God's Greatest Desire

I gave a talk on Sunday and since then some of the things which I spoke about have been swimming around in my head. One of those things has to do with this quote from President Uchtdorf:

“God Himself said we are the reason He created the universe! His work and glory—the purpose for this magnificent universe—is to save and exalt mankind. In other word, the vast expanse of eternity, the glories and mysteries of infinite space and time are all built for the benefit of ordinary mortals like you and me. We have a spark of eternal fire burning within our breast. We have the incomprehensible promise of exaltation—worlds without end—within our grasp. And it is God’s great desire to help us reach it.”

The thing in this quote that I’ve been pondering on is the last part, where it says that God’s great desire is to help us. I think that as mortals we don’t often think of God as a being who has desires. We think of God as this all-powerful, all-knowing, amazing being—which He is—but I think this unconsciously leads us to think that He couldn’t desire anything because He already has it all.

But God does desire things. Yes—He is a god, but He is also a person. His being a god doesn’t erase His desires, it merely perfects them. And above all the things in the world which He could desire and want one of the things which He desires most of all is for us to return to Him.

Think of it! God has planets and stars. He controls the elements. He has the power to walk on water, turn water to wine, heal the blind, and raise the dead. He could obtain almost anything which we in our worldly mortal state desire—things, pleasure, fame, fortune, wealth, popularity, the perfect body, the perfect house, the perfect car, the perfect job—He has the power to obtain any and all of these things at the tip of His finger. And yet, what He desires above all of these things is, essentially, us. You and me.

How ironic it is, then, that this is one of the only things He can’t have with a wave of His hand. Because Heavenly Father loves us so much He gave us the gift of choice and accountability. He knew that the only way we could be like Him, the only way we could obtain the level of happiness which He has, would be to let us come to this earth and to mess-up, to make bad decisions, and to jeopardize ever being able to return to Him again. In a sense, when Heavenly Father gave us choice and accountability He also gave up the only sure way that He could have what He most ardently desires—our safe return to Him.

It is only us—the powerless—who have the ability to give God—the most powerful—what He desires most. We so often focus on how the bad choices we make will affect our lives and happiness. How often do we pause and think about how the bad choices we make will affect God’s life and happiness? How do our actions cause Him to worry that we will deprive Him of that sweet, perfect, selfless, god-inspired desire He has of having us return to Him? A desire which, in all actuality, benefits us countless times more than it does Him?

Would it hurt to spend a little more time in our daily lives putting off our own intents and desires and thinking instead of God’s? Would it hurt to, instead of thinking about what we can do to make ourselves happy, think of what we can do to make Him happy? The best part about doing so is that we benefit more than He does.

God loves us in such a perfect manner that above almost all other things, He desires us to return to Him. That is the reason for everything—for the galaxies that fill the skies down to the grains of sand that fill the earth. God loves us—there’s no denying that. Let us better show our love for Him by doing our best to return to Him.

Excited to Live

This morning I got an email from my biology TA. This is what it said:

Hey guys,

I had my routine checkups/scans last week and the Dr. called on Friday with some bad news. I have been diagnosed with stage IV melanoma. The melanoma that started out on the back of my scalp metastasized to my bones. The cancer has spread to all the bones in my body. I will be flying to Denver to meet with a specialist and hopefully start some kind of trial treatment. Well I'm sorry to say that I just wont have the time or the energy to be your TA anymore. Either Dr. Cates or another TA will be teaching the Friday discussions for the rest of the semester. I will not be in my office hours but you can get help from another TA in the TA office. If you have any concerns that you need me to help with I can still answer emails and help out if I need to.

I have really enjoyed being your TA this semester and working with all of you. Again I'm sorry if this causes any troubles or problems for any of you. Have a great rest of the semester and continue the good work.

Needless to say, that's not what I'd been expecting to find when I logged into my Gmail account to check my inbox. This, along with a couple of other things that have happened over the past several days have caused me to stop, ponder, and reflect.

What am I doing with my life? Why do I wake up in the morning? Do my days have purpose? Goals? Do I go to bed better than I was when I woke up? Was the day I just had even worth living?

I'm ashamed of how I would have to answer these questions if I answered them honestly in regards to this past semester. So far, this semester I have been living life on the sidelines. Instead of getting out there with a plan and taking control of the game the game is taking control of me. I have let myself fall victim to laziness, self-pity, loneliness, and a lack of self-discipline. I've lived too many days wasting my time, talents, and energy. I've wasted too many days waiting for time to pass so that I could arrive at some future destination.

You guys--there is no excuse for this. There is too much good to be had in the present to waste it away by wishing for the future. Yes--it's easy to get stuck in the habit of being the victim, of letting life control you, but it's so much more worth it when we make the opposite true. There is too much work to be done to be lazy. There are too many others in need of a helping hand to have self-pity. There are too many friends to be had to be lonely. There are to many opportunities to be enjoyed to suffer from a lack of self-discipline. There is too much room to grow and improve to merely sit on the sidelines, going through the same routine day after day, never changing.

Nothing is predetermined. Our lives can be what we choose to make them be, one day at a time.

