Who Is Driving Your Car?

In a previous post, we talked about the proclivity of some to surrender control of their lives. As mentioned in the Psychic Proximity Principle, there is something I like to call "weak magnetism" provided by God that gently guides you toward your best potential. The interesting part is that you always have to make a conscious choice to follow that slight intuition - it isn't of sufficient strength to actually run your life. The spirit of God cannot force you to do anything - it can only gently point out the next step forward when we are paying it some attention.

Let's explore an analogy...

It was both a scary and exhilarating day when I got behind the steering wheel of a car.  What a powerful thing. I could now go faster and farther than ever before!  My range was greatly extended from what I could realistically travel on foot or on a bike on any given day.  On the flip side, my ability to do great harm to others (and myself) and damage to trees and buildings among other things was also broadly enhanced. "With great power comes great responsibility" someone like Spiderman's uncle would say about those who operate motor vehicles!

Life is a pretty important thing, best not left to chance. There are plenty of forces that are very willing to push or pull you in any number of directions and if you don't exercise your own will in your own life, there is no telling where you will end up but it will probably involve a "gutter". The great test of this life is how you choose (or choose not) to control it. Imagine if you just let go of the steering wheel of a car and step on the accelerator...

Sometimes, it might be better if you let someone else drive for a while, especially if you are steering toward a cliff. You don't want someone else to be in the driver's seat forever (it is YOUR life), but if the road is particularly dangerous or unknown to you, or it is late at night and you are very tired, it is great to have a fresh and experienced "relief" driver so you don't get yourself killed.

We are mostly weak by nature. It is a practical necessity to attach ourselves to others as guides and sounding boards for our ideas, plans and actions. That is why family is so important, where we have parents, grandparents, and others who have our best interest at heart and provide us with some of the maturity and experience that we lack. We might choose for a time to let the advice of others rule our actions through rocky times, but no one else besides you bears responsibility for what happens to you.

More important, we should not live life alone. We need the deep partnership that marriage was intended to be. In things of such importance, you should accept no cheap substitutes.

Of course, the greatest guide in the meaningful life is God. My advice is always to find more effective means to approach him and get his quiet advice.  I suggest an exploration of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which God established to help us along life's path.

Who do you take advice from?  As a "driver", who would be the best "GPS" system to rely upon? The choice could spell the difference between a rather pointless existence or a life full of meaning and happiness!

I have finally finished my high-school study-hall writing project

I began writing fiction when I was a boy living on my family ranch north of Clovis, New Mexico. I started out writing long-hand and used up so many erasers and blackened the side of my palm so many times. I eventually got into home-made computers, just because I couldn't afford a word processor (the era's premier writing tool) as a teen, and I needed a better way to write in spite of my poor spelling and constant need to make annoying corrections. I ended up as a "computer guy" only because recycled computers and open-source software served as my writing and publishing tools and I got decent at their use.

It became obvious very early in my marriage and our child-rearing that there was no prospect of making my style of writing a paying venture. Although one of my short stories has been published in a literary anthology and a collection of my stories was considered once by a Christian publisher of note, I had to work a seemingly endless string of "day jobs" to feed the family and justify my writing/publishing computers and time. If people think I have a "successful" "career" in information technology O&M management, it was actually only a distracting sideline to my un-remunerated spiritual journey in composition.

This book series is a result of my tedious school days and a mandatory study-hall period in my junior year of high school. There, I began writing the beginnings of what would become the Navigiary Rumination that I have just completed a few days ago.  I can't say that it was a constant labor - it was certainly done in fits and spurts - but I found it was an obsession for the first 59 years of my life. I certainly am not a successful (or particularly popular) writer in any sense, pursuing themes and concepts that are far from universally appealing and therefore completely unmarketable. What I can say is that this project is finally done, you can read it, and my life can move onto other things (if possible).

Navigiary consists of three books - Godsend (which is actually the final series book) finished in 1998, Escape (the first story of the series) finished in 2012, and now Prophecy (the middle book of the series) finished in 2026.

"... the messengers of the nation ..."

I read the scripture here and I feel that something big is being expressed, but I am struggling to bring it out.

Isaiah 14:32

32 What shall one then answer the messengers of the nation? That the Lord hath founded Zion, and the poor of his people shall trust in it. 

Does "the messengers of the nation" mean that the words to be broadcast widely? 

Could "the poor of his people" mean those whose attachment to the Lord is new and therefore lacking and that the founding of Zion is to give place for those who are thus poor (need deeper community supports)?

