The Keys to Peace and Joy Part Two - Humility

I received an awesome comment from an anonymous friend after I made my last post.  Her question to me was one I am sure a lot of you out there have too.  She said she had read my blog, but was still not sure how to proceed especially when she continues to see her weight rise.  Such a valid concern.  Thank you for speaking up my friend!!  You are helping us all!  I am sure that there are some if not many of you who have read and understood what I have said in this blog, but still question where to start or you have gotten to a point and don't quite know how to proceed.  I think the issue is that through this blog you are getting tons of information and even though that is good, it may lead you to feel overwhelmed.  I really wish all of you had a mentor because that one on one, week by week opportunity to talk and be directed is so beneficial.  Plus it keeps you accountable and continually progressing forward.  I am not trying to make a plug here for you to call me to be your mentor, but it can be difficult to know how to do this all on your own.  I replied to my sweet friend's comment with some ideas that hopefully are helping her so go read the two comments that are attached to my last post if you find yourself in this same predicament.  I am going to address this issue more in depth in my next post and give you a step-by-step process that will take all this information I have given you and put it into a usable format.  If you have any questions please make a comment or email me.  I am glad to help in whatever way you need.  If you would like some one on one mentoring help, please let me know.  Again my email is rachellerchase@yahoo.com.

So God has a wonderful way of teaching us the lessons we need to learn.  I had been a little discouraged and depressed earlier last week and to be honest I wasn't sure why.  I had done some write and burns about what I thought I was feeling, but then the discouragement would pop back up again.  I talked with my mentor Tuesday and told him about these downer feelings I had been having.  I told him I had been doing the same things that I used to do when I was depressed-hiding out in my room, reading escape novels, playing games on my phone, getting irritated with my husband, and eating foods that taste good but don't make me feel good.  I was obviously trying to escape my feelings instead of facing them by allowing myself to get absorbed in my "distraction" behaviors.  What my mentor said to me was something I knew but hadn't applied.  I wasn't living in the moment.  I soon realized that my negative feelings were a combination of being worried about falling back into behaviors and patterns of the past while also fearing if I would be able to meet up to what's expected of me in my future.  I was dwelling in both the past and the future and I was discouraged and depressed.  I find it ironic that I just did a big post on living in the moment and yet I am still learning to do it in my own life.  So yes I am not perfect and yes I am still learning.  Even though I have overcome a lot of the negative behaviors that held me captive, Satan will continue to attack me in those areas because he knows that's where my weakness is and that's where he has gotten me before.  I have to continually be aware of what is going on in my mind and have my tools ready to use so that Satan can't get me to stay down.  But no matter how imperfect I am, what I am saying and teaching is truth.  Truth is truth no matter how imperfect the deliverer of truth is.  My last post about living in the moment is true!  When we are in the moment and focusing on what we are doing now and who we are now then we find peace and joy.  If we let ourselves get focused on the past or the future, that is when all those negative feelings start creeping in.  So continue to be aware of where your thoughts are going and do all you can to live in the now!  Be fully present where you are!  It does take time as I so obviously prove.  I am still learning how to make living in the moment the majority of my life, but I know it is possible.  I already find myself letting go of thoughts that take me away from being in the moment simply because I became aware that I was living in my past and future.

Favorite Quote #49:

What time is it?
NOW!

Where are you?
HERE!

What are you?
THIS MOMENT!

Peaceful Warrior

This moment is all we have my friends.  So let's use it to be all that we were created to be!  By doing that, we will be happy!

Along these same lines of living in the moment is another key truth.  It is also related to finding ourselves in the middle, centered, and balanced as opposed to living on the ends.  I talked about the extreme beliefs of "I'm not good enough" or "I'm less than" and the opposite extreme of "I'm better than" in previous posts.  Just as we want to be in the middle by being in the present and not in the past or future, we also want to be in the middle by being humble instead of prideful which happens when we believe either extreme of "I'm less than" or "I'm better than".  We combat pride through humility, so humility is the other key to peace and joy that I want to talk about.  I feel a lot of us may not necessarily understand what humility really is.  We may think that thinking poorly of ourselves is being humble.  That is not true.  Remember my pride stick diagram?  Well, here it is again but I have altered it a bit in order to show you what humility is.

