4 If thou meet thine enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again.
5 If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden, and wouldest forbear to help him, thou shalt surely help with him.
We have already seen laws establishing the penalty for stealing a neighbor’s livestock, or for losing them while they were on loan, but today we see the responsibility of actually being a good neighbor, of going out of one’s way to help another in his time of need. Even when it is a neighbor that isn’t particularly liked.
If a person saw his enemy’s animal wandering, lost from its master, he was obligated to bring it back. If he saw it having collapsed under too heavy of a burden, he was obligated to relieve it. Not just encouraged, but obligated under the law. In fact, the phrase “and wouldest forbear to help him” suggests that if the thought arises in the person’s mind that he would rather not help his neighbor, then he is especially compelled to do exactly that! This is a good metric to gauge when our relationships with other people has gone too far astray: do we actively wish to not help them? And it gives us a good solution to turn things back around: then help them regardless!
We are each of us outnumbered in our own person during our struggles to do what is right. On the one side we have but our conscience, while on the other side we have both our selfishness and our ignorance. We must compete with both our desire to do evil, even when we know it is evil, and our tendency to choose wrong, even when our intentions are pure.
None of us can hope to prevail in this struggle of two-against-one. We may put up a respectable fight, but each of us will be overrun by our baser instincts and shortsighted mistakes sooner or later. If we hope to ever have any chance of success, we have got to get help. We need more than ourselves. We have to stop doing this alone and let God in. Then the scales can finally tip in our favor.
I have mentioned before how I lived many years under the power of an addiction to lust. Though I hated myself for it, I did things that I felt ashamed of, that I knew were wrong. I never was under the delusion that my objectification of women was an okay thing, yet I did it anyway. Because of my guilt, I would try to compensate in other areas. I would try to balance out my evil with extra kindness and devotion in my community and church.
But I never felt satisfied. In fact, I believe I was experiencing what it means to be cursed. To me this means that all of your actions, no matter how good on the surface, simply do not count. You may strive and flail, but it is as if you are running on a treadmill, all your energy leaving you in the same place. Like Cain, I tried to bring my fruits to the Lord, but He just would not accept my offering.
All of this changed, though, when I finally made confession. I told my wife what was going on in my secret life, I told my church authorities, I joined a recovery program, I went through a process of repentance, and I truly felt the atonement of Christ wash away my uncleanness.
And then I felt a sudden change. I felt the reality of God’s words to Cain: “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?” I felt the curse lifted, and now anything good that I did actually felt like it mattered.
Surrendered to Christ)
Sin is one thing that can keep our good works from reaching their full potential, but so, too, can refusing to surrender to the Lord. During my study of Pharaoh’s interactions with God and Moses, I have been thinking about this concept of surrender. Genuine surrender to the Lord is the first and fundamental basis of any true discipleship. Trying to do good while still holding back a part of your heart will always lessen the value of that good.
I know many who want to be basically good people, but who resent any notion of surrendering their will to another. In their desire to retain autonomy, to be their own master, they refuse to give themselves fully to God. They expect God to be content with the gifts that they decide to give Him, never seeking to understand what gifts He actually wants them to give. As a result, they live uninspired lives. They never experience the joy of being moved by the spirit to approach someone they normally never would have approached and saying to that person what they normally never would have said. They live according to their assumptions, not according to His genuine knowledge.
Surrendering ourselves, heart and soul to God, is necessary to be a part of His kingdom. And being part of His kingdom is necessary to having our good works sanctified for the building up of that kingdom. Trying to do good autonomously is like a swirl in an ocean, not necessarily worthless, but ultimately dissipating before it can accomplish much. Trying to do good as a pure vessel of the Lord is like being part of a flowing current, permanently and meaningfully changing the world for the better.
It is good to do good, but it is best to do the best good. And the best good can only be done by one who has repented of sin and fully surrendered to the Lord.
Yesterday I addressed that we might not have the capacity to do all of our daily tasks, but we might be able to use some techniques to get through them anyway, such as shifting some to an every-other-day cadence, or quickly knocking out high-effort tasks that then become low-effort maintenance.
I acknowledged, though, that even this may not be sufficient for everyone. It is possible to simply not have the resources to do all the things that we need to maintain balance, no matter what strategy we employ. An example of this would be if one didn’t have enough income to pay off even the interest on their debt. Or perhaps if one suffered an injury that prohibited exercise. Or of one’s need for education and a regular day-job were mutually exclusive.
