Blessings contingent upon others

[Anonymous]

I don’t really know where it came from, I can probably point to more than a few stories, general conference talks, and waaay more cultural church legend, but the idea that others blessings may be withheld because of our own failings.

It has been reinforced by priesthood power being contingent upon obedience, etc.

My sister has a rare form of cancer, it is incurable and she is in the late stages. I’ve given her more than a few blessings which have turned more to comfort and relief.

I had the thought early on that there could be some miracle in her life and with this cancer specifically, that not only if she had enough faith but that if I did certain things that she could be healed. It’s taken me a long time to wrestle with this, and the debate back and forth between not being strong enough myself and whether god would withhold blessings for someone, dependent upon someone else’s actions. I can make many comparisons about how one person’s inability to do something good won’t benefit other people, in other words if I don’t do anything good at all no one benefits. But I no longer believe that God will withhold healing from me or anyone else because of someone else’s inability or unwillingness to do something.

On the other hand I thought a doctor’s ability to aid in the healing process is directly dependent upon his or her study learning and practice, as well as the technology and materials available.

I feel like I’m rambling, when I look back at other posts I’ve shared here I feel like I’m missing the point of my own thoughts.

I asked a Baptist friend about faith healing and prayer, and his views were similar to mine. I didn’t ask about the actions of the person who was giving the blessings or laying hands as he called it.

What are your thoughts?

[Anonymous]

A couple things come to mind for this.

One is a story with Elder Bednar and his son I remember hearing once. His son had just accomplished some big achievement and was proud of himself. Elder Bednar chastised him and esentially said something to the effect of nothing you do is your own and for every good thing you do the glory belongs to our Father in Heaven.

The other is many people who claimed to have had near-death/briefly-dead experiences and been to the other side, have mentioned that during their time there, they experienced a feeling that everything happens for a reason. That God is in control of everything and everything that happens is His will. In other words, through the chaos that is life, He knows everything, including us and what we will do with our agency. I guess in that way he’s able to place us and people in situations where we can bless others.

I say all that just to say that I guess I lean toward the idea that blessings aren’t dependant on anything other than the will of God. Though, a couple holes in that thinking do come to mind as well.

[Anonymous]

I believe God neither blesses nor curses us in this life. Life is what it is. Sometimes things happen because of choices we make, sometimes it’s decisions other people make, and sometimes stuff just happens, “good” or “bad” (in other words, the sun shines and it rains on both the just and the unjust).

[Anonymous]

LDS_Scoutmaster wrote:

I had the thought early on that there could be some miracle in her life and with this cancer specifically, that not only if she had enough faith but that if I did certain things that she could be healed.

Reading this, I am reminded of the stages of grief and specifically the bargaining stage. I am sorry about your sister. My own experience with the stages of grief is simply that they must be lived through. Give yourself time and permission to feel what you feel (no artificial timelines or expectations). I do not think that there are wrong ways to go through the stages as long as you are not self isolating.

And that brings me to the second part of my thought. People are an absolute blessing for each other. I do not believe that God would withhold a blessing from someone because of the unworthiness of someone else. Nor do I believe that God would withhold a blessing from someone based on their own unworthiness (bad people sometimes recover from cancer and good people sometimes die). However, I do believe that people can help, support, and love each other in the good times and even especially in the bad times and this becomes a form of “blessing.”

I believe that the “blessings” that you have given to your sister which have turned more to comfort and relief – are “blessings” both in word and in deed. It is a service of love.

[Anonymous]

LDS_Scoutmaster wrote:

… But I no longer believe that God will withhold healing from me or anyone else because of someone else’s inability or unwillingness to do something.

On the other hand I thought a doctor’s ability to aid in the healing process is directly dependent upon his or her study learning and practice, as well as the technology and materials available.

Traditionally the priesthood blessing has been presented as a thing that has the potential to invoke a miracle such that a physical illness miraculously vanishes.

What if the doctors with their studies, practice, and tools are more responsible for the physical healing and the priesthood blessing is more responsible for spiritual/mental healing. A doctor may be skilled at treating the physical illness but not have what it takes to help someone heal spiritually. A priesthood holder may be skilled at helping someone heal spiritually even while the physical illness remains.

That said, I believe there’s some overlap.

