It would be nice if all you had to do was wake up and the right decisions just happened. You followed all the commandments. You followed the higher law and the teachings of Jesus Christ. You followed your baptismal and temple covenants. You loved God and loved your neighbor. However, it never seems to play out that easy. Instead, there is an occasional stumble, trip, or even fall. At times they are easy to recover from, at times they are not. Why isn’t every decision just black and white?
Every one of us will fall short. It’s our human nature. However, we live in the last days and a war has been raging among us. The war is over the souls of men and is building up to what will be a great and final battle. Unfortunately, there will be casualties in this war.
I love the scripture about the Stripling Warriors in Alma 57:25 “…neither was there one soul among them who had not received many wounds.” I believe it mirrors the latter days. I believe it is inevitable that we will pass through this war receiving many wounds. Those wounds will be both physical and spiritual.
I myself feel as though I will stand before God looking as though I have been blown to pieces with missing limbs, pocked by shrapnel, with my skin burned and soiled from my fight in the trenches. From today until that day, I will continue to pray and beg for his mercy that He will heal my wounds and make me whole.
That illustration reminds me of the song “One” by Metallica. I listened to this song yesterday while driving with my son. They sing of a man who went to war and was more or less blown to pieces. His body lost all its limbs and most of its ability to communicate. All he had left was his mind and he was in complete torment. Of course, being a Metallica song, all he wants is to die. It is inevitable, that many of us will stand before God and our bodies and souls may be in an equivalent condition. We will have nothing but our minds to testify and we will be unable to perform any physical labor. At that moment will we be worthy of his mercy and redemptive power?
I was talking to my next-door neighbor last night. We have been neighbors for the better part of 8 years now. Somehow our conversation led to me telling them about my past and my conversion. Strangely, I had never told them about it. I don’t know why it is, but I still get emotional talking about it. I cried. But I testified of God’s healing power.
As I talked to them, I remembered walking the path of repentance and how I felt enveloped by the Holy Ghost. I had to have that power to walk away and never turn back. How I abandoned all I knew and immersed myself in a new life. Had I not done so, I would never have been able to change.
I had spent years living in darkness, indulging in riotous living, and all that Babylon had to offer. Trust me. The darkness and the evil that accompany those who live that way are real. The powers of darkness are real.
Even though I was healed, thirty years later I still consider myself an addict. I feel my weaknesses and realize how easy it is to trade one weakness for another. Even though God healed me then, he didn’t make me impervious to sin or error. He may have lightened my load and made my path straight. That has not stopped me from choosing crooked paths at times because I am so good at making poor decisions. I can never be complacent because the path is never going to be easy. I must always keep my mind focused on that goal.
How do I want to live? There was a way that I lived when I had first repented. It was a way that often resulted in me being ridiculed by members of the church for trying to live the gospel of Jesus Christ more completely or to a higher standard. It is similar to the zeel you have when you first enter the mission field before the other elders try to beat you down and get you to loosen up so they feel better about their poor decisions. I don’t mean living the law of Moses to exactness or being like the phrases. It’s like choosing to drink caffeine or not. Surely there are those who will ridicule you and passionately tell you caffeine is not against the word of wisdom and that you are looking beyond the mark.
My goal is to be worthy to enter Zion. Or, at least be worthy of the redemptive power of Jesus Christ so I may become worthy to enter. That is my path. It isn’t up to someone else to decide what I need to do to get there, it is up to me. It is my path that I walk with God and the Holy Ghost. To walk that path more completely and to have that inspiration more completely, what do I need to do?
The image was taken from the music video “One” by Metallica and used without permission.