Real Life Answers

By Michael R.

Like people of many other faiths, Mormons believe that God has not left us alone in our efforts to face life’s challenges. Rather, he has provided multiple ways by which we can discover how to make choices that result in a better, happier life. As Christians, we look to the holy scriptures for knowledge and guidance. The senior leaders of our faith, whom we believe to be living prophets, also provide instruction for our temporal and spiritual welfare. We also seek answers through personal prayer, with the expectation that God hears and answers our sincere prayers. We also believe that there is another important path to the answers we seek: carefully pondering important questions.

“Ponder” is an active verb that means to carefully consider, analyze, and synthesize ideas and information with the goal of deepening our understanding of that which we ponder. God expects us to ponder sacred things, especially as they apply to strengthening our personal righteousness, facing challenges, bearing burdens, and resolving problems.

When we discover truth through pondering, we believe the Holy Ghost (or Holy Spirit) helps us recognize it by communicating directly with our own spirit. The feelings, impressions, or thoughts we experience at such moments are unique to each person, but undeniable.

I believe there are six essential elements of successful pondering:

We should choose wisely the “what” and why” of our pondering.

We should ponder selectively, avoiding unimportant, unworthy, or toxic subjects. The purpose of our pondering greatly affects each outcome, much as the seed we plant determines which kind of tree will grow. For example, pondering our sinful behavior in order to wallow deeper in it is self-destructive; pondering our sinful behavior in order to successfully abandon it can be a key to successful repentance.

Pondering is an intellectual and spiritual exercise. It is one of the highest uses of this powerful brain that God has given to us, and it can help us learn to control our thoughts, words, and actions. One apostle, Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, taught wisely about the connection between our thoughts and actions:

“All evils to which so many become addicted begin in the mind and in the way one thinks. Experience teaches that when the will and imagination are in conflict, the imagination usually wins. What we imagine may defeat our reason and make us slaves to what we taste, see, hear, smell, and feel in the mind’s eye. The body is indeed the servant of the mind.” (Pondering Strengthens the Spiritual Life)

Pondering requires a quiet and focused mind.

Modern life, especially in developed countries, has become so busy, hurried, and flooded with distractions that we may become addicted to the torrents of information that incessantly soak up our “mindshare”. Some may even find solitary thinking to be uncomfortable. Nevertheless, successful pondering is possible only when one’s mind is quiet and focused.

It would seem useful then to begin the pondering process by finding or creating an environment that is free of distracting sights and sounds. The next step is to proactively quiet one’s own thinking. Something as simple as closing one’s eyes and concentrating on one’s own breathing can be very helpful in clearing one’s mind and preparing it to focus. Next, mentally engage the subject of your contemplation, and begin the process by asking a relevant seed question.

Pondering requires effective inquiry.

Effective inquiry is essential and extremely powerful in the pondering process. The sincere questioning of which I speak has nothing whatsoever to do with doubting but everything to do with genuine, humble inquiry.

The Lord commands us all to inquire of Him in our search for knowledge and wisdom: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Matthew 7:7).

I have often found that beginning with questions that do not have a yes or no answer often helps me understand a subject more fully, and often leads to the yes or no answer I seek.

Pondering requires mental effort.

Effective inquiry is necessary, but can be insufficient to find the answers we seek while pondering. The Lord grants inspiration and revelation to those who exert themselves and diligently apply their current knowledge, experience, and reasoning abilities in seeking answers while pondering sacred things.

The apostle Lorenzo Snow taught this concept explicitly: “It is impossible to advance in the principles of truth, to increase in heavenly knowledge, [unless] we exercise our reasoning faculties and exert ourselves in a proper manner” (Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Lorenzo Snow).

Pondering requires time.

There are no shortcuts in pondering, and there is no substitute for the investment of time in obtaining our answers. The Lord has declared a stepwise pattern of learning eternal truths and gaining wisdom that can only be accomplished over a period of time.

