Last month Scott spoke in church with the topic, "Patterns of Righteousness" This went right along with Jackson's, Will's and my talk that were giver the same morning. Here is Scott's. It is so well written, so inspiring and worth the read. I took notes as he spoke. He brings up a lot of great ideas and things for me to work on. Enjoy!
I appreciate so much that has been shared already
this morning, because it supports my talk so well.
Jackson taught us about the importance of Family
Rules and Mottos that challenge us to be better individuals.
Will talked about the importance of following in
our Savior’s footsteps by being a Good Example to others.
Lori introduced importance of teaching our children
“patterns of righteousness” and how these patterns help us Strengthen Home and
Family. It is this topic that I would
like to expand upon further.
In Doctrine
& Covenants 88: 119 we are told by the Lord to establish a “house
of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house
of glory, a house of order, a house of God.”
And in the Church
Handbook of Instruction – Book 2, Section 1.4, it teaches us about the
balance that is sought between the organization and teachings of the church and
the structure of the family:
In the teachings and practices of the restored
gospel, the family and the Church help and strengthen each other. To qualify
for the blessings of eternal life, families need to learn the doctrines and
receive the priesthood ordinances that are available only through the Church.
To be a strong and vital organization, the Church needs righteous families.
God has revealed a pattern of spiritual progress
for individuals and families through ordinances, teaching, programs, and
activities that are home centered and Church supported. Church organizations
and programs exist to bless individuals and families and are not ends in
themselves. Priesthood and auxiliary leaders and teachers seek to assist
parents, not to supersede or replace them.
Elder
Neil L. Anderson in an Education Week Devotion that he
gave at BYU-Idaho in August of 2008, shared the following thoughts about
“patterns of righteousness”.
I want to describe the powerful patterns of
righteousness that we bring to our children, our grandchildren, and to others
in our family. To better describe these
patterns of righteousness, let me ask you a rather unusual question: “At your
funeral (which we hope is far into the future), what will be the qualities of
your life that will have marked your posterity?” I am not referring to general statements of
your goodness. We will expect these. Rather, what are the poignant, powerful,
patterns of righteousness that have marked the soul of those who have followed
you?
To establish a pattern of righteousness requires
more than good feelings for a gospel principle. It requires what we will call the three “P’s”:
Passion,
persistence,
and patience,
applied consistently over an extended period of time, creating a righteous
pattern that is embedded in the very spiritual DNA of our posterity.
What are your patterns of righteousness? Let me
list a few:
Loving God
Prayer (Lori)
Humility
Searching the scriptures (Lori)
Kindness (Jackson)
Devotion to Family
Caring for the less fortunate
Family Home Evening
Fasting
Reverence
Paying tithing
Honesty with our fellow men
Mothers raising children (Lori)
Service to others (Jackson)
Sharing the gospel
Going to Church
Work (Will)
Heeding the promptings of the
Holy Ghost
Loyalty to the Prophets of God
Exercising the priesthood
And, there are many more.
From my message today I would ask you
to remember these nine words, “Powerful patterns of righteousness require passion,
persistence,
and patience.”
The three “patterns of righteousness” that I would
like to share with you today are Faith, Agency and the Holy Ghost. As I share with you our philosophies
regarding these three “patterns of righteousness”, I hope to also express how
we approach these patterns in the context of the three “P’s” that Elder
Anderson discussed in his devotion; passion, persistence, and patience.
Faith
I remember as a high school youth in Seminary
studying the Old Testament, just like we are studying this year in Sunday
School. And in that same year, a movie
had just come out called “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”. I remember watching this movie and being so
enamored with the hero deciphering clues on his quest to find the Holy
Grail. One part in particular that
impressed me was the point in the movie where Indiana Jones is expected to
traverse this wide chasm. He is told in his
journal that “Only in the leap from the lion's head will he prove his
worth." This meant that he had to
make a “leap of faith” in order to pass this trial.
I remember wishing that there were more stories
like that found in the scriptures.
Certainly if the Lord wanted us to understand such an important
principle of the Gospel, he would have some cool scriptural stories that would help
me to better appreciate and understand the principle of faith. Well, that the very next week in Seminary
class, our teacher shared with us the story in Joshua 1 of the crossing of the Ark of Covenant in the River
Jordan. In this story there were
individuals, that would bear the Ark of the Covenant, being told by the Prophet
Joshua that the soles of their feet had to touch
the River Jordan before they would find that they were standing upon solid
ground. We are talking about a mighty
river that could have easily washed them all away. What a tremendous “leap of faith”! They no longer had the luxury of seeing the
way mapped out before them like with the parting of the Red Sea by Moses. At this point in their spiritual maturity,
the Lord was expecting them to “step” without being able to see the outcome
ahead of time.
And then I remembered the next year, I heard my
absolute favorite story from the New Testament taught in Seminary. The story about Peter walking on the water
with Christ as found in Matthew 14. Here was a disciple of Christ whose faith was
growing and had prepared him to experience an amazing miracle. He tells the Lord that if it is indeed Him,
then by His simple invitation Peter could join him on the water. The Lord invites him to walk out to him and
Peter does indeed walk on the water.
