The Chosen

I’ve been watching The Chosen series, co-written and directed by Dallas Jenkins, which is one of the largest crowd-funded multi-media productions ever to be made, and it is about the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. I watched the first few episodes last year, but just got the app and watched the complete first season this last weekend with my daughter.

Since watching, I’ve been thinking about the concept of swimming against the tides and norms of certain predominant groups in society.

One of the predominant groups of society in Jesus’s day was the Pharisees. This was a group of people who lived in a specific way - an ascetic way. But even within that group of people there were differences between them. Dallas Jenkins highlights these differences. It’s interesting to see them and how the individuals within a group deal with the differences that they begin to recognize within themselves when they begin to hear about Jesus Christ and interact with him.

In the beginning of each episode there is an artistic representation of the theme of the entire series. This is also used as The Chosen logo (see the image for this post). There are fish swimming along in one direction and then one turns around, changes color, and starts swimming in the opposite direction. This is a metaphoric representation of the differences in the way each person obtains needs and resolves conflicts. It represents his/her values, beliefs, motivations, intentions, etc. The first fish that turns passes other fish that turn around and follow him. They now swim in the opposite direction, against the traditional way, against the obvious direction that everyone else is swimming.

What a beautiful way to represent the conflict Jesus Christ and those who followed him experienced. This was the predominant theme of his life. He said to his disciples, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” The response of the disciples, being metaphoric fish themselves: They “straightway left their nets, and followed him” (Matthew 4:19-20). They straightway left the way the groups they had previously belonged to, the way they had been obtaining their needs and resolving their conflicts, their previous values, beliefs, motivations, and intentions, to follow Jesus Christ and his way of doing things.

The traditions of many of the groups of people in that day such as the Pharisees, Publicans (publicani or tax collectors), lawyers, scribes, Sadducees, Essenes, and Romans were swimming in a direction opposite to the direction Jesus Christ swam. This way of swimming resulted in overwhelming sorrow and conflict in the lives of the people, especially the poor. It would eventually (as history has proven time after time) lead to war, bondage, and overwhelming enforced physical and spiritual hardships for everyone. In short, it always leads to community failure.

In The Chosen series, we haven’t seen the general character of Publicans (tax collectors) in that day. They were often correctly accused of extortion – taking more taxes from the Jews than Herod or the Romans required. This they did for their own benefit. It would be good to see these types of people to understand the general prejudice against Matthew, who is one of the main characters of the series. Matthew was swimming against the traditional tide of publicani because he didn’t cheat the people as most of them did. Yet, it was still true that the Jews hated any man who even worked as a tax-gatherer. They didn't take the time to differentiate between someone who performed his job honestly and someone who performed it dishonestly. All publicani were excommunicated from their synagogues, making them outcasts from their society. Matthew was swimming against this tide of rejection as well. He didn’t belong to the group of extortionists tax collectors, but neither did he belong to his Jewish community.

The Romans are another group represented in The Chosen series. Even though they all wore the same uniform, worked as soldiers and leaders of the Roman government, and had some general characteristics in common, there were differences among them. There were Romans who used their position to take advantage of other people and to hurt them. They did this to obtain their own desires and resolve their own conflicts at the expense of the desires and needs of others. But there were also Romans who almost reluctantly performed their duties for Rome, while finding ways to help the Jews with their desires and needs. In short, there were jerk Romans and there were good Romans.

I love how Dallas Jenkins depicts these groups and the individual variations within them. Within any larger group of fish who generally swam in one direction, there were some who were unwilling to follow traditions of selfishness and hate. They were unwilling to manipulate the variables within their circle of influence to get ahead. They were unwilling to take advantage of their neighbor where they could. Instead, they were people who may have been born into certain general groups, or who happened to belong to a general group in which many of the members chose this ascetic or survival of the fittest way of living, but they themselves chose to sacrifice for love. These were the fish swimming against the traditions of their community.

During His life, Jesus Christ is the main source of the sudden and powerful increase of a counterclockwise movement. There is a song that plays in one of the episodes called Trouble that describes the conflicting results of swimming counterclockwise to the group we belong to. Trouble. When we swim counterclockwise to the traditions of the group we belong to, there is trouble. There is conflict. It is hard. Much harder than continuing to swim right along with everyone else. So even though Jesus brought a message of eternal peace and the means by which we can obtain compatible relationships and sustainable joy, the initial result was trouble. So paradoxical.

I have to mention here that the opposite situation can also occur. There have been many communities and societies throughout history that predominantly were choosing kindness, compassion, caring, and sacrificing for love, but individuals have chosen to swim against that tide in selfishness. Many in Jesus's day continued to swim against him even though he proved through his miracles that everlasting life was in his hands and could be obtained through his way of living. 

So we can’t think that causing trouble and swimming counterclockwise in general is a sign of truth, correctness, and goodness, which promotes sustainable joy. Going against the norms of society is only effective if a society is predominantly ascetic and hedonistic. Since this was the case in Jesus’ day, his swimming in the opposite direction was amazingly beautiful! The subsequent trouble he experienced was a sacrifice he endured in order to achieve paradoxical results. And I LOVE, admire, and worship him for that! I seriously can't help it.

To swim clockwise or counterclockwise, that is the question.

