Knowing and choosing

As I am leading toward the need for prophets and for covenants, I want to spend a little more time on what kind of Savior we get.

I acknowledge that it is easy to hear and read about the love and the humility and submission and still come away with a dominator culture feeling. I think that is a very powerful impulse in humans -- the "natural man" if you will.

If you keep rejecting it, it does largely lose its hold over you, but there is a lot of societal reinforcement. It takes a conscious rejection, choosing that you are not going to try and control others, but that you are going to love and help them as the individuals they are, not the minions you reward for conforming to what you think they should be.

Thinking along those lines, it strikes me that there are specific things about the Savior that were easy to reject, but that are important to accept.

One is that he was not a political savior. He did not come to cast off the Roman yoke, which is what many people were hoping for.

He could have done that, just like he could have kept feeding multitudes, but that wasn't the essential thing.

Looking back, we can see so much in the scriptures -- Isaiah, sure, but not only Isaiah -- that was telling that all along. It is a lot easier to understand prophecy in retrospect. Read Revelation and then see how much you think you know about how it will unfold. 

People get interesting ideas, like maybe the "scorpions" are tanks. Even if that is a correct conclusion, that comes from knowing what a tank looks like now.

I remember once there was a space probe going up that if it crashed back to Earth would have been an environmental disaster. I thought maybe that was Wormwood, the star falling and poisoning the waters, but it didn't crash, so that wasn't it. 

That was many years ago.

I make that point because I don't want to spend a lot of time judging people who didn't understand things. The truth is, prophets are more valuable in their calls to repentance than in what they tell us about things that will happen. 

There is value in the assurance that comes with the foretelling. I am grateful to know that there will be a return, and a resurrection, and that our souls are eternal.

There is also a harm in spending time thinking that I am better than all of these past people who didn't know what was what.

Looking at others to feel superior to them is also a step in the wrong direction, not great based on knowledge, perhaps worse if basing it on physical strength or wealth.

Potentially, I might do even worse by trying to make up for my lack of those things by aligning with someone stronger and richer who thinks that might makes right or that laws are only for controlling poor people.

As much as I have felt some of these things in my heart, and as much as the scriptures are not one hundred percent clear on anything (and what comprehension or use could you have for something that told you exactly how Earth was created?) those teaching have been helpful to me in my journey.

Sometimes it is just that as I start reading one thing I get an idea about something else. Surely the Holy Ghost is an important part of that.

There are still things I would not get on my own, and there are people who would struggle getting it on their own (or not try), so those witnesses are important and needed. They come from liable mortals who have strengths along with their weaknesses, as do we. That is not only why the Holy Ghost is important but also why we all need repentance. It all goes together.

And as important as it is to have prophets, and scriptures, and to read those scriptures and to listen to the Holy Ghost, then I want to make this point too:

When we commit to the Savior (but there probably will be another post that gets into ordinances), we are committing to a Savior who promises forgiveness for sins in a way that focuses on the healing of both the sinner and the sinned against, and that involves humility and sacrifice.

We are accepting that we do not get to force our beliefs upon others, even for their own good.

We are accepting that the spiritual is more important than the temporal, even though what we can give others in terms of food and healing and time is something we will give generously.

We choose that partnership, accepting that there will be trials that refine us, but finding that there is joy and sanctification in that process.