Embraced by the arms of Christ

So the other night I was trying to get my 18 month old daughter to go to sleep. She is a beautiful girl, however she never likes going to bed. My wife and I had done the usual bedtime routine: a bath, Pajamas on, read a story, soft music playing, only the night light on. She still would not settle down for bed, so I was playing with her on the floor in her room. At this same time a lighting storm was now visible from the windows in her room. At first the bright lights only slightly startled her. However within a minute or two the thunder was also audible. (Where I live we get pretty big thunder storms in the summer.)

At this point my little girl begins to get really scared by the thunder. To aid to this, she is also tired since it is past her bed time. She normally is a Mama’s girl, but whenever she is scared she tends to want me and curl up in my lap. So she curled up in my lap and buried her head into my chest crying and terrified about what the sound and noise was outside. I embraced her and after the first initial cry she turned around to face the window so she could watch the lighting storm safe in daddies arms. She soon began to point at the lighting and smile making sure I also saw the bright lights. The thunder remained, but she was no longer scared she realized she was safe and everything will be okay.

At this time I got an insight, or spiritual download as some call it, into what believe in Christ can do for you. In this situation with the Thunder storm and my daughter the only thing that changed was she sat in my lap and felt of my love. Outside nothing changed, the storms were still raging. The same thing happens when we believe in Christ. The situation outside may not change, however we can metaphorically curl up in Christ lap, feel of his love for us, realize that we are safe and everything in the end will be okay! As we progress and work to build our relationship with Christ we can enable ourselves to feel more and more of his love, as we continue to grow eventually we will be able to be embraced in the arms of Christ.

Now I attend church faithfully and fulfill my callings to the best of my abilities, however I am constantly struggling to increase my faith. I am at the point where the church and a believe in Christ makes sense and I hope I am making the right choices in my life. But I really want to increase my hope to a knowledge of the truth. By knowledge I am not speaking of the multitude that profess every fast Sunday that they “know beyond a shadow of a doubt.” I refer to what Joseph Smith said, “No one can truly say he knows God until he has handled something, and this can only be in the Holiest of Holies” (May 1, 1842 WJS) This is why I occasionally write my thoughts here, an attempt to organize them and hopefully grow.

A Trivial Pursuit?

I've always been taught that I should involve God in everything I do. To quote from the New Era, "The Lord wants us to pray about whatever concerns us. Nothing is unimportant or trivial if it is a concern in our lives." Is it true?

As I was getting ready for church today, I decided that I wanted to wear a certain sweater. I had a problem though. I have only one tie that matches this sweater and I couldn't find it anywhere. Now I've been taught all my life that if I've lost something I should pray and Heavenly Father will help me find it. In fact I've probably heard hundreds of stories during my Mormon existence testifying of experiences like this, from primary to sacrament meetings. I've done it myself. I've prayed about lost items and they have subsequently been found. So I'm getting ready to ask Heavenly Father to help me find my tie, when for no reason a thought popped into my head. I thought about all the people who were probably praying at that very moment, many of them that needed Heavenly Fathers help much more than I did. About 16 thousand children die every day from starvation. That's one child every five seconds. In the five minutes or so that Heavenly Father might have helped me find my tie, 60 children would die because they were hungry.
I felt pretty selfish and stupid. What a trivial thing. A tie. Children are starving and I'm worried about a tie. I just couldn't justify asking Heavenly Father to help me find my tie. I told Heavenly Father to help his children, I didn't need that tie.
I wore a different outfit.
Should I have prayed about my tie? Was I showing a lack of faith? I mean, He is all powerful. I'm sure he can help more than one person at the same time. What do you think?

Faith

So I've got this question. Hopefully I can explain it well enough. I'm wondering about faith. We are all faced with situations where we are told we should exercise faith. I'm going to pick one from the scriptures that we are all familiar with. The brother of jared and the stones. We are taught that because the brother of Jared had so much faith, that the lord reached down and touched the stones to make them light. Here's the question. Did he have "so much faith" that the lord would light up the stones, or did he just have "so much faith" in the lord that whatever happened was right. Do you see the difference. When we have a situation or decision, are we supposed to have faith that a certain outcome will happen or should our faith be such that the outcome doesn't matter, but that we trust the outcome is right because of our faith in the lord. The scriptures seem to teach both, but to me they seem different. On the one hand they say if we had enough faith we could move a mountain (faith in the outcome of a certain event) and on the other hand they tell us that we should just have faith in the lord. It seems to me that the faith in the outcome of an event is more difficult because of the great risk involved. The second, while it seems to sound better because our faith is centered in Christ, doesn't seem to me to have the power to help the event happen. It kind of seems to me like the low risk alternative. "yeah, I want it to happen, but if it doesn't that's just because the lord didn't want it to" It seems to take all the responsibility off our shoulders and leaves a way out if the outcome isn't the one we want.

Harry Potter and Star Wars

I love Harry Potter and Star Wars. Both complex battles of good verses evil. In both of these worlds/universes there are a special set of people who have extra-ordinary powers. In Star Wars they are the Jedi and the power is called "the force". In Harry Potter they are wizards and the power is called magic. Whatever they call it, those that have learned how to use it can do things that "normal" individuals can't. In both cases there is a power that is an eternal part of their universe. Do we believe in a power like that? Is the priesthood analogous to this power or is it not as universal? What is the definition of priesthood? In the church it seems we commonly define it as the power given to man to act in God's name. Is that a good definition or is there more? In both Harry Potter and Star Wars there are those that also draw on this universal power for selfish, evil purposes. Where does Satan's power come from? Could he be analogous to Voldemort or Darth Vader, drawing on the same power that God uses only for a different purpose? What about faith? It says in the scriptures that faith is the power that God used to form the worlds (Heb 11:3). Is faith different than priesthood? The same? More encompassing or less?
Anyway, just some things I've been thinking about. I've almost got a theory worked out but I need to chew on it for a few days. I'll post it soon. Until then let me know what you think.