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Update: I’ve been drifting for a while now. I haven’t been to church in the last few months or paid tithing, and even had a few beers here an there. I’ve been devout for nearly 10 years, and I went down this road in my adolescence, so it’s not uncharted territory, though there are some differences, namely age and experience. The reason I didn’t go to church in the beginning is because I was having such conflicting beliefs about God that it was no longer fulfilling. I actually just wanted to take a break from thinking about it for a while. I tried just sitting in the back with my head down but then I thought, “What’s the point of this?”
I’m not really certain where I’m going, what I believe, or anything, it seems to change day to day. I don’t feel as distressed as I did in the beginning, but I do still have some conflicted feelings. The Elders dropped by today, it was a new pair that hasn’t seen me or my wife at church yet, so I guess we are officially on the less active list now. They want to drop by again. I found myself making excuses for not having been to church, sort of half truths. “I’m busy… lots of work, school work, family stuff.” All true, but not the reason I haven’t been to church in a while.
One of the things the Elders kept saying, as I did and all do, is that the gospel brings us so many blessings. In the last year I’ve become really turned off by the idea of “doing it for the blessings”. I think as a general principle, yes, you have to live with the natural consequences of your actions. Sometimes, the consequence is material success, other times it is a peaceful feeling. But I don’t like the idea of doing something that God asks in order to get a blessing of any kind. It’s extrinsic. I think if I’m going to do anything that would please God, it would be because I love Him. I am faithful to my wife because I love her, not because she will leave me if I’m not.
Although there was an incredibly peace that accompanied my convictions in the structured belief system as taught by the church, I am finding a similarly fulfilling feeling in trying to work it out for myself, or learning that I may never actually figure it out. I feel a bit more independent and self accepting. I don’t know if there is a God, but I still have a strong love for Him and from Him, if that makes sense. Anyway, just wanted to check in and give an update. There is still a part of me that wants to stay lds, I just don’t know how big that part is or how to make it work yet.
Unknown wrote:One of the things the Elders kept saying, as I did and all do, is that the gospel brings us so many blessings. In the last year I’ve become really turned off by the idea of “doing it for the blessings”. I think as a general principle, yes, you have to live with the natural consequences of your actions. Sometimes, the consequence is material success, other times it is a peaceful feeling. But I don’t like the idea of doing something that God asks in order to get a blessing of any kind. It’s extrinsic. I think if I’m going to do anything that would please God, it would be because I love Him. I am faithful to my wife because I love her, not because she will leave me if I’m not.
I so agree with you!! The idea of doing something to get blessings has always bothered me. I usually do things because I love God and Christ or the person I am doing it for. I hear the obedience/service = blessings all the time. I also see a lot of people sitting around waiting for their “earned” blessings. Other people love to hold their success in life up as evidence that they are more righteous and therefore more blessed. This makes me so frustrated. I am obedient to God because I love him and he blesses me because he loves me NOT because of something I have done. This is just my opinion. Sometimes I have to dump all the junk and focus on JC like reading the New Testament.
I think the term “blessings” is often misunderstood. Blessings may simply be increased wisdom or an increased capacity to love. E.g. I don’t view the blessings of service as being a predefined reward that can be cashed in during the afterlife. I view blessing to be the process of gradually changing my very nature
in this life. I do like the idea of doing things because I love the person I’m doing it for but then in some ways it becomes a chicken or the egg dilemma for me. I serve people because I love them, but I only truly learn to love them through service. That probably made no sense. Maybe think of service to strangers? I don’t know a stranger but I can still serve them… and I grow to love and know the stranger through the service I provide.
Doing things to get the kind of blessings I’m talking about isn’t on the forefront of our minds when we go about serving others but it is a byproduct. Kind of like the cliché when serving a mission. We say we aren’t doing it to become better, that the motivation is the love we feel toward all of HF’s children… but then we come back as a better person anyway. It’s just a byproduct of true service and that byproduct is the whole of the blessing.
Thanks for the update, Unknown. I have experienced that lost and drifting feeling as well and for a number of years. I like what you said about all the “blessings” that come from the church. Frankly, I’ve never seen them and even when I “knew the church was true” I always wondered about them. I live in an area where there aren’t very many members. I see many people “blessed” more than we are and some of them don’t go to any church. That whole idea just never worked for me, and since I have been able to let go of that I feel much more liberated. As you said, I’m going to show love to God because I love God, not because something will or won’t happen based on what I do.
I also get what you mean (I think) when you say you don’t know if there is a God but you still feel a love for him. I went through an agnostic period and to an extent I am still agnostic – but I do believe there is a God in part because I also feel that love. That said, I don’t believe in the God that helps me find my car keys or has any direct interaction in my life at all. Besides being the Creator, I believe in the “God loved us so he sent his Son” God – I suppose more of a general love than a specific love for me (although I don’t rule out the latter). It is hard to explain, but I think there’s some higher being there and the only way I think we can perceive that (unless you’re Joseph Smith) is through that small and faint feeling of love – I’ve wondered of that’s what the still, small voice is. On the other hand, that’s only a desire to believe, perhaps, and it should would be nice if I had some more evidence (hence I am somewhat agnostic). All this is what makes my own deist view so tidy for me.
I really, really like what nibbler said. And it fits within the actual Mormon model because if it’s true that only our testimony and experience/knowledge rise with us, then those would be the actual blessings to be on the lookout for here. Those types of blessings can come immediately as soon as we are in a capacity/state of mind to receive them. Plus we can carry them wherever we go so they’re much more valuable than any tangible reward or item on a checklist. Even though some days I’d really, really like for Father to give me some job or date some person or whatever else I can think of, ultimately I’d rather learn how to become a person who can understand and love and learn and mourn and uplift. I think the blessings you described, nibbler, are a healthy way to look at it, as opposed to waiting around a reward, which may be superstitious and destructive to one’s faith. Blessings in the sense of developing Christlike attributes such as patience, charity, and humility seem like the natural consequence in seeking to develop these attributes, and not really attached to gospel ordinances or church activity. I think ordinances and church activity can support this endeavor, but I’m not certain that it is a requirement. When I was on my mission I often heard people say, “I believe in God but I don’t like organized religion. It doesn’t matter which church I go to or even if I go to a church, I just need to be a good person.” I used to think these were well intentioned but misguided souls. Now I wonder if the opposite is true. Perhaps, they were the enlightened ones and I was a little misguided though well intentioned.
I love the church. I think it can be a great vehicle to becoming a better person. The “one and only true church” is the hard part to swallow these days. It was comforting when I accepted it, but it’s tempting to throw the baby out with the bathwater when my current view is that one’s religion should really just be a preference, like what kind of music you like or exercise routine. I have visited many churches and even the most liberal non christian churches, that I have seen, hold to the idea that they have the real truth and everybody else, though not bad people, don’t.
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