I've always liked this scripture from the Book of Mormon since I first learned it in seminary many years ago:
"Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy." - 2 Nephi 2:25.
We are here on Earth with a mission, but the great thing about our mission is that it is in our own self interest to complete it. Our mission is to have joy. Isn't that amazing that our experience here is all about our Father in Heaven's plan for us to have joy. Who doesn't want joy? We all do. How do we find joy? Well it turns out there are natural laws, that lead to joy. We have to learn them. In a future article, I'll talk about natural law in the governmental sense, but back to the Gospel sense:
"There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated." - D&C 130:20-21Friends, I bare testimony to the truthfulness of this principle. There are specific blessings that naturally follow from obedience to specific principles. Sometimes we have to really grow and stretch to be obedient to those principles. Sometimes we don't have faith that those principles are true so we ignore them and we miss out on the blessings. I've been obedient enough to learn for myself what a few of those principles are. Each is worthy of it's own post, so for today I'll just leave it at that. You collect enough of those blessings, and you've got yourself joy.
So that's the first thought. As I mentioned in the introductory post, they won't all be Gospel related, but I figured I'd start with the most important thing first.
"Yea, and I know that good and evil have come before all men; he that knoweth not good from evil is blameless; but he that knoweth good and evil, to him it is given according to his desires, whether he desireth good or evil, life or death, joy or remorse of conscience." - Alma 29:5
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that in the Book of Mormon that joy isn't the opposite of sadness, and the world teaches. The opposite of joy is remorse of conscience. Flipped backwards, to obtain joy we need to not have regrets, which means we need to not do things that we would feel bad about.
Put plainly, joy comes from obedience to God's laws.
Great comment, Dan. I had never noticed that. I'm glad it coincides with what I was saying. ;-)
ReplyDeleteAnd yet joy is much more than lack of regret or remorse.
ReplyDeleteAlma 36:20 "And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain." If anyone was full of regrets and remorse it would have been Alma the younger. He had great joy because he knew his repentance had been accepted by the Savior. Everyone who sincerely repents finds similar joy. Joy doesn't come from living a perfect life. It comes from always doing one's best and repenting when failing.
It's a very good point, dad. I didn't mean to imply the path to joy simply living a perfect life, which none of us have done. Of course, that's not true. I have learned the guilt of remorse as well and found my way to repentance. As I have changed and become obedient it is through that I have found joy.
ReplyDeleteI'll give a trivial, but meaningful example. Last week I was feeling down and my first inclination was to skip church and mope around. Unlike what I have done so many times in the past, I chose to go to church and my spirits were lifted and my burden was lightened. If I had just sat around the house I would have felt just as bad after church as I did before it. Instead, I found joy directly from obediently attending church.