Being humble means we are balanced, centered, and grounded.  It means we understand the true nature of who we really are.  When we are humble, we believe two things about ourselves, thus the balancing effect as shown in the diagram.  The beliefs that keep us balanced are that of being nothing and everything at the same time.  These beliefs are not meant to be separated.  Do you see that when these beliefs are divided, they become "I'm less than" and "I'm better than"?  Satan wants us to believe that we are one extreme or the other or he gets us to ping-pong back and forth between them trying to figure out which one we are.  He does this to keep us from being in the middle because in the middle is where we will find peace, happiness, and confidence.  I think a lot of us believe that self-confidence is pride.  This is FALSE!  Confidence in yourself means you know who you really are according to truth.  Self-confidence is humility.  These beliefs of "I am nothing" and "I am everything" are not meant to be separated because within them both is the truth of who we really are.  Its when we divide these truths, when we separate them, do we become unhappy and miserable.  Now I want you to try a little experiment.  Grab a pencil.  Lightly hold that pencil at one end between your thumb and your pointer finger.  When you do this, what happens to the other end of the pencil?  It should fall if you're doing it the way I'm trying to explain it.  ;)  If you hold the other end of the pencil in the same way, then the same thing should happen - the opposite side falls.  But what happens when you hold that pencil in the middle?  It stays strong, balanced, straight, stable and firm.  The same thing happens with us.  When we are at either end, we are prideful and we fall.  When we are in the middle, we are humble, content, stable, strong and happy.  

Now once again, I believe in God and I believe that all truth ultimately comes from God.  I also believe that when we live our lives according to truth or in other words according to God's way, we will find peace and joy.  We can know what is truth by the way it makes us feel and by the actions that come as a result of believing it.  I know that everything I have said in my blog is truth because of the happiness I have felt as a result of believing it and for the good it has brought in my life and in the lives of others as I have acted on it.  The lies that I believed for so long during my eating disorder only brought me sorrow and despair.  I know now that what I was believing was untrue because of how it made me feel and what it caused me to do.  So experiment on the words I am saying.  Test them out and if what I am saying feels good and causes you to do good, then it is truth.  As I quote more scripture, please read to find the truth that is in it.  Even if you aren't members of the LDS faith, read to find the truth because the truth will set you free!!

I want to share with you the scriptural account that helped me come up with this pride/humility diagram.  I want you to understand that what I just shared with you is not just my creation, but it comes from the word of God.  And because it comes from God, it is truth.  In Moses 1 in the Pearl of Great Price, we learn that Moses goes up into a high mountain where he talks face to face with God.  God tells Moses this:

And I have a work for thee, Moses, my son; and thou art in the similitude of mine Only Begotten; and mine Only Begotten is and shall be the Savior, for he is full of grace and truth; but there is no God beside me, and all things are present with me, for I know them all.

Moses 1:6

I love this verse of scripture because it is full of amazing truths!  The first truth we learn is that we each have a work to perform.  If God said this to Moses, then He said it to each one of us.  In fact, if you look up "work" in the scriptures, you will see several times where the Lord tells different people what their "work" is.  The Lord also says several times in the D&C that "what I say unto one I say unto all".  God is no respecter of persons.  His truth applies to each one of us.  We each have a plan, a work and a purpose.  We are each so vital and important to God that He sent us all here to this earth for a specific reason.  Doesn't that understanding and truth give meaning to our lives?  Does it not help us realize that whatever happens to us, it is all meant to help us be and do all that He created us to be and do?  I don't believe in coincidence, chance, or luck.  I believe God is in the details of our lives.  If we will BELIEVE this truth that we all have a work to do, then through the direction and guidance of God, we will be amazed at what God can help us do and become in this life and in the next!  So what is your purpose?  What is your work?  Knowing your purpose doesn't mean you know exactly what is going to happen in your life.  Knowing your purpose means you know to what end you are going to live your life.  As Jesus Christ put it, "To this end was I born."  We can come to know our purpose and our work as we read our patriarchal blessing, pray, meditate, attend the temple, attend church and read the scriptures.  We can look at our life's experiences and trials and the things we have learned from them.  We can recognize and develop our gifts and talents.  Through these things and by opening our hearts and minds to God, we will receive personal revelation as to what we need to do in our lives.  But of course, we have our agency and we can choose to follow Him or we can choose not to.  It is ultimately our choice.  But "wickedness never was happiness".  God's way is the only way that will lead us to real and lasting peace and joy.

