FLYING TO PIECES IN THE FACE OF TRUTH

I love this man - without reservation.  Of all the people in this world - I get him more than anyone - and I have not even met him.  Reading TotPJS about six months before my mission fundamentally changed me.  Thanks be to God for a mother who cared enough to stop in at Deseret Book to get me my own paperback copy, which I then started reading casually, and then found I could not put it down.

Ending with the King Follett Discourse was the sweet cheery on top of a delicious dessert.  I fell in love with who that man is/was and cemented in my existing feelings for the Book of Mormon and the man who gave it all to get it here.  It made my mission easy.  At the same time I was preparing for my mission, I had a job at a local Kurtis Mathes TV and video shop.  A guy whose wife taught me Seminary in High School and then somewhere right after my Sophomore year, left this good man and the four little boys and ran off to be a lesbian in Portland, Oregon.  Then later (according to the scuttlebutt), a 19 year old guy half her age.  She was in the drug scene and a lot of other weird stuff back in the 70's.......  Yep, another piece of work - whose life just flew to pieces.  It was sad to see her implode.  Soooo...... I was working in this shop and one of my roles was to sell tv's.  I had ZERO ability to do so.  It was awkward because I actually can be a little shy (although I have mostly pushed past that in the past few decades) at times, but my product knowledge was nil.  Basically, the only way I got a sale, was when the people came in and already knew they wanted the best at the time - and bought it.  Other than that, I was a total bumbling idiot in that role.

As a missionary, after having read this book - I was able to powerfully (for that age, anyway) tell of my conviction of his role as the head of this dispensation - and translator of the Book of Mormon.  No questions asked. 

Recently, I was obliquely offered a job selling roofing systems in S. Alberta - not a whole lot of aerospace jobs there right now.....  My first question was - what kind of system is it, because I cannot "sell" something, unless I believe it in it completely.  As a missionary, I was able to talk to anybody about what I loved - but 25 years later, I still cannot sell others on something I do not believe in.

I have a situation where a family member flies to pieces when it comes to questions of God's dealings with Joseph on plural marriage - and even the nature of God when it comes to the nature of how Mary (mother of Jesus) came to be with child.  I am a pragmatist - details don't bother me if I do not question the motives of the person.  I leave the details the Lord.  After all, God HAS to be GOOD - or it is all for naught - in other words, you either buy the whole thing and accept anything you may not completely understand (from the puny perch we have been given), or we chuck the whole thing to the curb;  there IS NO middle ground in the debate or this contest.  What God chooses to do - or how He chooses to do things is of no business of mine to question.  It is just about accepting it - anything else?  Complete arrogance on my part - if I choose to question it.  Me, a freaking spec of sand in an ocean of it - questioning the Source of All?  Freaking delusional - and thus the reason I mock those that do for their arrogance and stupidity.  It is the height of a form of mental illness, involving grandiosity and self-importance, that would lead one to take a peek in just a corner of what we can see of worlds without end - and then question the author of all that - denying that He could exist.  Bloody delusional.....  That very act of realization for me, drives a knee to the ground and I declare within myself, "Lord, thou knowest all things - what can thy servant do to please thee that I may have the remotest chance of being in Thy holy presence once again?". 

It is for this reason, I fear, that many in this dispensation (of seeming endless scientific revelations) will find themselves in a bind after it is all over - and they find that who they are at their core (their spirits) have indeed continued on.  We have been able to see the expanses of the universe  and the utter majesty of our God - and many have chosen to reject Him in the face of stunning revelations about who He is - and the power and glory that is wielded by Him.  Utter arrogance.

Whether it is the detail of why God commanded one of His most magnificent creations (Joseph Smith) to take more than one wife, or whether His Only Begotten had sexual relations with one or more women (and possible posterity with them) while walking this earth, or whether His title of "Only Begotten of the Father" means that there was a physical act with an overshadowed (meaning, translated or shielded as a telestial being in the presence of a celestial and glorified being) virginal 19 year old (guess on age) Mary (who was betrothed to another man at the time) - the way EVERY other person has come into this world, including a painful, vaginal delivery (no magic, hokey-pokey in the delivery either) - or whether it was a waving of the magic wand for the delivery of the diefied genetic material (so much hogworts hogwash in my mind); it does NOT matter to me.  What God decided or decides to do is of no matter or consequence to me - I am not qualified in any way to counsel Him.  In fact - it is my role and job to simply take counsel - and then follow it.

Anything else, is demonically-influenced arrogance.  Period.  End of story - finito.

Here is the FB meme that got me spun up:


And here is the rub:  if you cannot handle the small things, how do you expect to make it back to the Kingdom of Heaven where there is so much more.  You will have damned yourself - by small thinking.  Literally, like the water in a channel coming upon an obstacle - your forward progress will cease - until you overcome the arrogance and stubbornness of heart and soul and submit your will to that of Father's.  That is the purpose of this life.  That is the purpose of the process we have been given to move line upon line, precept upon precept until we come to a fulness of the glory of God.

I have a co-worker that I consider an elect lady - but who is quite jaded against organized religion.  She was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer (the same gal who ripped me up one side and down the other for being "delusional" enough to believe in God back in 2012).  This after I asked her if her abdominal surgery went south, if she were in a position to be ready to meet her Maker.  It was a harmless question - but gave me about 45 mins of shred for my trouble.  I have to say - I was hurt by it a little.  I open my mouth and take a lot of damage for my 88:81 work - but this was a special kind of shred.  I asked God to do a special intervention for her (kneeling at my desk after work) - to soften her heart and to bring her to a place where He might save her from a life of hedonistic unbelief.  Well, she was the 1 in 10,000 whose surgery did go south - she went septic after a leak in the stitches and was dead twice during a 3 month fight for her life.  The total recovery took over a year.  Wherein, she returned and testified in front of all her subordinates that she knows that God lives.  Her husband had a heart attack and died in the front yard where she came home and found him.  The stress of her medical issues was too much - and he kicked it.  She has slid a little in her belief in God - and now this diagnosis for her.  She has several years, it is a slow-acting - so she has time to refine it and get it right before the meeting.