Isn't that the function of the LDS wards (a manifestation of a Zion community within the Church)? To be a strength to those who are weak or young (poor) in the Gospel? But not to let people sit there in that (poor) state, but to strengthen their devotions to the Lord in their homes and in the temples?

Is the "Zion" ward to be like a halfway house to the goal of gospel-centered homes and temple worship? 

"...the brook of the willows..."

Reading Isaiah is a study in serenity for me.  I don't understand half of it, and I just breathe in and breathe out so I can enjoy the poetic aspects.

Isaiah 15:7

7 Therefore the abundance they have gotten, and that which they have laid up, shall they carry away to the brook of the willows.

This chapter looks to be a premonition about evil and punishment, so that is how I approach this.  You had an abundance, you put in the effort to get it, and "they" who ever is dominating the situation is taking your stuff to "the brook of the willows", which sounds very picturesque, but is likely some ritual sacrifice place.

Your abundance (perhaps righteousness) is up in flames under the boot of some foreign power that can make you surrender things.  There are places where you must abandon your own devotion and follow the conqueror's religion. 

Moses already taught the people what would happen: 

Deuteronomy 28:64

64 And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone.

This comes from disobedience to the Lord. You don't honor him and the liberty he provides, you will be forced to serve a false god as a slave.   God will hang you out to dry for a while and help you see that obeying the Lord makes you free.

"...their prosperity in Christ."

This isn't the first or second or third blog post about prosperity here, but it comes up in the Book of Mormon on a regular basis, including instructions on how to obtain it.  In this blog post, we investigate some actions that can be taken to lose the prosperity that righteousness merits.

First, just a recap of what "prosperity in Christ" looks like: 

4 Nephi 1

23 And now I, Mormon, would that ye should know that the people had multiplied, insomuch that they were spread upon all the face of the land, and that they had become exceedingly rich, because of their prosperity in Christ.

There is something here that makes social scientists jump:  The entire idea that people multiplying happened at the same time as people getting rich.  It works the exact opposite way in our time - when people become rich, they have less children.  This is a rock-hard doctrine of our times, but apparently not a feature among the righteous followers of Jesus Christ.

What was the difference? We can see what happens when things take a turn for the worse.

24 And now, in this two hundred and first year there began to be among them those who were lifted up in pride, such as the wearing of costly apparel, and all manner of fine pearls, and of the fine things of the world. 

We live in a world awash in pride and the acquisition of the things that show we are prideful and that are worn like a badge of honor these days. After exactly 200 years, the non-prideful, prolific, and in-congruently rich people started wearing expensive clothes and jewelry and feeling pretty prideful doing it. This very quickly proved their undoing - no more peace.

In a world quick to blame the environment, social pressures, one ideology or another, solar flares, or biorhythms for the bad state of things, God and his prophets are quick to reveal the real culprit: personal pride.  If you want the prosperity in life that Christ offers, a prosperity so foreign to our times that you can enjoy a large posterity and lots of money at the same time, you humble yourself before the Lord. You stop considering your own path as superior to the agenda of God. You follow the teachings of prophets and apostles and you start receiving blessings that defy logic. It is amazing to see, especially in your own life.

The path to prosperity is through the Lord Jesus Christ.  When you put yourself between Jesus and your more obedient self through pride, how can the Lord prosper you?  As we follow God's agenda, miraculous blessings will come as surely as the sun rises.

"...as I have proposed, so shall it stand:"

We always think we can somehow trick God and foil his purposes. Often, it just looks like we can get away with things of our own design. 

 

Isaiah 14:24-27

24 ¶ The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand:

25 That I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders.

26 This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations.

27 For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?

God had this all figured out before you even came on the scene. You don't really know the background and you might have a vague clue about how things are going to turn out, but the fact of the matter is that you and me and big people like the Assyrians don't know what is happening.

We are a little people that get to have a few rounds where the adults accomplish things.  We are asked to learn the Gospel, share it around, make sure ordinances are done properly, and do what the Lord tells us to do as exactly as we can. We are in a position that we must trust in Him in our almost complete ignorance.

No wonder Christ talks about the importance of our being humble.

 

Obedience toward Alignment then Acculturation

A progression toward Godhood.

1. Obedience - We do as God commands, often in ignorance of the purposes behind it;
2. Alignment - We work in parallel with the purposes of God as we understand them;
3. Acculturation - God desires that we come to know him fully and, with that knowledge, adopt his ways and purposes as our own, gaining his trust to share in his exaltation.

God wants us to become like him. He wants to share his purposes and all that he has and is with us. We can become as he is and he will help us to do it.