My Garden of Life

*It's been a long time since I've written on this blog, and I have finally felt inspired as to how to use this blog. I want to share some of my writings from my personal gospel study journal with whoever reads this. My hope is that the Spirit of the Lord may touch your heart as you read and that you will feel and recognize God's love.*

May 21, 2010
Today I am starting in gospel principles manual chapter 4 titled Freedom to Choose. I really like this quote on page 19 that says "right choices increases our power to make more right choices."

While reading some of the additional scripture references, I read Alma 41:3, and then continued to read the rest of that chapter. It talks of how we will be judged according to our works and the desires of our hearts. It is a very simple and straightforward doctrine here. In verses 13 and 15 in particular, I was amazed at how clearly the "law of the harvest" and the "law of attraction" are described, in the Lord's way. In verse 13 it says, "the meaning of the word restoration is to bring back again evil for evil, or carnal for carnal, or devilish for devilish - good for that which is good, righteous for that which is righteous; just for that which is just; merciful for that which is merciful." Then Alma goes on in verse 14 to explain that if we are merciful to others, deal justly, judge righteously and do good continually we will have all of those things restored to us. This is the law of the harvest, in that we reap what we sow.

I am thinking of the visual lesson I got of this from "Grandpa's Garden," a short video shared at Women's Conference of Dallin H. Oaks teaching in his garden that when we plant a cucumber, we will get a cucumber, not a tomato. This verse just a few verses earlier, verse 10, is coming to mind as well: "wickedness never was happiness." If our actions and the desires of our hearts in this life are wicked, that's what we're planting and that's what we will get. If our actions and desires are righteous, that's what we're planting and we will reap happiness.

Then in verse 15 is the law of attraction verbatim: "For that which ye do send out shall return unto you again and be restored." I've heard this law described as a boomerang before. Unlike the world teaches, this law isn't all about temporal things, like sending out "positive thoughts to the universe" about the new car we'd like, and then having that new car returned to us. This is about eternity. And just like when planting a garden, we plant seeds and then we must tend them and nurture them, and then, we must PATIENTLY WAIT. This requires great patience, diligence in nurturing, and faith. The faith can be sure because although we may not SEE cucumbers, we can know that it will be cucumbers that grow because that's what we planted.

I am amazed at how many righteous people do not feel worthy to inherit the blessings of eternal life. They do not understand these laws. The Lord has given us "the seeds" and told us what kind of seeds they are. We can know that if we plant these seeds of righteousness, we will reap the blessings of eternal life.

I believe these laws. This has been a good reminder for me today because I have a tendency to "plant good stuff'" and then become impatient when I don't see immediate results. I feel like the good that I am planting should be returned to me right away. I compare myself to others and think that I've planted more good than they have, so why do they have more money, a nicer house, nicer cars, nicer clothes? And I am tempted to discard my efforts in the belief that "this law doesn't work."

I feel extremely humbled right now. There are tears in my eyes because I can see so clearly my folly. I am wrong for thinking of myself as better than others. I may be planting a lot of good seeds, but what I am doing does not change the intrinsic value of my brothers and sisters. We are all in this together. We are all children of God. I should be sharing my seeds with others, teaching them how to plant good and righteousness. I've fallen into this "better than box" before. I am really grateful for this scripture study because it has helped me to recognize my mistake and helped me "get out of the box." Also, while I was writing what I did about comparing myself to others, the words of this hymn, Count Your Blessings, clearly came to mind: "When you look at others with their lands and gold, think that Christ has promised you his wealth untold." I really am grateful for that reminder as well. The seeds I am planting will grow into eternal "wealth untold."

I need to stop feeling sorry for myself that I don't have a "nice car," an expensive house and money flowing. Those are all temporal things and that's not what I'm planting. I could, but I didn't, so I need to stop feeling disappointed that I'm not "reaping" those sorts of things in my life because I planted something different. The seeds I'm planting are my choices to be obedient to the Lord's commandments, to study my scriptures, to pray always, to attend the temple, to be forgiving, to love others, to serve others, to live the gospel of Jesus Christ as fully as I can. These choices will bring me "Christ's wealth untold." This is not to say that having a nice car, money, nice clothes, a nice house, all of those worldly trappings of wealth are "bad", or not desirable. But to reap those things, I would need to be planting different seeds.

