Socialism is not a Workable God Replacement for Helene's Toll

We have all watched the cries of pain and defiance as people that survived in the wake of Helene tell their stories. It is heartening to see the labors of the real heroes, neighbors and distant charitable folk doing all they can to bring supplies and hope to those who need it the most.

Also telling are the government agents and agencies that kept a distance and made promises without any authentic help. Officials offered pitiful looks while busy about other desires far away, playing politics and placating those in pain from death and destruction with promises that "we are with the government: we are here to save you" and a failing promise to give, then deny, pitiful sums of money to not-enough-victims.

The recent hurricane toll on people just brings up again to me that the Lord's commandment to 'love your neighbor' is far more effective in meeting our needs than a taxed and 'coordinated' government response.

We see in the official response to Helene the rotten promise of socialism, so very little so very late and so reluctantly given. If it would have been a more politically-advantageous place and better-elite-connected people, we may have seen a more strenuous government response.  These caught in the storm were those who have been called "deplorables", those who the powerful would just as soon see disappear in favor of more acceptable political serfs and sycophants and migrant polling "scabs".

Fortunately, there is a God in yonder heavens and a good number of his devotees in the mountains and valleys of Appalachia.  These are the blessed souls that crawl through destruction to see to the elderly in the back-country and the caring folk that drive hundreds of miles with water and food and supplies to those who watched their family preparations washed away. These are those who will stand before their maker and accept the blessing of God as those who are giving up their lives for their friends, as Christ did.

These mortal angels did what a large and often dismissive government stumbled to attempt - they saved souls. I hope we see those who advocate for a larger and more "give us your loyalty" government are not really here to save anyone but themselves and their demanding overlords. I would rather stand beside a mud-encrusted hillbilly with a chainsaw than a hundred FEMA operatives with clipboards and laptops.

We need to push government out of the way and work together to solve our collective troubles.

Gratitude and Trust

I did a blog post a little while back about how important our individual choices are to our outcome. However, one should not think that our choices are the sole determinants of our future. God has paved the path and Jesus Christ has cleared that path of many obstacles to our ultimate success. We should each be personally grateful for the labor of Father and Son toward our best outcome.

It is disheartening to see so many people grumble and turn away from God with an attitude that the heavens are not doing enough to guarantee everyone's eternal success in the face of bad decisions and lack of decent effort.  So many want exaltation to be a "free" gift that requires nothing more than tearing off wrapping paper or some such and would call such a circumstance "love".  I can only foresee many petulant children shouting at God for not making their exaltation a gaily unearned action and not being handed a fine cake for what looks to be more a matriculation than an achievement.

One must see that no prize worth winning comes at no cost or sacrifice and when that prize is given from another's hand, the appropriate reaction should be gratitude toward the giver. Most would expect better manners from their children - "say thank you" - in similar earthly analogues. Too often, we appear ill-mannered to our gracious God for his far-more-than-helpful efforts and the vastness of the prize.

I can only conclude that those, when faced with such a wonderful offer for a small investment of obedience and thanks, who choose to turn up their noses are showing the conjoined twin of ingratitude, which is mistrust. I think many who set aside God and his offers are most likely motivated by a lack of trust in heavenly promises and the God who authors them. "I don't think he can really make this happen."

I only have this to say for the trustworthiness of God and his Christ - everything that they have promised me so far has been done (or looks to be coming to pass) and that gives me confidence in my Lord. I move forward in the expectation that ALL covenants and promises, to which I diligently do my part, will be DONE. In all this, I am slowly acquiring greater trust in my God.  I am very grateful to do my part, however falteringly, to forwarding his goals for the family of man!

Some Jaredite Prosperity Wisdom

 

Here is some more in the vein of prosperity:

And because the people did repent of their iniquities and idolatries the Lord did spare them, and they began to prosper again in the land.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/ether/7?lang=eng&id=p26#p26

Here is another view on how to attain prosperity from the children of Jared and his brother as filtered through Moroni.

 Are we grateful that the Lord is willing to spare you, when you and I really deserve hellfire and damnation? We best be repenting from our cherished iniquities (sexual/"gender" deviance) and idolatries (water skiing and that demon bowling)!

Don't let yourselves be diverted from your Mission

The whole purpose of life is to see if we will let ourselves be diverted from a path toward exaltation. As an example, the temptations of Christ during his fast in the wilderness were done by Satan to try to divert Christ from his mission. Jesus is our example of not being diverted from our mission.

You have to know your mission. Generally, this is to pursue exaltation through getting and keeping covenants. Beyond this, we often have individual missions tied to family, place, or circumstance.

