Your power to become

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Priesthood Session of the April 2014 Conference.

This was the priesthood session where President Oaks gave his wonderful talk "The Keys and Authority of the Priesthood" which has become such a fundamental part of how I understand my relationship to God's power and authority. I love that talk. But my quotes for today come from a different speaker, Elder Randall L. Ridd. He talks about the importance of our desires in shaping who we become, which is always a subject that has interested me. Elder Maxwell talked a lot about it. Maybe it was something he said that made me think the main purpose of education is to educate our desires—what we like, what fascinates us, what we wish for—so that we learn to want what God wants.

Elder Ridd brings up an interesting measure of desire:

The Internet also records your desires, expressed in the form of searches and clicks. There are legions waiting to fill those desires. As you surf the Internet, you leave tracks—what you communicate, where you have been, how long you have been there, and the kinds of things that interest you. In this way, the Internet creates a cyber profile for you—in a sense, your “cyber book of life.” As in life, the Internet will give you more and more of what you seek. If your desires are pure, the Internet can magnify them, making it ever easier to engage in worthy pursuits. But the opposite is also true.

Then he says:

My young brothers, if you are not proactive in educating your desires, the world will do it for you. Every day the world seeks to influence your desires, enticing you to buy something, click on something, play something, read or watch something. Ultimately, the choice is yours. You have agency. It is the power to not only act on your desires but also to refine, purify, and elevate your desires. Agency is your power to become. Each choice takes you closer to or further from what you are meant to become; each click has meaning. Always ask yourself, “Where will this choice lead?”

I love the idea that agency is our power to become. The question isn't whether we can change. It is what we will choose to change (or be changed?) into. 

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He wishes to honor our desires

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Saturday Afternoon Session of the October 1988 Conference.

I found this little section of Elder Maxwell's talk intriguing:

What desirest thou of me? the resurrected Jesus inquired one by one of the Nephite Twelve. He knows our individual bearing capacities. He will lead us along, not herd us. Foremost, the gospel can even educate our desires; then these desires can work affirmatively in us and for us. 

Are we really ready, however, for the responsibility and the high adventure of being tutored by Him who genuinely wishes to honor our individual desires, if we do not desire amiss?

I've written about desire lots of times, but in this context I was thinking about how, when Jesus asks this question of his disciples, most of them say they want to finish their work on earth and then speedily go to Jesus in his kingdom. But the three Nephites want something else; they want to stay on earth until Christ's Second Coming. I always wonder—what made them want that? Was it some innate gift—they were really good at missionary work? They were extroverts or talented teachers or good public speakers or they especially loved being around people? Or was it the opposite; they felt inadequate at missionary work and wanted to leave their comfort zones to prove their love and devotion to Jesus Christ? How did they become the kind of people who had that desire?

And it's not like Jesus tries to get the rest of the disciples to have that same desire. He doesn't seem to favor one group over the other (well—maybe. He does say "more blessed are ye"—but I don't know quite what He means by that). He seems to truly just want all the disciples to have what they actually desire. Elder Maxwell talks about the gospel "educat[ing] our desires," but these men seem to all have been good, faithful men. They just had different desires, perhaps based on their different strengths or life experiences.

I know in many ways the gospel makes us more unified, with each other and with God. And I have also heard many times that it doesn't take away our individuality. But I'm just so interested in this idea that God will tutor us even as He "genuinely honors our individual desires." Which of my desires need to be educated out of me, and which will God work through as they stay in me? Which desires are innate or left over from my premortal life, and which are things I've learned from my culture? How will my desires shape the way God sends experiences and people into my life? How can I make my desires more like what Jesus Christ would desire for me? If He asked me "what desirest thou"—what would my spirit say?


Other posts in this series:

A brief history of Relief Society Meetings—by Jan Tolman
True Orthodoxy—by Nathaniel Givens

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With fervent desire

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Morning Session of the April 1977 Conference.

