A Day of Miracles

 My dear Un-Blogging friends, please forgive me for being off of the grid these last few days. I live on the same mortal rollercoaster as you all, and when I experience those unexpected downward descents, I usually choose not to Un-Blog. You should be grateful I don’t. I have found that Un-Blogging requires a significant spiritual altitude that my little mortal self isn’t always able to maintain. Especially when my body is unpleasant to inhabit, I find that the Spirit is harder to feel and call upon. I haven’t been able to understand why this is – I would have preferred greater Spiritual uplift during times of physical struggle – but it doesn’t presently work that way for me. Perhaps that’s the very reason it is a struggle, and why I feel so motivated to seek higher spiritual ground.

Last evening I found that higher spiritual ground in Riverdale, Utah where I gave a fireside with a group of spiritual seekers. It was a delightful evening. The Spirit was richly present, and wonderful things came forth. Some of the things I felt to say I have not spoken before. I love it when the Holy Spirit pours out love and light through my poor efforts of discipleship. Quite often while I am speaking my health feels perfectly normal, and energetic. I feel the Spirit – and joy. When the fireside is over I quickly return to my usual state, back into the mortal grind. If not for this odd but very welcome gift, I might not make it all the way through most firesides.

The peanut butter bars and chocolate chip cookies were definitely of divine origin too. Thanks! (I really want the recipes to both!)

Someone asked last night why I felt comfortable sharing “such sacred and personal things” during firesides, and on the Un-Blog. It made me ponder a bit, because I realize I am saying things that most people consider personal and private. Why am I willing to do this? I think there are two reasons. The first is that ever since I found out that my life has an expiration date, I did not want to take these precious happenings and truths and gifts I received, and how I received them, with me into the next life.

If God handed you a hammer, nails and a pile of boards without much more explanation – you would assume His intent was that you use all of your gifts and build something. You wouldn’t ignore the hammer and nails, and try to stack the boards into something. You also wouldn’t ignore the boards, and try to pound the nails into the air.

God seems to have handed me a lifetime of extraordinary spiritual experience. This is my hammer. He gave me a gift of communicating, writing and speaking. These are my nails. And, he gave me a willing publisher and the Un-Blog, which are my building materials. The way I have chosen to focus my particular gifts into service to God, is to shout what I have learned from the rooftops, to make them known, to use whatever time remains on my clock to proclaim to anyone who will listen – that God lives, He loves us, and every promise, every privilege and priesthood promise or power that any man or woman has obtained in generations past – is openly and readily available to us today.

For obscure reasons, we of the LDS persuasion have an inherent unwillingness to speak of deeply personal things in public. We cringe when someone speaks of anything more lofty than a priesthood healing. We wonder if someone is being inappropriate when they speak of lofty personal events, like being born again, or having one’s calling and election made sure. It isn’t that we doubt it occurred to them, it is only that we are uncomfortable with the public declaration of such.

The unintended consequence is that few people even realize that these lofty things do occur today. It’s like attending college math courses where everyone is reluctant to say “Calculus” or “Trigonometry”. Over time we forget they exist because nobody speaks of them. Or, when they do, we flinch because it feels un-normal, or self-promoting perhaps.

As I have searched the scriptures one thing is startlingly true about the latter days – a day of miracles is coming. When it arrives, angels will be commonly seen (144,000 of them in fact). Signs and wonders will be over our heads and under our feet. God will “make bare his holy arm” in the eyes of the nations. Can you imagine people in the latter-day Zion, the “City of the Living God” where Jesus Christ personally dwells, being reticent to speak of angels, or personal miracles of faith?

Somewhere between now and then we will learn to speak of and hear glorious things with no other emotion than joy and belief.

So, I choose to speak of great things, because they are part of who I am, and a big part of what it means to “un-blog” my soul, and to not take precious things living in my soul into another world where they can’t be spoken to the benefit of my children, and my siblings in Christ.

Brother John