• Member Since 10th Sep, 2017
  • offline last seen March 5th

BradyBunch


You are going to LOVE ME!

More Blog Posts811

  • 1 week
    Systematic Motherhood Hurts Black America

    Not racism, not evil white people-- but single motherhood, a 64% rate in that demographic. Between welfare systems in the 60s and the sexual revolution, the incentive is now to not have fathers in the home, which creates most neighborhood problems.

    Read More

    17 comments · 880 views
  • 2 weeks
    Go to church tomorrow

    You know that it needs to happen.

    No further comment.

    3 comments · 211 views
  • 3 weeks
    Happy birthday to me

    Happy birthday to me
    Happy birthday dear Brady
    Happy birthday to me

    23 and counting

    13 comments · 215 views
  • 3 weeks
    I finished Pillars of Eternity 2 yesterday

    And gonna be honest, it was great. Bigger maps, better storytelling, better graphics and designs, better combat, and you get to be a pirate in the Pacific, fighting the Hawaiians and pillaging all the other ships. And the first game was still a masterpiece!

    Yaharr matey, there be only hardtack and grog fer rations, but the plunder be weighin' more than the ship.

    0 comments · 59 views
  • 4 weeks
    Got some discounter Valentine's candy yesterday

    And on V-day itself, I helped clean the Rexburg temple in the evening. Being in the temple's always a wonderful time.

    So I got that going for me, which is nice...

    2 comments · 112 views
Oct
24th
2021

Choose You This Day · 4:28pm Oct 24th, 2021

A man was walking past three workers in a construction zone where a library was going to be built. He yelled over the noise, "What are you three men doing?"

The first worker replied, "I'm drilling a hole."

The second worker said, "I'm earning $20 an hour."

The third worker smiled. "I am building a temple of learning."

What did these three men have in common? They were all at the same dig site, doing the same chore, earning the same pay. But only one had the perspective to see past his work in front of him. Some people use this parable to teach us eternal perspective and how to apply it in our own lives. But I would like to focus on the actual choice that this third worker made. He made a specific choice that the other two didn't. How could this be? They didn't have much of a choice in what they wanted to do, or whether they showed up to work. And yet one man made the choice that changed his stance on the life he was living.

Every day, you are faced with a plethora of choices. Some are inconsequential. Your eternal destiny will not be decided by your choice to wear a ridiculous outfit to school one day. But the choices that do ultimately matter have to deal with two major categories: what you choose to do, to others and to yourself, and how you react and respond to things that happen to you. Even if it feels like there’s nothing we can do, there’s always how we feel about it. We can choose a different attitude to have about our situations, which can show God our true nature.

Consider, if you will, the case of Nephi and Laman. Both of them were within the exact same circumstances. Both had to leave Jerusalem and all of their friends and possessions, both had to retrieve the Plates of Brass from Laban the Hutt, both lived in the desert with their father, both ate the same raw meat, both had to raise children in the wilderness, both crossed the great waters, and both reached the Promised Land. Both of these men--and I use the word men here, despite the presence of Laman--were on the same path in the world, but they were on radically different paths in their spirits.

Nephi’s recounting of it all was overall pretty positive. He reflects many times on how he has been blessed by the Lord, even in his trials. Despite everything he’s been through, or maybe even because of it, he rejoices in the Lord and stays firm in the faith. From the impression he gives off, it’s like the man’s never sinned in his life. Which is obviously not true; one of my favorite passages of scripture ever is the Psalm of Nephi, which is most of 2 Nephi 4. That’s a wonderful subject I’d love to get deeper into, but I gotta stay focused.

Contrast this with the attitude of Laman. Throughout the entire journey, he complains, he mumbles, he groans, he whines, he murmurs. And it is partially because of this individual choice Laman has made that makes the entire journey so miserable for him. This is an especially appropriate scenario where Elder Holland’s famous quote is applicable: No misfortune is so bad that whining about it won't make it worse. Laman made it worse on not just himself, but the rest of his family as well. It’s directly because of him that the rest of the Book of Mormon plays out the way it does, since he also chose to pass on these feelings to his children.

Both of these men made choices in how they perceived what happened to them, even if they both walked the same trail. The Lord makes a note of this in the Doctrine and Covenants, saying that if the Saints do not bear their afflictions well, then their afflictions will be counted as a just punishment unto them for their attitudes. But if they bear them well, they will be a way to increase your righteousness and guarantee blessings.

Just look at Job. There's some debate over whether he was actually real or not, but it ultimately doesn't matter. This guy was perhaps the unluckiest man on earth. Everything was taken from him. But he always kept his trust in God, never lost his faith. And the Lord blessed him for it. He had no choice in the freak accidents that killed everyone he loved or that destroyed all his property, but he did have a choice in how to respond to it.

An unexpectedly poignant lyric in a rock song, Freewill by Rush, states: "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." I agree 100%. This life is not a passive one that you have the option of opting out of. You ultimately have the final say in how you develop as a person. Surrendering your autonomy is a crippling blow to the way God intended you to live your life. Indeed it is, for this is the work and glory of God as recorded in Moses 1:39: the immortality and eternal life of man.

The greatest gift God ever gave us, aside from our lives in bodies, was the gift of agency. Many people refer to this life as a test, a proving ground of sorts. What would this man vs that woman do if they had the choice and chance to do whatever they wanted? God’s purpose in having us come here was for us to be refined by our choices. Righteousness would make us more heavenly. Sin would be learned from and corrected. But not everyone wants you to succeed.

Satan seeks to eradicate choice. When you think of the most universally-accepted examples of evil people in history, you think of men and women who tore away liberty and agency from the people they ruled over. Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim Jong-Un and the rest of his family, Fidel Castro. 2 Nephi 2:26 says: Men are free to choose liberty and eternal life, or captivity and death. Satan seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself. Satan would like nothing more than to take away all meaning in your life, all autonomy, all agency.