If you’re healthy you’re in a position to have a better mental state. If you’re not healthy it’s going to have a negative impact on your mental state.

I believe if you’re in a positive mental state it can have a positive effect on your health, if nothing more than not having all of the negative effects of stress on top of whatever ailments you’re already suffering.

Just like the doctor that trains, practices, and has the right tools, the people involved in a priesthood blessing would need the training, practice, and right tools to be effective in offering spiritual healing (comfort). In that light a close friend, family member, or therapist may have better tools to address spiritual healing than say a random stranger with the priesthood but that’s where the recipient’s faith comes into play. Depending on their faith, the right tool to put someone’s mind at ease may be a priesthood holder giving a blessing or even a “ranking” priesthood holder (general authority vs. your normal home teacher for example).

More to your questions.

The recipient of a PH blessing may require a tool in the form of a person that’s sufficiently “worthy” (in their eyes) to perform the blessing in order for them to feel spiritually healed by the blessing.

From the blessing giver’s perspective… frankly I think that if the miraculous physical healing fails to materialize the cognitive dissonance provides a few comforting paths forward:

1) I wasn’t worthy enough or I didn’t have enough faith.

2) The recipient wasn’t worthy enough or didn’t have enough faith.

3) Will of god.

As a blessing giver we don’t know how worthy or faithful the recipient is and we don’t believe we can dictate the will of god, so we fall back on what we believe we can control, if only I was a little worthier or a little more faithful the miraculous would have materialized.

It doesn’t help that the culture is steeped in being worthy enough to perform and receive priesthood ordinances. The culture steers our minds in those directions.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your responses everyone. This has been a difficult road to understand. I fasted for two days and gave her a blessing, I expected some revelation or understanding on what to say (I didn’t want to say anything I didn’t feel prompted to), but I didn’t feel anything. Perhaps I was expecting too much. I’ve had experiences where I said things that I hadn’t planned on saying, almost out of body experiences. I need to be at peace with the information that I have, and what blessing I can be in whatever limited capacity I can be.

PazamaManX wrote:

…they experienced a feeling that everything happens for a reason. That God is in control of everything and everything that happens is His will.

I used to believe that everything has a reason and God’s hand was in there, I’m leaning more towards this second part…

PazamaManX wrote:

In other words, through the chaos that is life, He knows everything, including us and what we will do with our agency.

In my mind there’s a subtle difference in that there is a god who gives people cancer and a god who allows the universe to unfold on it’s own yet can or may intervene when necessary.

DarkJedi wrote:

Life is what it is.

This has been my motto on and off for many years, but I still vacillate between this and hoping for intervention.

Roy wrote:

…I am reminded of the stages of grief and specifically the bargaining stage.

Yes I am definitely bargaining. It sucks.

I have a friend who is inactive but is one of the most spiritual people I know. He had an experience where he was giving a blessing to someone with cancer, felt the prompting to tell her that she would be healed. Everyone chastised him for giving her false hope. On the next doctors visit her cancer was gone. On another file up visit spots were seen again and everyone thought it was the cancer again. Turns out it was scar tissue. I don’t know all of the details, whether the cancer was diagnosed and confirmed before the blessing, if the scar tissue was seen and just a cancer scare.

Roy wrote:

People are an absolute blessing for each other. … I do believe that people can help, support, and love each other in the good times and even especially in the bad times and this becomes a form of “blessing.”

Amen brother. I think I needed this as a reminder.

nibbler wrote:

Traditionally the priesthood blessing has been presented as a thing that has the potential to invoke a miracle such that a physical illness miraculously vanishes.

…

In that light a close friend, family member, or therapist may have better tools to address spiritual healing than say a random stranger with the priesthood but that’s where the recipient’s faith comes into play.

Good points.

nibbler wrote:

It doesn’t help that the culture is steeped in being worthy enough to perform and receive priesthood ordinances. The culture steers our minds in those directions.

Agreed, and it’s not just lds culture, as a Baptist friend of mine concurred.

Thanks for the insight, it really helps.

I’ll share an experience I had that I’ve only shared with a few people.

Everything can be viewed as a coincidence or a miraculous intervention, or somewhere in-between.

