8/50 - April 7, 2021: Little Baldy Loop: 7.0 mi, 3,056 ft. I did this hike with the Hike The Wasatch group from Facebook. It was a great route and fun time getting to know that group.
Talk in Highland 26th Ward Sacrament Meeting on 11/29/2020
Intro: Peace is always available to us through the gospel.
About five years ago I came to acknowledge that I was pretty
seriously depressed. I won’t go into
details, but even though things seemed fine in my life on the outside, I could
find very little joy in life and faced emotional pain greater than I thought
possible. As this came on and grew I
thought that if I just served, prayed or studied hard enough I could feel the
spirit and I would feel better. I wanted
to do my part and have God make me feel better. But as I did those things I
didn’t feel better, at least not most of the time.
During all of this I might have asked, what about the
promise that “if we are righteous we will prosper in the land?” I know that all
of you have experienced your own moments of pain: sickness, financial setbacks,
losing loved ones, seeing friends or family turn away from the gospel,
etc… In those moments we feel very, very
far from prospering in the land. Of
course, we know in our heads that this promise only holds in general, say over
our whole lifetime, or over many people and over generations. But some of you are struggling and it may
seem that all of your blessings are being reserved for the next life. I have
some small idea what that feels like.
While I don’t have a formula to make sure that you always “prosper
in the land,” there is a similar promise that we are given that does hold in
almost every moment in life. In D&C
59:23, we read, “…he who doeth the works of righteousness shall receive his
reward, even peace in this world, and eternal life in the world
to come.” I believe that we can expect and
can find a measure of peace even in this troubled world and in the midst of
difficult trials through the gospel plan.
Peace from the
Atonement in the Midst of our Shortcomings
So how do we access that peace? What do we have to do? What if you are struggling with some huge
problem such as I just mentioned. Or what if you have an area in
which you have tried to change to beat some sin or addiction or weakness and
have slipped back and messed up over and over and over again. If you feel that then you are not alone. How can we have peace in the midst of that?
I think this is explained well in a story that Brad Wilcox
tells of counseling with a BYU student who was struggling to do all that she
felt she needed to do, and be all that she was expected to be, to the point
that she just wanted to give up.
She said, “I know I need to do my
best and then Jesus does the rest, but I can’t even do my best.”
She then went on to tell (Brad
Wilcox) all the things she should be doing because she’s a Mormon that she
wasn’t doing.
She continued, “I know that I have
to do my part and then Jesus makes up the difference and fills the gap that
stands between my part and perfection. But who fills the gap that stands
between where I am now and my part?”
She then went on to tell (Brad) all
the things that she shouldn’t be doing because she’s a Mormon, but she was
doing them anyway.
I think we all have or eventually will feel that sense of inadequacy. I’ve found that it often isn’t very
comforting to know that Jesus makes up the difference between my best efforts
and perfection, because I have no idea what my best efforts are anyway, and
even if I did I rarely seem to be able to give them. To help this girl understand, Brad took out a
piece of paper and drew two dots. One at
the top representing where God is, or perfection, and one at the bottom
representing where we are. The gap
between is all the sin and mistakes we have to overcome to be like him. Continuing the story, he asked the girl to
draw a line between our part and God’s part,
(Brad Wilcox) then said, “Go ahead.
Draw the line. How much is our part? How much is Christ’s part?”
She went right to the center of the
page and began to draw a line. Then, considering what we had been speaking
about, she went to the bottom of the page and drew a line just above the bottom
dot.
(Brad Wilcox) said, “Wrong.”
She said, “I knew it was higher. I
should have just drawn it, because I knew it.”
(He)
said, “No. The truth is, there is no line. Jesus filled the whole space. He
paid our debt in full. He didn’t pay it all except for a few coins. He paid it
all. It is finished.”
I really like that thought.
Christ’s atonement didn’t fill part of the gap, he paid ALL OF THE DEBT. There is nothing left for you to pay, no
minimum that you have to meet. No matter
how many times you mess up, and no matter how dark your sins, He has paid
them. Whatever you are feeling guilty about, he paid for that already.
Given the culture that we’ve grown up in, we tend to resist
this idea. We think, there must be some
catch, something that is required of us, something that we have to do. So what
is it?
In 3rd Nephi we read about the earthquakes and
fires and destruction that accompanied the death of Jesus Christ. After they were over the people sat in the
darkness and mourned their losses, they heard the voice of the Lord. That voice told them of Christ’s sacrifice
and began to explain what it meant to them.
It said,
19
And ye shall offer up unto me no more the shedding of blood; yea, your
sacrifices and your burnt offerings shall be done away, for I will accept none
of your sacrifices and your burnt offerings.
(In other words, those sacrifices that you
were making that you thought were to pay for your sins, you can stop them now. They were never really enough to pay for your
sins anyway, but were just symbols. I
want something different. ------ The scripture then continues to explain what
this is.)
20
And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite
spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and
a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost...
