A Sure Foundation

I'm pretty sure everybody remembers that little children's song about the wise man who built his house upon a rock, and the foolish man who built his house upon the sand, right?

"And the rains came down, and the floods came up;

The rains came down, and the floods came up;
The rains came down, and the floods came up;
And the house on the rock stood firm."

It comes from the Sermon on the Mount, from Matthew chapter 7.

I've had a couple of experiences recently that have reminded me of that little song. First, someone asked me what it would take to shake my faith in God, in Jesus Christ, and in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon Church)--and I couldn't think of anything that would besides a very clear personal revelation from God. Which is, needless to say, pretty ironic. The second happened when one of my sons lost his new little baby girl due to birth defects. He said, "It was like being thrown off a cliff into a dark abyss, only to realize that I was standing on solid ground."

I've been off that cliff a few times myself for various reasons, usually sin and death, which are really just other names for rains and floods, or "shafts in the whirlwind," or "hail and mighty storm" (see Helaman 5:12). But I always found solid ground, the "rock" that stood firm beneath me even when I couldn't see a thing in the darkness.

So, what is the rock?

Helaman says the rock is our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. For me, it is also the things that I absolutely know are true through vivid personal experience. I can't know for certain what happened in other places and other times. But, given the way I have chosen to experience the world ("epistomology," if you will: you can look it up if you want. Or just read my last blog post), there are some things I absolutely know.

Here they are:

I know God lives and that he is a personal God who loves me, because he speaks to me. He usually speaks to my mind and heart, but I even heard his voice once. (Lucky for me and my children. I was pregnant with my first baby and about to be hit by a speeding truck.) Either way, what he says is unusually clear, and it is new to me, a "revelation" in every sense of the word. This actually happens really often.

I know that Jesus is my Savior, and he has taken upon him both sin and death. I know this because I have been healed by his power, many times, when I was in the deepest despair. This instantaneous transformation from despair to love and hope is very hard to describe unless you have experienced it yourself. But it is very powerful, real, and permanent, and it comes obviously and directly from Jesus Christ.

I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I know this because of direct revelatory experiences I have had (many times--are you seeing a pattern here?) every single time I read it. It answers my questions now and always, no matter how many times I read it, and continually offers me spiritual food.

I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the kingdom of God on the earth. Not because it is perfect or because its leaders are perfect; precisely the opposite. I have seen God use the imperfect people he has called to perform miracles in the world and in people's lives, over and over again. This is a church of miracles, and God's power is here.

I know that the temple is the House of the Lord, just like it says it is on the outside, because I have met God inside. Many times.

What forms your foundation? What do you absolutely know, through your own personal experience, is true? The experiences I have described above have happened in my life many times, over and over again. Because of them I can handle rain, floods, sin, death, loss, cognitive dissonance (look that one up, too) and weird historical stories  because I have my rock to cling to. I'd love to hear what yours is. I hope you will comment and tell me.

A Message to My Children: Choose Faith

A Message to My Children: Choose Faith

When I was 16 years old, between my junior and senior years of high school, I spent six weeks at a sort of intellectual summer camp at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. As a very naive Mormon teenager I was completely bowled over by culture shock. It was my first experience with an Ivy League university-level seminar (existentialist lyric poetry and a great deal of big-word-dropping), and my first experience with “liberated” American teenagers (smoking, drinking, casual sex).

One of our university student “mentors” was a philosophy major who took the common juvenile undergraduate delight in logically deconstructing everything I said, especially about my faith. I came home depressed and shaken. For the first time I realized that my spiritual experiences could never “prove” the truth of what I believed in.

After some months of thinking things over, I came to understand two important truths, and then made the most important decision of my life. Here are the truths:

1. You can’t prove God exists, and you can’t prove He doesn’t exist, either. You choose to believe or not by choosing which of your experiences you will accept, how you interpret them, and which people you believe. Faith in God is a choice, a premise upon which you build your world view.
   
   
2. I wanted to believe. Faith in a personal, loving God looked to me like choosing light, goodness, and joy over cynicism and emptiness. I wanted to base my life on the richness of all my experiences, including not just the evidence of my senses but also my intuitions, emotions, and transcendental spiritual moments.

So then I made my decision. I chose faith. In choosing faith, I chose also to nurture it through prayer, study, church attendance, and service to others. I chose to interpret my experiences through a spiritual lens. I chose to see the wonder of creation as evidence of a vast intelligence manipulating the universe, not just chance. I chose to distinguish between how something happens (temporal lobe visions, anyone? Evolution?) and why it happens, what it means. I chose light, goodness, and joy. As life went on I gradually discovered that I have also chosen peace, love, and a life-line in troubled times.

Terryl and Fiona Givens have written a short book, “The God Who Weeps,” that details the attributes of the God I believe in. In their preface they explain the choice to believe much better than I can. They also describe the story of a donkey who starved to death because, presented with two identically enticing and accessible piles of hay, was unable to choose one over the other.

Choose, my children. Recognize that faith is a choice. Read the preface to “The God Who Weeps”--give faith equal time (you can borrow the book from me). Consider carefully the consequences you can see in the lives of those who have chosen one way or the other. Understand that your choice will affect everyone who loves you, especially the generations of your children after you. 

“O, be wise; what can I say more?” (Jacob 6:12, from The Book of Mormon)