In situations like these, more drastic strategies are required. But as a prerequisite to any of these strategies, we first have to accept that we aren’t going to be able to do all the things that we want to do. Any solution at this point is going to require sacrifice and a change of expectations. Coming to terms with this disappointment is painful but necessary if we are ever to make the most of a hard situation.
Once we have made this peace, then here are two options to consider.
Ask For Help)
I am certainly one that wants to take care of everything myself. I want to prove that I have the strength and wherewithal to take care of everything on my own. Part of me feels that I would rather live a broken life by my own power than a fuller life by the power of others. But that part of me is simply pride, and now that I’ve tried both options I can tell you definitively which one is better,
For years I remained entrenched in my addiction because I insisted on taking care of it on my own. But the more I tried to handle it on my own, the more it became apparent that I simply couldn’t. My deficit wasn’t time or money, it was spiritual strength, and I had to finally accept that I didn’t have the wherewithal on my own and that I needed to reach outward for help.
I finally did so, and I have leaned on the strength of dozens of people since. My therapists, my group members, brothers in recovery that I’ve met along the way. I have an entire village of supporters who help me to do what I couldn’t by myself, who help make up for my spiritual strength deficit and then some.
The principle is the same if you’re talking about financial shortcomings, or scheduling conflicts, or simply not having enough time to do everything. If you really can’t do it by yourself, then can you swallow your pride and surrender some part of this plan to the care of another person? We are born into families and raised in communities for a reason. The resources are almost certainly there if we’re willing to just look outside of ourselves.
Make the Hard Cuts)
I have an entrepreneurial and hobbyist mindset. I always have a number of projects and developments that I want to work on, both so that I can learn new things and also create new sources of income. These endeavors seem justified by the fact that success in these areas would make me a more skilled individual and bring greater stability to my life. So I prioritize working on these projects, even trying to progress several of them at a time.
Of course, things of substance never come quickly or easily. The cost of doing this work gets higher and higher, other untested fields start to look more promising, I try dividing my focus into even more areas, and even my basic self-care starts to evaporate as I pour more and more time and effort into all these ventures.
Many times I have had to give myself a sharp reality check. I realize that optional projects have become obligations, hobbies have become jobs, and ambition has become obsession. At this point, letting these projects go feels like cutting out some of the essential parts of my life, but really they’re not. At some point I have to decide what genuinely is essential and what only feels like it is.
Obviously this is a problem of my own making. More difficult to deal with are the demands that have been put on us by duty and necessity. The principle remains the same, though. If you really can’t maintain everything that you want to, and you can’t get enough external help to make things manageable, then sooner or later you have to accept that some things need to go.
Maybe you really just don’t have the capacity for a relationship right now. Maybe you really do have to declare bankruptcy. Maybe you can’t maintain every friendship. Maybe having a clean house just isn’t in the cards for today. Maybe you just won’t be in shape to run the marathon this year.
None of these are happy sacrifices to make, but at least we can have the dignity of letting them go ourselves, rather than watching them shrivel from neglect. It’s better to throw the food you won’t get around to eating away than to let it grow moldy on the shelf. Better to stop making half-measures that accomplish nothing and preserve our strength for full-measures on what we can actually accomplish.
Conclusion)
Strategic management, asking for help, and making sacrifices, it certainly seems that everything would be nicer if we didn’t have to do any of these things, but these are the realities of life. All of us will need to take all of these steps many times through the years. Sooner or later we can have to make our peace with imperfection and make the most that we can of it.
If we do make our peace and move forward, we still may not accomplish everything we wanted in the way that we wanted, but I do believe we will all accomplish more than enough. Life can still be whole, even when it’s parts are broken.
12 And he said, Let us take our journey, and let us go, and I will go before thee.
13 And he said unto him, My lord knoweth that the children are tender, and the flocks and herds with young are with me: and if men should overdrive them one day, all the flock will die.
14 Let my lord, I pray thee, pass over before his servant: and I will lead on softly, according as the cattle that goeth before me and the children be able to endure, until I come unto my lord unto Seir.
15 And Esau said, Let me now leave with thee some of the folk that are with me. And he said, What needeth it? let me find grace in the sight of my lord.
While reading this chapter I had continually wondered to myself “but why did Esau bring four hundred men in the first place?” That was an army, and Jacob’s assumption that they were being brought to destroy him seems a totally valid fear. Why would Esau have thought it was a good thing to bring them?