In sitting here pondering more on this, I have made a visual of little "seed packets" in my mind. And each packet has a picture on it. I've given different names to the different packets. There's seeds of eternal life, seeds of success/wealth, seeds of health, seeds of knowledge/wisdom, seeds of talent (of various variety), seeds of strong, happy, healthy relationships, and I'm sure more. But these were the most important GOOD seeds I could think of. And in pondering, I've realized that the cunning deception of the adversary is to convince us that all of these are the same. This is destructive and leads us away from God because it gives way to thoughts such as, "I've always done the right things and kept the commandments, so why have I been diagnosed with cancer? God must not care about all I've done." Which can lead to resentful feelings towards God, leading to apathy, to agnosticism, to atheism. It goes many other ways too, where people who are extremely poor and unsuccessful may believe there is no hope for eternal life.

So in our garden of life we can choose what seeds we want to plant and they will grow accordingly. If we plant success seeds, we shouldn't be expecting health. If we plant strong relationship seeds, we shouldn't be expecting talent to suddenly bloom. And overall, there are good kinds of seeds and bad seeds (weeds). We plant through our individual choices. And not choosing deliberately to plant good seeds is making a choice to let weeds take root and eventually overrun our lives. In the final judgment we will be rewarded according to what we chose to plant in our gardens. It's up to us what we cultivate. Wow, I am really digging this analogy! Yaay for scripture study!!! My testimony of that has been strengthened today because of the opportunity for insight and learning and understanding that it opened up. If I hadn't opened my scriptures today, I wouldn't have thought about all of this stuff. And "all of this stuff" has helped me a lot. I feel strengthened.

I Seek After Charity

The reason I am on this earth is so that I can learn to become like my Father in Heaven. My elder brother, Jesus Christ, is the perfect exemplar I can look to and follow. In the scriptures it is said that charity, the pure love of Christ, is the greatest gift to seek after; that "if ye have not charity, ye are nothing." (Moroni 7:44, 46) To me, charity means truly caring more about serving others than serving one's self. Having charity means to serve God with all of the heart, might, mind and strength, and with no ulterior motives. Being charitable is seeing everyone, ourselves included, as children of God and treating them as such. Serving with charity means seeking the inspiration of the Lord so as to be an instrument in His hands in bringing love, peace and comfort to a heart in need. A charitable person is focused on Love.

The antithesis of charity, I believe, is selfishness and victimization. It is when one is more concerned with getting as much as possible for as little effort, time or money as possible. It is only caring about personal wants and how to satisfy personal "needs" with little or no regard as to how one's actions may affect someone else. It is ignoring personal accountability in any given situation and believing that someone else is always to blame and someone else should fix the problem. An uncharitable person is focused on themselves.

These two dualities are the end result of what individual, daily choices lead to. They are a state of being, not who we are. I believe we are children of God, all equal in His sight. It is through our own choices in life that we end up at one end or the other. Change is a choice away. One of the greatest gifts we have been given is agency. We "are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death according to the captivity and power of the devil." (2 Nephi 2:27) The way we view the world, our belief system, governs our actions. If we want to make a change in our actions, first, we must be willing to change the way we believe.

I believe we are all in a great moment in the eternities with the opportunity to prepare the world for the Second Coming of the Savior. I believe that He will come again. And I believe that He will come among those who live as He did. I want to be among that group. My intent in my life is to become like my Heavenly Father. The way to become as He is, is to seek after charity.

"Wherefore, my beloved brethren (and sisters), if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail - but charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whosoever is possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him. Wherefore, my beloved brethren (and sisters), pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons (and daughters) of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen." (Moroni 7:46-48)