No Coincidences

Tag: religion

  • A Ward Family

    A Ward Family

    When Beth and I got married, we were required to leave our ward or church building we had been attending. That ward was for young single adults (YSA). As we were no longer single and saying goodbye to the days of young, it was time for us to leave.

    That ward held an important place in my heart. It was that ward that helped me come back to Christ. It was the leaders there that helped me re-establish my faith. It was the people there that helped me feel welcome and helped me to stay.

    I didn’t want to leave.

    Beth said we had to.

    After the YSA ward Beth and I joined a family ward that didn’t last long before it was split, boundaries were reset, and we joined another ward.

    We’ve now been in the Chaparral ward for most of our marriage.

    We recently moved so we’re joining a new ward, a new group of people, a new building. It won’t be that different, aside from the people.

    And yet it’s been really hard for me to say goodbye.

    We’re just moving down the street, I’ll still see some of the people from our old ward sometimes. But it won’t be the same.

    I compared it to moving away for college. Moving away for college was really difficult for me. I love my family. I knew when I left for college that everything was changing. I also knew it was something I had to do to grow.

    When I left for college, of course I’d continued to see my family. They’d only be a 5-hour drive away. But I wouldn’t see them every day. I wouldn’t talk to them every day. We wouldn’t be in the same house.

    In the same way, leaving our ward, they’d just be a 15-minute drive away. But I wouldn’t see them every Sunday. I wouldn’t talk to them every week.

    I guess I just don’t like goodbyes.

    It’s difficult saying goodbye to my family every time I leave home.

    And that’s when I realized that the Chaparral Ward in the Scottsdale Arizona North Stake had become my family, and I would miss them.

    My calling in our ward for the last year was Elders Quorum President. Before that I was an Elders Quorum counselor so I’d been in the Elders Quorum Presidency for the Chaparral Ward for a couple years. I had pages and pages of notes. Tons of spreadsheets. Tons of information, and thoughts, and to-dos for and about these people I had come to care a lot about. As I compiled it all into one email for the person taking my place, I realized I wouldn’t need most of this information ever again.

    As I closed 15 browser tabs on my computer that I’d had open for a year, it was like saying goodbye.

    A ward family is unique and special. I will miss those people. I will miss those relationships.

    A little over a year ago the Chaparral ward received a new member. A man was baptized into our ward. Soon after his baptism, he moved to a new area, so he left our ward. But he was still family. He started dating a woman from our ward and they were sealed in the Gilbert temple recently. Beth and I were privileged and blessed to be there.

    Beth and I found a babysitter that very morning, just in time to get to the temple. We were one of the last to arrive and walk into the sacred sealing room. We had only been out of the Chaparral ward a couple weeks. As we walked into the sealing room, we looked around at all familiar faces, all faces from the Chaparral ward. I realized that for this couple getting married, with no local family or family in the church, this was their famliy: Ward Family. Everyone there were members of their church. Everyone there loved them. This is the significance of a ward family. This is the power and the love of a church.

    I guess this is what Christ wants. It’s why His church is important. Over time we spend so much time with these people. We love and we serve. During my time in the Chaparral ward I thought about this group of people so much, sometimes at the expense of my family. Sometimes my family needed me but I was at someone’s new home at 8am Saturday morning helping them move. Often I would be on my phone with someone needing help while my girls crawled over me. The time put into those people I loved so much connected me to them.

    A new Elders Quorum President comes in and the ward will continue with business as usual. All will continue seamlessly. This is the structure of Christ’s church.

    It’s the love of Christ that allows us to serve in these callings. I’m grateful for that calling. It was so hard. I couldn’t believe I only served in that calling for a year because it felt like so much more. That calling stretched my limits and taught me a lot.

    I’m grateful that Christ asks us to serve when we’re so incapable.

    But now I say goodbye and we move on to new opportunities, new people, new chances to serve.

    “To ten million fireflies, I’m weird ‘cause I hate goodbyes

    I got misty eyes as they said farewell.”

    -Owl City

  • One Eternal Round

    One Eternal Round

    I started making some bad decisions in high school. These decisions nearly derailed my life.

    During that time I was becoming friendly with a girl. She knew about some of my bad decision-making.

    One night when we were hanging out I told her I would never get married anywhere but a temple. This interested her. Why, she wondered, would someone like me, who seemingly cared nothing for this religion that I was raised with, care about a temple marriage?

    I explained to her that I believed my church was true. If my church was true, then it held the authority to marry couples for eternity. That church, therefore, sealed families for eternity. I told her if I married someone I didn’t want it to end after we died. If I were to ever get married, I wanted it to be for eternity.

