Category: Spiritual Adventures

Imagine God on Mount Sinai, waiting for Moses to come that last 100 yards to receive the 10 commandments. This is, of course, the omniscient, omnipresent God of the Bible. Even before the tablets are carved He knows how fundamental the Ten Commandments will be for mankind, and you are a fly on the wall watching this monumental moment transpire.

He opens his mouth, and begins…

“I am the Lord your God, who delivered you from Egypt, from the house of bondage.”

Seem a little… lack-luster? Prosaic? Utilitarian? I mean, for the creative genius behind the conception of heaven and earth and all things that in them are, this struck me as rather unimaginative at first.

His one-line introduction, His elevator pitch preview to some of the best known, most studied, and most debated scripture and this is it? It certainly isn’t what I would have picked. I mean, with an international audience in mind (especially one spanning across several millennia), delivering Israel from Egypt isn’t exactly the most relevant example of God’s power, or the most impressive. Why not introduce Himself as the God who created the Heavens and the Earth? That would be more widely applicable AND way more impressive.

Then again, maybe God wasn’t trying to impress us.

So then, why?

I believe that our Creator doesn’t make mistakes. The Mount Sinai moment didn’t sneak up and catch Him unprepared. He said what He said on purpose, so why say this? Perhaps He was sharing something that really matters to Him, describing Himself the way He hopes we will remember Him: as the God who delivers. The God that makes men free.

True freedom comes from laws?

That may seem like a strange idea. Thoughts of God do not always conjure feelings of freedom, especially when juxtaposed with a list of “THOU SHALT NOT…’s”. Hasty analysis sometimes leads us to conclude that freedom means an absence of rules. How can you really be free with somebody else giving you commands?

This opinion is fed by the thousands of bad laws that have been created over the course of human history, sometimes on accident, and sometimes intended to manipulate, control, enslave, and even destroy others.

I’m not talking about those kind of laws. I’m talking about perfect laws… Laws that reflect things as they really are.

Take the law of gravity, for instance. We are literally stuck here on Earth thanks to gravity. Talk about a limiting law. Mankind’s dreams of flight were thwarted for thousands of years because of this thing. And gravity isn’t just a dream-killer. Literally thousands of people have died from gravity. What kind of monster thought up this nightmare?

And yet, no one with any kind of understanding of the law of gravity would seriously suggest trying to get rid of it. In an article titled “Gravity Hurts (So Good)” http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast02aug_1/) NASA describes the negative effects that come to astronauts following exstensive time in a gravity-free environment. “Gravity hurts: you can feel it hoisting a loaded backpack or pushing a bike up a hill. But lack of gravity hurts, too: when astronauts return from long-term stints in space, they sometimes need to be carried away in stretchers. Gravity is not just a force, it’s also a signal — a signal that tells the body how to act.”

And hey, as mankind has learned more about the law of gravity… followed the signals… mankind has also found ways to defy gravity… to fly… to explore space and to circumnavigate the negative consequences.

So perhaps freedom doesn’t come from getting rid of laws, but rather from perfectly understanding the laws.

Is God a tyrant?

There are so many incomplete assumptions about God and his commandments. One prevalent idea is that God gives us commandments to test us… to see if we love Him enough to jump through a series of hoops. Another is the idea that God gives us commandments to keep us safe, which pairs perfectly with the assertion that God sits in His heaven doling out punishment to each being that crosses Him. Each of these ideas carries with it an ounce of the truth, but when contrasted with what we know about the character of God they do not entirely make sense.

In my opinion we put too much stock in the idea that God makes the rules. I think it would be more accurate to say that the rules make God. Or rather, that the forces God put into motion to bring about the conditions of our lives can also work against His purpose to destroy us, and therefore he works hard to make us aware of those forces.

In some ways the laws of God do test us. They test our faith and test our self-control. These are good and useful side-effects, but this is not all the commandments are intended to do.