However, as the water starts to lap at his ankles and legs, and the reality
of what he is doing starts to impress on his mortal mind the impossibility of
the feat, Peter begins to fear. During
this moment of fear, he begins to sink and is subsequently rescued by the Lord. But the greatest principle taught in this
lesson is that it is the faith of Peter that allows him to walk on water. It is not the Lord’s faith and power that
facilitated the miracle, or else it would not have failed when Peter
feared. There is great power in the
“pattern of righteousness” that is Faith, and our children need to understand
this. And with that, they also need to
understand the passion with which we believe this. Do we really believe that Faith can move
mountains? The Lord tells us that it
can. Do we really believe that Faith can
allow us to behold the finger of the Lord, and subsequently His whole body, as
it did with the Brother of Jared? And if
we do believe these things, do our children understand the level of passion to
which we believe in this First Principle of the Gospel. If they don’t, then they need to.
Agency
When I first became a parent, I wanted to teach my
children everything that they needed to do to become like me. But I wanted to do it by dictating the
choices that my children made to them.
As a father, couldn’t I just command it to be a certain way and they had
to obey. Then they would never deter
from the path, and they would enjoy all of the blessings that they could
obtain.
Thanks to a very loving and far smarter partner in
this parenting pursuit, my wife quickly helped me to see that I was simply
seeking the role of Lucifer in the lives of our children. I wanted to take away their free agency, but get
them to the exaltation that I perceived to be so important in the lives of my
children. My wife taught me that having
free agency didn’t mean that they had to have a full menu of choices, but they
did need a choice. She suggested that
our children could choose when they went to bed each night. I thought this was ridiculous, because who
would choose to go to bed early. Here is
how my wife would structure the choices, however. Would you like to go to bed NOW or in 5
MINUTES? Wouldn’t you know that our
children ALWAYS chose to go to bed in 5 minutes. Shocking, right? But do you know how much easier it was for us
to put our children to bed just 5 minutes later. Why do you suppose it was so easy? Because they felt that they had participated
in the decision and they were not doing something that they were simply told to
do.
Other examples of where our children are able to
exercise their agency. My wife will
typically give them a choice of outfits to wear when they are younger. My wife structures their choices to be two
adorable and cute outfits that she would be happy to see them in, either
way. But the toddlers feel that they get
to have more choice in the matter of what they wear. As they get older, they get greater freedom
in their agency by picking out their outfit from the full array of clothing
that we have purchased for them. But
still, these are “patterns of righteousness” that we are inviting them to
practice each day.
And here is where the 2nd P that Elder
Anderson talked about comes into play; persistence. We have to be persistent in our use of the
tool of agency. There might be times
when our children resist the choice that they made. Now that 5 minutes has come and gone, they
will now ask for another 5 minutes. Sure
it might be easier to not have to deal with the “gnashing of teeth and the
kicking against the pricks”, but we need to help them to stand firm in the
decisions that they have made. There
might also be times that we want to swoop in and save them from the dire
consequences of their decisions. Sure,
it would make their lives easier if we did their dishes for them so that they
can go out with friends to that special event that they have waited weeks to
attend. But I promise you, that it is
the hard lessons that often are learned at a deeper level. I am sure, that on the same level, our
Heavenly Father would love to save us from the mortality of our decisions
too. But he doesn’t, and likewise, our
children need to learn that there are consequences, both good and bad, that
come with the practicing of our free agency.
Holy
Ghost
How amazing is the Holy Ghost? One of my favorite Scripture Mastery
scriptures is found in John 14: 26. In this chapter, the Lord is teaching his
Apostles in the Upper Room. He has just
finished washing and anointing their feet, and begins again to teach them. He says, “But the Comforter, which is the
Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all
things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto
you.” So is the Holy Ghost going to teach
us just a few things? No, he will teach
us ALL things! Is he going to help us to
remember a couple of things? NOPE. He will bring ALL things to our
remembrance. Isn’t that amazing? I know we have yearned for this many times
right before a tough test at school. “Please Heavenly Father. If you will help me do well on this test, I
won’t hit my brothers anymore, and I will read my scriptures every day….”
But this is exactly what the Holy Ghost will do! But this can only happen if we are living a
life that allows him to remain with us as a constant companion. I am sure that we teach our children that
once they are baptized, they are able to receive the Gift of the Holy
Ghost. But this is a Gift that is
conditioned upon our continual worthiness and upon the sanctification of our
vessels.
And here is the great principle of this “pattern of
righteousness” that we need to teach to our children. We are going to make mistakes and do things
that are going to drive the Holy Ghost out of our lives. That is the natural man, and while it is the
enemy of God, it is also an important aspect of who we are as mortal
souls. Since the Holy Ghost cannot abide
an unclean tabernacle, it must leave.
But the amazing thing about the Holy Ghost is that it also has an
ability to sanctify our vessels and make them clean again. As we make changes in our lives to repent of
our mistakes through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we are able to receive a
sanctification of our bodies by the Gift and Power of the Holy Ghost, even unto
a renewing of our bodies (as spoken of in the 84th section of the
Doctrine & Covenants). Our children
need to understand this important principle because it is the essence of our
mortal life here on Earth.
And I think that this is where the 3rd P
that Elder Anderson taught us about has a tremendous role; patience. We need to exercise patience in the
application of this principle in our lives and in our teaching with our
children. We need to help them
understand that patience has to be exercised in the use of the Holy Ghost in
their life. Sure, we might want an
answer to our prayers that very moment when we first ask for it, but the answer
may not come for days, weeks, months or years.
It is only as we patiently listen for the promptings of the Spirit, that
we will be able to discern its directions when it does come. This same patience must be endured during the
sanctification stage as well. Depending
on the degree of sin that drove the Holy Ghost away, the Spirit may not be able
to simply return immediately following the statement “I am sorry”. Instead, it may very well be a constant
striving that occurs over the course of many days, weeks or months that will
allow the proper sanctification of our souls and the full return of the Gift
and Power of the Holy Ghost.