So this is where the trouble for Jesus and his followers came from: On the one hand ascetics like the Pharisees believed they were the epitome of righteousness. They were leaders of their society and advocated extremist sacrificial behaviors. They proposed a game in which success was about being more extreme in the keeping of their “grandiose system of revered commentary and pious custom[s]” (Farrar, The Life of Christ, p.340) than another. Those that studied the law in the elitist schools knew more than the common people and considered themselves above everyone else. If anyone had something counterclockwise to say or argue and did not have the titles and certifications that the Pharisees had, they were totally disregarded or belittled. In fact, they also disregarded and belittled those within their group that proposed counterclockwise ideas that favored Jesus and his teachings, as was seen with Nicodemus. The group prided themselves in performing the minutia of meaningless rituals and trained the multitude of people to “ look up to them as little gods” (ibid.). Ascetics. Motivated by pride and envy.

Ascetics give people who believe in God a bad name. If people blindly group all people who believe in God in this type of category, which they totally have throughout the centuries, then prejudice against religion and the counterclockwise lifestyle results in the hedonistic counterclockwise lifestyle with its paradoxical fatalities. Religion and asceticism are often seen as synonymous. This is caused by a lack of differentiation between extremist holier-than-thou sacrifice behavior and the true sacrifice of a person who deeply and sincerely loves God and others, who trusts that giving up certain things that feel good in the moment or for a while will result in the obtainment of ethereal relationships, conditions, and experiences which cannot be obtained in any other way.

On the other hand, there were those that lived hedonistic lives in which they indulged themselves in the pleasures of the body to keep themselves afloat from day to day. Many, not having a chance to win the game the Pharisees presented, resorted to this other type of game. Success was about obtaining money, nice clothes, large houses, advancement, authority, position, land, or titles. It was also about just finding the next scrap of food, escaping extreme sorrows, and keeping warm for the night. Real conditions of disadvantage often lead the desperate soul into hedonism (indulgent pleasure) -alcoholism, misuse of drugs and intimacy and time, taking advantage of others, manipulating, cheating, stealing, robbing, and breaking the rules (that paradoxically lead to sustainable relationships) when no one was looking. Most did it blindly, not knowing what they were actually giving up. They were doing it just to survive the day.

I love how Jesus Christ entered this community of fish flowing in different directions. He presented yet another game to play, but this one aimed for sustainable success in relationships with each other. That was how it was won. It was played by sincerely loving - voluntary sacrifice. Turning the other cheek. Loving the enemy. Patience, kindness, long-suffering, Charity. He swam against the ascetic and hedonistic tides at the same time by introducing the love he personally offered. He said this love was at hand - available and ever-accessible to everyone, poor, rich, bond, free, male, or female. It was obtainable by everyone, regardless of the group they had initially belonged to - Pharisee, Roman, publican, Essene, as long as they exercised their Faith in Him - his way of obtaining desires and resolving conflicts. 

This Faith was about voluntarily giving up their ascetic and hedonistic ways (which hurt other people and created increasing and virulent conflict for themselves and the community) for Christ's way. Christ's way was about loving their family and community members as they would be loved. Instead of spending their time thinking about all the things they needed and wanted others to do for them, they should spend their time thinking about how they could meet the real needs of others. This was not about denying that they did have needs -real needs, important needs. Denial was asceticism. It was about waiting. It was about the whole timing of the way they went about obtaining and resolving. Paradoxically, the promise was that as they pursued helping others obtain their desires, their needs and wants would be taken care of. The promise was that their Savior Himself would make sure of that. That's what I believe the word Savior means. But he warned that it was also true that there would be a temporary time period when they would suffer for others. It would be a sacrifice. And it would hurt. But he said that in giving up their life, they would find it. If they sacrificed and hurt out of love and made it voluntary and purposeful, the intensity of their love would increase. The degree of how much they could love would increase. They would actually experience this in their soul. It was ethereal -the kingdom of heaven was at hand. It would be intense and sustainable. The attraction in their relationships would grow instead of wane. Personal and community success would be the end result.

All of this was difficult to communicate, to explain, to convince, to win their faith. This way of swimming required a leap of faith because of the initial suffering of the sacrifice. It was totally counterclockwise. And it created so much TROUBLE.

“He who is near me is near the fire! he who is far from me is far from the kingdom” (Farrar quoting Didymus in Ps. who is describing the paradoxical conflict that belongs to everyone who follows Jesus Christ, ibid. p356).

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The Life of Christ by Frederick Farrar

What About Love?

What even is love? For me, I’ve been attempting to figure it out. It seems like this is true for others as well. I just started using Spotify and made my first playlist out of some of my favorite 80s songs. I’ve been listening to Heart sing, “What about love? Don’t you want someone to care about you? What about love? Don’t let it slip away!” And Foreigner sings, “I wanna know what love is. I want you to show me.”

I know that most of the time these 80s songs as well as songs from other generations are singing about romantic love and physical affection. I know romance and physical affection are a part of love. And I do not discount them when considering the meaning of love. 

In the scriptures, Jesus Christ counsels us to love each other. To love each other as we would be loved and to love God with all our heart, might, mind, and strength. So he’s not only talking about romantic relationships. I believe he’s talking about a general way of interacting with each other that can be applied to all types of relationships – marriage, family, and community.

From all of my research and ponderings about what love is, I have concluded so far that it is a an action, a motive, and a state. 

Love Is An Action

As an action, I believe love is sacrifice. When I love someone, I give up my comfortable life to some degree for them. In marriage, I give up all other men to be with my husband. As a mother, I give up spending my time on other life projects that conflict with my ability to parent and nourish my children to the extent that I am able. In my relationships with members of my extended family and friends or others in my community, I share my specific abilities and talents, which hopefully lighten the loads they have to carry.

Right here, there is usually a bunch of judging each other. Who is sacrificing enough for others? Who is loving enough? Is my neighbor loving her kids enough? Is she sacrificing enough? Or does my neighbor see how much I’m really sacrificing for my relationships? 

