The Great and Spacious Building!

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, why is it that the great and spacious building represents pride?  Why not just iniquity, or some other general sin?  I figured there must be some interesting point that the Lord wants to make by specifically focusing on pride.  So, I delved into the scriptures to find out some characteristics of the great and spacious building and the people who entered.  First, they gathered together to fight against the apostles of the Lord.  Second, a great gulf divided them from the Tree of Life, or love of God.  Third, they mocked those who partook of the fruit of the Tree of Life.  Fourth, many people risked becoming lost in forbidden paths just to enter the building and partake of worldly pleasures. 

Characteristics of Pride:

Does not receive correction (a great gulf divides them from the Lord)

Has to be better than others  (mock the believers)

Does not follow the commandments of the Lord (fight against the apostles)

Loves the world more than God (seeks to partake of worldly pleasures in building)

We can learn from these characteristics, that pride inhibits our success and our spiritual progress.  Pride destroys love.  Pride weakens our trust and confidence in the Lord, and pride follows after the desires of the natural man.  It is for this reason that pride is epitomized in the great and spacious building.  How can we ever become all that our Heavenly Father wants us to be if we are prideful?  How can we serve and love others as Christ did, if we are prideful?  How can we keep the commandments and trust in the Lord if we are prideful?  How can we seek after all that is righteous and virtuous if we are prideful?  Pride will never give us success.  Just as the great and spacious building suffered a great and terrible fall, pride will destroy each one of us.

The opposite of pride is humility.  In James 4:10 it says, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up!”  When we are humble; when we willing receive correction from others; when we love freely without competing to be better; when we follow all the commandments of the Lord, trusting that His will is best; and when we seek after the things of God first; we will be strengthened and lifted up. Christ promises us, “blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  When we seek after humility and develop it in our lives, we will receive a much grander prize than anything this world can offer.  We will receive eternal life in the kingdom of our Heavenly Father!

5 Crowns and Life

Life is like a game of 5 Crowns – sometimes you know exactly how to play your hand...and then other times you’ve got to be real creative to make some matches and combinations with the crazy cards you’ve been dealt! Yet, with a lot of improv, some crazy luck, and perhaps some hidden skill, you manage to pull it off! That’s basically a baby description of my week! About a month ago, I was assigned to work with three other students in my Program Management class to create, organize, and run a program. We let our creative juices flow, and came up with a spectacular idea, adaptive hockey! Two weeks later, we received notification, that the program would not be able to go as planned. Undaunted, we went back to the ‘drawing table’ and came up with our second spectacular idea, an 80’s roller skating party! One week later, we received notification that only one group on campus had permission to use the roller skates…by now, we had less then a month to implement our program, and we had already created the rough draft plans for the roller skating program idea. Instead of redoing our entire program, which would have taken a lot of time, we decided to put it all on the line and try our luck. Thursday morning, we got an email saying that we could do the activity, but that the only day we could schedule the ballroom for skating was November 14, in exactly one week! Yep! At this point we were holding one crazy hand of cards! Our options weren’t that terrific, but we let the adrenaline kick in and went to work. Between me and one other girl in our group, I think we contacted every possible organization on campus that could help us! When we walked into the scheduling office to schedule the ballroom for our activity, the woman at the computer looked up and said, “Oh, you’re the ones with roller skating! We’ve been so confused! We’ve had about 4 different groups of people call in today trying to schedule the room, and we couldn’t figure out if it was all for the same group or if they were all different!” Long story short, by the end of the day, we had the ballrooms scheduled for skating, and our program was on track, a very fast track, for November 14!

It was incredible for me to see how a simple idea, almost dying at that, could go from just ink on a paper to active implementation! So many weeks had passed by without much action, and without much hope of really making it happen. Then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere we had a full-fledged program on our hands. How did that happen? Where did we get that kind of motivation and drive!? It made me think a about my own life. What kind of spectacular ideas do I have, that are still just on paper? What’s it going to take to create that motivation and drive within me to take those inactive ideas and turn them into reality? We each have tremendous potential; we just have to figure out how to release that incredible power from within us. Sometimes I think all we need to jump start this ‘drive’ is to wake up one day and say, “I am going to do this!” Whether it be goals to daily study the scriptures daily, pray more intently, marry in the temple, serve a mission, pay tithing, have food storage, or obey the word of wisdom; we have all the necessary capabilities. It doesn’t matter what ‘hand of cards’ life deals us, the Lord can help us do great things if we just believe and put our trust in Him!

Candy in Heaven?!

This past week while I was at the temple, I noticed that one of the Sisters had a basket of candy on her desk. I couldn't help myself and walked over. Motioning to the candy, I asked, "So does this mean that there is candy in heaven?!" She just laughed and didn't give me a direct answer, but I took it as a 'yes'!

I never actually met this Professor, but apparently, we have a Professor in the religion department who had his hand blown off by a firecracker when he was younger. As we were learning about the miracle when Christ heals a man with a withered hand, our religion teacher told us this story. He said that this Professor with the missing hand was talking about the healing of the withered hand, and said, "I can't imagine how wonderful it would be to have a right hand again. However, I think, that when the day comes for me to approach Christ with my 'withered' hand, knowing full well that he can completely restore my hand, I will quietly slip my 'withered' hand into my pocket; and then when I stand before Christ I will point to my soul and say, "please, heal this." I don't know why, but this story kind of touched me and made me think about how many times the Savior physically healed people in the scriptures and said, "thy faith hath made thee whole," and then, I thought about the account of Enos when the Savior spiritually healed him and used the same words, "thy faith hath made thee whole!" Often, I think the world becomes consumed in the desire for physical perfection and physical healing. Yet, physical healing really isn't all that difficult or important. The experiences and lessons of this life can be learned in whatever body we our blessed with, no matter how healthy or disabled. Also, despite what physical ailments we have, we will all be resurrected to a perfect form regardless of what we've done or how we've lived. However, to be healed spiritually is somewhat different. Spiritually sicknesses are much more difficult to perceive in others, and ourselves but we all have them. They are pride, procrastination, hypocrisy, disobedience, immorality, dishonesty, etc. To be healed from such ailments, we have to complete certain requirements such as baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost, temple covenants, and enduring to the end. Unlike physical healing, spiritual healing won’t just happen to everyone once they die and go to heaven. This is our ultimate goal in this life; to be spiritually healed, to "put off the natural man and to become a saint through the Atonement of Christ". That is why missionary work is so fantastic! Just think about what we are doing! We are aiding the Savior in his mission to spiritually heal His children. Through the teachings of the Gospel, the covenant of baptism, and helping people to become worthy of going to the temple, we not only help to spiritually heal those who become members of the Church, but we also bless the lives of our brothers and sisters, our family members, and ourselves! Just as Christ focused on healing while He fulfilled His earthly mission, He continues to seek to heal each one of us. I know that as we teach and live the principles of the Gospel we will be spiritually healed; and that one-day, we too will stand before Christ and hear Him say, "thy faith hath made thee whole!"