How many of you guys out there collected Pokemon cards? No shame here. I have two books full of them. It was the cool thing to do back then. I remember out of all my books of cards, my favorite one was Vaporeon, this mermaid creature. It wasn't just any card - it was a foil card...you know, the ones that are all shiny? I would carry it with me everywhere I went. Literally. It even went through the wash twice, that's how much I loved that card. I had a million Charizards ...that ugly orange dragon thing. I hated that card. (as you can tell, I didn't care anything about the point value or battle tactics or whatever that stuff was) But I had only one Vaporeon...she was special, and different.
We are surrounded by the mundane. The expected. The norm. Predictability. As humans we tend to gravitate towards a routine, avoiding anything unexpected, or something hard and abnormal. Of course we want the easiest way out of everything. But don't you want to be the one to be remembered? To stand out? We need to be the Vaporeon in a book full of Charizards. You heard me. The natural man is the easy, expected way to go. But to live righteously, that is something remarkable. You will shine out among the rest, and your efforts will put you ahead of the pack. One day, you want the Lord to say, "ALISSA! I chooooose yoooouuuu!" He will recognize our efforts to live righteously among the wicked. He knows it is hard. But he will "choose" us to help further his work, and he will "choose" us to live with him again. Anyone can be chosen - is it up to you, and how you choose to live. And that is the end of my 3 AM pokemon/genesis analysis. I know, it was a stretch.
We often see standing out as a bad thing. We don't want to be noticed - it's so much easier to blend in with the crowd. We even often assume that what the crowd is doing is the "right thing to do". This gospel asks us to step away from that mind set. To do that extra amount of work, or bear the extra "burden" of being different. To recognize that what is common isn't always the right thing. When we are baptized, we begin on the straight and narrow path, the less traveled road. And we will be asked to set the example for others. M Russell Ballard said:
“Members of the Church need to influence more than we are influenced. We should work to stem the tide of sin and evil instead of passively being swept along by it. We each need to help solve the problem rather than avoid or ignore it”
Even once we are baptized and are faithful members we can be caught up in just "going with the flow". All throughout the Book of Mormon the phrase "All is well in Zion" can be found. I never before understood what this meant until recently. A quote I came across illustrates this idea very well:
Sometimes someone will say: Well, I have been baptized into the church; I am a member of the church; I am a member of the church; Ill just go along and live an ordinary sort of life; I won't commit any great crimes; I'll live a reasonably good Christian life; and eventually I will gain the kingdom of God. I don't understand it that way. I think that baptism is a gate. It is a gate which puts us on a path; and the name of the path is the straight and narrow path. The straight and narrow path leads upward from the gate of baptism to the Celestial Kingdom of heaven. After a person has entered the gate of baptism, he has to press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, as Nephi expresses it, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men; and if he endures to the end, then he gains the promised rewards.
Not
all is well in Zion. Heavenly Father needs us to be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and continually spreading this gospel. One of the most important roles we have as members of His church is being a role model. Through kindness and righteousness, we will stand out, be looked up to, and further God's work. One man in the scriptures who exemplified this exact calling was Abraham.
Genesis 13. It is important to note that Moses is not writing Genesis. In fact, the first 5 books of the Old Testament are written be an unknown scribe who lived long after these events took place. Also, Abraham's name wasn't changed to Abraham until Genesis 17, so in these first chapters he is still Abram.
Genesis 13:2 states that Abram was "very rich". Why? Perhaps because he was a great business man, he was highly intelligent, well educated and well trained. However the main reason is because Abram served the Lord with all his might, mind and strength. Symbolically, he went to Egypt because of a famine, and came back a wealthy man, just as the Children of Israel did 430 years later.
In verse
7 there arises a "strife between the herdmen of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle". Lot was Abram's nephew. Now, imagine yourself in this position. Most people would take the side of their herdmen and make the mistake of getting into the middle of the conflict. Is this what Abram did?