In some ways the laws of God are intended to keep us safe. To keep us from breaking ourselves against the forces that made it possible for us to come here… to keep us from stunting our growth in eternity because of our limited perspective. But God did not send us to Earth in order to keep us safe. Ask anyone who has lived life following the word of God and I’m betting they would all tell you there were moments that did not feel particularly safe. Ultimately, even Jesus Christ Himself, the only truly obedient child God here on earth, found God’s commandments leading Him a long, long way from safe ground.

In some ways it does seem like God is quick to punish. As if He looks for reasons to condemn us. But we know that our loving Father in Heaven is not a malicious being. Perhaps the consequences we face when we sin, painful though they may be, serve the more important purpose of sending us a signal… “a signal that tells [us] how to act.”

Eyes to see.

One of my favorite quotes is from the great teacher Anne Sullivan. At a very young age and with almost no training, she was hired to teach Helen Keller, a young child who had been deaf and blind from 18-months of age. When Anne was hired I’m sure it was difficult for Helen’s parents to settle upon suitable expectations for their daughter’s education. What could they really hope to accomplish? Anne Sullivan certainly couldn’t teach her to see. She couldn’t teach her to hear. MAYBE she could teach her to communicate, but that was a pretty big maybe. It was probably easier to settle upon obedience as the ultimate goal… to simply hope this teacher could tame the beast. Keep Helen from hitting, biting, screaming, kicking, putting her fingers in other people’s food, ripping other’s clothing etc. As it happens, such obedience was only possible for someone who was willing to be a tyrant toward Helen. Willing to enforce ridiculous-seeming rules upon an innocent child who had no way of understanding them.

Luckily for Helen, teaching Helen obedience was never the ultimate goal for Anne Sullivan. She was willing to be the tyrant that forced Helen to wash her hands and use a fork and do all of the other things civilization expected, but only as a means to teach Helen communication and relationships. She was willing to do the difficult and painful job of disciplining Helen in order to open her mind to all the other wonderful things the world had to offer her. Anne Sullivan said:

“I have thought about it a great deal, and the more I think, the more certain I am that obedience is the gateway through which Knowledge, yes, and love, too, enter the mind of the child.”

Think of that! Before Anne Sullivan could teach Helen ANYTHING else, Helen HAD to be obedient. Before Anne could tell her she loved her, or communicate anything substantial about the world around Helen and the wonders it held, Helen had to decide to be obedient.

In my mind Helen Keller’s early life is a perfect analogy for all of us here on earth and our relationship with God. Compared to Him are we not all blind and deaf? Blind to the future and deaf to the voices of the past. Blind to the workings of the elements around us and deaf to the needs and sufferings of even the people closest to us. How often did Jesus say, “He who has ears to hear let him hear.” How frustrating it must be for God to watch us refuse His help in favor of our own puny, little “freedom.” Little isolated Helen Keller had all that kind of freedom. Literally no one could tell her what to do, but no one could tell her anything else either. She was free to atrophy in her own prison while the bright, beautiful earth and all it holds sat waiting at her door. Likewise, we can sit on our own and stubbornly refuse to be “told what to do,” labeling God as a tyrant with unreasonable rules, and assuming that only we know what is best for us. Or we can try following God’s commandments and see what follows.

I cannot tell you exactly what you will find while following God’s words. I can tell you that it won’t just be faith and it won’t just be safety and it won’t just be a healthy dose of self-control. God knows and loves each of us and as our loving Father in Heaven He has wonders to unfold to our view. “Behold and lo, mine eyes are upon you, and the heavens and the earth are in mine hands, and the riches of eternity are mine to give.” (Doctrine and Covenants 67:2) He wants to give us ALL THINGS, but the only way to receive them is to follow Him and see.

“I am the Lord your God, who delivered you from Egypt, from the house of bondage.”

I bear witness that His ultimate goal is to deliver us. When we are obedient to His words we pass through the gateway to vast knowledge of all things including His ever-enduring love for us.

 

In my last interview I promised my mission president that I would write out a letter explaining why I’m glad I served a mission. I never did because the thought of explaining it was so overwhelming. However, five years ago today I entered the MTC and therefore embarked on this most wild of adventures. In honor of this anniversary I thought I’d finally fulfill my promise.

