Resolving to change: What is religion for anyway?
I believe in a Creator who wants to enable a lasting change in our very nature
My grandfather Stanley died before I was born, but my Dad describes him in a way that helps me know him a little better. Stanley was an apple farmer. He and my grandmother Velva, and their three children, lived and worked on an apple orchard in rural Washington State. Velva was an active Presbyterian and Stanley a recent convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Stanley wasn’t proud of his habit of taking the name of the Lord in vain (Exodus 20:7). This story isn’t about his faults. That’s not how I define Stanley’s character. His character is defined by how he went about changing it.
Working in the family orchard was hard labor. On a day in the orchard, the two of them would share a bread sack full of sandwiches and a small jar of boiled eggs. They packed food because the size of the orchard was so large and they could stay out all day. My Grandfather confronted his bad language habit by fasting. Fasting isn’t just going without food. It’s a way to worship that helps a person focus on a specific challenge; such as a health problem, or loss of a job. In Stanley’s case his desire to change a bad habit. Fasting involves putting your spiritual needs over your physical appetite: not eating. When he said the name of God in vain, whether spoken aloud or under his breath, Stanley would fast for the rest of the day, regardless of how many hours of work lie ahead. In this way, Stanley conquered his habit by degrees. I love my Grandfather’s example of faith put to action to make a change.
Apple blossom, creative commons image by John Kent.
People want to be better. According to a study from the University of Scranton, the number one new years resolution? Lose weight. This is easy to understand. We sit around indoors for two months and celebrate a period we call “the holidays” by eating food. Lots of good food. Then in January we are ready to shed some pounds.
Here is how the Scranton study runs down
Lose weight
Get organized
Spend less, save more
Enjoy life to the fullest
Stay fit and healthy
Learn something exciting
Quit smoking
Help others in their dreams,
Fall in love
Spend more time with family
When I read that list I started liking these people. But only 8% of survey respondents said they succeeded in achieving their resolution. Resolve much? But before you get discouraged, look at this other interesting insight. “People who explicitly make resolutions are ten times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make resolutions.” Make the explicit resolution and you’ll do ten times better than not someone who doesn’t make a goal.
New Years is a time for assessing the passing year and letting the old year die. As people who try to live by faith, what is our focus when it comes to New Years? What is our focus when it comes to change? Maybe it represents a bigger opportunity than just buying a new pair of running shoes. President Monson has something to say to the 92% of us whose resolutions are not so resolute.
Our responsibility is to rise from mediocrity to competence, from failure to achievement. Our task is to become our best selves. One of God’s greatest gifts to us is the joy of trying again, for no failure ever need be final. — Thomas Monson, The Will Within, 1985
Can a person change?
That tiny 8% says people can’t change. It begs a deeper question: is real change possible?
That is the basic question posed by Victor Hugo’s novel Les Miserables, in which Hugo’s character Javert, the police inspector who is perpetually chasing the escaped parolee Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean is a man who was given a second chance at a new life. He is converted—he has given his life to God — and moving forward in spite of past wrongs and in spite of the way the world has defined him.
It used to bother me that Hugo would have Javert throw himself off a precipice to his death. But now I see it as Hugo’s way of shedding the notion that man cannot change. Javert confronts Valjean: “I’ve hunted you across the years. Men like you can never change, a man such as you.” The unyielding inspector, unable to recognize Valjean’s ability to change is himself so rigid that his only course is destruction. With this act Hugo underscores Valjean’s successful metamorphosis.
Shedding. My daughter had a pet lizard for many years, a bearded dragon, named Octavius. He would shed his skin periodically. You’ve seen this: a shell of the old skin, sloughed off in one layer revealing a new, lizard underneath. Yes, Octavius was still a lizard, but he was a shiny new lizard.
What are we if we slough off our old skin: an old habit, an old attitude, a long-held grudge? We are still a son or daughter of God, but we become renewed. And when the old habit presents itself in our mind we can say, “no, that’s the old me. The new me chooses a different way.”
The gospel of Jesus Christ is about that gift of change. The gift of putting off the old man, letting the old man in us die, and in us a new one be born in Christ. This is Christianity! This is the hope of Christ.
22 That ye put off … the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
— Ephesians 4:22-24
From Saul to Paul
“We know men and women can change—and change for the better. No more vivid example is recorded than the life of Saul of Tarsus. The sacred record reveals that Saul threatened the disciples of the Lord. Then came that light from heaven and the voice saying unto him: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? “And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest” (Acts 9:4–5). Saul’s answer is a model for each of us: “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6). Saul the persecutor became Paul the proselyter. Night had turned to day. Darkness had yielded to light. How?”
—Thomas Monson, The Will Within, 1985
The pace of change? Life-long.
It seems the prophets want us to remember that life is long for a reason. We grow old for a reason. First we have Dieter Uchtdorf’s 2012 message about the key to happiness in family life where he says:
In the end, happiness does not spring from perfection but from applying divine principles, even in small steps. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf, One Key to A Happy Family, 2012
Uchtdorf says happiness is possible, even if perfection seems not. Then, as a second witness for the steady (but sometimes slow) pace of our progress, we have the Book of Mormon leader King Benjamin reminding us not to get discouraged. Benjamin’s message not to run faster than we have strength is speaking to the 92% of us who are discouraged because we have blown our resolution on the 15th day of the new year.
Third is Elder D. Todd Christofferson in a 2011 talk given at BYU entitled “Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread” where he relates our day to day progress to the Israelites’ manna. Manna, the Israelites’ daily food, given by the LORD each day to sustain them in the wilderness. Elder Christopherson said:
I do not minimize in any way the importance of thinking and planning ahead… but we do not live in the future—we live in the present. It is day by day that we work out our plans for the future; it is day by day that we achieve our goals. It is one day at a time that we raise and nurture our families. It is one day at a time that we overcome imperfections. We endure in faith to the end one day at a time. It is the accumulation of many days well-lived that adds up to a full life and a saintly person…
Todd Christofferson continues his devotional by describing a time in his life when he was facing a “personal economic challenge that persisted for several years” and he says it ebbed and flowed over the years but it never went away. And in this part of his talk he relates that daily manna to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the bread of life. He describes the outcome this way:
Though I suffered then, as I look back now, I am grateful that there was not a quick solution to my problem. The fact that I was forced to turn to God for help almost daily over an extended period of years taught me truly how to pray and get answers to prayer and taught me in a very practical way to have faith in God. I came to know my Savior and my Heavenly Father in a way and to a degree that might not have happened otherwise or that might have taken me much longer to achieve. I learned that daily bread is a precious commodity. I learned that manna today can be as real as the physical manna of biblical history. I learned to trust in the Lord with all my heart. I learned to walk with Him day by day.
—Todd Christopherson, “Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread”, BYU, 2011
This is the point of our imperfections and our challenges. They are designed to humble us sufficiently, so that we will turn to the Lord and He can work with us, to turn our weakness into strength.
“And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.”
—Ether 12:27
Thank you Grandpa Stanley. I’m looking forward to our reunion.
Caveat. My writing and my experiences reflect my own experience and opinions and naturally don’t reflect those of my employer or my church in any official way.