    When I was in college my decision making had gotten increasingly worse.

    On a night I don’t remember, it was later told to me that I bore my testimony to a girl at a party. I don’t remember any of this. Apparently, religion came up and I told her I knew the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was Jesus Christ’s church on the earth.

    This girl asked the obvious question, “If you know it’s true, why are you doing the things you’re doing?”

    I’m told I said that even though I wasn’t living the standards of the church, I couldn’t deny what I knew to be true.

    That testimony that I don’t remember had a big impact on that girl.

    Years later that first girl from high school sent me a postcard. That girl from high school had gotten baptized. Her postcard was one of a few critical moments that helped me come back to church and changed my life.

    A month after that postcard, in the midst of my difficult journey back to church, I stumbled upon a Facebook message that had gotten blocked and I’d never seen. It was from years prior. It was from the girl at the college party, the girl I bore a drunken testimony to.

    She told me she’d gotten baptized. She told me she had never let me know how big an impact that testimony had on her ultimately getting baptized. I visited her and her budding family. She was sealed in the temple. She had an eternal family. She was happy. It gave me strength to continue on the path of repentance that was so, so hard.

    The girl from high school got married in the temple and now has three kids. She has an eternal family. She is happy.

    A patriarchal blessing is extremely sacred. I share a short line from my blessing with the utmost reverence:

    “Trouble not yourself over lost days, for you are an eternal being”

    I can’t tell you how comforting those words were when I was trying to find strength to stay faithful, and how important those words continue to be to me.

    It is all one eternal round to God (D&C 3:2). He knew I would stumble. What did He do when I stumbled? Put two people in my path that I could somehow, inexplicably, impact at my lowest, during my most degraded behaviors.

    What did He do?

    He put those two people back in my path when they could help me back. He put two people back into my life to help me remember what I always knew, what I was getting dangerously close to forgetting. He put two people in my path to remind me who I was. I am nothing special of myself, but I am a son of God. That is special.

    I marvel at the workings of God. That He loves us so much that He gave us a world so we could leave our Heavenly home, just as children leave their homes here on earth to go out and learn, and grow, and fall. He gave us an earth to fall. But He allowed us a way back.

    I know there is a way back.

    I know that Jesus Christ allows that way back.

    I know that God planned for everything. We are His work and His glory.

    I can never deny what I know.

  • A Kingdom Divided

    A Kingdom Divided

    The first step for Zion is to stop distinguishing ourselves from one another. We are first Children of God.

    President Russell M. Nelson has been clear about the three primary identities we should all focus on for ourselves. Those three identities are:

    First – children of God.

    The first identity is for every person on the face of the earth. Whether they realize it or not, every person is a child or God. The second and third identities are for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But this does not exclude anyone. The second and third identities are an invitation to the world.

    The second identity is child of the covenant.

    The third identity is disciple of Jesus Christ.

    President Nelson has stressed that anything we give precedence over these three identities distracts from our true potential. As children of God, children of the covenant, and disciples of Jesus Christ, we have a divine inheritance and royal home to return to. Any other worldly designation distracts from our ultimate goal of becoming everything we can be.

    Some of the other designations the world assigns include sexuality, status, race, and political affiliation. There are countless self-defined categories we assign ourselves. None of these things matter, they won’t matter at all when the veil is lifted, and we are reminded of what we always were.

    Zion are the pure in heart (D&C 97:21), Zion are one.

    All who believe in Christ are the children of Christ. But how is Zion established? How can there be unity in Christ given the divisive nature of the world and Christianity?

    A search for all the sects of Christianity brings up THOUSANDS of results. Thousands. How can one know the truth when there are so many claiming to be true? How can Christianity be united under Christ when there are thousands battling for attention, power, and patrons.

    How can God be a God of such confusion and disorder?

    In Luke 11:17 Jesus Christ says:

    Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth.

    How would Jesus Christ feel about the state of the religion that espouses His name?

    I’ve heard it said that Christianity is united, despite its differences, in its faith in Christ. I think this is an admirable way to look at it. In fact, it’s how I try to look at it. It’s my opinion and belief that our faith in Jesus Christ is important and unites us. That said, what really unites us? What enduring principle is it that unites all Christians?

    Is it our belief in what Christ taught? There are a million different interpretations of what Christ taught.  

    Is it our belief in who Christ was? That couldn’t be a more divisive topic. Was He who He claimed to be? Was He the Son of God or wasn’t he?

