It's Not How He Looks That Matters

I recently read an article with speculation about the appearance of Jesus Christ. It was based on studies of the average appearance of the men of His era, and the article suggested that if He was of average height and appearance, He would have had dark hair, fair-to-medium skin, a beard, and reached a height of 5'1".

For people of our day, that might be unimpressive. I know this, at least about the height, because that's exactly how tall I am.

However, Isaiah prophesied that the Savior would have "no beauty that man should desire Him," and "no form nor comeliness." (Isaiah 53:2) It fits the prophecy.

(However, none of this takes into account His glorified state, which came later.)

It was interesting, if unimportant.

Regardless, the point I took from this article and the feelings I had after reading it, that it isn't how the Savior appeared. In spite of that, crowds thronged Him. Why? Because of how He made them feel. When we look to Him, rather than at Him, that's when we find Him.

He lifted, built, and taught. He accepted the socially unacceptable. He reached into hearts. He healed the untouchable. He loved without fear.

Reading about His incomparable life, I begin to feel a measure of that love. Through prayer, I feel it even more. By trying to change myself to follow--in some small way--the example of how He lived (by loving people around me), that love begins to take root. Through repentance, coming back to Him, asking for His pardon and help, that love and acceptance fills my heart and life.

As must be obvious to everyone, it isn't how He looked or looks. It's how He makes me and each of us feel as we look to Him.

He is love.

He invites us to receive His image in our countenances. I'm fairly sure we've seen Him and His love in someone's face somewhere, sometime. Someone who has emulated His love so long, he or she has become more beautiful for it.

Helping someone feel a portion of that love--shouldn't that be my goal every day? To make someone feel noticed, to remind them that they're loved?

This is a rambling set of thoughts. Noticed and loved. That's how I want to make people around me feel. I might not be a 5-star writer, a 10 on the beauty scale, or of impressive height or skill of any kind. But I hope people I meet feel noticed and loved.

That is all.

The End Result of All this Commandment Stuff

In July I was asked to speak in church. It's one of the big, scary things about being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: we have no paid ministry, and the lay members of the church have the "opportunity" to speak in front of the congregation from time to time. Seeing the bishop's number on your caller ID can strike fear in the heart.


Well, my turn rolled around again. This time, the topic was charity.


Sure, I thought. Charity. That's really a nice topic. It's love. I love love. I think about love all the time.
But as I studied, I realized that charity was so, so much more than just plain love.


I'm not going to copy and paste my entire talk into this blog wholesale. (You're welcome.) Instead, I'm going to just note one scripture that I found. I'd been trying to dig around in the scriptures and find out just what a person can do to develop charity (because if you've done much reading on the subject, you know that "without charity" man is "nothing." And that's in there frequently enough to give you a little bit of a scare, if you start to think about it very much.) So, how do I get it?


I Timothy 1:5
 5 Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:


Mainly, the first phrase is what struck me. That "the END of the commandment is charity." I think it's meaning the end result. And I think the word commandment might be singular to sound poetic. So, my interpretation of this is that the end result of my obedience to God's commandments is the development of charity in my soul.


Well, that...sounded interesting. So I started delineating a few commandments as I put it to the test.


For instance, the commandment to forgive. Yes, obviously! If I forgive, it's my way of thinking that Christ's atonement and love are BIG ENOUGH for EVERYONE, and that there isn't anyone I'd deny that great love to. (And the corollary of this, is that when I do not forgive, it's my way of saying to the Lord, sure. Forgive me because I deserve it. But that guy? He's doesn't. The Atonement isn't big enough for THAT guy. Uh, that doesn't sound good when I put it that way, right?) Anyway, the end result of forgiving others is, voila, charity.


But what about fasting? We have a commandment to fast. (See Isaiah 58 if you want an incredibly beautiful treatise on fasting. Ahhh, it fills me.) When we fast, we also donate the amount of money we would have spent on food that we fasted from to the bishop so he can use it to bless the poor. That's developing self control, giving of ourselves, sacrifice, and loving others more than we love our own passions. Charity.


Extrapolate this with commandment after commandment. It holds up.


And so, I guess the point is, if we want to measure up with charity at the last day and have things be "well with us," to paraphrase Moroni 7:47, a great place to start is by ramping up our obedience to the commandments of God. For all commandments are, if we look closely, attributes of God, the greatest of all being LOVE.


I love how cohesive the scriptures are. How beautiful and rich is the doctrine of God.

How Can I Strengthen Others?

Like I posted a few weeks ago, I have seen lots of friends and family around me lately facing trials--some that almost seem too much to bear. This morning I just pondered on that for a while and asked the question, "How can I strengthen others?"


I know that I can't stop someone's illness. I can't take away the pain of the loss of a child. I can't fix the big heartbreaks. It's not in my power. I'm just...me. And I have my own little muddles I'm working through, and I have kids to care for and their muddles.


Still, I wish I could somehow lighten others' loads.


So this morning I turned to the scriptures to see if there was some way I could help. I started by checking the index under the word "strengthen."


One verse stuck out to me:


5 Wherefore, be faithful; stand in the office which I have appointed unto you; succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees. (Doctrine and Covenants 81:5)


A lot of my dear ones right now have hands which hang down. But how could I lift them?


The next verse I found was in the Book of Mormon.


