Category: Principles and Promised Blessings

Theron David Rose, Tuesday December 21, 2021

Some of us are running breathless, red-faced and panting through life as if our lives were a race and the finish line is just around the corner and over the next hill. We think short, but hope that we will live long. Some of us are unaware of the admonition given by King Benjamin. Said he, after listing some of the must know’s and must do’s of life:

“And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength.  And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order.”¹

If we take this verse apart we can apply at least three success principles to our lives:

1. Do all things [worth doing] in wisdom and order.
2. Do not run faster than you have strength
3. Be diligent.

Let’s talk about each principle and apply that principle to our lives.

1. Do all things [worth doing] in wisdom and order.
   Let’s face it! Some things are just plain not worth it, while other things are worth everything.  How do we evaluate? How do we tell the difference? This quote from President Ezra Taft Benson tells us the secret:

“We must put God in the forefront of everything else in our lives.  He must come first, just as He declares in the first of His Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3)

“When we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives. Our love of the Lord will govern the claims for our affection, the demands on our time, the interests we pursue, and the order of our priorities.

We should put God ahead of everyone else in our lives.”²

President Russell M. Nelson has taught us a very similar message:

“…I learned that one of the Hebraic meanings of the word Israel is “let God prevail.” ³ Thus the very name of Israel refers to a person who is willing to let God prevail in his or her life. That concept stirs my soul!”⁴

President Nelson then asks the following personal questions:

“Are you willing to let God prevail in your life? Are you willing to let God be the most important influence in your life? Will you allow His words, His commandments, and His covenants to influence what you do each day? Will you allow His voice to take priority over any other? Are you willing to let whatever He needs you to do take precedence over every other ambition? Are you willing to have your will swallowed up in His?”⁵

2. Do not run faster than you have strength.
   Even doing everything you can to put God first in your life, does not guarantee that everything you try to do will now work perfectly. All your best goals and your highest dreams still have to be accomplished in wisdom and order. That means that you cannot do more than you can do. We have all experienced having bigger expectations of what we will be able to do in an hour or even in a day. We just cannot do more than we can do. We have to content ourselves to know that we are on the Lord’s errand, that our lives and our goals are approved by Him, and then chip away–like a professional sculpture–the rough stone of our project, of our personal lives, until we have the masterpiece we desire.

It is in the Lectures on Faith that we will find the secret we need here. Here we find the message, the basic underlying formulae for running the race of our lives here on earth and having the strength to finish it:

“…three things are necessary in order that any rational and intelligent being may exercise faith in God unto life and salvation,

1. The idea that he [God] actually exists.
2. A correct idea of his character, perfections, and attributes; and 3.
3. An actual knowledge that the course of life which he [or she] is pursuing is according to his will.”⁶
   Please note how these three truths–in the Lectures On Faith– build upon each other. Number three, personally knowing that what you are doing with your life and in your [daily] life, is according to God’s will and His approval is the climax. It is based upon the foundation of the other two. Running the race of your personal mortal life without this knowledge can mean that you are going in the wrong direction. It can mean that you will reach the end of your life’s race and find that you have spent all your time in the weeds of life and never stopped to smell the flowers. It can mean that you hacked away at the leaves and never really got to the root of what is real in life.

It can mean–metaphorically–that you had the ladder of the life you led, against the wrong wall and were fighting a no-win battle against an illusory foe who claims that “…I am no devil, for there is none.”⁷

3. Be diligent.
   Once a person has determined that he or she is pursuing personal goals and is living a life approved of by a loving Heavenly Father, what is left? What is left, is to be diligent and obedient. Diligently, and daily follow the approved course, while being obedient to the subtle Spirit corrections in effort and direction. What is the secret here? I believe it is found in the following profound truth:

“Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection. And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come.”⁸

Note the key to gaining knowledge and intelligence: the key to gaining knowledge and intelligence is through personal diligence and obedience! May I note here that it is a profitable exercise to go to the Topical Guide and scan through the many references given under the words, Diligence, Diligent, Diligently. As I study these references, I am drawn to Alma 32, because Alma’s invitation to the poor class of people who had learned to be humble, fits our formulae. He invites these humble–and now teachable people–to compare the word unto a seed, which, when planted in their hearts, will begin to enlarge and to enlighten and to become delicious to them. This wonderful analogy to our lives and our testimonies is likened unto planting in our hearts the gospel seed and then nourishing and caring for that seed until it brings forth delicious fruit and becomes the reward of personal diligence and patience and long-suffering.⁹ What a great parallel to what we are speaking of here today. It is all found in Alma 32! Plant the seed in your heart! Diligently and prayerfully care for it. Enjoy the delicious fruit the tree [of life] will produce. There it is! That’s it! Turning your life over to the Lord, not running faster than you have strength, daily and diligently striving to become like Him! That is the entire secret of our personal success in this life and our successful entrance into the life to come.