There are many things Abram could have done. He could have claimed that since he was much older than Lot, and his uncle, his herdsmen were right, and had priority over Lot's. Because of his intelligence, Abram could have set up a small claims court, and sat a the judge of the conflict. However, Abram did neither of these things. Small conflicts arise all the time. It is part of human nature. The Savior taught us to avoid petty conflicts and misunderstandings. When asked to determine the division of inheritance between two brothers the Savior said, "who made me a judge or a divider over you?" (Luke 12:14). The Savior of all people had the right to be a mediator. However, he recognized the mistake of getting caught up in little things that do not matter. Brigham Young once said:
Contentions frequently arise to so alienating a degree that brethren have no faith in each other's honesty and integrity, when, perhaps, both parties have stumbled over a little, selfish, ignorant, personal misunderstand, are carrying it to the extent of wishing to cut each other off from the Church. Very frequently such cases are presented before me. Unravel the difficultly, and it is found to have started in a trifling misunderstanding in relation to some smaller matter; all the trouble has arisen from a most frivolous cause. Avoid nursing misunderstandings into difficulties.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. I remember whenever my boyfriend and I would get into arguments, it would escalate to such an exaggerated extent that I would think to myself, "What are we even fighting about?" or "What even started all this", and I could not remember. The first step to becoming different, is to
not get caught up in trivial things of the world. We spend so much of our lives
concerned about things that, in the end, really do not matter. We should all work towards having an eternal perspective, just as Abraham did. This is what he did in this situation:
Genesis 13:8 - "And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife." And in verse 9, Abram let Lot choose whichever side of the Land he pleased in order to solve the conflict. This was truly a selfless act. Would we do the same for our brethren or sisters?
Of course Lot chose the side that was most pleasing to the eye - the plain of Jordan, which was well watered everywhere "even unto the Garden of the Lord". It sounds like Abram was jipped. However, there was one major let down about the plain of Jordan - it was directly adjacent to the city of Sodom - a great city of sin.
Note how the facts develop. Abraham and Lot with their respective families and retainers are moving here and there through Canaan, according to where they find pasture for their flocks. The herdsmen of the two begin a quarrel. That distressed Abraham, though it does not seem to have troubled Lot. The one things Abraham is most bent upon is that friendship should not be embittered; personal loss is to him a secondary matter. So when it seems necessary to separate he offers the advantage wholeheartedly to Lot. Let Lot say whichever part of the land he wants for his own flocks. He can have first choice and Abraham will take what he has left. A right-spirited man would have refused an offer so one-sided, but Lot snapped it up. Lot's only concern was to make sure that he used his advantage to the limit. That was his first step in the wrong direction...
The next one followed naturally... He looked about the land and chose what pleased the eye. All the country in he valley of Jordan was green and watered; is was as inviting as a garden but in its human aspect it was no garden. It was the territory adjacent to Sodom.
Lot was a man who made what seemed to be a clever choice but which turned out to be a wrong one. He set the example which has been followed by innumerable people since his time who have reached out for what they thought was easy gain and instead have got disaster. The story of Lot is the more arresting because it might have been so different.
Genesis 13: 12 reads " Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain,
and pitched his tent towards Sodom." Lot specifically set his tent facing the wicked city. So, while he wasn't actually
in the city, he could still observe how the other half lived. Do we ever do this as members of the church? Maybe we keep all the commandments, but put ourselves in bad situations, such as parties serving alcohol, or hanging around people who we know will urge us to do wrong things. We may say "But I'm not doing anything bad!". Maybe not. But how can we expect to maintain righteous living in such a wicked world if we are constantly exposing ourselves to questionable things. This topic reminds me of the mutual theme a couple years ago "Stand ye in holy places, and be not moved" (
DC 87:8). You must take a stand. There can be no fence sitters. Some people may try to be a different person at school than at church, but someday, at some point you will have to choose a side. Stand on the Lord's side, or stand on Satan's side, you cannot have a foot in each region. You cannot serve two masters.
James 1:8 says, " A double minded man is unstable in all his ways."
In contrast to this, recall the people of King Benjamin in
Mosiah 2. Verse 6 reads, "And they pitched their tents round about the temple, every man having his tent with the door thereof towards the temple". What a difference. Which way his your tent facing? Do your intentions mirror your actions? Are you fully committed to the Lord?
This topic also reminds me of the story of the iron rod in
1 Nephi 8. There were many people who entered into the Great and Spacious Building. However, there were also many who stayed on the straight and narrow path. Some joyously partook of the fruit, while others faced the great building, and were ashamed. Verse 28 reads, "And after they had tasted of the fruit they were ashamed, because of those that were scoffing at them; and they fell away into forbidden paths and were lost." To me, this is the saddest thing to witness - those who have tasted of the fruit, but still fall away from the church. I can't even describe the hurt and sadness in my heart for family member and good friends who had the fruit in their mouths, but pitched their tent toward Sodom, curious about the ways of the world, and were then consumed by them. We CANNOT let this happen to us. Hold fast to the iron rod, hold fast to what you have now, to what you know is true. Remind yourself everyday, through scripture study and prayer. Stay anxiously engaged in the church, pressing forward in order to never lose that light that you possess.