I never wanted to serve a mission. I knew it would be hard work. I knew I’d have to give up naps and spontaneous shopping trips, my computer, my roommates, my car, and a lifestyle I liked. I knew I’d have to talk to every random stranger in my path about church, whether they wanted to hear me or not. I knew I’d get doors slammed in my face and cold-shoulders. I knew I’d have no time to do my hair and no chance to wear cute clothes for 18 months, and if I tried they would be ruined by weather and biking as soon as I stepped out the door. All in all, I knew I’d have to trade in everything I liked about my life to walk around looking like an idiot, and therefore I was not interested.

Luckily I didn’t let my lack of interest stop me.

Lucky because I would have never known what I’d missed.

The first hint that there was something to miss really struck me as I spoke to one of my roommates before I left. Her name was Carolina and she had served on Temple Square. I told her I was thinking about a mission and i expected her to get all excited and try to talk me into it. To my surprise she started to cry. “I wish I could go with you” she said. And from that moment on I knew I had to go. I had to know, despite all the unappealing aspects of a mission, why she felt that way.

So here it is… why it’s worth it:

1. THE THINGS I LEARNED:

There are a whole list of basic things I learned, like how to mount a bike in motion, how to speak Chinese, and how to really study and teach the gospel. Those are valuable things to me, but they are also things I expected to learn. The more valuable things I learned on my mission are the things I never anticipated:

I learned the joy of setting goals. I’ve always been a goal-oriented kind of girl, but serving a mission brought this to a whole new level. I had an awesome second companion to help me learn this. When she moved into the area our pool of investigators was stagnant to say the least. We had nobody to teach and people were relatively scarce in general due to the rural nature of our area. Despite this Sister McKinley was determined to break every personal record she had set on her mission so far. We probably only hit one or two of those goals, but we worked incredibly hard for two transfers and we had a lot of fun! By the time Sister McKinley left that area I believe she had successfully smashed all her previous records. I finally understood that good goals can make tasks you don’t care for much more enjoyable.

I learned the freedom of having nothing to loss. In my first transfer my apartment was ransacked. I remember walking through the door and my first reaction was to look for my computer. Then suddenly I realized, “I don’t have a computer.” It was surprisingly liberating to realize I had nothing anyone would want to take. I was free from stuff. I had nothing to loss. It may seem silly, but its significantly changed the way I see the things I own. I realized that virtually everything dies or gets lost at some point, but that’s okay. I don’t need it. And before I buy something I subconsciously consider, “is this worth the stress of taking care of it?”

I learned how to talk to strangers. There is no better way to learn this than on a mission, because you talk to strangers every chance you get and half the time they don’t want to be talking to you. Before my mission simple things like setting doctors appointments and asking for help when I needed it really stressed me out. By the time I came home I felt confident approaching almost any topic, and I’d also learned how to provide a safe way out for myself and the person I’d approached, so that the conversation ended well, no matter what the outcome. This is a priceless skill.

I learned how much can actually get done when you put nothing off. I’m not a procrastinator, but I went on exchanges once with a sister that put me to shame. She literally did everything the second she thought about it, no excuses. The whole time we were together I’d go to do a task and find she’d already done it… I am still amazed just thinking about it. We were together all day long and somehow she managed to get everything done without me even knowing it half the time. By the end of the day we wrapped things up so quickly I didn’t know what to do with all my extra time. I realized that putting things off creates totally unnecessary stress in my life.

I learned that the world is really messed up, and the only way to fix it all is through the gospel. Before my mission I was a pretty adamant political debater among my friends. I often got really discouraged about how rude and unwieldy people get about politics… Unwilling to compromise to find a working solution because neither side wants to admit they are doing anything wrong, or even that there is a better way. One day on my mission it hit me, the gospel solves all those problems! If people truly become converted to the gospel the poor are cared for, families are strengthened and protected, and individuals learn to value independence and care for themselves as much as possible. I realized I don’t have to pull anyone out of politically idealogical ruts in order to get our country and the world to a better place, just live and preach the gospel the best I can.