Persisting in our search is essential to its successful conclusion. Elder David A. Bednar explained the practical aspects of this principle:

“Let me suggest that many of us typically assume we will receive an answer or a prompting to our earnest prayers and pleadings. And we also frequently expect that such an answer or a prompting will come immediately and all at once. Thus, we tend to believe the Lord will give us A BIG ANSWER QUICKLY AND ALL AT ONE TIME. However, the pattern repeatedly described in the scriptures suggests we receive “line upon line, precept upon precept,” or in other words, many small answers over a period of time. Recognizing and understanding this pattern is an important key to obtaining inspiration and help from the Holy Ghost.” (Line Upon Line, Precept Upon Precept)

Pondering is helped by relevant study.

Your brain can do more when it has more material available. The Holy Spirit can help you connect the dots into an understandable picture when there are more dots to connect. Mormons believe that the Lord commands us to seek knowledge and wisdom from high quality secular sources: “And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom, seek learning even by study and also by faith” (D&C 109:7).

In summary, the principles discussed above are:

1. Pondering worthwhile subjects for good reasons invites the Holy Ghost into our thinking and helps us develop mental and spiritual discipline.
2. Preparing our minds to ponder enables us to concentrate and give our best effort.
3. Understanding the kinds of questions that have prompted revelation from the Lord in the past can help us learn to inquire wisely in the present.
4. We must spiritually and mentally exert ourselves if we expect the Lord to reward our search for understanding.
5. Persistence is essential in successful pondering.
6. Pertinent subject knowledge can greatly expedite our pondering efforts.

These principles should be helpful in seeking deeper understanding through purposeful pondering. As we learn to ponder important subjects, especially the things of God, we may take great confidence in the Savior’s promise: “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” (John 14:26).

By Scott H.

No.

On the evening of December 26, 2004, my wife and I sat in our Tokyo apartment lamenting the fact that we had procrastinated preparations for our dream vacation to a particular tropical island in Southeast Asia for the Christmas holiday. As we considered what adventures we might’ve been experiencing right at that moment had we just bought plane tickets a few weeks earlier, we were motivated to head immediately to our computer and make arrangements to go on the trip a few months later. However, as soon as we got online we saw the early trickle of images and reports of the devastating Boxing Day tsunami.

That natural disaster was caused by a large earthquake in the Indian Ocean. The earthquake and tsunami claimed over 230,000 lives, including some from the island to which we had planned to go. During the weeks and months that followed this disaster, millions of people reflected on the fragility of life and many pondered questions concerning God.

One such person was my Japanese teacher. He was a 55-year-old Catholic man in a non-Christian country. Some of his neighbors who knew of his religious views questioned him about how he could believe in a God who was supposedly loving but who would nevertheless allow such a large-scale tragedy to occur. If God loves his children, and if he really exists, then why doesn’t he maintain a world free of pain and suffering? My teacher didn’t feel he had “good” answers to such questions and asked me how I would respond as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I enjoy discussing such questions. But even though my beliefs regarding the matter are very strongly held, it’s not clear that my teacher’s neighbors would have considered any of my answers “good” either. After all, the most complete answers to questions regarding spiritual matters can only be understood properly through the Holy Spirit.

Ultimately, my teacher did feel the following principles from our conversation would help him better articulate his beliefs to his neighbors even if they were skeptical, rather than sincere, in their questions to him.