Genesis 13:15 says, "For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever." This is the Lord talking to Abram. While Lot things he got the better end of the deal, because Abram was righteous and had both feet on the Lord's side, the Lord blessed him with more land than Lot could have ever dreamed of having. And here we see the second step to standing out among the rest of the world -
stand with both feet on the Lord's side. Most men and women have a
hard time being firm in controversial topics, such as religion. Know what you know. Don't be unstable.
Pitching your tent in a certain direction seems like such a small, inconsequential act. While there are trivial things that we should not get our feelings hurt over, there are also small things that DO matter. When it comes to these small
choices, it is crucial we choose right from the beginning. A talk from last conference that I absolutely loved was Continually Holding Fast, by Elder Kevin S. Hamilton.
My father could remember the very day, even the very hour, that his
family—father, mother, and four children—left the Church, many never to return again in this life. He was 13 years old, a deacon, and in those days families attended Sunday School in the morning and then
sacrament meeting in the afternoon. On a beautiful spring day, after returning home from Sunday morning worship services and having a midday family meal together, his mother turned to his father and asked simply, “Well, dear, do you think we should go to sacrament meeting this afternoon, or should we take the family for a ride in the country?”
The idea that there was an option to sacrament meeting had never occurred to my father, but he and his three teenage siblings all sat up and paid careful attention. That Sunday afternoon ride in the country was probably an enjoyable family activity, but that small decision became the start of a new direction which ultimately led his family away from the Church with its safety, security, and blessings and onto a different path.
There
are small, seemingly mundane choices that DO matter. We must continually hold fast, being aware of all our actions. Similar to this is the story of King David. At first such a wholesome, righteous king, small decisions are what lead to his destruction. He could have easily turned back and repented at multiple points along the way. But he
kept choosing wrong without recognizing that the
small choices he was making DID
make ALL the difference.
Genesis 14. This part of Genesis can get confusing. Basically what you need to understand is that there are a series of 9 different kings fighting among each other (vs 9). Chedorlaomer was the leader of the kings. In verses 11-12 it says, "they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah...and they took Lot." Lot made a poor choice by living near the great city. He was captured by the kings. So what did Abram do? Let's look at verses 14-16.
14) And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan, 15) And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is one the left hand of Demascus. 16) And he brought back all the goods, and also brought back again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people.
First of all, imagine how rich you are if you have 318 servants. Wow. And those are just the men, the servants able to fight. Second, there were 9 kings involved here - they would have definitely had an army greater than 318. Think of the faith Abram had in the Lord to protect him and his small army against them.
The chapter continues as the king of Sodom and the king of Salem come to congratulate Abram on his victory. The king of Salem is Melchizedek. Sound familiar? Melchizedek was a high priest of God, as stated in verse 18. Melchizedek knew that God had given Abram the victory, and said, "blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemy into they hand". He knew that this victory was an example of the power of Abram's priesthood. Abram paid tithes to Melchizedek. When the king of Sodom came to congratulate Abram, he offered him all the goods. However, Abram refused, saying, " I will not take from a thread even to a shoelacket, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich." Abram wanted nothing to do with the king or the city of Sodom. He refused to taken anything from an unrighteous king. He
avoided all involvement with evil, even if he himself was not committing sin. He was not
greedy at all. He refused to let
evil have any claim over him and his achievements - he knew the Lord had made him prosperous, and wanted to avoid the appearance that it was because of the king of Sodom. Are we that dedicated to the Lord, that we will not even accept a thread from Satan? We wont let even a few seconds of evil thoughts into our minds, or even miss one day of scripture study?
In
Genesis 18, the Lord informs Abraham that he is going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. What is Abraham's response in verse 23-25? He asks if the Lord will preserve the city if he finds 50 righteous people. The Lord and him continue to discuss this throughout the chapter, until near the end in verse 32, when they agree that if Abraham can find 10 righteous people the Lord will preserve the city. When I hear of this, I think of the scripture
DC 18:10 - "the worth of souls is great in the sight of God". Abraham's understanding of this concept is truly shown in chapter 18. He is determined that not ten righteous souls are sacrificed for thousands of wicked souls. To stand out, we must
recognize the worth of souls. Most people cannot do this - they are
jealous, or competitive, or hateful. If you truly understand the worth the Lord holds on each person's head, you will treat them so differently, and people
will notice.