My life is so wonderful! If I were to wake up and immediately fall on my knees, thanking my Father in Heaven for all the blessings in my life, I would never be able to go back to bed! I live in country that enjoys more freedom than most and that was founded by amazingly good and inspiring men. I'm gaining an education that many people in the world would give an arm and a leg for. I have an amazing family who loves me unconditionally and wants the best for me. I have friends at home, school, work, church, class, and around the world. These friends and family are good people who have all enriched and touched my life, inspiring me to be a better person and to give back to others. I have a phone to call home when I get lonely, a shower to get myself clean, and a fridge to keep my food from going bad. I have a body that can run, jump, climb, sit, stand, talk, sing, laugh, clap, tap, dance, hum, work, eat, sleep, think, create, beautify, better, and so much more.

And above all, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I know my Savior and Father in Heaven live. I know that they know me personally and that they love me and will love me for eternity. I know that they have a plan for me and that I'm not here by accident. I know that if I live righteously now that I can return to them. I know that Joseph Smith restored the Gospel on the earth and that by doing so he merely completed and perfected what was already taught and believed by many. I know that as part of that work that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. I know that the Book of Mormon is true, that it doesn't replace the Bible, rather, it complements it. I also know that the sole purpose of the Book of Mormon is to bring people closer to Christ and that by studying it our relationship with Him can grow more personal and wonderful than we could ever imagine. I know that we continue to have a living prophet on today's earth and that President Thomas S. Monson is that prophet. I know that he leads and guides the church under the direction of the God the Father. I know that temples are houses of the Lord and that their purpose is to unite us as sons and daughters of God together as a family. I also know that if I get married in the temple that that marriage can last for eternity. I know that we go through trials for a reason and that when we handle them well that we can always come out a better person in the end. I know that Christ is there to help us through those trials and that He can be there for us always if we do not leave His side.

To put it simply--there is too much to be grateful for in this life to waste it away. We all probably have more days left ahead of us to live than my Biology TA does. The attitude with which we choose to live those days is entirely up to us. May I make a recommendation and suggest that we live them happily? May I suggest that we no longer let whatever it is that chains us down chain us down any longer? Life is so wonderful. So fun. So beautiful. So precious. So sweet. Be you an American Jew from New York City, an Asian Buddhist from Nepal, or a European who-knows-what from Ireland--it makes no difference. We all have something to be thankful for and we all have a reason to wake up in the morning excited to live and be happy. That's how I want to live my life.

First Impressions

Had someone told me, before my senior year in high school, that Michael Lee and I were ever going to be friends I would have told them to go see a doctor. ASAP. Because the day Michael Lee and I would be friends was the day pigs would fly. Few other facts were as clearly defined in my mind as this one.

I was the the goodie-two-shoes who did her homework and went to church. He was the person whose name everyone in the school recognized and who mooned people in the hallway on the way to gym class (this wasn't just rumor--I'd witnessed such an occasion). I thought he was full of himself and I had better things to do with my time than to get to know him--like homework. Michael Lee would just have to live out his days never having known me, and I, never having known him. That was fine with me.

And so of course we would happen to become friends. Because that's how life goes.

Our senior year of high school we both became heavily involved in the school's marching band and joined the school's We the People team. I can still remember the first time I ever really engaged in a conversation with him. It was at the very end of our junior year and all the band's future seniors had gathered together to lay out goals we had for the upcoming year. When Michael started talking and sharing his ideas I was surprised. He had a lot of ideas, and they were all good. After Michael would share a thought I found myself following up by expressing a similar idea of my own, and vis-versa. I remember leaving that meeting feeling a little stunned. Where had all of that come from? This guys was supposed to be shallow and immature, not intelligent and motivating! I was honestly perplexed.

Then, as senior year stared, we began having actual one-on-one conversations. We talked about religion so much that be began to call me "Blo-Mo"--his make-up nickname for blond Mormons (and the reasons I named this blog what I did). We talked about band. We talked about how many classes he'd skipped and how many I hadn't. We talked about friends. We talked about his love life and my lack of one. We talked about food. Our futures. Plans. Goals. Dreams. Life. Soon, I came to realize how absolutely and completely wrong I had been about him.

Yes--he was a silly boy who did silly boy things. In fact, I don't think anyone in our gov class will ever forget when, on our trip to Olympia, he striped down to nothing but his superman tidie-whities in the middle of the hotel hallway and held a fake tree while we all waited for our teacher to come out of her room. Or how he did the exact same thing again on the last day of class, walking across the tables towards the back of the room while doing lunges.

But while he was silly and he knew how to enjoy life, he also knew how to take it seriously. Michael showed me a whole new way of thinking and understanding that I'd never known before. He taught me how to not be so self-righteous and how to put myself into others shoes. He taught me that it's okay to like a guy. He taught me how to look for the good in people. He taught me that I can buy things off the Starbucks menu that don't have coffee in them. He taught me to live a little more and to not take life so seriously all the time. He taught me to not be so quick to judge and that our first impressions about people are almost always wrong.

The more I came to know Michael the more I came to understand that though I didn't quite agree with all his opinions--and he certainly didn't with all of mine--that what made us similar was our conviction to stand up for what we believed in and to fight for what we thought was right. He's a pretty awesome guy.

And so I can tell you that somewhere on this earth there are a group a pigs that can fly, because Michael and I are now friends.