Who cares?! This isn’t about who is sacrificing or loving better than someone else. That is so twisted. All we need to focus on here is if we are developing compatible relationships with the people right in front of us.

Love Is A Motive

As a motive, I don’t want to sacrifice for ascetic reasons, but for real reasons. I seriously want these other people in my life to be happy because that makes me happy. I guess it comes down to empathy. I literally feel pain when I see someone suffering. Once I was at Chris’ baseball game when he was like 13 years old and another little boy got hit in the head by the baseball. I felt it physically. My soul was affected and I wanted to help him. I wanted to take the pain away from him.

I have come to believe that love is about taking the pain away from others, if at all possible, but it is not taking ALL the pain away from them so they never have to sacrifice. Knowing when to allow others to sacrifice has always been a difficult thing for me. I just want to take all the stress, sorrow, and discomfort away from them. But since sacrifice is love, I would also be taking away their love by attempting to do this. Appreciating, empathizing, honoring, and respecting their sacrifice is what I have needed to learn to do.

I think the real reasons to sacrifice can be summarized into this one goal: to develop sustainable compatible relationships. Relationships that enable all members to live in sustainable joy. Relationship where all members attract the others instead of manipulating, forcing, or guilting them into meeting their needs or the needs of others.

This is one characteristic I have come to see in Jesus Christ as I’ve studied him and experienced his love: He doesn’t want to force, manipulate, or guilt me into sacrificing. In fact, he would rather not have me sacrifice at all for him if that is my only motivation. He wants me to voluntarily sacrifice because I love. And I love because he has loved me like this. He has been real with me. He seriously wants a sustainable compatible relationship with me. And I know he wants that for each of us. He’s willing to negotiate, work it out, figure things out, be flexible, give time and space, and consider ways of doing things that may not be the perfect and simple story-book solution.

Love Is A State

But there are also lines our Savior can’t cross. And the reason he can’t cross them is because of the state of love. The state of love is a result, a continuous relationship, a continuous feeling of love, a continuous attraction. 

I think this could possibly be what the scriptures describe as Charity. It never fails. It can endure suffering for a long time. It’s totally kind. It doesn’t envy the success of others. It isn’t puffed up in fake flattery. It isn’t motivated to get more indulgent pleasure for itself. It’s motivated by sustainable joy. It isn’t easily provoked, it doesn’t think evil. It doesn’t strategize how to manipulate the variables to get what it wants at the expense of others so it has to sacrifice (love) as little as possible. It doesn’t receive any joy out of inequality and having more or less than others. It receives joy from figuring out the truth – how to make relationships work sustainably. It’s able to bear whatever adversity it has to deal with. It believes that sustainable compatible relationships with continuous attraction are possible. It is hopeful, not apathetic or obsessive. It troubleshoots instead of giving up or putting up with conditions and states that are not yet, but potentially can become happily ever after. It is able to endure whatever happens.

So if we want this Charity, there are rules to follow. It’s like a circle, a promise between two or more people, a covenant. There is mercy. But mercy is justice over time. Justice is about keeping our commitments to each other. I have rules that I need others to keep. My kids, family, and friends have rules they need me to keep. You have rules that you need your family and friends to keep. When other people break their commitment to us, they break the rules. 

In the situation where my rules have been broken, I’m the first person to advocate rules, laws, and order. But when I’m the one breaking my commitment to other people, am I the one complaining that there are rules, promises, and responsibilities? 

And WHAT ABOUT LOVE? When it comes to keeping the rules, this is sacrifice. Keeping each other’s rules is a sacrifice. If I complain about having to keep these rules or say that the rules are too demanding and constraining, what exactly am I saying about my love for the person whose rules they are?

Whatever my choice is about voluntarily sacrificing to keep God’s rules and to keep the rules of others, if I want the state of love – Charity – then there are general rules I need to follow. There are no if, ands, or buts. And these rules are usually all about giving, forgiving, repenting. They are about giving Mercy to the extent God has given it to me.

But where is the line? When do "if, ands, or buts" cross that line? I think we can know that when our motive and commitment is love, not asceticism, and not hedonism.

Why Should I?

Sometimes I am motivated to give up some of my Indulgent Pleasures or to do the right thing out of guilt and shame. But I hate that. I resist that. And I strive to catch myself doing it so I can stop doing it for those reasons.

Other times I am motivated to do good things so that other people will think well of me. But I hate that too. I resist that. I strive to catch myself in this thought process as well. I don’t want to do good things for those reasons. Yet, I am also aware that it is natural to desire to be accepted, approved, and admired by our family and community.

We all are motivated by something. We choose what we will be motivated by. We also spend time motivating other people. We choose how we will motivate them. These days, this is referred to as being an influencer. 

Some influencers use guilt and shame to motivate others to give up Indulgent Pleasures or to do the right thing. When people successfully motivate me like this, I do it out of guilt and shame. When they are not successful with this method, I rebel and sometimes want to do the exact opposite of what they advocate – partake of the Indulgent Pleasures and refuse to do what they say.

Sacrifice is giving up certain relationships with people and things for other relationships with people and things. 

I usually choose to sacrifice things that make me feel good in the moment (Indulgent Pleasures) for things that make me feel good in the long-term (Sustainable Joy). I am motivated to do good and to serve my family and community even though it may create some measure of stress or discomfort for me. My goal is to develop good long-term compatible relationships with them, which return Sustainable Joy.

