GOD OVER ANYTHING

I got into it with a pro-rainbow lady on FB who a "Latter-day Aint".  Her profile is full of rainbow flags, etc.  I had a co-worker from SLC that left the Church a few years ago over the vackseen thing as well as her support for a "lesbian" daughter.  She was looking for an excuse.  I told her so and asked her how she will deny the Book of Mormon's witness - and she cut off communication with me.  No one likes the truth.  Her downward trajectory was also started with her husband's need for medical marijuana for some intense back pain he was in after a botched surgery.  He was looking for an excuse and then took down his wife.  Very sad.

Here is the bottom line: God cares only about our obedience to Him.  Not to our wives, our children, society, gubmints and He absolutely does not want us following "our own truth", which I call "the vain imaginations of our own minds (or hearts)".  We read about obedience tests given in the scriptures and even Joseph Smith would resort to them when surrounded by wolves.  Peter was pushed to the limit to see where his loyalty limit was; and found it on the third crow of the rooster. Some of the rules on the mission were simply obedience tests and had varying degrees of common sense applied to them.  The missionaries that saw the greatest blessings were the most obedient and executed directives with exactness.  Those that were slothful, saw little to no miraculous outpouring.  If so, it was in spite of them.  The hardest driving missionary I knew was one who had repented mightily (was a stoner/womanizer type) whose girlfriend at the time found out he was a Mormon and he was asked about what a Mormon was.  Of course the Book of Mormon came up and she asked to read it.  She did, became convinced of it's truthfulness and insisted they quit sleeping together and that he start going to church.  He cut his hair, cleaned up his act and soon was on a mission with the promise that she would wait.  While in the MTC, he had a mighty change of heart and committed himself to God.  He determined that he would be a warrior for God - in part to atone for his slothful life before.  He was a sight to behold.  I worked like a dog (to the point my Mission Pres asked me to throttle it back a few times because my comps were complaining) - but this guy made me look like a slacker when we would go out on splits!  I could barely keep up with him and he was throttling back to be nice to me.  He would get up an hour or more before the wakeup hour of 6:30am just to cook a massive 3000 calorie breakfast and to work out on weights he dragged everywhere he went.  Over the top!  But, he set a personal goal to baptize 100 people in the final three months of his mission.  And he made that goal.  He was way behind coming into the last several weeks, but God knew better and he was shown a family patriarch to teach.  The man had incredible influence in that family and said that the whole clan (down to grandkids that were of age, were to be baptized) and I believe that came to 66 people.  He ended up with just over his goal.  I have never seen anything like it.  An amazing feat!   An amazing guy!

His secret was:

• prayer, 
• setting goals - as directed by the Spirit, 
• being obedient with exactness (not Pharisaically; to be seen of men - but like Nephi of old, who went and did as the Lord commanded because he wanted to please God and not necessarily man) and 
• depending on the Lord as if your life depended on it.

Simple recipe.  Great results every time.  This can work with anything from building a house to raising a family to being just a great overall person who gets the most bang for their buck out of life.

But my main point is that mostly what I am seeing is that people leaving the Church are people who are weak (of course) and struggling with chastity or WoW issues where those things have become their gods over God.  Often, they will convince their spouse that a little pornography will "spice" up the sex life, a little swinging will "add some variety" or that the marijuana or a coffee in the morning will really help them along.  As with everything that is addictive, it usually never ends there and the sex or the intoxicant just keeps ramping up to the next big thing until it is untenable.  Is sex bad?  Nope!  Is a cup of Joe bad?  Just one?  Probably not.  Is one hit of cocaine necessarily bad?  One video game?  One half hour on the computer looking at pornography?  Nope - probably will not kill you physically or spiritually.  But, it never ends with just one.   Addictive behavior is simply addictive.  Of all that, sexual sin is the trickiest - because we are sexual beings with programming to procreate - but we have been given defined bounds to keep things from getting out of control.  As I always say - if we can keep the Genie in that particular bottle in this life, we will be given more ability to use this power in the next phase.  If not, it will be taken from us the very "talent" we were given in this life.  If we abuse it by NOT using it (to save the planet or because kids are just plain inconvenient - or any other contrived excuse), then we are also in danger of the Judgment (fall short or go too far - it is about hitting the mark).

But the objective is to let NOTHING get in the way of our relationship with God.  If it is a kid that somehow has decided that they think they are gay, or the spouse decided that they were going their own way with the Gospel and wanted me to come along, my first impulse would be to tell them to repent.  If they did not, I would tell them where they can meet me (after their phase of rebellion).

ALWAYS; God first.