Following

This past weekend we had General Conference. What's that? It's when leaders of our church speak to the members. It happens twice a year. We get to stay home and watch it on the internet {or cable or satellite if you have it}. We don't have to wear church dress or struggle with the kids during Sacrament meeting {which in my opinion, is the best part}. I don't know about anyone else who watches it, but it is without a doubt, my least productive weekend of the year. But I'm okay with that.

Before I jump right into all my thoughts on Conference, which really boils down to just one thesis {Did she really use the word thesis? Yes I just used the word thesis while talking about religion on my blog} I should give a preface that in the LDS religion {aka Mormons} we believe that the acting president of our church is also called to be a prophet, seer and revelator. And that's not all. He has counselors, two of them, and 12 apostles, in the same manner that the church was organized while Jesus Christ was on the earth. That's right, we believe in a living, breathing prophet who is called to lead us in these modern times. And no, he's not a wizard nor does he have a beard like Charlton Heston in the film 10 Commandments. His name is Thomas S Monson and his friends call him Tommy.



He gave a wonderful talk about being grateful and how to adopt that attitude in our own lives. Many of the talks given during Conference are uplifting. But I'll admit, sometimes there are things we hear that are hard to swallow, things we are counseled to do or not do that are hard. It's a very personal thing weather or not you choose to follow. Some see not following as a lack of faith or even rejecting God. Some feel you shouldn't question, that you should follow almost with a blind obedience. I think this is wrong.

You see, we believe in something called agency. It is the power to act of your own free will and not to be acted upon. It is a central tenant of our religion and a very basic doctrine of our church. It basically means that we should choose to follow the Lord and that whatever conscious effort to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ or follow the prophet, should be of our own free will and choice.


But this choice does not always come easily, even when we have received a testimony or witness that the Prophet speaks for the Lord. It comes easily for those who have unshakable faith; it comes easily for those who are looking for someone to tell them what to do, to make the right choice for them. However, it does not come easily to one whose only concern is their own will, of whom will probably chose not following without a second thought. Nor will it be easy for one who questions {like myself} But I don’t necessarily think questioning is a reflection on one's faith, meaning their faith is questionable. It simply means they must reconcile their own free will with the will of the God {to follow the prophet}. Perhaps this is a sorry rationalization, but isn't there more to be said for someone who ponders over and even has to struggle to make the Lord’s will their own?

John Milton said something somewhat similar in Areopagitica:

He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloister'd vertue, unexercis'd & unbreath'd, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortall garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.

So I guess Milton summed up my thesis for me. Okay, I know the Olde English is hard to understand. Here is something along the same lines from Aristotle: The mark of an educated mind is to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. I suppose it goes both ways with this one. But my point is that we will get pulled in different directions and we might question something we are asked to do or not to do. But if we study it out in [our] mind which perhaps means entertaining possible choices that are contrary to following the prophet or doing the Lord's will, we can then be guided to make the correct choice, through our own free will, despite all the other things we could be doing. And that's all that can really be asked of us.

I know this post is super long-winded but I'd like to end with one last quote, which hangs on a wall in the Institute {and that unfortunately has no identified source} but still helps me reconcile my questioning with my following:

Faith is not believing without proof; it is trust without reservation.