Let Him Ask of God II

“But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. ”
              - James 1:6-8

Why do you ask?

Are you just curious? Will the answer be lifechanging?

Are you asking on behalf of another person? Or yourself?

Do you already know the answer?

Are you asking for confirmation? For knowledge? For understanding?

What emotions are involved in your question?

Why do you ask?

Let Him Ask of God

One day as I was driving, a friend said to me “One day someone is going to be in your blind spot.”

Although that aggressive comment is true – and I am grateful for that comment – it may not be the best way we would want to approach someone about their blind spots.

In the social circle, friendship groups know of the saying, “every group has one” regarding one friend who is “stranger” than the rest – and that individual doesn’t even seem to notice it.

We may all know of one person who is so full of themselves. Elder Jeffrey R Holland said, “Haven’t you ever been with someone who was so conceited, so full of themselves that they seemed like the Pillsbury Doughboy? Fred Allen said once that he saw such a fellow walking down Lovers’ Lane holding his own hand.”

We would all like to give those people more than a few words.

But really, before we approach any of these people, we ought, of course, to look at the beams in our own eye. We might then discover that there was no mote in the other person’s eye to begin with.

Any flaw in my personality or perspective that may be obvious to others but of which I am oblivious to, let us call blind spots.

Blind spots are painful to deal with and sensitive to address. We all have one friend that is very honest with us – and thank goodness we do because the rest of our friends will let us figuratively keep that small blob of ketchup on our cheeks the entire time of hanging out with them.

God is one such friend who is honest. But in my scripture study this morning, it dawned on me as to what ways He may present and has presented His honesty.

“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”              - James 1:5

Wisdom: The quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment.

The verse thus suggests that in answer to our queries and prayers out of a lack of experience, knowledge, and judgement, the Lord will give us experiences that will increase our knowledge and cause us to develop good judgement. Like many movies I see, one who is lacking wisdom is led by a mentor to have experiences that cause the mentee to see life in a different light.

One may be expecting the still small voice to give Him knowledge, when really, God has placed an event or two in the upcoming days, months or years in the timetable of that individual’s life.

For me, an example was my prayers and desire to have more charity. On top of all the studying the Lord guided me through, the Lord sent me on a mission. It was from a mission that I discovered all the blind spots I didn’t know about in my personality. On the topic of charity, He demonstrated that the way I treat others is good in this and this and this way, but terrible in this and this and this way. I am ever grateful that He showed them to me, despite any intellectual and emotional pride that at that time blocked my view. He saw my sincerity, and gave me my mission (experience) with missionary companions, where I could learn (knowledge) to see what charity is, and develop a higher perspective (good judgement) of what it also is not.

That is one interpretation – out of many interpretations – of James’ words.

Eternal Love

“However much other kinds of love may satisfy the Platonic, charitable, compassionate kinds of love, and however much one must enjoy a measure of love from his family and his fellowmen, a little love from many – to be really happy, and to find true joy, it is crucial that we have the complete, unshared, fully expressed love of one.”

“A boy ought to love a girl. He ought to desire with all the desire a life’s companion. He ought to love fully and completely and righteously. He ought to be preoccupied with finding a sweetheart, and having found her, to love her. Permanently. This power, this yearning to love, and to be loved is something so magnetic, so powerful, and so compelling, and so important, that it is not to be ignored.

“Young people sometimes get the mistaken notion that the religious attitude and spirituality interferes with the experience of love. They assume that the requirements of the church are interferences and aggravations which thwart the full expression of love. Oh youth, if you could know: the requirements of the church are the highway to love. With guardrails securely in place, with guide-signs plainly marked, with help along the way. How foolish is the youth who feels that the church is a fence around love to keep him out. How unfortunate to resent counsel and restraint. How fortunate the young person who follows the standards of the church, even if just from sheer obedience or habit, for he will find a rapture, and a joy fulfilled.

“You are at an age now as college students when there is a compelling urgency for you to be complete. You want to find the fulfillment in life that you know you cannot find alone. The powers that awakened earlier in your lives have been growing. You have been responding to them, probably very clumsily. But they now form themselves into a restlessness that cannot be ignored. You are old enough now to fall in love. Not the puppy love of elementary years, not the confused love of the teens, but the full blown love of eligible men and women, newly matured, ready for life. Romantic love, with all the full intense meaning of the word, with all of the power, turbulence and frustration, the yearning, the restraining, and all of the peace and beauty and sublimity of love. No experience can be more beautiful. No power more compelling, more exquisite, or if misused, no suffering more excruciating than that connected with love.

