This is Not the Apocalypse

I don't know what impact President Nelson's "Prepare for the Second Coming" rhetoric has had on the Mormons in your life. It has scared the bejeezus out of the people in mine.

I don't like it.

I don't like the anxiety it has created that the Second Coming of Jesus is imminent. I don't like seeing people looking at the hardship in the world around us and surrendering any thoughts of their relationship to it because Jesus is, in their minds, coming back any day now. I don't like the fear I've seen in the people younger than me at Church who don't have the wisdom to know better. I don't like how so many lessons are being brought back to "Prepare for the Second Coming," even when it isn't helpful or useful.

Check on the Mormons in your life, especially the younger ones who have never had (or given themselves) a Second Coming jump scare before.  Make sure they have a healthy dose of Matthew 24:42 so they can sleep at night.

Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.

Matt. 24:42 

I said it in Relief Society to the women in my reach and I'll say it as many times as it takes. If we're thinking with any amount of certainly that the Second Coming is nigh, we're probably wrong. The Bible says it will come when no one is expecting it. So if we're expecting it, or anyone around us is expecting it, the Lord will inevitably prove them wrong. That is not something the Lord will reveal to anyone before it happens, not even to the current president of the Church.

To the extent that such messaging about the Second Coming is useful, it's not from the perspective that Jesus is incoming. It's that this is the only life we get to do all the good we can. This is the only time we get to make the world a better place. This is our time to prepare to meet God that never comes again.

So stop letting the government descend into violent fascism and totalitarianism. We're on the hook for every evil we allow to infiltrate our society. We're the ones who will have to do the recovery and clean up. We're only wasting our own time. And we don't get more time because a bunch of billionaires decided to implode our way of life.

Jesus isn't coming back to save us from ourselves. 

This is it. This is the life we get. This is our time. That is the only real ticking down we should be concerned with. Not some constantly moving timer to Jesus coming back. That's not healthy.

I already gave myself this jump scare at BYU fifteen years ago. It's not a good mental space to be in. It's the unhealthiest my faith has ever been. Everyone who said the world would end because of Prop 8 was wrong. Pure and simple.

Let's make sure that lesson reaches the people who weren't there, who don't know better, so they can be wiser than we were.