My family and I were in a remote area on vacation, my dw got more ill than I had ever seen. I believe I gave her a blessing. Another family member started getting sick as well. I remember praying and asking to take the sickness upon myself if the sickness could stop spreading through the family. The short answer to the story is that no one else got sick, but I ended up in the hospital. The longer answer is that I did catch giardia (a parasite) from the water, where 2 other non family members drank as well.

The experience solidified in my mind the idea that I could make a deal for a miracle as long as there was a sacrifice on my part.

My mind also saw the potential for a coincidence where completely natural occurrences were evident; my sickness was not the same as theirs and was related to a specific event (drinking water that I should not have), and yet I was the only one of the 3 drinkers to catch the giardia.

Does prayer affect things in this life? My short answer is I don’t know, the longer answer is more complicated. I want to be believing, have faith in a god who intervenes. Every experience I have had I’ve looked back seen where there is room for alternate explanations. I’m left right in the middle between doubt and faith. And maybe I need to change my perspective to where we are the blessers, and god may or may not intervene, but I won’t be able to tell when that happens.

“When you do things right, it will look like you didn’t do anything at all.” A quote from futurama in reference to god.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

I believe God neither blesses nor curses us in this life. Life is what it is. Sometimes things happen because of choices we make, sometimes it’s decisions other people make, and sometimes stuff just happens, “good” or “bad” (in other words, the sun shines and it rains on both the just and the unjust).

I kind of believe this while still believing in a God that intervenes. Every time I get the least little sick, my wife wants me to get a priesthood blessing. I generally resist. Whenever she’s getting frustrated with getting sick, SHE wants one which is hard as I don’t really think they make that much difference. That said, I was going in for some surgery that had me more nervous than I wanted to admit, I asked my dad and brother to give me a blessing. It’s probably the only time in my life that I ever asked for a blessing. I think it helped. Not because of some invocation from God but because I felt supported by my family members. As has been stated before, I think it’s not impossible to think of blessings as a formal, ceremonial way to say “whatever happens, we’re here for you.”

[Anonymous]

I have also observed a somewhat similar practice of Christian (non-LDS) prayer circles. Everyone that wishes gathers around the person needing the support. Everyone reaches in and placed a hand on the person. Someone acts as voice and offers a prayer.

I imagine the physical manifestation of that sort of community support can be helpful.

[Anonymous]

Gerald wrote:

Every time I get the least little sick, my wife wants me to get a priesthood blessing. I generally resist. Whenever she’s getting frustrated with getting sick, SHE wants one which is hard as I don’t really think they make that much difference.

…

I think it helped. Not because of some invocation from God but because I felt supported by my family members.

It was difficult for me for a few years as well for many of the same reasons. I realized regardless of how I felt about priesthood blessings that the person requesting it had their own feelings, and I didn’t want to be the one stopping any sort of healing whether it came from God or the person’s own inward feelings. I view blessings more now as an act of service regardless of whether or not God is intervening. And the agnostic in me allows room for whatever happens, God intervening, a person’s own positive thoughts that help them heal, or absolutely nothing at all.

Roy wrote:

I imagine the physical manifestation of that sort of community support can be helpful.

She passed a few days after Christmas. It was devastating and very difficult to deal with all of the uncontrollable sobbing. The funeral offered some emotional closure, but we are still dealing with the loss. She was much too young and life is unfair.

I had a dream that she put her hands on my head and I could feel energy flowing to her. I wondered if that was what it was like for her that she was drawing energy from the community support all around her to help her go as long as she did. It’s been a rough couple months and we were involved in her day to day care lifting her out of bed and taking care of her. I felt that it was an honor to serve her in the last part of her life.

I feel like my understanding of God and life and the universe has evolved all my life, and fortunately or unfortunately I’m going through another major evolution. I have to figure out how to navigate this new paradigm.

[Anonymous]

I am sorry for your loss Scoutmaster.

LDS_Scoutmaster wrote:

I feel like my understanding of God and life and the universe has evolved all my life, and fortunately or unfortunately I’m going through another major evolution. I have to figure out how to navigate this new paradigm.

Amen.

[Anonymous]

I believe hope helps, in some way. I believe in the placebo effect, and I believe it has both positive and negative consequences.

I have NO problem with the idea that our attitudes and beliefs impact ourselves and others, including the “service” we can provide as a result.