“The day comes… when that source [of love] is no longer available. A young person may develop the ability to provide for himself this vital necessity of living. Not only will that source of love be gone, but then a new kind of love becomes necessary. In our youth we learn to relate to other people, earning little amounts of love and affection and friendship by bestowing them on others. When we have reached college age, it is assumed that we are prepared to find love for ourselves in order that our lives may be normal, full and rewarding.

“The question is, ‘do you want her as the mother of your children.’”

“The power of love between man and woman is not completely defined, but like electricity, it can be used and controlled and directed even though we don’t know exactly what it is. We know that love has the power to create – think of that, just think of that – love has the power to create life. When a wife and a husband live together in love, the product of the most exalted and most sacred expression of love is life itself. Children are born out of love."

 - Boyd K Packer

People Come to be Lifted

“When you are with people, remember they are each filled with troubles. Lift them to a higher plane. People come to be lifted. Build. Bring comfort from the Spirit. Don’t bring new programs or duties. People need lifting. 

“Remember to keep your own kingdom intact. This is your first stewardship—mother and father, brothers and sisters, children, husband, friends. These are eternal and they are given to you first. 

“When you can’t give more, when you’ve gone beyond your ability to give, then sit still. Call on the Holy Ghost and angels to come to you. Be still and get full.”

- Julie B Beck as quoted by Sharon Eubank

The Intensity Felt by a Drowning Person

In our recent general conference session, Elder Nelson's address included the words,

"When you reach up for the Lord’s power in your life with the same intensity that a drowning person has when grasping and gasping for air, power from Jesus Christ will be yours. When the Savior knows you truly want to reach up to Him—when He can feel that the greatest desire of your heart is to draw His power into your life—you will be led by the Holy Ghost to know exactly what you should do."

What imagery!

What powerful words.

What a measuring stick to rule ourselves by - once can ask themselves: am I reaching up to God with the same intensity as a drowning person?

What does a drowning person experience?
⦁ panic.
⦁ rush.
⦁ the educated ones will know to hyperventilate and calm down.
⦁ the spiritual ones will know that they have to act - and it will be by pure instinct: analogously and obviously, if I am drowning, I have to swim to the surface!
⦁ those practiced at swimming will know how to stroke to get around.

What does this mean for us spiritually?

Well firstly, what does it mean to drown spiritually? It can be interpreted in multiple ways - and President Nelson has left it open to the interpretation under the Holy Ghost's influence. Let's explore, shall we?

The obvious first answer is by sinning. Our spiritual selves find it hard to spiritually breathe when we are living a life of sin. When our desires are turned from God. When we are breaking commandments and being comfortable in it.

But like Nephi (2 Nephi 4), who desired to flee from his enemy and be freed from his influence, we too can run from ours. Trials are to be endured, but temptations are to be escaped from - we are to resist temptation by diminishing and relinquishing it (1 Corinthians 10:13-14).

"Like Joseph in the presence of Potiphar’s wife, just run as far away as you can get from whatever or whoever it is that beguiles you. And please, when fleeing the scene of temptation, do not leave a forwarding address" (Holland, Place No More for the Enemy of My Soul). Who wants to return to drowning anyway?

Unfortunately, the adversary has convinced many in the world that sin is an escape from worldly struggle. That justifying your unrighteous behaviour is justified. Well analogously, he's telling us to drown ourselves.

Here is a second way drowning can be interpreted, and I draw upon another visual analogy.

The Allegory of the Olive Tree (Jacob 5) is designed as an analogue of the timeline of earth and the demonstration of the role of missionary work in the Lord's plan. However, it has many "mini-analogies" amidst the beauty of the allegorical text.

In one instance, a tree grew a large root system, larger than its size above ground - it consequently died. This is symbolic of over-relying on the Lord, and not relying enough on oneself. On a small scale, this behaviour merits the Lord's reply in the form of "What will ye that I should do" as He said to the brother of Jared.

On the other hand, another tree in the allegory became oversized above ground with a little root system. It also died, symbolic of over-reliance in oneself.

As Christ is the Living Waters (and I may be taking this image of His into unnecessary territory), we can drown in His love as we over-rely on Him. Elder Maxwell said, "those who do too much for their children will soon find they can do nothing with their children. So many children have been so much done for they are almost done in" (The Man of Christ, 1975).

Those who believe God will have everything in place, and they themselves do hardly much to bring forth God's purposes in their lives will meet a similar fate to that spoken of in 2 Nephi 28:8.

"And there shall also be many which shall say: Eat, drink, and be merry; nevertheless, fear Godhe will justify in committing a little sin; yea, lie a little, take the advantage of one because of his words, dig a pit for thy neighbor; there is no harm in this; and do all these things, for tomorrow we die; and if it so be that we are guilty, God will beat us with a few stripes, and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God."