Asceticism is a word I have used to describe the process of sacrificing too much and for the wrong reasons – guilt, shame, pride, envy. Asceticism is severe self-discipline and avoidance of all forms of indulgence, typically for religious reasons. What makes this type of sacrifice undesirable is the severity of it. If we look at the definition of Asceticism, we see the word severe, which characterizes it as over-the-top self-discipline and avoidance of all forms of indulgence. I don’t think any of us would believe that self-disciple and avoidance of indulgence is over-the-top in general. It's the extreme nature of the sacrifice and our motives for doing it that determine whether our sacrifice is Ascetic or Real.

Indulgence is the other side of the extreme. It is not sacrificing enough, which ends in undesirable consequences. Indulgence is when we allow ourselves to enjoy too much of a pleasure (Indulgent Pleasure), which ends in undesirable consequences, not in the consequences we actually desired to obtain.

There have been times when I reject an influencer who is advocating good things because I sense or just think that they are trying to motivate me with guilt, shame, pride, or envy. I’m hypersensitive to this kind of influence and so will reject what they are advocating even if it might actually be good for me. 

And sometimes the influencer is not using guilt, shame, pride, or envy but I have been treated that way by so many other influencers surrounding this topic that I attribute this motive to the influencer.

So when I attribute this characteristic to the influencer I think they are being motivated by selfishness. I believe they are bossy, narrow-minded, or ascetic. And I believe this justifies my rejection of what they are advocating and also justifies my refusal to sacrifice in the way they are proposing.

To resolve this problem, I have been learning to separate the way influencers present their ideas and the actual ideas they are presenting. Evaluating their ideas separately has required me to differentiate between Joy in the journey (Sustainable Joy) and Indulgent Pleasure. 

Influencers advocate that I make a choice. For every choice I make, I give up another choice I could make. What they advocate for me to choose and give up is their idea. But I have to figure out if what they are proposing is actually my Sustainable Joy or if is my Indulgent Pleasure. What characterizes Asceticism (the way I’m defining it) is me giving up not only Indulgent Pleasures, but also my Sustainable Joy. 

So how can I know the difference between Indulgent Pleasures and Sustainable Joy? For me, the line has been blurry. How can I know what I need to avoid and what I need to hold on to? The only way to answer these questions is to identify where I want to end up – my desired long-term results. Will giving this thing or this relationship or this way of doing things up increase my joy over time? And will it be sustainable? And just a side note here: I have learned that evaluating these decisions based on the measure of my own sustainable joy covers the sustainable joy of my family and community.

There are two ways I have used to differentiate between Sustainable Joy and Indulgent Pleasure:

The first is by asking myself what my consequences have been. Has my ability to experience Sustainable Joy increased, stayed the same, or decreased over time? Over time, are my joy sensors becoming more numb, increasing in sensitivity, or becoming scattered?

The second way that I use to differentiate between Sustainable Joy and Indulgent Pleasure is to pay attention to the Holy Ghost. And in some ways, this is the same as the first way because the presence of the Holy Ghost brings Sustainable Joy. But there are some things that I partake of and do that are in conflict with the Joy of the Holy Ghost by degrees, meaning some things greatly decrease the presence and some things decrease it just a little. As I’ve gotten older, I have learned to identify many of these things, but I’m still learning. 

For example, I still sometimes entertain self-serving thoughts that feel good in the moment but aren’t going to end me where I want to go if I continue to incorporate them into my mind and heart. So the Holy Ghost is there to train me and won't let me indulge in the Peace experience. I am required to sacrifice and sacrifice more intensely over time as I gain higher levels of ability. 

I have learned that sacrifice returns Energy. 

The presence of the Holy Ghost returns Peace. 

Combined and balanced, they equal Joy. 

With this information and the continuous training of the Holy Ghost, I can differentiate between Indulgent Pleasure and Sustainable Joy before Indulgence ends me in a trap that is very difficult to get out of.

There have been times in my life when I haven’t listened to the Holy Ghost. I’ve actually gone against it, thinking it was just a psychological problem that I had that was preventing me from getting involved with a certain person or way of doing things. How did that turn out? I became somewhat numbed to Joy. And that ended with the Asceticism in me increasing over time. When I had enough of that and living without real Joy, I turned back more completely and sincerely to God and pleaded for help. “Help me to be happy. Please.”

So during the years when the Asceticism in me was more predominant, why was the influencer in me motivated to motivate my children to be good? I wasn’t differentiating between Indulgent Pleasure and Sustainable Joy. I wasn’t feeling attraction. I wasn’t feeling real love. So I was just trying to be good because good is good. Bad is bad. I had to be good and my children had to be good. That is what was accepted, praised, and admired in my society. So I unconsciously made that my goal. For us all to be loved, we had to edit ourselves to be good. And that may be an okay motivation. But I learned that it wasn't enough for me.

My motivation changed almost overnight and at the same time has continued changing over many years. The change started when I experienced true attraction. For me that came when I started studying the life of Jesus Christ and was trying to figure out what the atonement was and what this all had to do with me right now. There came a day, when I saw him and understood him in a way that I had never before seen or understood. I got a glimpse of who he was and what he was doing for us. Not just what he did, but what he is doing now. And that gimpse helped me understand myself better. It helped me understand what Joy was, where it came from, and how it is an inherent need. It totally changed my goals, my aspirations, my desires. I started a journey away from Asceticism (and it has been a journey rather than a one-time choice) and towards being motivated by Attraction.