One very large reason to cultivate a personal relationship with the heavens is to determine your individual mission in life and to pursue it rigorously. This mission pursuit was a larger feature of a religious life in the past that needs reviving. This effort requires an active connection with the Father in prayer and cultivating the 'back-channel' of listening to the Spirit to get needed inspiration toward fulfilling your individual mission.

Because your individual mission is unique to you, there is not some one prescribed method to discovering it outside of your desires to learn of it expressed through prayer and then following impressions that you get from the spiritual "back-channel". As you learn to hear and then follow inspiration, you will be led (through something like the Psychic Proximity Principle's "weak magnetism") to your life's mission.

I believe that most of what we call "mental health problems" are tied to essentially being "off-mission", either through having been distracted from it or simply not trying to discover it  People who seem to have their "sh** together" are usually at least on the path toward their mission if not already working it. 

In the https://www.exalts.net simulation, one might get the impression that life is just a pile of good choices made and rewarded, but I can't figure out a way to decently simulate the work of finding your personal mission in life. God knows what it is and will lead you to it through spiritual impressions, but I can't program that! You have to do that work for yourself!

A string of good choices determine our future

My simulation project at https://www.exalts.net has just gone live. I can't say I really strongly designed and planned it out based on some higher ideals, but it certainly worked out that way. 

As one moves through the simulation, it is the collected consequences of rather small choices along the way that determines one's ultimate score, which can be looked at as a destination.

I think living our lives as if each choice make up our eternal reward is something that God reveals to us. Even if we realize this later in life, our choices going forward can overcome bad decisions in our past, effectively allowing us to 'repent' and change for the better. We really do decide what we will ultimately become through every step we take and every choice we make. Although I present this as part of a simulation, I have assurance that God respects our choices and more-so desires that we make better choices.

Embracing the Constitutional "Burdens of the Past"

It is disheartening to see the democratic candidate for the US presidency rising through pandering, guile, and a lack of anything approaching proper governance, ready to prostitute herself and the highest office in the strongest country in the world to the highest bidder. From her tagline 'What can be, unburdened by what has been’, it is hard to see what exactly she means and what precisely she stands for.

When I think of 'what has been', I see an America founded on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights with a constrained federal government and enshrined personal liberties, both in abandoned and cherished. I don't know if this is what Mrs. Harris means in that phrase, but I hope we can get some clarification very soon, as I cannot support someone who may see our founding principles as so much baggage to be 'unburdened' by.

Similarly, it would be useful to know the vice-president's clear vision of 'what can be' once the burdensome past is jettisoned. My fear is that these are noting but hollow words, most likely to be filled by shadowy forces that want to use the presidency and our nation as bubble-headed prostitutes for private and sinister purposes. Perhaps for nothing more than expanding the fabulous wealth of certain persons or groups.

I much prefer the constitutional principles that apparently "burden our past".  I want a very constrained government that fulfills its constitutional duties and cannot do anything else, even if the majority of the people clamor for it. If this is burdensome to some, I am happy to see such people thwarted. I thank God everyday that we don't have a "pure" democracy and the rule of the mob that is easily bought off with trinkets and flattery. We have a constitutional republic designed to protect rights rather than granting political favors and buying votes.

What is Expected from Christ's "Unconditional" Love?

 Love has become so grossly conflated that many now see it as more basic than food and oxygen and more vital than resource provision. Love truly has conquered all in its demands ultra-Disneyesque. If one doesn't feel loved sufficiently, artificial self-love fills up the gap, more and more and more.

The rising interest in the concept of "Christ's Unconditional Love" seems to point to a decided nice Second Coming and a milquetoast deity that will excuse everything in the name of LOVE, writ large.

It is as if the Lord of the Old Testament has been dismissed for good and all his demands for obedience and repentance and doing good are done away. Now, God must love his children "unconditionally", providing blessing and salvation without the burden of good behavior, all because he loves us and doesn't want to see us punished or even inconvenienced. According to the new sensibilities, we can behave as we like and the new indulgent God thinks it is cute and sprinkles glitter everywhere.

I don't think much of this as an example of God's redemptive power and pray that you don't either. I trust more to needed works toward earning God's favor rather than trusting to some doting heavenly behavior totally unsupported by scripture. How many bible stories tell of the Lord destroying the wicked and the same "yesterday, today, and forever"? Do we think we can sin and avoid the wrath of God toward the wicked?

It is unwise to put aside the holy record and think there is any other fate for us than what we have learned from the old stories unless we repent and make ourselves and our thoughts and behaviors more pleasing to God.

And as we obey and turn to the Lord, he will forgive us and atone for us, which is the highest sort of love imaginable.  However, we must warrant such love and appreciate it through our change of heart and actions. We must become the sort of people God wants us to be, which he will help along toward an inexplicable exaltation.

Don't require the Lord to accept you as you are - make yourself acceptable to him!