The Gospel and the Kingdom

The Kingdom of God has existed aeons before the United States and will remain true ages after the every contemporary nation is a distant memory.

Likewise, the Gospel of Jesus Christ predates every political party, economic theory, and social ideology. These all will turn to dust, but the Gospel will remain true forever.

Granted, as Hugh Nibley says, some of our pressing options can be shown to be more or less desirable. But “all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls” (1 Peter 1:24).

None of these temporal concerns are the gospel, the kingdom, or our salvation.

None of them are remotely eternal or true the way that Jesus is.

On Prayer and Peace

The news and social media environments have become deeply toxic these past few years, as too many of our leaders excuse all manner of degeneracy for Machiavellian reasons and too many businesses — especially social and traditional media — stoke hatred and division to pursue their own bottom line rather than working to elevate the discourse and to build common ground.

My heart has often been heavy, and my mind troubled, by how there seems to be no end in sight with these present problems. I’ve struggled to turn off the firehose, because I continue to hope against hope that something will change to usher away the bad actors and to bring us to greater civility and unity.

In this context, what I have found to be most effective is prayer. As I have prayed, I have found the peace to let go of the news, to ignore social media, and to focus on the work and people God has placed in my life for me to serve. And as often as the anxieties and worries have rushed back, I have recovered this place of peace as often as I have gotten on my knees and let the Holy Spirit speak calm into my heart.

What worries can God calm in your heart if you let Him?

 

On sharing the good news

Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans,
with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this,
utter to the end of the earth;
say ye: The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob.
And they thirsted not; he led them through the deserts;
he caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them;
he clave the rock also and the waters gushed out.
And notwithstanding he hath done all this, and greater also,
there is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.

— 1 Nephi 20:20-22 (cf. Isaiah 48:20-22)

Sometimes when I think to share about God, I get the mistaken impression I have to explain my beliefs. I think I have to tell others, “This is the plan of happiness God laid out. These are how the details fit together, etc.”

The Lord, speaking through Isaiah in the above verses, suggests something different.

He says to tell “with a voice of singing” how He cares for those who serve Him. Or, as Moroni puts it, “to show unto the remnant of the house of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers [and mothers].”

The scriptures are full of stories of God caring for His servants. But I want to declare “with a voice of singing” how God did that for me:

• When I have been lonely, hurting, or afraid, God has given me peace and understanding.
• When I have been exhausted or unable to complete tasks in my life, God has given me strength.
• When I did not how to have the kind of social life and belonging I hoped to have, God helped me develop friendships and courage to reach out to people. He transformed my mind to let go of ideas that were holding me back.
• In the necessities of life, He has ensured I’ve had sufficient for my needs.

My life has not been without suffering and disappointment. God is not a magic wand. To say he blesses me doesn’t mean he insulates me fully from heartache.

But it does mean that I can trust Him.

The Testimony Experiment

I want to shift the purpose of this blog somewhat.

I’ve been thinking about how the stories we’ve told about the gospel in the twentieth century no longer match twenty-first century life. As scholar Philip Barlow recently said, the question that many people have now is not “which church is true?” but “why church?”

I’m inspired too by Adam Miller’s Letters to a Young Mormon. He writes about the gospel without using church jargon. Consequently, it doesn’t feel like someone repeating doctrinal formulas. It feels fresh and enlivening.

I want to try that here. I want to try to share my testimony in a way that is fresh and honest and everyday. My purpose is not to convince anyone, but to share the truth of my experience in a way that hopefully resonates with them.

This blog will not represent my polished efforts. I consider it my workshop for trying things out and seeing what works.

The good news of God belongs to everyone. You do not need to belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in order to be blessed by its teachings. You do not need to even believe in God to be blessed by Him. He doesn’t wait for you. God sends his goodness throughout the world.

So while I may continue to post talk summaries to this blog, I want as well to try this new thing: to add my testimony to those of the living prophets, whose messages I’ve been sharing.

I hope it blesses you.