Saturday, September 8, 2012

Speaking Engagement

This is going to be a long post.  I wanted to share the content of a talk I gave at church a few weeks ago.  I'm pretty proud of it and think that it is a message the most people need to hear.  Enjoy!

Good Morning Brothers and Sisters. 
We all know about the original sin that happened in the Garden of Eden.  The serpent came to Eve and tempted her into eating the fruit; she, in turn gave the fruit of the tree of knowledge, to Adam.  But most people overlook the second sin of mankind’s history.  The Lord returned to the Garden to find Adam and Eve, who had hidden themselves because they recognized their nakedness as a result of eating the fruit.  When asked plainly if he had taken of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, Adam replied that the woman did give him of the tree and he did eat.  The Lord in turn questions Eve and she immediately replies that the serpent beguiled her and she did eat.  When confronted with their guilt, our first parents’ instinct was to share the burden of culpability with someone else.  It is a tradition that most people continue to this day.
I fear something developing in the world.  It is a growing sense of self-righteousness.  This is not new, of course, but it is a taint that I see consuming more and more of our society.  So many times, our reaction to criticism is offense.  Instead of being willing to face our own shortcomings, we throw the blame on others.  “It’s not my fault!”  “So-and-so started it!”  “Why do I always get picked on?”  How many times is this the first thing that we think in an unpleasant confrontation?  “Well, so-and-so did this, so I’m justified in my actions.”  How many people have left the church because they found the truth to be hard? 
I think that human tendency is to deceive themselves.  How can we be honest with others and not be honest with ourselves.  This topic has been on my mind especially after a particular sharing time lesson I gave in junior primary. I asked for a volunteer to come up and watch some candy I had placed on a table while I left the room to grab something.  Paxton’s hand shot up and I put him in charge.  When I returned from the hallway, I found all the candy still on the table.  I asked Paxton if anyone from the class had tried to take any, and he said no.  Then I asked the class what would have happened if Paxton had been alone in the room with the candy and no one was watching him?  He promptly stated that he would not have taken any candy. And I saw in his eyes that he was telling the truth.  I explained to the children that being honorable means doing the right thing, especially when no one is there to see you.
I had an opportunity to see that lesson in action not one week later.  I pulled into the Wal-Mart parking lot and was startled by the sharp jolt of the car parked in front of me.  I saw the source of the movement to be a large SUV that was attempting to take the empty space next to the Honda in front of me and had seriously damaged both cars in the process.  I looked at the driver and saw, immediately, in her eyes that she was not going to take responsibility for what she had done.  She made a big show of getting out of her car to examine both vehicles, got back in her car and drove further down the lane to a different spot.  Maybe she thought to herself, “Well, this car is pretty old, so it doesn’t matter.”  Or perhaps, “Well, if they hadn’t been parked so close to the line, I wouldn’t have hit them.”  I took note of the plate before going about my shopping.  When I returned to my car, I saw my suspicions confirmed.  No note left on the windshield.  The offending driver was just now making her way into the store with her kids and we locked eyes again.  I saw again that she was choosing to run away from her responsibility.  So I left the driver of the Honda a note with the SUV’s plate, make and model.  It amazed me how easily you divine someone’s character by looking them in the eyes.
So now that we’ve identified a flaw in human behavior, how do we fix it? I found the answer in a talk by Elder Dennis B. Neuenschwander of the Seventy called “The Path of Growth”.  He said that the key to overcoming this canker of self-justification is confession.  Now I’m not talking about shutting yourself in a box the size of a phone booth and telling a stranger what you did.  I’m talking about an honest conversation with yourself, and the Lord, and possibly the Bishop if the circumstances warrant it.
There are a couple of types of confession.  The first confession involves recognizing God’s power. In our confession of God, we recognize and accept that He is, that He is greater than we are, and that His position is preeminent.  We understand our inferior position before Him. So taught King Benjamin in Mosiah 4:9 : “Believe in God;  believe that he is,  and that he created all things, both in heaven  and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom and all power, both in heaven and in earth;  believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend” .
The personal recognition and confession of God’s preeminent position is the beginning point of religious experience. “We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.”  All else proceeds from this first and fundamental truth. Without this first confession of God, no confession to Him can have full meaning.
Confession involves conquering pride. If for some reason I choose not to confess God and His preeminent position, then I will put something else in that position. That something else in all probability will be myself or some extension of myself that I create with my mind or hands.  If we are successful at replacing God with ourselves, then all is permitted to us. We become judge and jury.  It is we who decide what is right and wrong, if anything at all.  Korihor misleadingly taught in Alma 30:17 that “every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength; and whatsoever a man did was no crime”.  
If we can recognize God as the giver of all things and develop humility, we can be placed on the path to the next type of confession.  This second type of confession is one that happens both internally and publically. This confession is a statement of personal responsibility for our actions. The battle over responsibility is a familiar one, and it reaches back far into the past even before our mortal existence.  To Moses, the Lord revealed that Satan “sought to destroy the agency of man”. What is the agency of man but the right to make choices within a framework of opposition and the assumption of responsibility for those choices? The Lord has made it clear in 2 Nephi 2:26, that through the Atonement of Christ, “the children of men … have become free forever,  knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon”. We know good from evil and we act for ourselves.  Of course, things happen in our lives that are beyond our control, things that cause us joy or pain.  But we still choose our reactions to these external stimuli and we are responsible for those choices.  For example, “I stopped going to church because a brother or sister or teacher or Bishop offended me.”  Is that really true? Or did I choose to sacrifice my eternal salvation to avoid a person that I don’t like.
Our accountability to God, as our Father and Creator,  is one of the most basic lessons of the gospel. Likewise, the assumption of responsibility for our own actions is one of the strongest indicators that we are becoming more like Him.  So by admitting our own faults and weaknesses, we draw nearer to Heavenly Father.  Now we’re coming to the crux of the problem here.  We cannot develop ourselves spiritually by blaming another for our condition.  To do so would be to deny the Atonement of Christ; which purchased our spiritual independence from the effects of Adam’s transgression. In this light, it is only through the Atonement that we can truly stand accountable before God for our actions, thoughts, and deeds. When we refuse to admit to ourselves or others our own culpability, if we say that everything is someone else’s fault and declare ourselves guiltless, then we have no need of the Atonement.  And we all know there is only one person for whom that is true.
How often do we hear that society is to blame for the wrongdoings of its members, as if this brings absolution and freedom from the consequences? “Perhaps that child’s parents failed him.”  Or “Well, gun control laws are too lax; he shouldn’t have been allowed to purchase a gun.” There comes a time in our lives, temporally and spiritually, when we must assume responsibility for our choices. In a spiritual sense, confession is our statement to God that we are responsible and accountable to Him for our actions.
A true, honest, and willing confession brings us closer to God. President Stephen L Richards, a counselor in the First Presidency, taught: “Why is confession essential? First, because the Lord commanded it, and secondly, because the offender cannot live and participate in the Kingdom of God, to receive the blessings therefrom with a lie in his heart”. And these lies that we tell ourselves, where we shift the blame for our circumstances to others, where else to we keep them, except deep in our hearts. 
Brothers and Sisters, when we learn to release these falsehoods we tell ourselves, when we confess them to the Lord and turn them over to Him, we are made free.  We are unburdened and can face the Lord on the Day of Judgment without trying to find the excuses we need to justify our actions. 

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