The way this makes sense to me is to say that the plan of grace
really comes down to your heart. Is your heart
pointed towards Christ? One nice thing
about this teaching is that you can change the direction of your heart in an
instant, and be reconciled with God and on the right path. Then peace can begin to be yours in that
instant, because you know that you are taking a step towards Him. There is no list of things you first have to
do. The debt is paid, and now you are a debtor to Him.
It
sounds so easy, right?
But this is a two-edged sword. If we were hoping that we could meet some
minimum requirement and get grace, then now that won’t work. We can’t cram the night before, the way we
would for a school assignment. We can’t
get there by doing things on a checklist, because we might do those things with
our hearts still pointed the wrong direction.
There isn’t a faceless, nameless agency holding our debt. It is now held by a person who paid it
personally and knows us, knows all the struggles and baggage we have to
overcome, but also knows what we are capable of as well as we do. Will we turn to him and offer him “a broken
heart and a contrite spirit?”
So what about works? We
spend 90% of our time in church talking about works – don’t they matter
too? And if so, how? I don’t have all of the answers, but for one,
I know that in my life sometimes the best way to get my heart pointed in the
right direction, is to move my feet in that direction! We’ve all had the experience of not wanting
to go to a church activity, or on a ministering visit, but we do it anyway and
come home grateful and blessed, more in tune with the Lord. We may think that those blessings come
because of something we did, but maybe the more important thing is that the
action just helped us to get our heart pointed in the right direction.
As I have tried to turn my heart to God, if I am honest I have to admit
that part of me still really does want to follow the world and not Christ. There is a lot of good in me, but part of me
still wants to continue in certain sins.
When I read that a “heart can be changed, so that it has no more desire
to do evil” I just feel more guilty because mine has not yet changed. I’m 44 years old, shouldn’t I be done
struggling with _____ (fill in your favorite sins) by now? What am I doing wrong?
So how does this relate to the story that I shared about my
depression. In the past 5 years I have
made some significant strides towards recovery.
I am coming to understand that feeling good is something that I need to
do for myself and not expect God to do. One thing I think of as a sort of
landmark on my path to recovery, was a time when I heard a choir sing “I Feel
my Savior’s Love” at a stake conference.
For several years, rather than help me to feel better, that song made me
more depressed because I wanted to feel His love, I was trying to do all the
things I was supposed to, but time and time again the spirit did not come to make
me feel better. I was still not “prospering
in the land.” I was focused on an
outcome and not the direction of my heart.
During that stake conference though, a different line stood out to
me. It was, “He
knows I will follow Him, give all my life to Him.” I realized that this one line was true and
through all of my ups and downs it always had been. I wanted to follow Him. I wanted to follow His plan, even if I kept
making mistakes or couldn’t figure out how to live some important parts of it
or couldn’t even find the desire to live some parts of it. In a way it was realizing that I could choose
in any moment to turn my heart to Christ, and that He would be there ready to
receive what I could give. That has brought a
measure of peace that is available in any moment, even if happiness isn’t
always within reach.
Turning our hearts to God is a real rollercoaster. Sometimes today’s best effort ends up being
worse than yesterday’s. Sometimes we forget and don’t really give much effort
at all. But,
through all of that we can know that each effort, each attempt to turn to Him
is worth something. That brings a measure of peace, no matter what the outcome. And, slowly, over the course of, say, a year,
or a decade, I can see myself growing closer to Christ, I can see the ways he
has helped me to do and be more, and I can begin to believe that with the Savior's
help it will be enough. Our best
efforts will always be enough, but more importantly, since we never really can
give our best efforts, our imperfect efforts are also enough. He has already paid the price for ALL of our
sins. All we have to do now is to keep trying to turn our hearts to God.
When Christ was resurrected, we
read in Mark 16:9 that the first person that he appeared to was Mary Magdalene,
a woman who was a former sinner, from whom he had cast out seven devils. Why her?
Women held very little power in Jewish society back then, so perhaps this was
to make a point about the worth of souls.
Perhaps, but I wonder if there was just something special about this
former sinner. Perhaps the unique
struggles she had, and the repentance that followed had made her heart more
prepared, more receptive to the Savior. Speaking
of a different sinner in Luke 7:47 Christ said, “…to whom little is forgiven,
the same loveth little.” But “…Her sins, which are many, are forgiven;
for she loved much.”
With this post I am committing myself to set a goal to hike 50 peaks before I turn 50. It may sound like cheating, but I've decided to do this retroactively just a bit. I want my first peak to be Rigi in Switzerland. That is the hike that made me re-discover how much I love hiking. I was just starting to acknowledge that I was struggling with depression, and so while on a business trip, rather than just hang out in my hotel and work, I got out and did something. I climbed 4000 feet in 6 hours and the exercise and beauty of the surroundings made me feel happier than I had in quite a while. I started to believe that when I was down, I could do things to find some joy or happiness. Lately I start my hikes in much better shape emotionally than I was for that one, but I still enjoy the challenge and the beauty of nature.
And, as long as I'm going back in time a little, I'm claiming Mt. Agassiz in the Uintas as #2, which I hiked with Andrew in 2019. That one was just way too good to not be on the list.