One possibility that occurred to me was that maybe Esau did intend to destroy his brother, but when he finally saw Jacob’s face felt his anger melt away. Or perhaps he knew he was going to forgive his brother, but he wanted to give him a good fright first. But if either of these possibilities were his true motivation, then it would surprise me that Esau then says absolutely nothing about the past offense. Instead, his behavior seems to me as though he had let go of his anger many years prior. Then I considered that he might have become something of a warlord, so accustomed to wandering around with a traveling army that he had forgotten how their appearance might frighten delicate farmers.
Reading today’s verses, though, I also realized that he might have simply brought all these men to help his brother during the last leg of the journey. It might have been meant entirely as a kindly gesture, just one that Jacob had misinterpreted. But when Esau suggests that he leave some of his men to protect the flocks, Jacob refuses. Jacob has seen for himself that he is guarded by his God, so he knows that all will be well.
Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers.
This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;
COMMENTARY
Strive not about words to no profit When you find yourself needing to express a moral conviction to someone else, what is your motivation behind doing that? To get them to change their behavior for your benefit? To get what you want from them? Because if so, then you are not testifying of truth, you are having an argument or a debate. And in some circles argument and debate might be fitting, such as in academia, but as this verse makes clear they are of no use when testifying of the truth. Ultimately, when we are trying to influence the religious perspective of another person it should never be motivated by a desire to receive something from them.
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself The motivation for expressing our moral convictions and exercising an influence over another person should only ever be one of love. Rather than asking them to change for our own benefit, we should be inviting them to change for their own benefit. We should be making our case because we care for them and truly believe that their lives will be happier with this piece of enlightenment. Recall the example of Daniel that we just examined. He was petitioning the prince of the eunuchs to let him eat a diet that conformed to his religious convictions, but he only made any headway when he illustrated how this approach was also going to help the prince of the eunuchs get what he wanted as well. When those we teach can feel that we sincerely seek their own good, and are not just trying to mold the world to our own preferences, they are far more likely to care about what we say.
Influence ought to be maintained only by love unfeigned But remember that our display of care and concern for the person we speak with must be “unfeigned.” We must not pretend to care for someone just to coerce them into doing what we want. The account of Daniel also made clear that the compassion between him and the guards was sincere. So do change those around you, but only do it because you sincerely love them and just want to help them.
Doing this blog has been very helpful for me. I began it because I needed to have a more regular practice for studying the gospel, a place to preserve the things that I have learned, and the social motivation to be consistent.
I also hoped that this blog would be a positive resource for you, the reader. Ideally it would be a way to raise questions of your own and lead you to some important self-realizations. And I intend to keep this blog public in the hope that it can have some impact for good.
But at the same time, the greatest value in research comes when we conduct it ourselves, not when we merely read of it from others. And while I am grateful for many mentors who taught me many true things, the fullest conversion has always come when I relearn those same lessons on my own. It is good for us to share and to teach, but one of the most important lessons to convey is the need to find out for oneself.
With this study I would like to consider how we do this. Where is the line between supporting a friend in their first steps versus becoming their crutch? When is it better to not answer a question so that one can find things out themselves? How do we start relying on our own spiritual study instead of taking other’s beliefs as our own?
As always, I would be very curious to hear about your own experiences with this, too. Can you pick out the moment where you began to stand on your own, personal testimony? What was it that convinced you depending on someone else’s foundation wouldn’t cut it anymore? What was the difference between believing what another told you versus having learned it for yourself?
I am grateful for help and training. Now more than ever we don’t have to do things “on our own.” There are professional programs and free services to develop us in any way we please.
We can be trained in a new profession. We can be educated on any school subject. We can learn how to be vulnerable and better communicate with others. We can be guided in overcoming addictions. We can gain a better understanding of nutrition and exercise. We can pick up a new hobby. We can become fluent in another language. We can find the way to balance our budget.
Our world is full of counselors, teachers, and even random strangers who are ready to share their knowledge with us. We have the resources to become whichever best version of ourselves we want to be.
This has been a very helpful study for me. Actively striving to be more Christ-like has been a wonderful experience where I have seen found real growth and increased happiness. Many behaviors have organically improved all on their own, far more easily than I ever would have thought possible. But while there have been areas of quick growth, there have also been other areas that are far more difficult to grow in, and behaviors that have proved far more resistant to change than I had expected. And in response to those complications I have seen the rise of my old, familiar inner critic. Through this study I have found some important lessons for how to deal with these growing pains, and having this understanding has already brought me a greater sense of peace. I guess this was just another area I needed growth in! Here are the main points that stood out to me from my study.