Having given the above two examples, what is the antidote of choice for each one?

For the latter, we would do well to follow Elder Christofferson's words:
"...And we do not need to achieve some minimum level of capacity or goodness before God will helpdivine aid can be ours every hour of every day, no matter where we are in the path of obedience. But I know that beyond desiring His help, we must exert ourselves, repent, and choose God for Him to be able to act in our lives consistent with justice and moral agency. My plea is simply to take responsibility and go to work so that there is something for God to help us with" (Free Forever, to Act for Themselves).

For the former, we can follow Elder Holland's words:

"So how does one “come unto Christ” in response to this constant invitation? The scriptures give scores of examples and avenues. You are well acquainted with the most basic ones. The easiest and the earliest comes simply with the desire of our heart, the most basic form of faith that we know. “If ye can no more than desire to believe,” Alma says, exercising just “a particle of faith,” giving even a small place for the promises of God to find a homethat is enough to begin. Just believing, just having a “molecule” of faithsimply hoping for things which are not yet seen in our lives, but which are nevertheless truly there to be bestowedthat simple step, when focused on the Lord Jesus Christ, has ever been and always will be the first principle of His eternal gospel, the first step out of despair.

"Second, we must change anything we can change that may be part of the problem. In short we must repent, perhaps the most hopeful and encouraging word in the Christian vocabulary. We thank our Father in Heaven we are allowed to change, we thank Jesus we can change, and ultimately we do so only with Their divine assistance. Certainly not everything we struggle with is a result of our actions. Often it is the result of the actions of others or just the mortal events of life. But anything we can change we should change, and we must forgive the rest. In this way our access to the Savior’s Atonement becomes as unimpeded as we, with our imperfections, can make it. He will take it from there.

"Third, in as many ways as possible we try to take upon us His identity, and we begin by taking upon us His name. That name is formally bestowed by covenant in the saving ordinances of the gospel. These start with baptism and conclude with temple covenants, with many others, such as partaking of the sacrament, laced throughout our lives as additional blessings and reminders. Teaching the people of his day the message we give this morning, Nephi said: 'Follow the Son, with full purpose of heart, … with real intent, … take upon you the name of Christ. … Do the things which I have told you I have seen that your Lord and your Redeemer [will] do.'"

He then gives a glorious promise.

"Following these most basic teachings, a splendor of connections to Christ opens up to us in multitudinous ways: prayer and fasting and meditation upon His purposes, savoring the scriptures, giving service to others, “succor[ing] the weak, lift[ing] up the hands which hang down, … strengthen[ing] the feeble knees.” Above all else, loving with “the pure love of Christ,” that gift that “never faileth,” that gift that “beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, [and] endureth all things.” Soon, with that kind of love, we realize our days hold scores of thoroughfares leading to the Master and that every time we reach out, however feebly, for Him, we discover He has been anxiously trying to reach us. So we step, we strive, we seek, and we never yield" (Broken Things to Mend, 2006).


This is a life that reaches out to God with the intensity of a drowning person.

Quote of the Day

"Changes in belief always precede changes in behavior."

- Brad Wilcox

Quote of the Day

"It is said that authors don’t choose their topics, their topics choose them."

- Brad Wilcox

The Father's Compliment

"Behold my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name—hear ye him."

Today I focus on the word "well."

Or more like the compliment "well."

From the beginning of the creation of the world, Heavenly Father kept His eyes on the prize of creating things that are good.

His stamp of approval is the best stamp of approval anything and anyone can have: of the Lord looks upon yoir efforts and says, "it is good" or "it is well," could there be any greater a compliment?

True joy in this life comes from seeking the approval of the Father - seeking it from anyone else is to ask for trouble, for confusion, for a depreciation of identity. It is only The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost from whom we should seek the confirmation that we are on the right path.

The Role of Religion

There are those who believe that the world has its working remedies for the struggles of this life, and that those remedies are sufficient.

I say that they have a limited view on the purpose of life. Sure, it is wonderful to have remedies in this world, of this world. But by relying on those remedies without turning to God is like meditating without prayer: you fulfill a purpose limited to this life, rather than extending oneself to eternal goals and potential.

It is like entering a university degree to study and learn, but not seek, nor accept a job by your university efforts–for this life is a university for the next life.

I quote below seven reasons Elder Oaks so beautifully explains why religion is a necessity in our public domain. There are many others in both personal and societal contexts.