You've probably seen this video of President Packer's parable, The Mediator. I've always liked it, but I haven't ever read the whole talk before. Here was my favorite part, which was not even part of the story, but a personal note about why he told it:

I have carried with me a great desire to bear testimony of the Lord, Jesus Christ. I have yearned to tell you in as simple terms as I can, what He did, and who He is.

Although I know how poor mere words can be, I know also that such feelings are often carried by the spirit, even without words.

At times I struggle under the burden of imperfections. Nevertheless, because I know that He lives, there is a supreme recurring happiness and joy. 

There is one place where I am particularly vulnerable—when I know that I have abused someone, or caused them hurt, or offended them. It is then I know what agony is. 

How sweet it is, on those occasions, to be reassured that He lives, and to have my witness reaffirmed. I want, with fervent desire, to show you how our burdens of disappointment, sin, and guilt can be laid before Him, and on His generous terms have each item on the account marked, “Paid in Full.”

I love this glimpse into the personal feelings of a man I have so looked up to. He felt inadequate and imperfect. He hated to hurt people—but he knew he DID sometimes hurt people, and this caused him great anguish. His testimony of Jesus Christ's atonement brought him actual comfort for his actual struggles. And he wanted, "with fervent desire," to share that comfort with everyone else! It gave me a different perspective on this talk, thinking about President Packer writing it with that personal goal in mind.

It also makes me wonder what things the general authorities who are preparing their talks for Conference right now want to tell us. What insights do they have a "fervent desire" for us to gain? I read an Ensign article today about another apostle who asked President Eyring for input on the 22nd draft of his talk for Conference. President Eyring says:

In general conference twice a year, we are blessed with the opportunity to hear the word of the Lord for us from His servants. That is a privilege beyond price. But the value of that opportunity depends on whether we receive the words under the influence of the same Spirit by which they were given to those servants… Just as they receive guidance from heaven, so must we. And that requires of us the same spiritual effort… 

The servants of God fast and pray to receive the message He has for them to give to those who need revelation and inspiration….To gain the great benefits available from hearing living prophets and apostles, we must pay the price ourselves of receiving revelation.

I know the General Authorities have the fervent desire to bring us closer to Christ. Do we have an equal desire to receive their wisdom?

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Other posts in this series:

• The Agency of God by Nathaniel Givens
• That Kind of Trust by G
• My Heart Sings With Joy In the Healing of My Brokenness by Jan Tolman

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Seeking desire

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Priesthood Session from the April 1973 Conference.

I talked about desire last week and now I'm going to talk about it again. I guess it's because I think a lot about this subject, so I'm extra sensitive to it when it gets mentioned! And President Romney has desire as a central theme of his talk, "Magnifying One's Calling in the Priesthood." He talks about the importance of desire—desire as a strong motivating force to help you do good and magnify your calling (and when I read "calling," I think of much more than current church calling—mostly my vocation as a mother and role as a disciple of Christ). He quotes this scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants: "And by their desires and their works you shall know them." (D&C 18:38—emphasis is President Romney's.)

It's all very well, and I DO have good desires as a "strong motivating force" in my life. To do as God wills. To submit to him. But I always talk myself into complicating things with "But is that really ALL I desire?"

The trouble is just that things are so mixed. I feel like none of my motivations are ever as whole and as pure as I'd like them to be. Yes! Of course I want to be good because I love God. I do, and I feel I am speaking totally honestly when I say so. But I also want to be good so that people will like me. And because I want heavenly rewards. I could say this about everything! When I give a talk or perform on the piano or write an essay, I try so desperately not to do it for the wrong reasons. "I want to do well so I can please Thee, and bring Thy spirit, and not for any recognition of my own!" I plead in my prayers. I don't WANT to want the praise of others. But I do, or part of me does. I want people to be impressed. In parenting it's the same. I know it doesn't matter what others think of my kids. I know my kids' personalities and talents are largely not my doing anyway, positive or negative! I know the only thing that matters about how I teach them and raise them, and even about how many of them I have, is whether or not those things fulfill Heavenly Father's wishes for me! And yet, even knowing this, and desiring to do it, I still DO want to feel praised and validated. I still do want to have people like my kids, and me, and not disapprove of my choices. I desire the children's welfare, truly, but I also desire to be right when I argue with them. I desire to learn and grow, but I also desire life to be easy and comfortable. And it frustrates me. I wish I could say, with total honesty, that my desires are pure! That my deepest, most true desire is to serve God. I WANT that to be true, but I don't know how I'd even KNOW if it were true, because my desires are often cloudy even to myself. Sometimes I'll ask myself, "But WHY are you acting this way? WHY does this scare/bother/anger you so much?" And I don't know. I sometimes don't even know.