In
Genesis 19, Lot and his family are able to escape Sodom before the Lord rained brimstone and fire out of heaven upon it (vs 24). Verse 26 is likely a verse you have heard before, " But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt." Seem like a harsh punishment for simply turning your head? But there's more to it than that.
Lot's wife was not only accustomed to Sodom, apparently she like it and did not want to leave. In that, she was representative of all those in every time who are caught up in the consequences of the evil they cannot quite let go.
To repent, we must change our hearts and our behavior. To do this we must sometimes choose a new environment and new associates. Once we repent, we need to never regret that decision, and never again wish to indulge in those sins. To do so would be to be as Lot's wife.
Never look back. This gospel is a gospel of
progression, and forward moving. If we ever have a hard time letting a sin go, or feeling Godly sorrow, we can always pray for the Lord's help.
Verse 29 says, "And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt." Why did God preserve Lot? He wasn't the most stellar individual. God preserved him because he....
remembered Abraham? Abraham cared for Lot, and prayed for him. Lot was spared because of Abraham's righteousness. Isn't that amazing? Just think, how can
your righteousness behavior benefit others? President Spencer W. Kimball said:
“Our world is now much the same as it was in the days of the Nephite prophet who said: ‘ … if it were not for the prayers of the righteous … ye would even now be visited with utter destruction. …’ (Al. 10:22.) Of course, there are many many upright and faithful who live all the commandments and whose lives and prayers keep the world from destruction”
The Lord knows his way is hard - he knows it is more of a challenge than Satan's way. That is why he is continually with us, guiding us along the way. He will not fail us or forsake us. When Joseph Smith was in Liberty Jail (what an oxymoron) the Lord told him in
DC 121: 7-8, "My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be bu a small moment. And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all they foes." The topic of this lesson keeps driving my mind back to our baptismal covenants. At baptism in exchange for God's promises we are asked to take upon ourselves the name of Christ, setting ourselves apart from others. We are asked to
endure to the end. This, I think, is a huge part of 'living righteously in a wicked world'. There are so many trials, so many wicked things surrounding us. Satan never leaves us alone. But as long as we endure, we will succeed. And as mentioned above, we are not alone. When we are confirmed members of His church, we have the Holy Ghost with us to constantly guide us. We must stay righteous in order to have this God with us to guide our actions in the right direction constantly. Are you willing to give up the guidance of a God for a day in a world as wicked as ours? I am most certainly not. I need the Holy Ghost. I need Christ every hour. Elder Ballard said:
“In the Church, we often state the couplet, ‘Be in the world but not of the world.’ As we observe television shows that make profanity, violence, and infidelity commonplace and even glamorous, we often wish we could lock out the world in some way and isolate our families from it all. …
“Perhaps we should state the couplet previously mentioned as two separate admonitions. First, ‘Be in the world.’ Be involved; be informed. Try to be understanding and tolerant and to appreciate diversity. Make meaningful contributions to society through service and involvement. Second, ‘Be not of the world.’ Do not follow wrong paths or bend to accommodate or accept what is not right. …
Be that individual who stands out, and who sets the standard and the example for others. Be that righteous individual when no one else is willing to stand up for Christ. Defend him. Choose right when the world chooses wrong. I love, love this quote by Margaret Nadauld:
Women of God can never be like women of the world. The world has enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender. There are enough women who are coarse; we need women who are kind. There are enough women who are rude; we need women who are refined. We have enough women of fame and fortune; we need more women of faith. We have enough greed; we need more goodness. We have enough vanity; we need more virtue. We have enough popularity; we need more purity.
And from Elder Holland to the men:
From every man, young and old, who bears the priesthood, I ask for a stronger and more devoted voice, a voice not only against evil and him who is the personification of it, but a voice for good, a voice for the gospel, a voice for God. Brethren of all ages, unbind your tongues and watch your words work wonders in the lives of those “who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it.
Don't be afraid to shine, and be that Vapareon in a book full of Charizards.
Virtual hugs from me to you. xoxo