    Is it our belief in the Atonement of Jesus Christ and what it accomplished? Again, there are different interpretations of Christ’s Atonement, why it was needed, and what it accomplished.

    Surely we can agree on Christ’s resurrection? Was Christ resurrected with His body or wasn’t He? Was there significance to Him eating fish with His disciples after His resurrection? Again, there is contention on this topic.

    What can Christianity be united on? It seems nothing.

    I believe the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provides the only solution to this problem. What Christianity can be united on is a connection to Jesus Christ. A real connection. Not a belief in Him, what He taught, or who He was. The connection must be real and tangible. The connection must be a welding link. The connection must have veracity on earth and in heaven (Matthew 18:18). That connection must be through a covenant.

    A covenant is a two-way promise.

    A covenant binds us to Him.

    When we get baptized, we promise to take upon us the name of Christ, and He becomes our shepherd. From that point on we are inseparably linked with Him.

    Latter-day Saints are a covenant people. The saints of God have always been covenant keepers.

    In the podcast Church History Matters, the hosts were speaking about the early history of temples in the Church of Jesus Christ. Something they said stood out to me as I’ve been working on writing this post.

    “…through the ordinances given to both men and women, living and dead, the human family is being knit or woven or let’s just use the word sealed together into one eternal holy order which we can call the family of God, we can call it the Kingdom of God, we can call it the Church of the Firstborn, we can call it the Celestial Kingdom, or simply the priesthood.”

    In the most recent General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Elder McCune of the Seventy said:

    Joy and eternal perspective come through being bound to the Savior by making and keeping covenants through Christlike discipleship.

    Adam, Abraham, Moses, and Peter; they made covenants with the great Jehovah and became His, and received of His power. Over time, they became more like Him. Over time they became one with Him. Enoch created Zion and was so connected to the Lord that he and his city were taken up to Him. This connection is made through covenants.

    What can unite Christianity? It is a covenant with Jesus Christ.

    Christ’s Church has temples where these covenants can be made.

    We must strive to be one with our brothers and sisters. We can only truly be one as we are united under one banner. The disjointed nature of Christianity is unacceptable. Covenants are needed. It is the banner of covenants with Jesus Christ that will unite Christianity, and nothing else. He died for us. In return, He asked us to believe in Him, follow Him, repent, and be baptized. That was His request of us. There is only one baptism that is acceptable to God the Father and that is the baptism with His authority in the name of His Son. No other baptism is acceptable to Him because it is a baptism not by His authority.

    I wish the Christian world could see that it is covenants that unite us to God. It is covenants that can re-unite us.

    I know as the Millenium approaches that one day all knees will bow and every tongue confess. At some future date the children of God will know and understand the covenants needed to unite the heavenly and eternal family.

    It is here for us now. But the world does not listen. Jesus was sent to this world, but He was not of it. This world struggles with the eternal nature of what God has in store for us. One day the world will have to understand what was always offered to us. What is offered to us is unity under Christ. Eternal families, eternal potential, eternal happiness, eternal inheritance. That is what will come when the world covenants to join with Jesus Christ and be Zion.

  • Wheat and Tares

    Wheat and Tares

    Christ gives the parable of wheat and tares in Matthew 13:24-30:

    24 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:

    25 But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

    26 But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.

    27 So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?

    28 He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?

    29 But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.

    30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

    In Doctrine and Covenants section 86 Christ gave an explanation of this parable. Here are His words:

    1 Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servants, concerning the parable of the wheat and of the tares:

    2 Behold, verily I say, the field was the world, and the apostles were the sowers of the seed;

    3 And after they have fallen asleep the great persecutor of the church, the apostate, the whore, even Babylon, that maketh all nations to drink of her cup, in whose hearts the enemy, even Satan, sitteth to reign—behold he soweth the tares; wherefore, the tares choke the wheat and drive the dchurch into the wilderness.

    4 But behold, in the last days, even now while the Lord is beginning to bring forth the word, and the blade is springing up and is yet tender—

    5 Behold, verily I say unto you, the angels are crying unto the Lord day and night, who are ready and waiting to be sent forth to reap down the fields;

    6 But the Lord saith unto them, pluck not up the tares while the blade is yet tender (for verily your faith is weak), lest you destroy the wheat also.

    7 Therefore, let the wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest is fully ripe; then ye shall first gather out the wheat from among the tares, and after the gathering of the wheat, behold and lo, the tares are bound in bundles, and the field remaineth to be burned.