In this talk, President Romney calls people out for "aspiring" to leadership positions. He says this isn't a righteous desire. And I know that. Goodness knows I don't want to hold important positions. They scare me! But even there I can't be sure my desires are pure, because just as we shouldn't aspire to positions because we want to be important—it seems to me we shouldn't aspire NOT to hold positions because we think it sounds hard and we would hate to have to put in so much time and effort. And yet that's basically what I'm doing.

It's not that I don't have desires to do good for its own sake. I do, and I feel like these parts of myself are deep and real. It's just that that isn't ALL there is to me. I've talked about this a lot and it's because I continue to wonder HOW to be purified. How to become wholly…well, holy!

Well, it's a great and thorny problem, and I know I can't expect to solve it in a day. But there are, I think, a few hints in the talk:

We should demonstrate that desire by living the gospel and diligently performing whatever service we are called upon to render. 

Nor is an effective desire a mere wish. It is not impassive; it is a motivating conviction which moves one to action. 

[I pray] that the Lord will help each of us…to acquire such a powerful motivating desire that we will…be led to magnify our callings in the priesthood.

And I even peeked ahead to the next session and found these words in another talk:

Live to be worthy of the companionship of the Holy Ghost. If you have its spiritual influence, it will bring conviction into your hearts. It will build testimony and create in you a desire to love the Lord. 

We should seek the desire, through righteous living, to once again dwell with [God].

So even though I still feel like a mass of contradicting desires, there are a few things I learned:

• You can change your desires, and should seek good ones (pray for them?)
• The Holy Ghost helps us create and maintain good desires (and eliminate bad, I assume)
• God will help the good desires get stronger: "Let this desire work in you."
• True desires motivate action--and I assume the action then reinforces the desire. So what I DO becomes what I WANT to do.

And I think maybe that last point is the most important thing I got from this talk. That the performance of a righteous action is the beginning of a cycle: action precedes desire which then precedes action. One can start, presumably, anywhere in that cycle—with either desire (nurturing the good desires that we already have, even if they are mixed with other less good desires) OR, if we can't find any good desires for that thing in ourselves at all, we can just start with the good action and trust the desire will follow.

So, to choose an example at random, if one is called to be a Cub Scout leader when one does not much DESIRE to be a Cub Scout leader, one could:
1. Call upon that part of oneself that DOES want to do it. This is the part that said yes to the calling. The part that loves God and is trying to trust Him and believe that He gives us challenges for our good. Focus on that part. Speak positively of the opportunity (again drawing, truthfully, on the good desires one has).
2. In addition to the above, one could also just start ACTING in the calling, trying to magnify it to the best of one's ability. One could attend meetings, and plan activities, and so forth, trusting in God that while the day-to-day desire to do these things was quite weak, the faithful doing of them anyway would at some point have an effect on desire, strengthening it.

Seems like good, practical advice from President Romney!

(UPDATE: Here's another talk that deals with this subject, and gives great counsel. It's by Elder Maxwell.)

Other posts in this series:

• The Unchanging, Changing Church by Nathaniel Givens
• The Tyranny of Opinion by G
• Be Calm and Turn to the Lord by Daniel Ortner
• Desire, Ponder, Pray by Walker Wright
• Little Golden Nuggets by Jan Tolman

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