1/50 - Sept. 21, 2016: Rigi, Switzerland
2/50 - Aug. 23, 2019: Mt Agassiz, Uintas, Utah
Today started out as bad day. I woke up worrying about things to do, and then was faced with various other problems that I don't have solutions to. My mind was caught in a loop considering all of the problems that I have, all of the dead ends trying to find solutions to them, and I was just feeling pretty hopeless and miserable. It wasn't my darkest morning, but definitely not a good one.
In the midst of this, there was a strong temptation to just go along with my usual routine. That would have required spending time with people and making small talk and pretending everything is fine, doing things that I sometimes enjoy, but that I probably wouldn't enjoy this morning. I wasn't doing too terribly bad. I could have made it through the day. Heck, that is what I usually do and how I got to where I am.
Somehow I recognized that this wasn't going to work today, and that I'd be better off doing something else that might make me feel better. I enjoy hiking; that has become one of my go to pick-me-up activities. But it was a Sunday morning, I didn't have a lot of time, and none of the trails nearby sounded exciting. The only one that called to me at all was 30 minutes drive and would take at least an hour. No, I wasn't going to do that. I'd just fake it through the day again.
But then, somehow against the prospect of faking it and slogging through the day, I made a choice to do something different. Before I knew it I was in my car on the way to the trail head. I put some music on the radio. I spent some time trying to come to grips with my problems and sort out my feelings, but I didn't make much progress. However, I wasn't too far down the road before things started looking up. This windy road to the trail was so fun to drive in my little car. I thought, "Maybe I should just forget the hike and drive." A while later I got to the trail head and decided to at least get out and check out the trail. I started walking/jogging along and the trail didn't disappoint. It started to feel good to be out, to be sweating, to be jogging down this trail when others just walk. I tried a little branch off of the trail, to see if I could reach a nearby peak. That didn't go to well, so I found my way back to the trail. I don't know when it happened, but on the way back down I saw this view of ferns growing chest-high among the aspen trees. It was at that point that I realized that I felt truly, sincerely happy. I wasn't faking it, I felt good. I could see the beauty around me and actually feel it, not just pretend to or say to others that it was nice when I didn't really mean it.
You know what is strange about this, all of the problems that had been bugging me in the morning were still there. None of that had changed. Those problems would be there for me again when I got back home. I may never find solutions to some of them, or at least may have to settle with making a choice between two poor options. But as I came down the trail I felt better. I was doing what I could to make my life as good as I could, within the constraints that I had. And there were amazing, beautiful things to enjoy and be grateful for.
This is a lesson that has been repeated to me many times as I've struggled to overcome my depression. It is also something that Jody Moore teaches frequently (and explains so very well - check out her podcast if you're interested, especially this episode). We think that our feelings are a product of our circumstances, but they are not. Our feelings come from our thoughts, and with some learning and a lot of practice we can change our thoughts and feel better even though our circumstances haven't changed.
As you read this, you may be thinking, "I hate hiking, that would never work for me." If you're thinking that, congratulations - that is awesome that you already know what you like and don't like! It has taken me a while to get to that point, and even start to figure out what I even liked (I mean besides all of those things that I couldn't have, and which I would dwell on and feel miserable about not having). At this point I've found a few things I can go to, and I'm working on discovering more. For you those things may be totally different. For me so far the key has been to discover what choices I have the power to make that can help me to feel even just a little better. And then when I want to feel better, to look for something different that I can choose.
Sadness, disappointment, and severe challenge are events in life, not life itself. I do not minimize how hard some of these events are. They can extend over a long period of time, but they should not be allowed to become the confining center of everything you do.
Learn from inspiring individuals who have made peace with their challenges and live with joy amid adversity. A lovely woman with an aggressive terminal disease consistently found joy in life. She understood the plan of happiness, had received the temple ordinances, and was doing her best to qualify for the promised blessings. Her personal journal records: “It is a beautiful fall day. I picked up the mail and sat down on the swing. I was so happy and content in the warm sun, the sweet smell of nature and the trees around me. I just sat and gloried in the fact that I am still alive on this beautiful earth. … The Lord is so good to me. How I thank him that I am still here and feeling so good. I am soooooo happy I just want to shout and dance through this beautiful house as the sun streams into the big windows. I love being alive.”
Simple, rejuvenating experiences surround us. They can be safety valves to keep the tension down and the spirit up. Don’t concentrate on what you don’t have or have lost. The Lord promised the obedient to share all that He possesses with them. You may temporarily lack here, but in the next life, if you prove yourself worthy by living valiantly, a fullness will be your blessing.
Find the compensatory blessings in your life when, in the wisdom of the Lord, He deprives you of something you very much want. To the sightless or hearing impaired, He sharpens the other senses. To the ill, He gives patience, understanding, and increased appreciation for others’ kindness. With the loss of a dear one, He deepens the bonds of love, enriches memories, and kindles hope in a future reunion. You will discover compensatory blessings when you willingly accept the will of the Lord and exercise faith in Him.