The Attraction was towards Jesus Christ. I was the last one to believe that the foundational solution to my problems was that I needed to see someone I totally admired and fully experience that admiration. I didn’t even know I had the capacity to admire like that. I was so focused on being admired. But when I saw him – understood him…how can I even explain it? A song comes to mind. It’s called Waterloo by Abba. 

At Waterloo Napoleon did surrender

Oh yeah

And I have met my destiny in quite a similar way

The history book on the shelf

Is always repeating itself

Waterloo, I was defeated, you won the war

Waterloo, promise to love you forever more

Waterloo, couldn’t escape if I wanted to

Waterloo, knowing my fate is to be with you

Waterloo, finally facing my Waterloo

I tried to hold you back, but you were stronger

Oh yeah

And now it seems my only chance is giving up the fight

And how could I ever refuse

I feel like I win when I loose

So before my ‘Waterloo’ my main focus was on desiring to be admired --desiring to be loved. My motivation to sacrifice, give up Indulgent Pleasures, and do good was based on receiving love from my family and community, which created many problems for me in my goal to develop compatible relationships with them. Anger, hurt feelings, frustration, irritation, stubbornness, blame, shame, selfishness, envy, pride, Asceticism and Indulgent Pleasure, etc. And I’m not saying I’m completely over all this. I know this is the natural man. It’s a part of our humanity. It’s a lifelong quest to be subject to it and to strive against it. But after I met Jesus Christ and saw what kind of person he was and experienced what it was like to be loved by him, it was all over. I experienced Sustainable Joy. Sustainable Attraction. Charity. Love. Eternal Pleasure. All of it. And that became my motive. Whether there's a higher way to love, I'm not sure. But I am motivated to sacrifice because first of all, I can't stand life when I separate myself from him, and secondly, when I see him in other people, I LOVE IT! I admire them and the Joy that I feel when I see their beauty and the empathy I experience when I understand them, is better than anything I've ever felt. I personally want to be loved like that, but that's not why I love like that. I love like that because that's what I love. That's the bottom line.

I thought I knew Jesus Christ before my Waterloo days, which started in around 2006. I had grown up a Christian. I had seen millions of paintings of him and had been reading the scripture about him and his influencers for years. But, that wasn’t enough for me. I had to come closer and see his personality, his character traits, and especially see what this God had to do with me personally. I mean, it’s all well and good to be totally amazing (You’re Welcome!). A person like that can exist and I would look and say, “That’s so good for you to be totally amazing. Congratulations.” But this was the difference between someone like that and him: He was interested in me, in what I thought, and in what I wanted. He wasn't all self-focussed. He was that amazing, knew it, but chose (and still chooses) to use it to serve others. His eyes are not on himself. They are on us - the individual he is interacting with. And to be aware of him looking at me, evaluating me...there is nothing better.

 Does that makes sense? Am I explaining it well enough to describe how I have seen him? 

Now, as I look back at myself – who I was back then – I am able to evaluate him a little more clearly. He was so empathetic with me but at the same time he would hold the line. He was willing to take my side but then asked for me to look at his. He was willing to help me obtain my goals even if my goals weren’t exactly the best. I became more interested to know what his goals were and to see where I could help him. He got behind me and helped me obtain my goals, so I eventually got behind him to help him obtain his.

Here's the point -- I think: The Sustainable Joy that I experience has taken the place of my Indulgent Pleasures, meaning it is stronger than any Indulgent Pleasure I have ever experienced. But he doesn't allow me to be indulgent with him. I know he is training me and I have to keep the rules. Yet what I feel when I'm with him is the most pleasure I could ever want or need. I'm still working on learning the rules, keeping them, growing in my abilities to be subject to higher level rules, so it's not like I can stay in that place 24/7. But this is the thing:  His love, the mere association with him, makes all Indulgent Pleasures completely nothing at all. They are just nothing at all compared to Him. 

So He is my reason for sacrificing, for being good, for serving. Why should I? Because he loves like this and he loves me like this.

This was a long post and a little meandering. If you hung in there, I hope it helps you know that there is an eternally deep well in Jesus Christ for all of us to tap into. I just don't think a lot of people understand just how deep and satisfying it is.

Bad Things Happen To Good People Too

I have been thinking about this murder that happened here in Layton this past weekend. A young woman met a young man on a dating app that is mostly used for hooking up for one night stands. The man was crazy, on drugs, and overtaken by all things bad. So after hooking up, he killed her. Then he called the police and turned himself in. 

I am horrified by this story. I have been struggling to make sense of it, to resolve it in my mind. Meanwhile, others are trying to resolve it in their minds too. There are some who are blaming the woman for using this hook-up app. They are saying that when you make sexually immoral decisions, this is the consequence. Thus it was her fault that she was killed. She got herself killed by her choices. That’s one way to resolve it. Say, she got what was coming to her.

But I can’t think that way. I think evil happens to people that may not be doing everything right but the level of the bad consequences certainly is not balanced with their incorrect choices. 

So I’m saying that there’s this whole world of people out there who try to resolve the revulsion they feel when things like this happen with an imbalanced way of judging. They like to blame the person who had the bad thing happen to them in a way that resolves the revulsion. They like to say this awful thing happened to her because of her sins. This way of thinking seemingly protects them. They think this awful thing won’t happen to them or their loved ones as long as they don’t do what this woman did. But we know that bad things happen to good people.

I’m so sick of the judgmental attitude some people have. Not only are there people within my church that have this attitude, but there are also people in other churches and people who don’t belong to any church that have it. When we judge like this it prevents us from having to mourn with the family of those who have suffered this grief. It prevents us from realizing that something is inherently wrong with our society in general if it's breeding an increased number of murderers.

