Talk given at the Pleasant Valley Branch at the South Boise Women's Correctional Center
May 10th, 2015
The Process of Change
When
we think of God, we think of someone with incredible power. We think of how he
helped Moses free the Israelites from Egypt, parting the Red Sea so his people
could escape. We think of Jesus Christ feeding the five thousand from only a
handful of loaves and fishes. We recognize that Heavenly Father and Jesus
Christ have incredible power. It only seems natural that if they really love
us, they should use those powers to help us here on earth.
“God could fix my life in five minutes if he
wanted to,” we say in exasperation. And when God disagrees to make fire rain
down from the sky onto our enemies, we get angry with him. We tell ourselves
that if God doesn’t want to help us with our problems, then it’s his fault when
we suffer because of them.
In
reality, we know God didn’t inflict our problems on us. The problems in our
lives are the products of choices—whether our own choices, or someone else’s.
In order to teach us the consequences of those actions, the Lord does not
interfere. He will, however, teach us and enable us to make better choices, to
overcome our circumstances.
This
is the topic I want to address with you today, by starting with a scripture.
For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I
will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a
little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts,
and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that
receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from
them shall be taken away even that which they have.
2 Nephi 28: 30
In
this scripture, the Lord outlines four essential characteristics of real and
lasting change.
- Line
Upon Line
- Precept
Upon Precept
- Here
a little, and There a Little
-
Hearken
to Learn Wisdom
Whether
we’re overcoming an addiction, healing from abuse in our past, or simply trying
to become a kind and compassionate person, our transformation will depend on us
receiving these four aspects of change into our lives.
1. “Line upon Line”
To
go through something line upon line means to start at the beginning, and to go
in order through all of the necessary steps until you reach the end. It means
taking the time to finish each step in a process, and to do it right. We don’t
expect there to be a shortcut, a faster way to get what we want. We are willing
to pay full price, walk the entire distance, or wait the full duration of time
it takes to achieve the desired result.
Imagine
if you wanted to read a book, and kept skipping every other line because you
wanted to get to the end faster. You’d miss so much information, the book
wouldn’t even make any sense. But that’s how some of us try to live our lives.
We want to skip over the unpleasant, boring, difficult, or tedious parts and get
straight to the good stuff. People who live this way long enough believe that
life should never have to be inconvenient.
Many
of Satan’s deceptions I’ve encountered all deal in this one desire—a promise of
easier results with less work or time required. He’s always offering dishonest,
yet easy ways to avoid a problem, while trying to minimize or conceal the
consequences. Feel better now the easy way. Make money the faster way. Get respect
without earning it. Get the results you want without confronting your problems,
gaining skills, or becoming a better person.
Jesus
Christ never gave into this temptation to find an easier way. In Luke 4: 1-12,
Jesus was tempted three different times to accomplish his mission the easier
way. All of Christ’s life, he lived in poverty. He went hungry most of the
time. In verse 3, the Devil tempts him by saying “If thou be the Son of God,
command this stone that it be made bread.”
Listen
to Jesus’ response: “It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but
by every word of God.”
Jesus
knows that if he uses his powers to give himself food, he may solve the problem
of his hunger. But he will have done so by an abuse of his power and authority.
He knows that it was a commandment to Adam that by the sweat of his brow, he
should earn his bread all the days of his life. Jesus would never take that
which he had not earned. To use his power in this way would be cheating and
stealing. It was a sin for him to do so, and Jesus Christ intended to keep ALL
of the commandments. He would not
reduce his divine purpose to the mere exercise of obtaining bread. He would
live for more than his own hunger, by every word and commandment from the mouth
of his Father in Heaven.
If
we intend to become the people Jesus has taught us to be, we must not be afraid
to learn, to work, and to heal “line upon line.” We must do it his way, and be submissive to the will
of the Lord every time he makes it known to us—from start to finish.
2. “Precept upon Precept”
A
precept is a statement of pure truth. Sometimes we refer to these a doctrines
or principles. A precept is a principle of power. It’s anything we learn that
transforms, heals, or saves us. Because the Holy Ghost testifies of precepts,
he gives us the power to change as we ponder and embrace them.
Jesus
Christ suffered for my sins, weaknesses, and my mortal imperfections in the
Garden of Gethsemane. Because he was resurrected, I will live again after I
die. He loves me and wants me to live with him forever. These are all precepts.
The moment we understand a precept, receive it, and base our beliefs and
actions upon it, it changes us. We see ourselves and everything around us
differently. We have a greater desire to repent and come unto Christ.
Just
as no one is ever too old to learn if they will apply themselves, no one is
ever so lost that they cannot repent. No matter where you are, or how far you
have to go, there is still hope for you to change. I know this is true because
of the transformation I’ve seen in my own life.
