(January 18, 2014)
I had three thoughts as I read through this portion of the chapter. First, I don’t understand those of us within and without the Church who believe that the ends justify the means. Why do anti-Mormons break the commandments they believe in to attack another faith? Why do we break the commandments to achieve what we feel are righteous goals? Ultimately, I suppose it comes down to faith and genuinely believing what you profess. If an anti-Mormon genuinely believed that they were right, they would have the confidence in their convictions to advocate without violating their own morality – trusting the Lord to do the rest. If we, say in our interactions with our family, truly had a living faith, we would have the confidence to interact with our family in ways that respect their agency and trust the Lord to do the rest. Our violation of our own standards demonstrates our unbelief.
Secondly, and this is a related topic, we are all in need of faith. Joseph Smith’s example is not a unique one, because the problems that he went through are the same problems each of us goes through. We are all young (in an eternal sense), and we are all very unaquainted with things (ditto), so it is impossible through reason alone to come to a certain conclusion who is right and who is wrong. Our only hope for knowledge is to take the issue to the God in prayer.
Finally, one of the reasons why we are reluctant to follow this course of action is because the final step in following the pattern set out by Joseph Smith is also in place – before we get our answer, we must face and overcome (with the Lord’s help) our darkness. We feel that darkness lurking just out of sight and mind, and we fear to face that evil. Having recently come face-to-face with some of the darkness in my soul, I can understand that terror. But having also, through the power of Christ, begun to overcome that darkness I am also able to testify how much better it feels to face the darkness and see the light on the other side.
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