3 And thus we see that the commandments of God must be fulfilled. And if it so be that the children of men keep the commandments of God he doth nourish them, and strengthen them, and provide means whereby they can accomplish the thing which he has commanded them. (1Nephi 17:3)


Of course *I* wasn't going to do the strengthening, and this made it clear. God does all the strengthening. And according to this verse, the promise is that He will strengthen His children when they keep the commandments. Maybe I could help my loved ones keep the commandments. Just exactly how to do that isn't clear. But I did have a chance to take a young friend to church (after a while of being away) a couple of weeks ago, where she was embraced by friends, and since then I've seen so much strength come into her life. Maybe something like that. Not sure. Maybe something else will come to me.


Another little story in the Book of Mormon helped me think of another thing. These people had been pretty wicked, and just as they were in the process of repenting and getting their lives back on track, a group of bad guys swooped in and enslaved them. So they were praying. A lot. And then things got worse:


11 ...he put guards over them to watch them, that whosoever should be found calling upon God should be put to death.

 12 And Alma and his people did not raise their voices to the Lord their God, but did pour out their hearts to him; and he did know the thoughts of their hearts.

 13 And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord came to them in their afflictions, saying: Lift up your heads and be of good comfort, for I know of the covenant which ye have made unto me; and I will covenant with my people and deliver them out of bondage.

 14 And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.

 15 And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.

 16 And it came to pass that so great was their faith and their patience that the voice of the Lord came unto them again, saying: Be of good comfort, for on the morrow I will deliver you out of bondage (Mosiah 24:11-16).

But like this says, after the people prayed anyway, even if only in their hearts, with great earnestness, a miracle occurred. Prayers were answered and God strengthened their backs, which made their burdens light.

I can pray for those I love who are in trials. I can pray with them. I can encourage them to keep praying. Prayer is key. I've seen this in reality in my own life.

Finally, since I was running out of scripture time this morning, I flipped to the Old Testament, where I found one of the coolest answers to my question. It wasn't that I meant to look for it. It just happened to be in the chapter I was in my daily reading, 2 Chronicles chapter 20.

In the story, Jehoshaphat had been preparing the people of Judah for a huge battle against the Syrians and Ammonites. To prepare them he set his mind, declared a day of fasting, gathered his people at the temple, and prayed with incredible humility and strength, putting all his trust in the LORD.

Then came the thing that surprised me. He appointed SINGERS. Singers? Yep. He put them out in FRONT of the troops who were lining up to battle They went before the front line, singing songs of praise and strengthening the resolve and faith of those who would fight.

God fought their battle. All their enemies fell before them--and it seemed like the enemies turned on each other and started wiping each other out. Jehoshaphat's army prevailed through the Lord.

Music. Maybe I can find good, uplifting music to share with these loved ones of mine to help them get through.

It's hard to feel so helpless as I witness suffering, but maybe there's even a little something I can do. The scriptures really are full of incredible answers to even the small, everyday questions.

How to Be Infused With Christlike Love--A 5 Step Pattern

This morning I had occasion to study about love. I have just received a new assignment at church, one where I have responsibility for teaching and nurturing a lot of young people. It's a daunting challenge, and one I feel like I need to really humble myself to be able to accomplish in any pleasing fashion.


The one key that keeps coming to my mind is "love." Of course. Of course.


As I searched the scriptures to find how to get more of that vital quality, I kept finding a clear pattern, and although it makes perfect sense, I was just shaking my head at myself for never seeing it so obviously before. Maybe everyone who ever reads this already knows these things, and if so, apologies, just feel good about yourself and pity my obtuseness. However, it felt like an epiphany to me, and so I'm going to point it out, if only for my own benefit in outlining it concisely.


First off: here's one of the scriptures that led me to this pattern. Moroni 8:25-26:


25 And the first fruits of ^arepentance is ^bbaptism; and baptism cometh by faith unto the fulfilling the commandments; and the fulfilling the commandments bringeth ^cremission of sins;

 26 And the remission of sins bringeth ^ameekness, and lowliness of heart; and because of meekness and lowliness of heart cometh the visitation of the ^bHoly Ghost, which ^cComforter ^dfilleth with hope and perfect ^elove, which love endureth by ^fdiligence unto ^gprayer, until the end shall come, when all the ^hsaints shall dwell with God.

Repent (and be baptized) 

Which brings a remission of sins

Which makes us meek and lowly

Which brings the Holy Ghost

Which fills us with love

I like how it also says we can "endure in this love" by earnest prayer. And that we should. And we can.

And so basically, if I want to love more, I need to repent more.

This is something, now that I'm remembering experiences in my life, I know to be true.

I remember a few years ago, I had something I wanted to be forgiven of. As I was going through the repentance process, I felt a strong impression that there was something standing in my way: a grudge. Months (maybe years) before, a group of people had done something publicly that really wounded me and my family. I still felt the pain of that, and harbored bad feelings. (Like, if I saw one guy walking across the street, I sometimes considered running over him. Yeah, I'm a small person, I know it.) But as I sought forgiveness for my own wrongs, I knew I needed to forgive. It took time and effort and bucketloads of grace, but that thorn did come loose from my soul.

And what I was left with was a miracle, because, instead of that want-to-smash-people feeling, all I could feel after that experience of repentance and forgiveness, was a strong feeling that "This relief of being forgiven is so great, I would never, ever want to deny it to anyone."

And for me, that was charity. True love.

So, now that I think about it, I know that this is true. Remission of sins does indeed fill the soul with love.