Keep Pressing Forward)
I have never had a time where I didn’t want to improve myself, but there was a period where it was more of an idle wish than an actual intention. And even that idle wishing was incomplete, because only some flaws did I care to improve on, while others I just didn’t care about. Eventually I was woken up to my desperate need for God and a path to follow. I realized that my existence was lifeless, and would remain so unless I was actively chasing for a better me. And at that same time I realized that if I was going to give myself over to this journey, it needed to be all the way. Now I knew that I must improve myself in every area. It simply wasn’t going to cut it to overcome lust and deceit, but leave myself a guarded recluse. Nor would it do to only build meaningful relationships, but not improve the way I cared for my body. And the outcome of this is that I can take glory in the failures I experience, because it means I’m actually trying. It means I’m no longer accepting a half-lived life. Friction, after all, is not felt until one starts moving. Luke 9:62- And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. Ephesians 5:14- Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.
Be Direct, But Kind)
One of the most surprising epiphanies that came to me through this research was that the healthy way to treat someone else when they let me down is the same way I should treat myself when I let me down. It seems such a simple concept that I’m honestly embarrassed to say that this was a revelation, but really it answered so many of my questions and frustrations. Or to put it another way, the golden rule flows both directions. Yes, I should do unto others as I would have others do unto me…but also I should do unto myself as I would have others do unto me! If I do something to let someone else down, I would not want them to scream at or hurt me. Nor would I want them to deny that it was wrong of me, either. I would hope that they could be honest about their frustration, express it without hate, give clear direction as to which of my behaviors is causing the pain, and still reassure me of their unconditional love. It takes effort to do that. It can by very hard to get into a mental state that can be so vulnerable and kind. And I am sure that there will be many who never treat me that way. But at the very least, I should. Doctrine and Covenants 121:43- Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy; Galatians 6:1- Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
Ask For Help)
The final takeaway from my study was the need for surrendering. My default behavior is to believe that I have to do things myself. I am reluctant to ask for help, or to accept kindness when it is offered. Even when I was at school and didn’t understand a difficult concept, I was more likely to beat my head against the wall trying to figure out on my own instead of raising my hand and asking a question. It seems a simple logic that if I got myself into this mess, I should be able to get myself out of it. If I was able to do the behaviors that led me here, I must also be able to do the opposite behaviors to get myself back. But that just. Isn’t. True. Yes, some steps can be undone, but some make you fall down a hole that you don’t have the gear to climb out of. And it isn’t a question of if this will happen, Adam and Eve set the pattern for this Fall and each of us will follow it. We will all be down in that pit in life, in fact we’ll be there several times. So I will do my best, my absolute, genuine best. But then, as always, I will rely on grace. For there are many parts of my heart that are too deep for me to reach, and only God can change them. Psalm 55:22- Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. 1 Corinthians 2:5- That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. 2 Nephi 25:23- For we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.
And I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments; We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments: Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. Neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey thy voice; therefore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God, because we have sinned against him.
COMMENTARY
And I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made my confession I have just considered how I can respond to my daily failures by surrendering to God and inviting His strength instead of relying on my own. And like Daniel I have found that one of the first steps to doing that is to make a full and honest confession to Him. Yes, He already knows everything that has transpired. He know perfectly well how I have failed and let myself down. But still taking the time to recall it has had a very purifying effect on me. It feels like taking it out and laying it all on the altar before Him. Anything I’m not ready to put out there He isn’t going to be able to heal.
We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets Neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in his laws Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law And now consider the wonderful example of specificity in Daniel’s prayer. He does not merely say “we sinned, forgive us,” he calls out that they rebelled against God…and did not listen to his prophets…and broke Gods laws. Israel needs reconciliation for all of these parts, not just one, and so he elaborates them all. And so I have tried to be very thorough in my confession to God as well. And honestly, sometimes that has meant saying “this is what I did God…and to tell you the truth, I don’t feel as heartbroken about it as I think I should. I’m sorry, I just don’t….So could you help me to feel more? I think that’s what I really need right now.” A prayer as honest as that is far more likely to be answered!
Spiritual Wanderings 