Allowing the Sunrise

There is an irony which has surprised me of late, one of those “hard crusts on the bread of adversity” which is that when my body is not well, or in pain, that the Holy Spirit seems to stand off and play hard to get.  Since mortal life is in large part about learning to conquer the flesh and to yield our mortal will to God’s will, it strikes me as nearly the perfect test. As the body grows ill it becomes selfish. Nothing matters more than feeling good again, or ending the pain. Other people’s needs seem less valid or become invisible, and one’s world-view shifts from “self” being a satellite orbiting our universe, to “self” elbowing its way to the center, expecting everything and everyone to pay due homage to our pain.

When the body enthrones itself in our lives, by a lust, addiction, or by illness, it becomes our spiritual tyrant. I am learning that illness and pain are part of the “evil which is therein, which giveth the spirit of the devil power to captivate, to bring you down to hell, that he may reign over you in his own kingdom.” (2 Nephi 2:30)

I have experienced addiction to prescribed medication several times, it didn’t capture my spirit. I was willing to walk away at the inspired moment. I have been blessed to overcome many other fleshly snares that snatch at mankind over time, but this powerful spiritual snare of illness caught me off guard, and caught me securely. It seemed to me as if mercy and grace should protect the sufferer, but the irony is that illness seems to give the adversary greater power to use the flesh to become a tyrant and shout over the top of the Spirit of God.

As I have pondered and prayed about this amazingly effective limitation of mortality, it occurs to me that I can’t conquer the flesh in the sense of making it well again. I can believe that a miracle of faith awaits me, but as of this moment, the flesh is charting its own course. It also occurs to me that my Spirit need not follow that course. Just as my spirit need not be shouted down by the need for a prescription drug, it likewise need not be shouted down by pain. It may be harder to read the scriptures when your hands and arms are too weak to hold them up for more than a few minutes. Or, it may be harder to strive for mighty prayer when your body will endure great pain by kneeling. It may be harder to fast when the body cannot tolerate fasting. But I am learning that overcoming the flesh is ignoring those pain-inspired limitations and finding a better way through Christ – not just ignoring the pain, but in doing better things as the Spirit illuminates them. There are other ways to pray and other ways to fast which when done under inspiration, break the stranglehold of the flesh.

If the body can’t be controlled by force of will or force of habit, then it can be controlled by inspired discipleship, but longing, by pure desire and by yielding to an inspired alternative that allows the flesh to yield to the divine within us. The easy way is to let pain dictate your course, and hearkening to the voice of the Holy Spirit does not lead us in the easy way, but in the straight way. Even pain is not a justifiable excuse for stepping off of the path, which thing I had not supposed until now.

All of my life has been a series of spiritual ups and downs. Some downs I created by my choices, some by ignorance, and some of them I presently view as blessings granted to me to force me to grow once again, to give my all once again, to rely upon Christ in a greater way, to silence the flesh by faith and to glory in my Jesus once again.

I rejoice in the deliverance that can only follow deep, impenetrable darkness that melts away when we allow the sunrise of the love of God.

Brother John

© June 2012, John M. Pontius, all rights reserved. Non-commercial reproduction permitted.

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I Don’t Believe in Suffering

Yesterday morning I was sitting in an infusion center with a half-dozen other people my age. We chat occasionally, one lady tells jokes. Some sleep or use their cell phones. I try to read a good book.

As I was reading a young woman walked in. She was twenty something, cute face, youthful figure, and I expected her to sit in the folding chairs (you know, the ones behind the persons getting chemo). She didn’t, she sat in the cushy chair. I watched her skin turn form a youthful blush to white to yellow. I watched her sag into her seat and close her eyes. And I decided once again, I don’t believe in suffering.

In my previous stake in Alaska, I served with a friend in the Stake Presidency.  His little grandson was born with leukemia. From less than a month old, this little guy has been on chemo, barely surviving, so filled with pain and sickness that he never learned to cry or even whimper. It is the only life he knows, and courage is his only option to have any kind of a life that isn’t listless and suicidal. They have taken him literally to the verge of death. I remember my friend saying how they had given him a taste of ice cream for his second birthday party. It was against the doctor’s orders for some reason. The mother just said, he’s suffered too much, and gave him a mouth full. The little guy’s eyes rolled up into his head and he cried, because he didn’t know until then that life had anything sweet to offer him.

A family in our previous ward had their first son die of lung cancer when he was four. They took courage and had a second son, and then a third several years later. Their second son died of the same lung cancer at eight years old, just a year ago. Every night they cry themselves to sleep worrying about their only remaining son because he is turning two, and their other two sons first manifested the disease at two. Their lives are in ruins. They have little income because he has chosen to be with their sons instead of hiding in his job. They live with family, depend upon everyone else, and are emotionally and psychologically bankrupt. Only the love and fellowship of the saints seems to sustain them.

Why am I rehearsing these awful scenes? It is because these things are only a tiny tip of a planetary-sized iceberg of mortality. The news is X-rated with horror occurring daily. This mortal word has become beyond comprehension in its brutality.

All my life I have been powerless to affect the world. The horror spins on around me, and there has never been a way, or a means whereby I even hope to change it, so my heart quickly evolved from empathy to deep sadness – until recently.

As I was writing the Triumph of Zion it came into my soul with a thunderclap of truth that when we finally get around to building Zion, that Christ will come and He will end this world. Then there will be an era of peace and safety. Babies will be born without Leukemia, and young mothers will not hold their children with trembling arms knowing they will never see them be baptized, or married in the temple, or as mothers themselves.

When I realized that I could qualify for Zion all by myself, as a personal triumph of faith, that I could be one of the many who by this choice, by this act of sacrifice and determined discipleship will be responsible for retooling this world and inviting the conquering Christ to return and purify with fire, it was then that I realized that I could change this world. I can be an essential part of the end of this horror.

I also realized in that moment that if I could, and then didn’t, that I would be at least partly responsible for the continuing horror that this world has always been.

Now, when I see the scenes I described above, my feelings of empathy don’t evolve into sadness, they evolve into determination. They become feelings of “If I don’t, who will?” and “whether I’m the first, or the millionth, I am going to be within that number whose righteous walk enabled the building of Zion, the return of the King of Glory, and the end of this mortal sewer of pain and suffering.”

I pray to God, and I offer up myself upon whatever altars exist, that this process is quickly evolving, believing that the millennial day is not far away, and that I will live to see Christ standing in the clouds of heaven, his smile shining down upon those whose lives invited him there.

Brother John

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