It’s all about loving yourself just enough to realize it’s okay to feel vulnerable. That it’s vulnerability is what leads to self-analyzing, opening up a lock-box, a safe, full of unknown emotions that fear makes the thought of opening them so terrifying for itself. Not knowing what might come out of it, and if when opened, being disappointed by a may-be reality that will make us so disgusted and disappointed in ourselves.
And again, I’m not really at a place that I’d preferably want to be at right this instant, a place where I’m forced to choose between either accepting the pathetic reality that I think of myself to be an insufferable human being, undeserving of love, of kindness, of forgiveness and of godly love because of my current sinful situation, because of my deliberate sinful decisions, that came to be because of my deliberate lack of sight, to realize how easy it was to just take the right decision.
Either that or choose to sink into deliberate denial and dwell my sight in darkness so that I don’t come to realize that what I had done, was my own decision.
Not intending to but just going with it, sounding like a veteran of war grandparent, talking about their youthful days and rattling their mouth on how different life is nowadays. But I, and pretty much everyone around me would say that I’m a very extroverted person, strong personality, confident, that I talk a lot, and that I’m easy to talk to. That I’m very proactive or excellent at whatever it is I’m tasked to do. When the real truth is, I could disagree with all those aspects much more, even though it shouldn’t be the case.
When I was young, 6-8 years old, I could describe myself as a very cynical child, do not hope, observe, to those who got lost, as per dictionary, the definition of cynical is having a belief that people only do things to serve their needs alone. Skeptical of the integrity, sincerity, or motives of others. In my case, that cynically tendency has always been towards my own decisions. Again, if your lost, that’s not a healthy mindset for a child. My parents aren’t to blame, I own my eyes, legs, hands and a brain that makes my body do what it tells without it being prompt to by cords like a string puppet. When I was 8 I remember the missionaries coming to tell me about the baptism and what it was, it’s importance, and it’s meaning would lead up to. The three Kingdoms of glory and the action of the baptism, that’s what I remember what they taught. They asked me if I, not my parents, if I wanted to be baptized. I’m unsure if the irony is clear here, but I’ll describe that through the eyes of a cynical person.
As a kid, you’re told NO, when you want to do something more often than otherwise, just as much as you’re told YES, GO DO IT, when it comes to do something you don’t fully understand where’s the harm in not doing it. Ex: NO more games, No more candy, stop crying, No more playing around, No more TV, no more phone, no more idleness, No, to buying something you want, or to going places you want to be. As well as YES, go clean your mess, clean your room, say sorry, admit you’re wrong, wake up, go to sleep, go read the scriptures, you are the pick to pray. As a kid, you do as you’re told and told not to do what you shouldn’t. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not advocating intellectual freedom and liberty of speech to children because all this is a necessary procedure of learning, and build of social common sense. Conspiracists could go on for days just on what really is common sense, but I’ll set that aside for now. And so, although I said all that, and how I agree that is a positive part of character growth of a child. You’ll also have to agree that a child who does as it’s told is right to, and doesn’t do what’s wrong to, that goes to church because you’re going to church, stays at church as far as you’re at church, and goes home when you are ready to, that reads the scriptures when you do and pray when it’s their preset turn to, that goes to school because they say you have to and is fed, taken care of, loved and have a parental presence over them. Then yeah, I want to get baptized. But did I.
And I want to emphasize the phrasing of the question here. DID I? Because honestly, unless you’re a brilliant mastermind fictional child named Sheldon Cooper. I hardly believe any person with any level in whatever their concepts of what their common sense is. That an 8 y-o child is any capable of having this mind process. So, why do I label myself as a cynical child back then and still a cynic nowadays? Because right after my baptism or so do I recall, maybe days or about a few weeks after? I committed the act of stealing, which is pretty common for most children, they go and get what they wished they could have until they realized that the world sees it as you not being entitled to own it. My mother screamed and wailed horrors that made me feel like I might’ve killed a person instead, what is death, I didn’t have that understanding, but it’s how today I would label the level of the feeling the gravity of my action that I felt that day. I hurried from the bedroom to the bathroom, locked myself inside, got on my knees begged forgiveness and begged that my mom would stop crying, yelling and blaming herself for my wronged action. Because she wasn’t the person to blame, but if she wasn’t the person to blame, then who was it?