Notes:

1. Mosiah 4:26-27.
2. Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Ezra Taft Benson, 40.
3. Bible Dictionary, 708
4. President Russell M. Nelson, “Let God Prevail”, General Conference, Oct. 2020. 141
5. Ibid. 144
6. Lectures on Faith, Lecture Third.
7. 2 Nephi 28:22.
8. D&C 130:18-19.
9. Alma 32, esp. 28-43.

                                           Theron David Rose, 2021

I was once asked, “What is the most unique belief or truth you Latter-day Saints have to offer the world? What one thing do you know that defines you and makes you different from all other people on earth today”? 

That question has been asked in other ways to many of us who have lived in different places and in differing circumstances during our lives.  How do you answer such a question? Sometimes the question is simply, “Why are you so different? I have been watching you and you do not act like or talk like the people around you.” Or, “There is something about you that makes you different, what is it?”

A former student of mine graduated from Cyprus High School, married her sweetheart, and moved with him to his employment near Washington, D.C. They found a home in a small suburb where several other young married couples, like them, were just starting out. At that time, most of the husbands went to work each day leaving the wives free to form friendships and interact socially.  This former student of mine had been an impressive seminary student. She served on the Seminary Council during her senior year. I was the faculty member assigned to be the Council Advisor and got to know her well. I ran into her mother in a local grocery store approximately a year after her daughter and her husband had moved back east and she told me of an experience her daughter had related to her in a recent phone conversation that has to do with why some people ask these kinds of questions.

She said that her daughter had gotten to know several girls in her new neighborhood and that they get together as friends each week to socialize and to do crafty and decorative projects. They take turns hosting in a different home each week and have gotten to know each other quite well. One day, her daughter was accused of keeping something hidden from the group. They wanted to know what brand of make-up her daughter was using. Her daughter—who had never used make-up in her life—told her friends this, but they would not believe her. They told her that they had all noted that she looked so much different from other people, that they had decided among themselves to ask her about the ‘make-up’ she was using. When she told them that she did not use make-up and never had, they refused to believe her and accused her of trying to keep her ‘special make-up’ a secret from them.

Her mother laughed and winked at me as she said, “We know what that ‘special make-up glow’ is among latter-day saints, don’t we, Brother Rose?”

Later, as my wife and I were putting away the groceries I had purchased, I told her about the conversation I had with this mother and the ‘special make-up glow’ and my wife said, “Those girls will meet other Latter-day Saints during their lives who will not have that special glow about them. Then what?”

I have often thought about those two words, “Then what?” in the context of having or of not having that distinctive glow. As I pondered upon this question, I came to realize that it relates to one of the profound personal evaluative questions the Prophet Alma tells us we must ask ourselves: “And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances?  Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?”  And then, because Alma knew that a person could reach this level of spirituality  and then slip or fall away, he added this important follow-up question: “”If ye have felt [this spirit] can ye feel so now” (Alma 5:14, 26)?

I believe that if we have lost this Spirit-glow, this ”make-up’, then, like Alma suggests, this should become our ‘wake-up’ call. Do I, do we, have the image of Christ in our countenances?  If we know that we did so in the past. and that we have had this conviction and glow at one time, but have slipped and fallen below that standard, then it becomes our challenge to work to get it back. You can do it!  I can do it! I know we can. And, won’t it be worth it? Yes, it will.  I know it will. A good, simple beginning would be to faithfully read the General Conference talks given by our general authorities.  A second step would be to read the footnotes given in each selected talk and look for and read  those scriptural references given. The footnotes give additional depth and meaning to the words spoken in General Conference. May the Lord continue to bless you in your faithful efforts to be good and to do good, and to reclaim—if need be—your former spiritual strength. Acquire that special ‘glow’ that shows you have the ‘image’ of Christ in your ‘countenance’!