To choose to connect up the cause (the victim's choices) with the result (the victim's consequences) in these situations doesn’t work. Jesus Christ said that even though the tower of Siloam fell on some people, it didn’t mean they were all sinners. And even though Pilate killed those other people, it didn’t mean that it was a consequences for living a bad life (Luke 13:1-5). Instead, He said that bad things can happen to good and bad people. To swing around our judgement in false ways is dangerous, not only to our community, but also to ourselves.

This is one of the reasons it is dangerous: There is another group of people that takes their cue from these judgmental people. This other group doesn’t like this unfair way of judging. They know it is wrong. So they use it as a way to justify their continuous poor choices. They say there is not any connection whatsoever between the bad things that happen and our choices. They believe they can live in any way they want and it has no connection to the general consequences in society or their specific life trials.

But we know we can’t live however we want because the murderer was following that rule. The result was that he wasn’t happy. He hated himself. He hated people. The reports say he had lived for quite some time entertaining homicidal and suicidal thoughts.

My thoughts are that everyone makes bad choices sometimes, including me. That doesn’t mean it’s a good, productive thing to do to criticize others. It does not promote compatibility in relationships to ostracize and condemn others in order to punish them. It is not correct to conclude that the bad things that happen to people are always connected to a specific choice they make. 

But we do promote compatibility in relationships and sustainable joy by generally figuring out and talking about the laws of cause and effect. Joseph Smith said, “I teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves.” Governing also includes that judgment of connecting up cause and effect. 

That said, in regards to bad things happening to us in general, I have learned that it is an objective fact that danger and evil exist independent of God. There are entities that act independent of him. They have their own will. We have our own will. We have been given the agency to use it. People have been given the agency to do good and and evil or a combination of both. 

If we want to increase our protection from danger and evil, we can do our best to learn more about the general rules of cause and effect and apply them to our specific choices. But that doesn’t mean bad things will never happen to us. They still do. So what is the benefit of figuring out the laws and striving to live them if bad things still happen?

In black and white judgment, there doesn’t seem to be a benefit. But in a careful analysis of the variables, we can see that many of the bad things that could happen to us because of our poor choices would not happen. We can actually reduce the number of bad things that happen by learning and keeping certain laws. In fact, many bad things don’t happen to us because of the countless people who have sacrificed their lives for us (and others who continue to do so) in establishing the physical and political freedoms we have in our country. 

Additionally, I have found it very useful to learn to differentiate between the results that are good, better, and best. To increase my ability to judge more accurately I have spent a lot of time thinking about what is most valuable to me. For example, there have been some bad things happen to me in my life. From the perspective I stand in now, I am thankful for them. Without these trials, I would never be able to have the relationships that I have now. The level of sustainable joy I live in now is directly related to the struggles I’ve had to work to endure and overcome.

I’m saying that even though we have adversity, which is usually categorized as a very bad thing, the end result, because we have it, work through it, figure things out, gain knowledge, become more than we would have, and develop relationships, is more valuable than the results we would have obtained had we never had to deal with it. 

One very obvious example of this that has been a big part of the development of my understanding is physical exercise. It is painful to lift weights, to run, or to hike up a mountain, but the long-term benefits of incrementally sacrificing in this way has built muscle and increased my cardiorespiratory health. I also experience a level of satisfaction, motivation, and spiritual intensity that I have not been able to obtain in any other way. I’ve found that this part of the sustainable joy equation can’t be obtained by eating more, giving myself more stuff, sitting around more. I actually have to sacrifice, work, face the trouble, learn, endure, and overcome. 

So what does this have to do with some of the awful, horrible things that are happening in our society today, like this senseless murder in Layton, Utah?

I think I was talking about dealing with our evaluation of someone who had bad things happen to her. I was talking about how misjudging these kinds of things can perpetuate the problem.

But how can anything good come of this awful thing? What is the purpose for it happening? What am I supposed to do with this story? How can I deal with it? I’m mourning for her family. I’m mourning for our community. I want to help prevent these kinds of things from happening. Is there some way to do that? But I also want to know if there is anything that can be done now -after the fact- for our community, for this family, for this young woman who died, and for justice and mercy to be done.

I feel like the best thing I can personally do after balancing out my own way of judging the bad things that happen, is to proactively love and support the members of my family and community. I’m realizing I can’t be neutral in the way I interact with people. I don’t want to entertain negative thoughts if I can help it. Instead, I need to fight for the good thoughts and actively use my agency to control them. Proactively love other people. Proactively allow them to figure out the cause and effect of their own choices and stop busying myself with doing that for them. I have enough of my own causes and effects to worry about. In this way, I provide them with a portion of the spiritual nourishment (love) they need, which prevents them from needing to seek it from conflicting sources that might entrap them and hurt them.

Dealing With Conflicting Views

I have been reading Farrar’s “The Life of Christ” and again am so thankful for him for writing down his thoughts and studies on the Savior’s life. I love that he doesn’t confine his opinions to exactly what’s in the scriptures. I love how he thinks through things. I don’t mind at all that his thoughts sometimes conflict with mine. I love that because he has voiced his, he has given me the chance to voice mine. I will forever appreciate him for writing this book. I hope that my own views, when they conflict with his, don’t offend him (as I believe those who have passed are aware of us when we are aware of them). I want him to know that even though they do sometimes conflict, I love him so much for writing his. 