If you’re not following how all that I said so far complements each other to my first few statements, please hold, we’ll get there. So, if it’s my fault, then I’m wrong, I made a wrong decision, I sinned, the image I had of purity and holiness after the baptism got shattered as an ugly sizeable stain on myself. I’ve gone against what I was taught to understand that it was right. I’m a sinner, do I deserve God’s love? Do I believe in any of these things, did I, an inherent sinner truly decided by myself I wanted to get baptized? Hasn’t all this been a waste? To now fresh into the fold to rebel myself and part ways as if it never even mattered? Do I have faith in any of these things? But as a mind of a child goes, as soon as my mother’s wailing ceased I put aside and pinned it to a not so visited corner of my mind and forgot that extremely sensible spiritual lesson just like 90% of the characters in the Book of Mormon, and I’ve confessed my wrongs to the bishop and to the store’s owner, which being my first time and having perhaps not as complex and tightly structured thought process but as a definite, and present part of my thinking. Saying sorry and admitting my wrong action was also perhaps not the first time at all, but definitely the first time that I remember willing my body to make the action of acting in a sorrowful state. But how much of it really meant in that one shot deal? I’ll say it, not much, and I say so because of the several other things I’ve taken from other places houses and so on that I wasn’t caught. Being caught no good, so just don’t be caught. Which might now make a lot of sense to my parents on several things. For all the other wrong things I’ve done.
So, I come back to, how did I get around this conflicting thoughts of deciding if my faith was my own or was implanted into me. If I really had selflessly decided to thread this path or had decided on it as for my convenience of not wanting or having the power or even the capability to actually take a mature decision on my faith and religion? And how is it that I have had this conflicting thoughts all my life so far ever since then, until now, I still do, I did have these same conflicts just this past 2 weeks. And what does it make me stand here today and label myself as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints? How come I still come up here and declare that I have faith, and that I believe that the bible, and the Book of Mormon, that the prophet current and old, as well as the leaders of this church, are true, guided and selected words of God and his love for his children in this world, that He selected them, and gave them holy truthfulness and authority to speak Gods words to us, as a speaker-person, or as holy written words, how can I be here today and declare to know them to be true? And how do I see what my faith is and how it works?
Since then, I started falling deeper and deeper into my cynic and skeptic personality, to the point of leaving the church altogether, stop identifying myself as a member and clearly believing and stating of my complete lack of any present faith, and denying any sort of religious belief I had. But a quote from a superhero TV show, is that when you have lost everything, it’s definitely not a good thing, but it’s not all bad because from there, by having nothing, then you have everything to gain moving forward. And yet, that doesn’t mean my conflicting personality and backwards thought process got any better, and I’ll tell you now, they still get worse by the day, it doesn’t mean that a newfound faith, or hope could not be lost, as it got lost, the effort held no meaning, no productive use of effort, time and emotional investment.
You read the scriptures and then curses driving on the streets and at work, you seek and find forgiveness then after holds anger and hate towards someone around you, or commits a sin on the same day you’ve partaken of the sacrament with, at the time, a genuine goal to do, and become better. Then, I became a rebel and did even worse things I couldn’t have ever foreseen to have done them until they actually happened. Some people that feel related to it, might have left home, some may have gravely hurt people around them, some might have turned to alcohol, tobacco, drugs and circles of people that they just feel that if not there, and if not doing those things, there couldn’t possibly be nothing else that meant anything to them or that they could possibly belong. And so, then what is faith? How do you define faith and how to obtain it, how to keep it and not lose it, how to prove by it that it’s real and that it isn’t just to self-induced truth by a placebo effect?
We’re taught since toddlers in the church that, quote:
And now as I said concerning faith—faith is not to have perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.
(Alma 32:21)
But it isn’t all about hope because as a cynical, you do not hope, but rather you observe and define the truth what it is. But when speaking of the divine, something that no one has seen, and those that if they really do, God wouldn’t be a toy which you can share to others to see as you do when you’ve been given the privilege to have had it.
Our physical senses are limited. As disciples of Jesus Christ, we exercise faith in Him without having a direct physical contact with Him: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10).
I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith. (Ether 12:6)
And so, we allow hope, or in other words, we create an expectation of a real yet independent reaction unborn from itself that would prove the reality of the existence of a God, Christ, a Holy Spirit. As well as the veracity of holy scriptures, such as the bible, and to us members of this church, the truth of authenticity and authority of prophets, current and old, of priesthood power and authority given to have it, and the veracity of the Book of Mormon as an additional word of God and another testament of Jesus Christ. We understand the limitations of the human body to see and perceive things according to their immediate desire without direct contact with the divine. And that we won’t get an answer that would give us concrete knowledge and witness of the truth of these things until the individual faith was put on trial to test whether it was genuine or not. So, how do we go about having faith and coming successful of this trial and obtaining this undeniable knowledge that we as members often declare to know them to be true?
It’s simplicity in itself makes it complex because to me, it took being currently 24 y-o, barely fitting into the time slot to be still eligible to serve a mission ever since turning 18, doing things I regret have done more than anything wishing I could remake and do right where it lies all my wrongs in my past, it took 2 years of complete self-induced inactivity from membership of the church, distancing myself physically, mentally and emotionally, and it took nearly 25 years to finally identify myself as a genuine member of this church, some old people may say I’m still young, but I say that this is still probably just a little less than half of my expected lifespan. Half of my life unable to follow simple steps wholeheartedly, without forgetting each one of them, so that I might get where and what I was looking for.