2. THE THINGS I LOST:

I expected to loose a lot of things on my mission. Mostly, I was reluctant to put aside a lifestyle I enjoyed to do something I knew wouldn’t be so fun. What I didn’t realize is that I’d be getting an 18 month adventure in exchange for 18 months of the same old blah. That stuff I loved to do was still around when I got home, but the by-the-book missionary lifestyle I lived with it’s 87-hour work week, riding my bike to kingdom come, and seeing miracles at every turn of the road can only come once. Nothing else I will ever do could be like that.

I also lost 20 pounds. I’d heard that missionaries tend to gain lots of weight, but in my mission that simply wasn’t true. An elder who served in most of the same areas I did had an odometer on his bike to keep track of how many miles he’d ridden… By the end of his mission he’d pedaled almost far enough to circle the globe. Riding so much so often made my thighs enormous but my waist line went down to nothing. Even after eating out 2 meals a day for a year, I lost weight.

I lost a lot of my biggest fears. Let’s face it, there are few people on earth who don’t fear rejection and looking totally foolish in public. Serving a mission comes with a double side of both. The funny thing is that looking foolish and being rejected are really easy to get used to. After a while its easy to get over them. I have also always had a fear of failure. That might be one reason why a mission didn’t appeal to me. I’d never done anything before that I didn’t already know I was good at and I knew I wouldn’t be the world’s most natural missionary. I faced a lot of embarrassing and disappointing failures, but I learned how to start as a failure and become a success. I remember thinking to myself “If I can do this, I can do anything.” Now I think to myself, “Hey, I did that, so I can do anything.”

3. THE THINGS I GAINED:

There are a whole list of superficial things I gained on my mission that seemed like incredible bonuses. For example, I got an awesome tan. I got to see some pretty remarkable sights. I made some life-long friends.

There are a long list of non-superficials too, mainly happiness. I remember wondering after I came home, “Why didn’t anybody tell me a mission would make me so happy?” It seemed like every time I had a bad day I’d get a letter, a Facebook post or a phone call from someone on my mission. But it was more than that. Before my mission I lived under the assumption that it’s what you do in your life that determines whether or not you’re happy. I believed that in order to be happy I needed to be doing things that made me happy. Oddly enough, that is a lie. So long as I am happy with what I’m doing I can feel happy, even if I don’t really enjoy the tasks themselves. I figured out what things in my life REALLY made me unhappy and I learned the self-discipline I needed to get rid of them.

I gained an enormous amount of faith. I thought I had faith before I left. I mean, I had enough faith to leave behind everything I loved to travel to the other side of the world and preach the gospel in broken Chinese on a street corner. That seemed like a lot of faith at the time. But on my mission I gained a deeper level of faith, the kind that makes you confident that everything will be alright. Ever since my return I’ve felt the power of that kind of faith in my life, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. Because no matter what you do, stressful and frightening things will find you. Being able to dig down in the midst of those dark situations and remember, “No matter what happens this will all work out alright” and really believe it enough to find relief … well, you just can’t deny the importance of that.

The most valuable thing I gained was a deeper understanding of the Savior and the Atonement. Every once in a while, when I felt like I was really sacrificing something or doing something hard, or when I really felt I’d finally done something well, I would have these thoughts come to my mind about the Savior. And suddenly I’d see very clearly the vast gulf between my little sacrifices and the splendid grandeur of the atonement. And I’d realize just how incredible His sacrifice was in my behalf. I’d realize all the things I was doing for someone else, He had done things like that for me, and more, and perfectly. And I learned about the love he must feel, and the disappointment when I make mistakes. I gave up 18 months of Sunday naps, but He gave up his life. And He did it because He wants me to have the chance to be with Him and be like Him. I saw miracles roll out right and left, not just for the golden people, but for everyone I taught and some people I only met briefly. I saw the amazing signs and the wonders of heaven and I saw people change everything because of them. Who would have ever chosen to miss that?