This is because when he has taken the time to consider a point of definition when it comes to Jesus Christ and his life, my eyes are opened to consider it too. I may not have seen the point to be considered if it weren’t for his consideration of it. So for me, the value of what he has written is not diminished because our opinions sometimes conflict. For the most part, our opinions are balanced. I’m not sure if I could ever say he has supplied me with what is true about Jesus more than the scriptures have. That seems to be the task of the Holy Ghost. But he has supplied me with greater insight of the details of Christ’s life, His person, and His Process (seeing that the capital “H” comes in handy sometimes). 

And maybe it is knowing the evils of people and how they responded to Jesus that gives me the greater insights. When I read the New Testament in the past (before reading books like Farrar’s), I was not able to completely grasp the historical background of the setting. I was not able to see where the societal leaders of that day were coming from since our present society is different from theirs. Yet we have incorporated some of the same general imbalanced processes in different specific ways. Asceticism is still alive and kicking even though Hedonism is claimed by so many to be their god.

Today I was reading about the Sabbath Day and how the Jewish leaders for generations had created complicated ascetic laws to force the people to obey. And when the people did obey them, this gave honor and glory to them – to the leaders who socially enforced these pseudo laws. It took the glory and honor from God and gave it to them. They were the gods of their society. This is what they desired.

Honoring the Sabbath Day in the way they prescribed along with keeping all of their other micromanaging rules represented their Process and Causehood. They forced others to obey their Process. When the members of their society did, it fed and nourished these false leaders. It was like worshipping them. They were masquerading as gods. They were saying that they kept these laws very well and in doing so, they demonstrated their value. And if others wanted to approach the same value, they needed to keep the laws as well as they did. 

But initially, this must have begun with keeping the real laws of God, which at this time was the Law of Moses. When people make this a competition and they see that most people are keeping the laws of God, they up the stakes by complicating the law – making it even harder to obey. And when they show they can obey it, even at this higher level, they are gratified in their pride. When others follow them and strive to obey the higher law, it also gratifies their pride. But eventually, they will have to complicate it even more to continue setting themselves above others. This is an eternal evolution of this way of doing things. This is the result of Pride and Envy.

So for Jesus to attack these Pseudo Laws, was to attack their value. They were saying that goodness, righteousness, and value are dependent upon how exactly a person could obey these complicated laws. Jesus attacked this system by saying that attempting to follow these laws is superfluous, and that the motives behind this game are evil. He was saying that they are Pseudo Laws, not the laws of God. He was saying that their aim to keep these laws was blinding them to the real aim that God had for them. 

The real aim is to develop compatible relationships of sustainable love and joy with God and with each other. The purpose of God’s laws are to assist us in this effort. Working to obey laws is not a game that we play to be better than others. The practice of figuring out how to do good is not to be motivated by pride—the end-all goal to be better than our neighbor, our spouse, our brother, our sister, our friend, our son, our daughter, our community. The practice of figuring out how to do good is to be motivated by love—the end-all goal to develop sustainable, compatible relationships with our neighbor, our spouse, our brother, our sister, our friend, our son, our daughter, our community.

To be able to sacrifice more than someone else should not contribute to a superiority complex. To have the ability to sacrifice more than someone else is an objective fact. It is neither an act of pride or righteousness to acknowledge that fact. It is objective – neuter.  With any strength, knowledge, talent, ability, resource we have acquired or were born with, we choose what we will do with it. “With great power comes great responsibility.” “To whom much is given, much is required.” What we do with our resources, is what defines our Process as prideful or righteous. Do we use them to judge how much better we are than others? Or do we use them to serve others, knowing that we also need to rely on others to serve us with their resources since none of us have them all?

The Jewish leadership’s laws revolved around the Sabbath,  the ceremonial washing of hands and dishes before eating, the use of their money, prayer, fasting, and their relationships with each other -marriage, family, community.

So why were the Pharisees, Herodians, Sadducees, lawyers, scribes, and other judges of Jesus’ day so upset about his and his disciples lack of keeping their law? Why couldn’t they live and let live?

I believe it was because they derived their value – their sense of worth – from the keeping of their laws and from the number of people in their community who kept their laws. They were dependent upon the number of people in their community to uphold their laws. Why? Because when you’re not keeping the real laws of God, you are not supported by his validation. God’s validation enables us to feel our value quietly and completely. We don’t have to rely on other people’s validation. So if someone else disagrees with us and our way of doing things and if the way we are striving to live our lives is in alignment with God’s will for us, we will be sustained in the face of this other person’s disagreement. We don’t have to worry about the opinions and judgements of others because we are not relying upon their validation. 

This isn’t easy because we do rely upon each other for support. Ideally, our support of each other is in alignment with God’s support. But this isn’t always the case.

It is so tricky because we may be tempted to convince others who conflict with our opinion and our way of doing things that God is on our side. But this defeats the whole attempt to rely on God’s judgements. We don’t have to do any convincing for our own sake. (Don’t gotta say anything, don’t say a word at all…). Let other people have their own opinions. Let them judge us as righteous or evil. Let our focus be on God’s validation of how we are choosing to live our lives. And if we need to continue to learn, change, and grow, let it be before God and not before others who may say when we stumble, struggle, change, repent that, “We knew you were wrong all along.” 

Disregard their judgments when it comes to validating our worth. But regard their judgments when it comes to figuring out how we can serve them better in our relationships with them. And if our hearts are pure, we will seek to know how God desires us to serve them. There are times when we need to be like Westley (Dread Pirate Roberts) from William Goldman’s “The Princess Bride” and say, “As you wish.” But there are also times when we need to be like Martin Luther and say, “This is where I stand” regardless of what you do that hurts me. 

Could Jesus Really Be Tempted?

