been reading the scriptures and praying and I wanted to run them by you guys to see what you thought.

1) Matthew 25: 31-46. We talk about how charity is possibly the greatest attribute we can develop in this life. When I read these verses, I feel like a large part of our judgement with Christ will be based on how we treated each other, how much charity we displayed and developed. What do you think? In my limited experience as an EMT, most of the calls I’ve gotten were for routine transfers (dialysis patients or doctor appointments) or 911 calls for things as relatively insignificant as a hangnail. While the “routine” calls or the “BS” calls can sometimes be frustrating, I try to be as friendly and polite to the patient as I can. In regards to the 911 calls, while you do get some serious ones, I always try to view the experience from the patient’s perspective. A hangnail to me may be nothing, but it may be the worst day of their life. So I try to be kind, patient, and understanding of them and what they’re going through. I feel that reading these verses confirmed to me my plans to go to paramedic school in the future. I want to do something where I feel that I’ve made somewhat of a difference in people’s lives.

2) Matthew 7:23. While the KJV says “I never knew you,” the JST says “You never knew me.” (For some reason, the JST of this verse isn’t in the actual handheld scripture editions that I have. I had to go to lds.org and find it.) I wonder how much of this life is supposed to be spent in trying to get to know the Savior. And not just know about Him and know about His character, but actually know what He’s like, know what His character is. And then trying to get our lives to reflect that so we can develop the same character. I see it as a tie in with the previous verses I mentioned. Thoughts?

3) One of the paths in my faith crisis evolved in the following way. I found out about the City Creek mall and complex, which made me wonder 1. what Christ’s church was doing building it and 2. how is it being funded. That then evolved into a question about tithing, which I think I’ve finally resolved between myself and the Lord after a lot of lurking on forums here. Before that was resolved though I then started to have doubts about the leaders of the Church, if they were actually prophets, apostles, seers, and revelators, or if they were just a bunch of businessmen. While I’m still working through these issues, I have come across several forums that mentioned 2 Nephi 28, Mormon 8, and D&C 85: 7-8. I’m not saying the Church is in apostasy, but these verses did reassure me that we’re all human, we all make mistakes, none of us are infallible, that the Church may be a vessel for the gospel it has a lot of man-made parts and therefore a lot of problems, and that at the Second Coming the first thing Christ is going to do is cleanse (or purge, depending on how you want it to sound 🙂 ) the Church. I’m beginning to realize that while a lot of what goes on in the Church frustrates me to no end, a lot of it isn’t in my stewardship. The condition and orientation that my heart and spirit are in is though. So I just need to focus on me and do what I can do to help improve things around me. Thoughts?

4) D&C 76:79 “These are they who are not valiant in the testimony of Jesus.” What does this mean? I’ve been taught my whole life in the Church that one of the requirements to enter the Celestial Kingdom was baptism in the Church. What about those who aren’t members of this Church but still have a testimony of Christ? I think this will be resolved in the next life. But I see many members of many other religions still going to the Celestial Kingdom just because they believed in Christ and had faith in Him in this life. Contrast that with many members of the Church who feel that all they have to do is focus on the outwards appearance and the “Mormon checklist.” At the same time, what about those who are righteous, spiritual people who don’t necessarily worship Christ? I’m not trying to pick on anyone or any belief, but a lot of Asian beliefs come to mind. I’m still trying to process all this, but I think even then it’s just because they don’t necessarily know about Christ. I don’t know, I’m still working on this 🙂 . I wonder though, could entry into the Celestial Kingdom be a bit easier than we have been led to believe, based on whether we believed in Christ and who He was and stayed true to that belief? Btw, I believe in the concept of eternal progression, that there is a ton of time between the resurrection and the judgement where we can still progress towards higher kingdoms than if we were just judged based off of this life. Once we’ve progressed as far as we want to, then we’ll go where we want to. God will always want us to come back to Him, but we choose where we go.

5) The God Who Weeps by Terryl and Fiona Givens is freaking awesome!!!! Seriously, that should become the 5th standard work. I have big challenges with depression and anxiety and have always been unable to see God (and Christ) as a loving Being who hurts when I hurt and who cares about me so much that even in His infinite power, might, and glory He still weeps over me. It wasn’t until I read this book that I have been able to start to see Him this way and it has made a huge impact on me not only spiritually, but emotionally as well.