    Quick rundown:

    Verses 1-3 explains the great apostasy that occurred to the church after the apostles “have fallen asleep” (aka were killed).

    Verse 4 reminds us that we’re now speaking of our day.

    Verse 5 tells us, “the angels are crying unto the Lord… to reap down the fields.” That can be interpreted different ways but basically the angels want to start with the harvest. The harvest can be considered the gathering of souls at the end of times. This leads to

    Verse 6 where the Lord tells the angels to hold off on the harvest because He doesn’t want to destroy the wheat. The wheat are the righteous, those followers of the Lord. The tares are those who oppose God.

    Verse 7 we learn that wheat will grow alongside tares until the end. Then the wheat will be separated from the tares, and the tares will be burned.

    I believe the most telling part of those verses is in verse 6 where it says, “for verily your faith is weak.”

    The Lord doesn’t want to pull up the tares because the wheat is still “tender” with weak faith.

    I’ve heard this parable many times but for the first time a thought occurred to me. What would it mean for the angels to reap the harvest and pull up the tares while the wheat is still weak? The tares being pulled up signifies the evil people of the world being taken away. The wheat would be too weak to handle this, the wheat is too intertwined with the tares. Wheat and tares, of course, represent people. What does it mean that the wheat is too tender for the tares to be taken? The thought that occurred to me was that the wheat, or faithful people, would have their faith shattered if the tares around them were taken. Could this represent the tares of some friends, family, and people we care about? What if God let loose the angels and took up the tares. How many faithful people would lose loved ones? 

    Are you a wheat or a tare?

    Is our faith weak or strong?

    In Matthew 13:38 Christ says

    “The good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one”.

    Christ doesn’t detail the ok seed or the middle ground seed. We are good seeds or we are tares. We are working for Christ or working against Him. We are faithful or we lack faith.

    One day the wheat will be separated from the tares and the end will come. When that day comes, which side will we be on? The side of the wheat or the side of the tares? It’s not enough to be lukewarm as the adversary intensifies his attack. Wheat is nourishing, tares are not. There’s no middle ground. You are either a wheat or a tare.

    Which are you?

  • Ivy and Jesus with the Light

    Ivy and Jesus with the Light

    I was working on my laptop and Ivy saw a picture. It was an abstract-looking drawing of a long-haired individual meditating.

    Ivy said, “It’s Jesus.”

    Her and Sage say this if they see pretty much any image of a long-haired individual.

    It makes me happy every time.

    I chuckled.

    Then Ivy said, “Show Jesus with the light.”

    I paused like you often have to do when talking with 4-year-olds to figure out what she meant.

    Jesus with the light…

    Hmm…

    Then it came to me what she meant. I pulled up this image and showed it to her:

    “Yes! That’s it!” She looked fondly at the picture.

    My happiness turned to joy.

    This picture has a special place in my heart as it was once an answer to prayer that I’ve remembered ever since.

    When I was just returning to church, I attended a fireside one Sunday evening. I dragged Chris along with me. As he and I were walking around the church building halls before the meeting got started, we paused at the above picture, which is present in so many of our church buildings.

    We both looked at it.

    “Why do they look the same?” Chris asked.

    Huh. I’d looked at this picture at least 346,000 times but never really realized or thought about it. They did look the same. I didn’t know the answer.

    Chris shrugged and moved on. I was kind of annoyed I didn’t know the answer to a question I felt I should know. Or at the very least something I should have noticed in my 346,001 viewing of the painting.

    We went into the fireside.

    The speaker was introduced and he stood to speak. He powered on a projector and an image was displayed behind him. 

    Drum roll please.

    You guessed it.

    The image displayed was none other than the painting Chris and I had just been observing in the hall.

    The speaker began, “Does anyone know why the figures in this image look so much alike?”

    My head jerked to look at Chris next to me. Was he hearing this?!

    The speaker went on to explain that the scriptures tell us that Jesus Christ is in the express image of His father. Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father look alike. Makes sense, He is His Son, after all.

    I can’t remember why the speaker talked about this. It wasn’t a major point. It was something I think he assumed most of us knew (I didn’t!). He proceeded onto his main point that I can’t remember.

    I was shocked.

    Chris asked a question. We received an answer.

    I considered this a miracle.

    I think Chris shrugged and thought, ‘what a coincidence.’

    I have joy today because I came back to church. I have joy today because I consider every day what Jesus Christ did for me yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I have joy today because Ivy and Sage say “Jesus!” every time they see an image of a long-haired man.

    NoCoincidences.