Did Jesus have the capacity to be tempted? Or was he so powerful that any temptation didn't even phase him?

I’m reading “The Life of Christ” by Frederic W. Farrar again. On pages 116-118 he’s writing about Jesus’s temptations in the wilderness which are described in Matthew 4 and Luke 4. Apparently, there has been some debate on whether Jesus could be tempted since he was a perfect being. Farrar argues that he was vulnerable to temptation just as we are.

“Some, in a zeal…have claimed for Him not only an actual sinlessness, but a nature to which sin was divinely and miraculously impossible. What then? If His great conflict were a mere deceptive phantasma-goria, how can the narrative of it profit us? If we have to fight the battle clad in the armor of human free-will which has been hacked and riven about the bosom of our fathers by so many a cruel blow, what comfort is it to us if our great Captain fought not only victoriously, but without real danger; not only uninjured, but without even a possibility of wound? Where is the warrior’s courage, if he knows that for him there is but the semblance of a battle against the simulacrum* of a foe?...They who would [describe him like this] rob us of our living Christ, who was very man no less than very God, and substitute for Him a perilous Apollinarian** phantom enshrined ‘in the cold empyrean*** of theology,’ and alike incapable of kindling devotion, or of inspiring love” (pg. 116).

* a representation or imitation of a person or thing
**philosophy that Jesus did not have a human mind or soul
***philosophy in which heaven is composed of the pure element of fire

How would our Savior be able to empathize with us in our own struggle against temptation if he had no capability of being tempted? Without having experienced this struggle himself, would he be able to understand what we feel and truly empathize with us?

As I was reading through these pages and pondering on Farrar’s point with which I am in complete agreement, I saw that temptation can only exist when we have made a commitment to proleptically sacrifice certain things or relationships with certain people. I picked up the word proleptic from Farrar. It describes the motives behind our sacrifice. We sacrifice in anticipation of “a future promised act or development as if it presently existed or already has been accomplished” (Dictionary).

When we make this kind of commitment, we become vulnerable to temptation. We sacrifice something good, which is often more tempting because it is actually good, for something better. When we make commitments, opportunity costs are created. We are saying that we are willing to accept those costs in order to obtain something better -the thing or relationship we want more than anything else. And what we usually want is someone else’s commitment to us. We’re willing to keep our long-game commitments to someone who is willing to keep his long-game commitments to us.

So, from this understanding, we can see how Christ would have been tempted above all the rest of us. His commitment to wait for his reward, for his needs to be met, for the fulfillment of his personal desires, was beyond every other person’s commitment that has ever lived. His long-game is seriously long. Many of us have made very long long-game commitments. Because Jesus' commitment to us was and is longer, he is able to support us through our extended trials.

This isn’t a competition. Someone had to put his own life on hold in order for the rest of us to obtain our desires and resolve our conflicts. And we, in turn, put our own lives on hold to a certain degree for others. But we don’t have to put it on hold for as long as our Savior has.

I think it’s easy for us to forget that Jesus’ life was his own just as much as our lives are our own. This was his chance on earth. His time to seize the day. He was given his agency to choose how he would live his life just as much as we have been given ours. Because that was true, we can see how the temptations to take what he wanted and needed would have been pretty intense. He had the power to take it. But he used his agency to choose to wait…wait for us. And as he did this, he experienced long-term suffering throughout his entire life.

We know he was not only a God but a good, healthy, balanced man.  His desires would have been for the basic necessities of life as well as for sustainable compatible relationships in marriage, family, and community. Most of us are not required to sacrifice these things. We’re encouraged to strive to obtain them. Some of us have been required to sacrifice them. Our Savior did too so he is able to empathize with us, which comforts our souls beyond any other resolution process. His sacrifice was meant to enable us to obtain our desires and resolve our conflicts. If we will follow his guidance in regards to our own proleptic sacrifices and receive his atoning proleptic sacrifice we will obtain the basic necessities of life as well as sustainable compatible relationships in marriage, family, and community in the long-game. It’s so proleptic!

"For as we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." ~Hebrews 4:15

Living Water

This post is the sequel to the following posts:

What's Your Problem?

The Parable of the Broken Sprinkler

One of the physical concepts Jesus used as a metaphor to describe the value of developing our relationship with him was our continuous need for living water in order to sustain our life. Our Savior said to a Samaritan woman at a well,

“If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.”

She responded, “Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?” ~John 4:10-11

The following video reenacts this conversation:



What is the living water Christ was talking about? And is it really as valuable as water is to our body and to the earth?



Elder Jeffrey R. Holland talks about relationship between the vine, its branches, and its fruit as a metaphor to our relationship with the Savior in the following video:



If we have spiritual wasp nests within our Personal Framework that are cutting us off from His water supply (his vine), we aren’t going to be receiving that peace in adequate amounts. We are going to feel dry, parched, and like we’re not getting enough no matter how hard we are working.

Understanding the Metaphor
Water for my lawn = Living Water that the Savior has available in satisfying abundance for us

Sprinkler System = Our Personal Framework of ideas, theories, beliefs that usually include truths, partial truths, and falsehoods

Wasp Nest in the Irrigation Valve Box = Biofilms in our Organ Systems = partial truths and falsehoods = random disorders that disconnect true understanding, beliefs, and practices

This next video continues explaining what Spiritual Wasp Nests are and how they prevent us from receiving adequate amounts of our Savior's Living Water.



In the next blog post, we'll talk about how Toxic Shame and Toxic Blame can be some of those Pathogenic Microbes in a spiritual biofilm or wasp nest that prevent the standard resolution processes from healing our relationship problems with God and others.