Here are seven other examples of the social values of religion:

1. Many of the most significant moral advances in Western civilization have been motivated by religious principles and persuaded to official adoption by pulpit preaching. So it was with the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire, the Emancipation Proclamation in the United States, and the Civil Rights movement of the last half-century. These advances were not motivated and moved by secular ethics but were driven primarily by persons who had a clear religious vision of what was morally right.

2. In the United States, our enormous private sector of charitable works—education, hospitals, care for the poor, and countless other charities of great value—originated with and is still sponsored most significantly by religious organizations and religious impulses.

3. Western societies are not held together primarily by the overall enforcement of laws, which would be impractical, but most important by citizens who voluntarily obey the unenforceable because of their internal norms of correct behavior. For many, it is religious belief in right and wrong and an anticipated accountability to a higher power that produces such voluntary self-regulation. In fact, religious values and political realities are so interlinked in the origin and perpetuation of Western nations that we cannot lose the influence of religion in our public life without seriously jeopardizing all our freedoms.

4. Along with their private counterparts, religious organizations serve as mediating institutions to shape and temper the encroaching power of government on individuals and private organizations.

5. Religion inspires many believers to render service to others, which, in total, confers enormous benefit on communities and countries.

6. Religion strengthens the social fabric of society. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has taught: “[Religion] remains the most powerful community builder the world has known. … Religion is the best antidote to the individualism of the consumer age. The idea that society can do without it flies in the face of history.”7

7. Finally, Clayton M. Christensen, a Latter-day Saint who is hailed as a worldwide “thought leader” on business management and innovation,8 has written that “religion is the foundation of democracy and prosperity.”9 Much more could be said about the positive role of religion in economic development.

I maintain that religious teachings and the religiously motivated actions of believers are essential to a free and prosperous society and continue to deserve special legal protections.

https://www.lds.org/liahona/2017/06/religions-vital-global-role?lang=eng&_r=1&cid=HP_TU_27-6-2017_dPFD_fLHNA_xLIDyL2-3_

The "it"s and the "who"s

Behold my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name—hear ye him. (3 Nephi 11:7)

Today, I shall focus on the word "who."

"Who" has an interesting flavour about it - whether from cultural changes, tides of the time, whatever.

You see people in movies get offended when someone refers to an important individual as "it." And on the other hand, enemies and haters may objectify their targets or pawns by calling them "it" rather than who.

The negative side of these examples is the choice (or mistake) of not recognizing an individual as human.

The positive, on the other hand, is more honourable.

The Lord cares about the distinction between all the "it"s and all the "who"s. In fact, His culture is to respect all "it"s and "who"s anyway: all things have intelligences (reference needed; to review) but that's a topic for another day. Wouldn't you respect and cherish things you created? Especially if you looked at the finished product and said "it is good"?

A step up in topical intensity brings us to Elder Russell M Nelson's words:

"As Latter-day Saints, we refer to His mission as the Atonement of Jesus Christ, which made resurrection a reality for all and made eternal life possible for those who repent of their sins and receive and keep essential ordinances and covenants.

"It is doctrinally incomplete to speak of the Lord’s atoning sacrifice by shortcut phrases, such as “the Atonement” or “the enabling power of the Atonement” or “applying the Atonement” or “being strengthened by the Atonement.” These expressions present a real risk of misdirecting faith by treating the event as if it had living existence and capabilities independent of our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.

"Under the Father’s great eternal plan, it is the Savior who suffered. It is the Savior who broke the bands of death. It is the Savior who paid the price for our sins and transgressions and blots them out on condition of our repentance. It is the Savior who delivers us from physical and spiritual death.

"There is no amorphous entity called “the Atonement” upon which we may call for succor, healing, forgiveness, or power. Jesus Christ is the source. Sacred terms such as Atonement and Resurrection describe what the Savior did, according to the Father’s plan, so that we may live with hope in this life and gain eternal life in the world to come. The Savior’s atoning sacrifice—the central act of all human history—is best understood and appreciated when we expressly and clearly connect it to Him."

By quoting this, I have done two things:

1. Extended the application of "it"s to non-tangible things, like events. Here, the example of the event is the Atonement ("it") compared to the Saviour ("who").

2. Which brings me to the second point. Here, Elder Nelson has clearly taught that the power of God unto salvation is in the Saviour ("who") rather than the event or accomplishment ("it").

This allows me to finish a full circle from where I started: in His introduction to His Son, Heavenly Father refers to Christ as a "who". And individual above all individuals ever born on this earth. Yet "He descended below them all" (D&C 121).

Lastly, a quote from President Monson.

"Never let a problem to be solved [it] become more important than a person to be loved [who]."