• Direct consequences:  I feel like I love my two daughters as much as a human can possibly love. They occasionally get bruised up if they choose to fight over a toy or jump off the top of the couch. My love for them does not and should not completely preclude their agency—i.e. their ability to choose what they will do. And my love for them does not shield them from all potentially painful consequences of their choices. Thus, that they experience consequences is not, per se, evidence that they are unloved or left alone by me. Similarly, the sometimes painful consequences of our choices are not evidence that we are unloved or left alone by God.
• Indirect consequences:  We are also affected by events that are not direct consequences of our own choices. Surely nobody believes that a ruinous tsunami is a direct consequence of a particular choice someone made. And, on a smaller scale, we are often affected—positively or negatively—by the choices of our family, friends, and others. Even though some encounters with events, including tragedy and disaster, cannot be mapped directly to our individual day-to-day choices, they are natural, expected consequences of the supremely important pre-mortal choice we each made to follow our Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness. We learn from the scriptures that we chose with our eyes wide open to come to this earth, which would be, by design, into a fallen state.  In fact, the imperfections and challenges inherent in our mortal experience are the key to gaining the critical understanding for which we came. If my daughter were to sustain skinned knees by falling off the monkey bars at the playground then we wouldn’t say such an accident was necessarily a direct consequence of some particular choice she made poorly. Injury is simply a part of the set of potential outcomes naturally resulting from the earlier choice to go the playground. No sincere observer would see every possible playground accident as evidence that my daughter is unloved or left alone by me. Similarly, the indirect consequences, even when occasionally tragic, of our pre-mortal choice are not evidence that we are unloved or left alone by God.
• Equity and fairness:  Still, one might ask, “Is it fair that some people would die suddenly in a tsunami?” If this short season of mortality was the totality of our existence then the answer must certainly be, “No!” But if this life is actually just one important phase in a multi-stage progression (as members of my church believe it to be) then a loving God could and actually would account at a later stage of one’s eternal existence for any instance of injustice. Indeed, with an eternal perspective we can see that claiming life is unfair on the basis of an injustice in this particular (and temporary) phase of existence would be like turning on a baseball game, watching a few minutes, changing the channel before the bottom half of the inning started, and then claiming the game was unfair because only one team had the chance to bat. There is more to that game, just as there is more to life than this phase called mortality.

Why don’t I feel a crisis of faith when I witness natural disasters or war? Because my belief in God is derived from personal spiritual experiences; it is not the result of any awe I might feel when witnessing the beauty of nature or acts of human kindness. Thus, disaster and war can be truly tragic while still being easily reconciled to the existence of a loving God.

We humans needn’t worry that our trials and troubles are somehow proof that we are unloved or left alone in the universe. Despite life’s inevitable challenges, large (devastating disasters) and small (skinned knees), we can know that God lives and loves us and that we can return to him with our families.

By Mary B.

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one that gets burned.” I came across this saying on some random website a few weeks ago and realized how applicable to my life this really is. I was holding on to anger towards my mom and it was having a serious negative effect on my life.

A few months ago my parents divorced. Around the same time, my mom became inactive in the church and has developed a lot of resentment towards it and its members. I had grown up in the Church and was still attending regularly, so it caused a lot of tension in our relationship. She had completely changed her lifestyle contrary to the way I had been raised and taught in church. She had begun spending time with people who were a bad influence on her, breaking the Word of Wisdom, dressing immodestly, and then had her boyfriend move into our house barely a few months after my parents’ divorce.

I was really angry. I knew what she was doing was wrong and what made me even more angry was that she knew what she was doing was wrong but still did those things anyway. I was angry at her for the example she was setting for my five younger siblings. I was angry when she expected me to start paying rent while her unemployed boyfriend lived in our home for free. I was angry at her for the way she treated me and my siblings and the way she would allow her boyfriend to treat my brothers and sisters. And I was angry at her when she threw me out of the house with no place to go. Now the list of things I was angry at her for could go on and on.

After I moved back to Rexburg, Idaho from my home in Florida, I thought I would start feeling the happiness I usually get when I’m here. But that feeling didn’t come. I had been feeling hopeless, lonely, and upset. I could not figure out what was making me feel this way. After constant praying I had finally come to an answer. I needed to forgive my mom. My first thought when I realized that I needed to forgive was that I couldn’t do it, she had hurt me too badly and didn’t deserve my forgiveness. She hadn’t apologized or even seemed to feel bad for how she had been acting. Why should I forgive her? But I knew that forgiveness is what the Lord wanted from me, not only to help my mother but also to help me. So I kept praying that I could be humble and that I’d have the strength to let go of my resentment. It didn’t happen all at once and it probably didn’t happen as quickly as it should have, but eventually I forgave her.

Forgiving her has not fixed many of the problems that we have with each other, but it has made dealing with them easier. And it has brought me peace. Holding on to that grudge did nothing to my mom, in fact I don’t even think she realized how angry I really was. It was only bringing me down and destroying my own spirit. That was the reason I was stuck in that rut and couldn’t seem to move forward. That is why I was feeling so alone. My anger wasn’t allowing the Spirit to be with me. I was the person holding tightly onto that burning coal wondering why it wasn’t hurting the other person.