Come Follow Me - 1 Nephi 1-5
I remember a day when my children were still at home and I was experiencing a powerful episode of cheerful, good-natured disobedience on the part of my children.
After a number of attempts at cheerful, good-natured admonishing, I marveled at the profundity of an extremely UNcheerful, bad-natured comment tripping from my tongue. Okay, I yelled.
"DISOBEDIENT children obey when they're in the mood!" I roared.
Wow. Never thought about that before.
That was the beginnings of an inkling of a thought: a person might be obedient or disobedient by nature, but he or she can train himself or herself into obedient behavior.
There it is again. Practice. You can practice being obedient.
Here's the biggest challenge to being obedient: what if ya just don't wanna?
C.S. Lewis said:
“The promise, made when I am in love and because I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits me to being true even if I cease to be in love. A promise must be about things that I can do, about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling in a certain way. He might as well promise to never have a headache or always to feel hungry.”
(C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)
Part of the magic of growing up is understanding that there are many, many things you have to do that you might not want to do, but do them anyway. Even when you're not in the mood. Even when it's hard - especially when it's hard.
The Book of Mormon begins with a story of hard - returning to Jerusalem and retrieving the records of family history and scripture in the custody of a good ol' boy.
Nephi's reply, "I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded,..." is universally remembered and oft quoted. But Lehi's reply is equally insightful and instructive:
"And it came to pass that when my father had heard these words he was exceedingly glad, for he knew that I had been blessed of the Lord." (1 Nephi 3:8)
What if obedience is a natural law? If it's possible to improve your obedience quotient - by being obedient - does being obedient get easier? Is it possible to be more in the reach of God's light, love, help, and guidance, when we move the needle by obeying? Especially... when we don't want to?
If that's so, then is it also possible that an obedient heart is a gift of the Spirit? Because if it is, there's good news! We can ask for it! We can become more obedient by asking for a more obedient heart.
This is potentially a precarious thing to pray for. If we pray for it, does it mean ... GULP ... we then need to obey and do the thing we didn't want to do?
Pretty much.
I'm thinking that may be why some prayers don't get answered in the way we hope. It's entirely possible our natural man selves are praying: "Lord, please help me in this way that requires absolutely nothing of me." Clearly, you see the problem.
George Q. Cannon writes in compelling tones of the duty we have, as children of God, to see our lacking, and pray for God to fill the gaps:
We Are to Seek the Gifts of the Spirit Which Will Correct Our Imperfections
We find, even among those who have embraced the Gospel hearts of unbelief. How many of you, my brethren and sisters, are seeking for these gifts that God has promised to bestow? How many of you, when you bow before your Heavenly Father in your family circle or in your secret places, contend for these gifts to be bestowed upon you? How many of you ask the Father, in the name of Jesus, to manifest Himself to you through these powers and these gifts? Or do you go along day by day like a door turning on its hinges, without having any feeling on the subject, without exercising any faith whatever; content to be baptized and be members of the Church, and to rest there, thinking that your salvation is secure because you have done this? I say to you, in the name of the Lord, as one of His servants, that you have need to repent of this. You have need to repent of your hardness of heart, of your indifference, and of your carelessness.
There is not that diligence, there is not that faith, there is not that seeking for the power of God that there should be among a people who have received the precious promises we have... I say to you that it is our duty to avail ourselves of the privileges which God has placed within our reach....
I feel to bear testimony to you ... that God is the same today as He was yesterday; that God is willing to bestow these gifts upon His children.... If any of us are imperfect, it is our duty to pray for the gift that will make us perfect.
Have I imperfections? I am full of them. What is my duty? To pray to God to give me the gifts that will correct these imperfections. If I am an angry man, it is my duty to pray for charity, which suffereth long and is kind. Am I an envious man? It is my duty to seek for charity, which envieth not. So with all the gifts of the Gospel. They are intended for this purpose. No man ought to say, "Oh, I cannot help this; it is my nature." He is not justified in it, for the reason that God has promised to give strength to correct these things, and to give gifts that will eradicate them. If a man lack wisdom, it is his duty to ask God for wisdom. The
same with everything else. That is the design of God concerning His Church. He wants His Saints to be perfected in the truth. For this purpose He gives these gifts, and bestows them upon those who seek after them, in order that they may be a perfect people upon the face of the earth, notwithstanding their many weaknesses, because God has promised to give the gifts that are necessary for their perfection.
(George Q. Cannon, Millennial Star, 23 April, 1894, p. 260)
Daunting news, for sure. But if you suspect there is a blessing being withheld because you lack stronger obedience, it strengthens my faith to know my Father - the best Life Coach I could ever ask for who tailor-designed my earth curriculum - means to help me. Even if I don't wanna.
It would seem the prayer of the disobedient child would be thus: "Father, I don't want to do x-y-z, but I want to want to do x-y-z."
And since this is the God of the universe we're talking to, who knows and sees all, perhaps even this prayer makes us wince, and we meekly add, "At least, I wish I wanted to want to do x-y-z."
Believe it or not, that's enough for Him to work with.
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