How Can I Increase Spirituality in my Life?
Part 5
Continued from last week’s letter
So far we have covered the first 7 of 10 points, which will help us to gain spirituality. These points are from a talk delivered by Elder Joe J Christensen. We now continue with number 8 …
8. Love everyone, but keep romantic feelings in their proper place.A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. John 13:34
There is no doubt about it; Love Is the Key. The Savior commands that we love one another. As with all the commandments, this one is for our own good.
How well we learn to love others will define in large part how happy we will be.
When you care for others and their welfare, you can derive great satisfaction as you help them.
In English to “love” can mean many things. To love our missionaries is akin to parental love. Between Sister Brubaker and I, it is romantic love and much more.
When you love someone enough to sacrifice your desires in order to fulfill their desires, you are in a position to better understand the Savior’s love for us. Then you can know what is meant by “as I have loved you, … also love one another.”
This is perhaps the link between love and spirituality. As we love, we understand the nature of Christ better, and as we better understand Christ, we will naturally draw closer to the Spirit. Love in this sense always involves caring enough to see that others are happy, safe, and provided for. When we see someone in need we feel a healthy sorrow for, and a desire to help him or her.
The Savior in the parable of the Good Samaritan shared one of the best-known stories of this type of love. In this story, love triumphs over class distinction and inconvenience.
Love will define the followers of Christ. If we chose to judge others harshly, gossip, and be unforgiving … we will not be known as his Disciples.
A common trap for members of the Church is to allow self-correction and strongly held personal views about reaching for a more perfect way of living, spill over into the act of “correcting” other people. We monitor ourselves each Sunday to see where we need to repent as we partake of the Sacrament. It can be easy to become Pharisaical and nit-picky about how others ‘live the commandments’. Love is the antidote for this illness. We must give each other the benefit of the doubt.
A church leader once commented that we don’t smell enough tobacco in church meetings. By this I think he meant that people who are struggling to overcome bad habits and better live the commandments might not feel welcome in church, when church is exactly the place where they should go to find strength. Church is like a hospital; it is where we go to get healed. Do we ever get our thoughts twisted into thinking that Church is just for those that live all the commandments. Someone said that if all sins smelled bad to the degree of their importance, we would be surprised at how bad we all smell. Loving others is to be accepting of others, despite their faults. Love cannot be conditioned on the other person being as righteous as we think we are. Nor can love be limited to those who are our cultural equivalents. This takes practice and it requires increasing our tolerance to differences.
So if love is the key, what about falling in love? Falling in love involves passionate feelings. Ironically, this gets mixed up with what we want for ourselves as much as what we want for others. There is an attraction that we often mistake for love. Romantic feelings are an important and powerful part of the love that we should have for our spouse. Yet, passionate attraction alone is not love. One of the aspects of healthy romantic love is the desire to protect and serve our mate.
It is easy to confuse passionate feelings with true romantic love. It is also easy to mistake feeling sorry for and wanting to help someone with their problems, with true romantic love.
As full time missionaries, this is not the time for romantic love. Like much in our missions this can be a type for ‘real life’. To control romantic feelings we must control circumstances…
First, never allow the combustive elements to come together.
1. For missionaries this involves such things as never leaving sight of your companion, focusing on the will of God rather than selfish desires, staying at arms length and never engaging in a private conversation with someone of the opposite sex.
2. Second, never confuse feelings of sympathy for romantic feelings.
Beware that this is a set of wires that is easy to get crossed.
As we listen to the concerns and trials of others we can become emotionally moved. We might feel the instinct to ‘gather in and nurture’ or to protect. This is a strong emotion for a righteous person. Sometimes it can get confusing as you desire, inappropriately, to just “take them in your arms, and let them know it will be alright. Don’t do it.
1. As missionaries we are to love and bring people unto Christ. Don’t allow the concern that you feel for these wonderful people to mutate into romantic feelings. Should you start to have romantic feelings call me and we will make arrangements to eliminate the potentially combustive circumstances.
Dear Elders and Sisters, I pray that you will love everyone with whom you have contact … it is the key to success as a missionary. As we think of the needs of others and serve them before we worry too much about ourselves we will grow in spirituality. The eternal joy that awaits God’s children is indivisible with love.
We love you so very much. We pray for you every day. May your lives be filled with love and kindness.
Love,
President Brubaker
No comments:
Post a Comment