I
am a convert to the Church. My parents were not religious people. They made
choices that brought much suffering into their lives, and into the lives of
those around them. My father was an alcoholic and an addict, and my mother
struggled to raise two children without any help from him. I can’t tell you how
many times we didn’t have enough to eat, but there was always a case of beer in
the refrigerator. My mom scraped the food off of her plate to feed her children
more times than I care to remember. My greatest fear was that my future would
never be any different, that I couldn’t escape the poverty and the violence
that had always been my life.
When
I learned the message of the restored gospel, I realized that I had a choice in
who I would become. I came to feel for myself what Jesus was talking about when
he promised “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye
shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8: 31-32)
I
had never felt free, because I had never known the truth. I didn’t know that I
was a daughter of God, with great worth and value. I didn’t know that God could
answer my prayers. I didn’t know that Jesus Christ atoned for my sins so he
could forgive me for my mistakes. I didn’t know that he was resurrected so that
I would live again after I died. I didn’t know that Jesus had called Joseph
Smith to be a prophet, to bring an end to the spiritual famine in which my
family had always lived their lives. I didn’t know that I needed to be baptized
in order to be saved. And I didn’t know that Jesus had the power to heal the
years of abuse I had endured from people in my life who should have known
better.
As
I learned the truth “precept upon precept,” I felt myself begin to change. I
came to love my Savior in a deeply personal way as he healed me, week after
week, of pain that ran deep within my soul. I had felt so broken for so long, I
struggled to imagine how my life could ever be any different. And because the
Lord wanted me to know that he loved me,
he didn’t start by fixing all of my problems, or my circumstances, or the
people in my life who were making a royal mess of everything around me. He
started by fixing me.
In
time, I learned the wisdom of the Lord in why he focused on fixing me, instead
of my circumstances. President Ezra Taft Benson explained it best when he said:
The Lord works from the inside out.
The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the
slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out
of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ
changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human
behavior, but Christ can change human nature.
I
realized that God wasn’t going to fix my problems for me. He gave me complete
access to his Atonement, and allowed me to use it to fix my own life. In time,
I would take myself away from the poverty, abuse, and neglect that had been my
experience in life.
Line
upon line, precept upon precept, I rejected every excuse that kept me from
escaping poverty. I purged from my heart every weakness that compelled me to
hurt others because I was hurting. I severed relationships with friends and
family—sometimes temporarily, sometimes for good—because I refused to be a
victim anymore. Everything that was selfish, hateful, unforgiving, proud,
vengeful, carnal, sensual, and devilish had to go. I was in battle against my
natural woman, in a way I had no language to describe until I read these words
by Bryant S. Hinckley:
When a man makes war on his own
weaknesses he engages in the holiest war that mortals ever wage. The reward
that comes from victory in this struggle is the most enduring, most satisfying,
and the most exquisite that man ever experiences. In no other conflict is there
so much at stake. In no other struggle are the values so precious and the
results so compensating and so comforting.
Bryant
S. Hinckley, That Ye Might Have Joy
Purging
myself of the natural woman will take a lifetime. But I could tell I had made
real progress when instead of asking myself, “What do I want, and what is the
easiest way to get it?” I had learned to ask, “What does the Lord want me to
do, and how can I do it in a way that will please him?”
I
began remaking my life in the Lord’s image, until there was no resemblance to
the life I lived before. You may question if that will ever be possible for
you. I testify that it is! Your victory over sin and death is guaranteed. The
only question you have to ask is how badly do you want it? How much are you
willing to give for that newness of life? Because your problems won’t end. The
life of discipleship is way more difficult than anything I ever faced living in
a trailer park. But the difference now is I have help, hope, and a future!
“In the world ye shall have
tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world,” the Lord said.
“I will that ye should overcome the world; wherefore I will have compassion
upon you.” (John 16: 33, D&C 64: 2)
Jesus
Christ is mighty to save. He has truly descended below all things, from the
destitute and the hopeless, to the darkest abyss of hell and back. There is no
suffering you have felt that he has not borne with you. And he didn’t do it
just so you would have some company in your misery! He intends to rescue you!
He did it because that it what it means to leave the ninety-and-nine, and go in
search of the one. He will provide for your deliverance, one step at a time. It
may be slow going at first, but “line upon line, precept upon precept,” step by
step, he is leading you to the kingdom of God.
3. “Here a Little, There a Little”
In
order for the truth to have this kind of impact on us, we must be in constant
search of God. Searching for the
Lord’s hand in our lives is a lot like the Israelites gathering manna in the
desert. While many people know of the miracle in which the Lord caused bread to
appear each morning on the ground, a lesser known detail is how they could only
keep enough to last themselves for the day. If they tried or expected to gather
more, the manna would rot and be of no use to them.
The Lord intended to teach them that, in the same way they needed
to eat every day, they needed to look to the Lord for their sustenance. Every
time they went out in search of food, they had to acknowledge from whose hand
it had come.
