Blessings?

[Anonymous]

It’s difficult to say, but I certain feel that sometimes “blessings” are held out as incentive for things we don’t really want to do…

[Anonymous]

Cadence wrote:

Humans want desperately to draw conclusions as to why things happen.

Amen. And I think Eckhart Tolle explains it as we write our stories so we can try to draw conclusions. The dog does not write the stories. They are just present, they are happy or not happy or hungry or something…they don’t ask why.

But humans do, and it can be a great thing to provide meaning to our lives. Finding the right stories that endure over time is the challenge.

[Anonymous]

I just wanted to bump up this old thread again about blessings and the stories we make of them.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Heber, for bumping it. I read it with fascination. I have long wondered to what to ascribe “miracles” or “happenstance”. I have been mulling it over with great thought in the last few days. My mother fell a week ago and is in the hospital. She is elderly and her bones are in poor shape. They x-rayed her leg and determined that not only her tibia was broken completely, but that her artificial knee cap was shattered and the knee itself was damaged. This was very bad and the doctor wasn’t sure if he could repair everything. The surgery went better than anticipated because when they opened up her leg there was no damage to the knee cap or artificial knee. So, was this a miracle, or a doctor who misread the x-rays? I just don’t know. I want to say it was a miracle. That would mean that God intervenes in our lives, and that he truly does watch over us as individuals. Unfortunately, during this FC, I have begun to doubt that. I really can’t point to any real miracles in my life. I want to. I want to believe that God thinks I am worth a miracle, but today, I am just not sure. But, I completely agree that we often see these events as we choose to, and our belief system guides our interpretation. Just a few months ago, it would have been a miracle, and realizing that makes me sad. 😥

[Anonymous]

Eternity4me wrote:

we often see these events as we choose to, and our belief system guides our interpretation.

You expressed your feelings pretty well about this E4Me. I think once the magical bubble is popped…it seems more difficult to allow yourself to so quickly accept things as “miracles”. It’s not impossible, however, to return to believing those things…but it does seem more skeptical. Somehow, my brain seems to be warning me…”you were fooled once…shame on them…but you gonna be fooled to believing that magical stuff again? Shame on me!”

However, this past year there have been some unexplainable things happen. And I choose to believe God is working in my life. I don’t know of other explanations…and I don’t try super hard to dismiss the comforting idea that He is there. I just accept it (but I’m a bit more hesitant still).

[Anonymous]

I’m not sure if it directly relates to the OP, and maybe I should just start another thread, but this one makes me think of the movie Big Fish. Basic premise is a man is dying and he’s re-telling his son all the stories of his life. Problem is, the father’s stories are ridiculously embellished. Giants, circuses, time stopping, uncatchable fish, witches, a town you couldn’t find again, and on and on. His son gets increasingly agitated through the movie and it is obvious that this has been a source of tension for their relationship. Eventually, the doctor who delivered the son tells him the real story of how he was born (his father’s story is of course incredibly elaborate). The doctor tells him that he prefers his father’s telling of it, but the son admits he likes the normal, undoctored version. Just so he finally KNOWS.

Do we get blessings for following a certain lifestyle because another being has deemed said lifestlye with checkpoints and mile markers? I’m not sure, but I tend to think not. I think the church has some good, practical lifestyle admonitions, though.

But do we want stories like this all our lives? Your mother came in about three in the afternoon. Her neighbor drove her, on account of your father was on business in Wichita. You were born a week early, but there were no complications. It was a perfect delivery. Now, your father was sorry to miss it, but it wasn’t the custom for the men to be in the room for deliveries then, so I can’t see as it would have been much different had he been there. And that’s the real story of how you were born. Not very exciting, is it? And I suppose if I had to choose between the true version and an elaborate one involving a fish and a wedding ring, I might choose the fancy version. But that’s just me.

Or this? It occurred to me then, that perhaps the reason for my growth was I was intended for larger things. After all, a giant man can’t have an ordinary-sized life. Or this? You know about icebergs, dad? Do I? I saw an iceberg once. They were hauling it down to Texas for drinking water. They didn’t count on there being an elephant frozen inside. The wooly kind. A mammoth.

[Anonymous]

It’s very hard to say whether obedience leads to blessings.

I do believe there are natural laws such as hard work, honesty, obeying the law, etcetera that lead to blessings by virtue of the law enforcement system that levies punishment on wrongdoers.

But I will say this. During my 21 year career with the same company,I have survived downsizing after downsizing, and each time, I was not fully active or a Tr-holder. My income has gone up steadily and I’ve been blessed financially in spite of not being a full tither.

I don’t want to annoy God by saying obedience doesn’t matter, as he seems to have very inconsistent rules when it comes to giving blessings. Nor do I want to tempt fate.

I could, also say that if I was a full tithe payer all my life, and a TR holder, I’d probably be tempted to say it was a result of tithing and TR-holding obedience that I survived all those downsizings. We tend to look for confirmation of our beliefs (confirmation bias).

Currently, I believe I am being obedient to God’s commands by living a good life, dedicating a substantial amount of my time to service, and I believe blessings certain blessings I have are a direct result of this.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know if I was raised with the traditional Mormon Doctrine about blessings. But then again, I think there clearly are some contradictions in regard to the teachings of blessings in the Church. Some teach that if you keep the commandments (especially tithing) your spiritual and temporal needs will be taken care of. The scriptures say this. The Book of Mormon points to this. And yet, we also teach about the importance of trials and tribulations—I even was raised hearing that severe trials happen to the strongest people. We’re also taught that we can’t control the agency of others and that we’re here to grow. Naturally we have to suffer and encounter difficult circumstances if we want to grow. And yet, you still hear the testimonies of people finding their car keys and tender mercies. Most often, I think people just see a silver lining and ascribe it to God. Who knows?

I grew up essentially being taught that bad trials happen to the best of people. Basically…life is going to be hard but if you endure to the end, it will be okay. God will bless you enough to survive but don’t expect to get everything, even most, of what you want. I’m glad I got this perspective in my childhood because I later didn’t have a crisis about the doctrine of blessings and being “rewarded” by God for good behavior. I didn’t expect my life to be great because I was keeping the commandments. I had a rough childhood, and so did my parents, so, if anything, I expected my life to continue to be hard. The only thing I could count on was for God to sustain me with the spiritual peace to survive it.

I remember after High School, reading the Book of Mormon—or maybe Doctrine in Covenants—in church. It said if you kept the commandments you would be blessed in your physical needs. I’d read that scripture before but it hadn’t sunk in. I was shocked. Since I didn’t want to challenge it in public, I didn’t say anything. I think the girl I was reading with could tell I had issues with it.

I think that many of the church’s teachings lead to happiness. Maybe God does bless his children. But I have a hard time reconciling a God that rewards a “good Mormon” by finding his car keys over someone who is pleading with God to spare the lives of their children.

I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been taken care of by God in my life. It’s a scary thought to me that I could be punished in the future for not following the Mormon path. That still kind of terrifies me, but I don’t think God operates that way.

[Anonymous]

There is no “one way” and that is all we need to be fulfilled in life.

If we hear embellished ridiculous stories, it is a blessing to get the honest truth. If we hear unimaginative rules and commands or cold hard facts, it is a blessing to expand our thoughts with myths and allegory.

God seems to know what blessings we need, and what we don’t.

I liked Big FIsh.

Did you happen to see “Magic in the Moonlight” with Colin Firth? If not, you might like that in regards to magic and trickery vs science and logic and what is good for us and what makes us feel happiest.

[Author]

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