If Satan cannot destroy or rob agency, he will corrupt it. Here’s a lesson about freedom that is very important to know: the world has lied to you about choices. When you think of a perfect life, you think about liberty and freedom. But what does that even mean? What is so inherently good about agency? What if somebody chooses to destroy themselves? The answer is this: Agency is good because you can use it to do good. Freedom as a means to what? The answer to that question should be: freedom to serve God and his fellow man.

When you do evil, do you feel free? Wickedness never was happiness. In an age where evil is a choice, many people are still choosing evil because they think it will make them free. But these people are actually slaves to their desires, trapped within the impulses of human nature. Those indulged in evil lifestyles look at Christian commandments, or the guidelines of civilization for centuries past, and see them as restrictions on the divine will of the individual to do whatever they please. They think of commandments, and those that give them, as narrow, close-minded, ignorant, and purposefully trying to get you to have as little fun as possible.

The world would have you believe that agency means being able to do whatever you want all the time, even choosing the consequences when their initial choices don’t work out so well. Those who regularly commit sins think it is freedom. There are many people who have destroyed their own lives because they assumed that the meaning of choice was the choice to indulge in all kinds of sin and promptly run into adversity directly caused by that sin.

There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven, that whenever you receive a blessing, it is based on obedience to the law on which that blessing is predicated. Now, a fun thing to do with the scriptures is to replace the positive language with its opposite in order to get a better picture of the doctrine. In this case, another irrevocable law in heaven is that whenever you receive a cursing, it is based on disobedience to the law on which the opposing blessing is predicated. Most of the adversity we run into in our lives is directly or indirectly caused by our own choices. It's not God interfering directly to curse you; it's just the way the law works out. It is inevitable that the murderer loses his humanity, that the sexual transgressor becomes empty, that the liar and cheater is exposed and shamed. Having said this, is sin really freedom?

True freedom is not the freedom to pursue your own means of self-destruction. It is this relatively new meaning of freedom that has led to an increasing amount of degeneracy and destruction in our world. If you abuse the privilege to choose, it gets taken away. You are at your most free when you live within the covenants and laws of God. Wander off the path, and your route becomes wide, destructive, short, and dangerous. President Boyd K. Packer said, "We are not obedient because we are blind. We are obedient because we can see."

Satan and God actually have something in common. This may be the only thing they have in common. It is this: neither of them has the power to influence you unless you let them. Satan cannot gain influence over you if you never let him in. The mighty ships of the ocean, despite being surrounded by terrible waves of the great deep, almost never sink, because their hulls do not allow Satan to enter in. No matter how hard Satan may try, he cannot gain victory over you without your permission.

Similarly, God will force no man to heaven. He may persuade, he may tell you in your mind and in your heart, he may reveal the truth unto you, and he may urge you to come unto him and repent, and be cleansed. He may promise and plead our case. But at the end of the day, the ultimate choice of whether we end up in heaven is up to us. It’s all up to us. And this earthly life is a key stepping stone to accomplishing that.

This life is the day of our probation, the trial and crucible we must go through to become ready to enter into the Lord’s presence. The experiences we have on earth and the choices we make in the lives we lead will shape us into people worthy and capable of living with God.

Being a good person does not mean just not doing evil things. Committing murder is a sin, sure, but so is choosing to live your life without doing anything about it. You're like the man in President Uchtdorf's talk, the man on a cruise ship who decided to stay in his room eating canned beans and powdered lemonade when he could have feasted at the grandest tables. If you waste your time of probation not doing anything bad, but not doing anything righteous either, you're not a lot better than the vilest of sinners. Righteousness is not the absence of evil. Righteousness is the presence of good.

To be clear, when we do choose to obey the commandments, we are not earning our way into heaven. We are showing love for our father and Jesus Christ's sacrifice. After all, John 14:15 says, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." We are also becoming people that would want to live in heaven under a heavenly law.

But a warning will be applied here as well: heaven will not be heavenly for those who cannot abide it. Just as how rats hate living in a clean kitchen, so do sons of perdition hate living in heaven. They’d much prefer the garbage of outer darkness. Those who are unable to live celestial laws will not live in a celestial kingdom. The same goes for the terrestrial and telestial kingdoms as well.

It is not God’s intention for us to become his lapdogs, his bloodhounds, or his puppets, or trophies. We are his children, with marvelous potential and capability. We can inherit all that the Father hath, thanks to the Atonement of Jesus Christ allowing us to get back on the path to perfection no matter how far or how often we may fall. We must be the ones to reach out for this gift; God does not force it upon any of his children. He proffers it, which means he extends it to us. It is up to us to take hold of it.

Choose you this day. Who will be on the Lord's side? Who will choose to stand with him in the day of his coming? As far as I'm concerned, I will follow Him. I know of the truth of the Gospel, of the reality of Jesus Christ and the Atonement he made for us. I believe in Him and will serve Him until the end. And I say these things in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Comments ( 5 )

There's only one word I can say for all of this.

Amen.

5599515
I know, right? There's so much to address and agree with here, and all you can really do is just say, "I know, right?"

That was beautiful, truly.
This reminds a lot of a radio station I listen to in the mornings on my way to work. They have a segment where they tell stories with messages about Jesus Christ and positivity. I myself am not very religious but it always has interested me to hear what they (the people on the radio) and YOU have to say. It tends to make me see things from a different perspective, as well as making me think.

5599550
Thank you for the words. I'm glad to know you listen to me for inspiration and that this gave you a new perspective. I'm humbled, truly.

5599603
It's no problem really. I got a feeling you're gonna be something great down the line:twilightsmile:

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