The same idea applies to us when we are searching for the Lord's
influence in our circumstances. He never gives us so much of his help that we
will never need his help again. He gives us "here a little, and there a
little" according to our daily needs. He interacts with us in this way
because he knows it will help us to build a continuing relationship of trust
with him.
To search for the Lord's influence in our lives means turning to
him diligently each day, not just when we're in the middle of a crisis. It
means trusting that his allotment to us is sufficient for our needs, and we
resist the temptation to demand more. We embrace that gathering answers to our
prayers requires effort and practice. We accept whatever the Lord gives to us,
without resistance.
The Israelites, like us, were human. They needed to learn the same
lessons over and over again, the same ways we do today. Several hundred years
after the Israelites settled in the promised land, they became slow to remember
the Lord. The broke his commandments, and spurned every effort the Lord made to
correct them. Their punishment was to spend 70 years in exile in Babylon. But
even in the same day the Lord declared their exile, he was already providing a
way for their deliverance. In Jeremiah 29: 11-13, we read:
11 For I know the thoughts that I think
toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an
expected end.
12 Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will
hearken unto you.
13 And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your
heart.
The Lord would come to deliver his people from exile when they
were ready to invest their whole hearts into searching for him. No punishment
lasts forever when we search for the Lord, and choose to repent. For each of
us, the promise is the same.
As a topic for your
own personal scripture study, I would invite you to study deliverance, and the
many accounts of the Lord delivering his people from bondage. What role did the
people play in their own deliverance?
It's true in every
case that they never would have succeeded without the Lord. But had the people
never acted, using their faith and agency, the Lord never would have intervened
on their behalf.
Searching for
inspiration from the Lord for many of the problems in our lives will come over
a period of weeks, months, and sometimes even many years. But as those
conversations with the Lord unfold, we do not need to wait that long to receive
his blessings. The moment we reach out to him, we are instantly blessed with a
better relationship with him.
Trust that searching
“here a little, and there a little” is not a waste of time. When we are
diligently doing everything we can, our lives are improving—even if we do not
see it. Have the faith and hope to believe in the progress you cannot see.
4. “He that Hearkeneth… shall learn wisdom”
Everything
I have described to you today is impossible without listening. In a very real
way, everything I have taught you today has been about listening: how to listen
to the Lord better, and what the blessings are to those who listen to the Lord.
When
I was young, a wise person in my life once said, “You have two ears and one
mouth because God wanted you to listen twice as much as you talk.”
Then
I served a mission and had to learn a foreign language. I had no choice but to
listen to everyone I met, because I couldn’t talk. I spent so much of my energy
struggling to talk. I was reminded of the value of listening by a phrase written
on a calendar: “The reward for always listening when you'd rather be talking is
wisdom.”
Wisdom
is the ability to use the knowledge we’ve obtained, to judge between right and
wrong for ourselves. Wisdom requires responsibility, the willingness to live
with the consequences of our choices. Developing that ability reason we came to
earth. Wisdom is the one thing we could never have had if we’d stayed in
Heavenly Father’s presence. We understood the risk of coming here, of
confronting evil, of making choices—and we had absolute confidence in the
Lord’s ability to help us. This entire learning experience does not work if we
do not ask for help, and listen for the Lord’s response.
Job
in the Old Testament learned about the value of gaining wisdom, even in
suffering. As he became a target for Satan’s temptations and interference, his
children were killed, he lost all of his herds, and his house was destroyed.
His friends abandoned him, and his conversations with them all center around
one question: Is suffering and misfortune a punishment for sin?
Job’s
experience provides an answer to this question. Job was not suffering because
he had sinned. He was suffering because he was learning lessons about himself
and the Lord he could not have learned in any other way. How else could Job
have developed the faith to say about the Lord, “Though he slay me, yet will I
trust in him”? (Job 13: 15) How else would he have come to say about himself, “But
he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as
gold”? (Job 23: 10)
By
the time Job reached the end of that experience, of proving himself before the
Lord AND the Devil, Job had learned one of the most precious lessons God has to
teach.
12 But where shall wisdom be found?
and where is the place of understanding?
28 And unto man [the Lord] said,
Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is
understanding.
Job 28: 12, 28
Sisters,
I know the Lord is aware of each one of you. He knows your circumstances, you
fears, your questions, and the plan he has for your lives. He knows what you
need. By allowing him to teach you line upon line, precept upon precept, here a
little and there a little, you will learn wisdom.
I
know that God is our loving Father in Heaven. He sent his son, Jesus Christ, to
redeem us all from the Fall. I know that Joseph Smith is the prophet who
restored the true Church of Jesus Christ to the earth. The Book of Mormon is
the word of God. This one verse we’ve discussed today is only one example of
thousands of ways the Book of Mormon can teach and uplift you.
I
leave you my testimony and my prayers in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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