I disagree entirely that our faith and “worthiness” can dictate or determine divine intervention and blessings. I don’t believe in the idea that God is “bound” by what individuals do, mostly because I see no scripture that says God will do a specific X if we do a specific Y in every, single, individual case. I see community examples, like civilization flourishing if everyone takes care of everyone, but no explicitly individual applications. (I also know I probably would chalk any exceptions up to “translated incorrectly”. 😆 )

[Anonymous]

While we ourselves can often serve as instruments of God to bless others, which I have felt often on my mission and in my life, I do not believe that God witholds blessings.

There are many clearly miraculous events and blessings that have not come through the actions of others, such as food miraculously appearing for the pioneers.

[Anonymous]

SwedishLDS wrote:

While we ourselves can often serve as instruments of God to bless others, which I have felt often on my mission and in my life, I do not believe that God witholds blessings.

There are many clearly miraculous events and blessings that have not come through the actions of others, such as food miraculously appearing for the pioneers.

I do believe people can bless (help, sustain, support, protect, etc.) others, instruments of God or not, and of course agree that God does not withhold blessings as I previously stated.

And I do believe miracles can happen, although I think my bar for what constitutes a miracle is probably a bit higher than most people’s (quite a bit higher than some people’s). I’m not so sure there are “clearly” or “many” miraculous events and I’m very unsure (yes, skeptical) of most of the pioneer stories which when looked at even a little more closely are at best dubious or come from dubious sources.

Edited to add for clarity: I don’t believe pioneer or other “faith promoting stories” have malicious intent. I think they’re more like the “one that got away” stories where the size and fight of the fish gets a little bigger with each telling. Add in the faith promoting component and it’s easy to get caught up. I’ll just use the china in the Kirtland Temple walls as an example because there’s pretty good evidence (including on the church website itself) that the story most are familiar with is not correct. People did not sacrifice their fine china, the stuff mostly came from the garbage piles. Another good example with evidence is John Taylor’s watch, which was not hit by a musket ball and therefore did not save his life. The book Real vs. Rumor (see our discussion here: https://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=10036” class=”bbcode_url”>https://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=10036) is still on my reading list, but I think it makes very good points.

[Anonymous]

DarkJedi wrote:

SwedishLDS wrote:

While we ourselves can often serve as instruments of God to bless others, which I have felt often on my mission and in my life, I do not believe that God witholds blessings.

There are many clearly miraculous events and blessings that have not come through the actions of others, such as food miraculously appearing for the pioneers.

I do believe people can bless (help, sustain, support, protect, etc.) others, instruments of God or not, and of course agree that God does not withhold blessings as I previously stated.

And I do believe miracles can happen, although I think my bar for what constitutes a miracle is probably a bit higher than most people’s (quite a bit higher than some people’s). I’m not so sure there are “clearly” or “many” miraculous events and I’m very unsure (yes, skeptical) of most of the pioneer stories which when looked at even a little more closely are at best dubious or come from dubious sources.

Edited to add for clarity: I don’t believe pioneer or other “faith promoting stories” have malicious intent. I think they’re more like the “one that got away” stories where the size and fight of the fish gets a little bigger with each telling. Add in the faith promoting component and it’s easy to get caught up. I’ll just use the china in the Kirtland Temple walls as an example because there’s pretty good evidence (including on the church website itself) that the story most are familiar with is not correct. People did not sacrifice their fine china, the stuff mostly came from the garbage piles. Another good example with evidence is John Taylor’s watch, which was not hit by a musket ball and therefore did not save his life. The book Real vs. Rumor (see our discussion here: https://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=10036” class=”bbcode_url”>https://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=10036) is still on my reading list, but I think it makes very good points.

fair enough, perhaps the word clearly was chosen poorly. I should have used a personal story instead of how the spirit has helped me

[Anonymous]

LDS_Scoutmaster wrote:

I don’t really know where it came from, I can probably point to more than a few stories, general conference talks, and waaay more cultural church legend, but the idea that others blessings may be withheld because of our own failings.

It has been reinforced by priesthood power being contingent upon obedience, etc.

Under this topic, wouldn’t forgiveness & empathy & compassion be blessings contingent upon others?

Or, am I missing the point?

It wouldn’t be the first time.

[Author]

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