There’s something called Semantic Satiation, it means a psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener,[1] who then perceives the speech as repeated meaningless sounds. And I was, and I wrote this to whoever might also be, is a [“Faith Semantic Satiation”].
To have faith, is a proactive action, something to be started instead of created out of nothingness. If you don’t currently have or proclaim in not having faith, its lack of presence or effect in your life doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist and that it would have to be born from nothing by your choice.
Like the engine of a car, as you drive you don’t physically see it, and when its effects are non-present one might as well philosophically debate whether it truly exists. If the engine of each of your parked car was cleanly taken without any changes to the exterior of your car, you would commonly have entered the car, turned your key or pressed the start button and have no reaction, you would keep trying and nothing would happen, some might even not even try and see if the engine is there as you believe it to be and pay a few hundred dollars for it to be towed away and looked up by a mechanic. How foolish would that be. For a third party to tell you something that you should’ve known by yourself? And so, it’s Faith. Everyone has their personal and private faith. That in itself is nothing and means nothing, it’s just there as a tool, or rather, a means towards something. If any of you owned a car that when started it died on you after barely moving forward or had a phone that while charging as soon as you get your hands on it, it powered off, or a TV that has nothing wrong with it, but it won’t power on. It’s existence and possession becomes meaningless for not achieving the result expected, its ownership becomes meaningless.
So, how to start up the engine of faith so that it produces the results it proclaims to return? We need hope. Because, keeping the car analogy, if you have the keys, the engine, the car and fuel, nothing would matter if you didn’t expect the car to work because otherwise, why bother trying to get the car working if you don’t think it would? So, we need to tap into our faith, starting it and hoping it works.
But here’s the thing, I believed for the longest time, that you do something because you have faith, you go to church because you believe in it, otherwise you wouldn’t go, you read the scriptures because you have faith that they are true. You would get baptized and choose to start to identify yourself as a member because you have unshakable faith that it is true. And as a matter of fact, those are definitely true statements, you do something because you simply think and believe it should be done, just like we all think that one foot should go after the other and none of us as hopping with both feet to move our bodies forward. Because otherwise, would be rationalizing the act of doing nothing because of lack of Faith, and to me, that is wrong. So, how NOT to fall into that negative pattern? It’s by also coming to the understanding and accepting the other meaning of Faith.
Faith aside from something that you have, it’s also something that is given. You give faith, through your acts, and the best example of this is Christ. Even we, as believers, have to accept that Christ once showed lack of having faith. No having faith in his capability to withstand the task of suffering for the sins of each human being of the past, present or future, so much so that he said, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” (Matt. 26:38–39.) Christ, lacking faith, started and gave faith through his actions.
So if you have trouble reading the scriptures because you think you lack faith, then it’s time to do it as not a possession but as an action, so, reading the scriptures constantly and praying daily, and doing good deeds often might eventually become dull and lose its brightness and shine. But by applying the principle of identifying when you have it; hence you perform an action, and when to do an act of faith, will keep it constant, and affirm to you, that you do have it, and faith is real.
When that seamless combined work of action, faith and hope are present, it’s when from nothing testifying of any truth from within, god will have it revealed to us and felt by us, of its veracity by his Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:9-10).
How long should that combined work go on for? Who knows, but of one thing I know, for God to be proven wrong, all the means to seek the truth must be present, all the tools, scriptures, churches, leaders, prophets, Christ, action, faith, prayer, hope, and all tools should have been utilized to the extent and end of their capability, and one must apply genuinely that combined work until death without getting a divine confirmation. And yet, after millennia, as Matthew 7:7 says:
7 ¶ Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: 8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him, that knocketh it shall be opened. 9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? 12 Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. 13 ¶ Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
So, I testify that I had no faith, no believe, no trust and hope for or from myself and towards anything else. Yet, I sought after this guidance and promises, I’ve done the work and walked the path, although, I remain imperfect, and my faith oscillates and dwindles left and right at times, and I battle to keep it still day by day. But I have sought, and I have asked, and when I knocked asking for answers, forgiveness and help, God loved me, that I can for certain say, that what I feel today, is an undeniable faith that God loves me, and that this love feels so real and tangible in my heart and mind that there’s no doubt that it is true. And even after reaching this point, I don’t feel deserving of it. But it’s all about love. I denied myself of any self-worth for so long that I lost what it used to feel so natural to me, that it is to love myself. I forget that even as my weaknesses and failures become the clearer and more real in my life, that I’m still allowed to love myself, that as I gain weight and lose the fit body I used to have 6 years ago, that I’m still allowed to love myself, that for more grave and deprecating my previous actions and choices were, that if I’m seeking to change that, that I’m allowed to love myself. And as I discover that I can be loved, the more real the of god for me is. And it becomes a healthy cycle, that all this turns to testify of the truth that I sought the proof to believe in. So, I testify that all I said is true, and I believe in knowing them to be true, in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Truth Bomb #2: Isn’t it that my father has always been right in saying that there’s always a valuable lesson in movies? Struggling to admit it.