Next, God calls Moses by name and then calls him His son.  What an incredible truth!  God knows each one of us by name and we are all His sons and daughters.  We are divine!  Our spirits were created by Him, a divine being, and He loves us because we are His children.  I know in the LDS faith we are taught this since we are little.  But do we BELIEVE this truth that we are sons and daughters of God?  When we believe something, whether its true or untrue, it becomes who we are.  Whatever we believe is evidenced in the way we look and in the way we act.  I will tell you that I thought I believed I was a daughter of God my whole life.  I read my scriptures and said my prayers and went to church.  So maybe in some way I did believe because I did those things.  But I don't think I believed in what it meant to be a daughter of God.  I was deceived and misled into believing that my worth depended on how I was seen by the world.  Because we can never be good enough according to the world, I soon felt unlovable and unworthy.  This led me to develop a negative, disabling, self-sabotaging eating disorder.  This untrue belief affected my body and of course it affected me emotionally.  I became extremely miserable and unhappy.  All of these consequences came because of believing untruths about myself.  I didn't believe in who I truly was until a year ago and that's when not only did I find real peace and joy, not only did my negative behavior become positive, but my outward appearance also changed.  And I'm not talking about weight even though that changed too.  I'm talking about my countenance.  There is a light in my eyes that wasn't there before.  The compliments I have received over this last year have been more about the fact that I am "glowing", "shining", "radiating", that I "look happy", and that I have "a light about me" as opposed to about the weight I have lost.  And that has all come because I finally believe the truth about who I really am.  God is the source of all truth and light.  When we understand not only who we are but "whose we are" as Sister Dalton so beautifully put it, then God's truth and light shines through us.  I am a daughter of God!  We are all the sons and daughters of a divine, perfect, exalted being!!

Another truth we learn is that we were created in the image of Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ was God's only perfect child.  He was God's firstborn sent to earth to perform a sacred work that would impact all of us.  Jesus Christ knew who He was from a very young age and because of that was able to perform the work that God asked Him to perform, even when it meant to endure the ultimate suffering and anguish of paying the price for all of our sins.  He was able to do it because He knew who He was and He knew His purpose.  He now sits with God in heaven as a perfect and exalted being.  We were created in Christ's image therefore we have the ability and opportunity to become like He is which means we too can be perfect and exalted beings.  Do we BELIEVE in our potential?  That we can become gods and goddesses ourselves?  This can be a hard concept to grasp because of our imperfect nature now, but its all part of the plan.  How can a doctor become a doctor if he doesn't go through the necessary training or learning period?  This earth life is our training, our learning period.  We are not meant to be perfect now.  We are meant to be students now and learn how to become as Christ is.  Because that is our destiny!  To become as Christ is - a perfect and exalted being!

Then we learn about Jesus Christ.  God boldly declares that Jesus Christ is the Savior.  God wants us to know and understand the role Christ would perform on this earth.  But not only that Christ shall be the Savior, but that He IS NOW the Savior.  Remember God is telling Moses this long before Christ comes to the earth.  Christ took on the role of Savior in the Grand Council in heaven before any of us came to earth.  We all loved and honored Him then knowing the sacrifice He would make on earth in our behalf.  So shouldn't we have those same feelings for Him now?  Shouldn't we be doing all we can to honor His sacrifice now by the way we live our lives?  Don't we honor a person by doing what they would have us do?  God is pointing us to Jesus Christ because He wants us to know who to follow and be like if we want to achieve and receive of our divine potential.  Because of the Atonement Christ so willingly made for each one of us, we can look to Him as the source of all grace.  Christ lived a perfect life and because of that, we can look to Him as the source of all truth.  Do we BELIEVE that Jesus Christ is who God says He is?  If we want to be happy, if we want to have true peace and joy, we need to look to and follow Christ because He is the source of all grace and truth.

The final truth we learn is about God Himself.  We learn that He is the one and only God.  There is no other God to worship but Him.  We learn that He is all-knowing because everything is present before Him.  Hmmm.  That's a whole deeper level into the truth of living in the moment.  No wonder God is so happy and peaceful!  He lives in the present.  All things are present before Him.  I never thought of living in the moment in that way before but its truth.  What a cool realization about God and one of the reasons for His peace and happiness!  Through this truth we understand that we can have complete and total faith in God because He is the one and only God and because His great work and glory is "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man".  We can trust that He loves us and all that is included in our individual plans and purposes is meant for our eventual exaltation.  He doesn't determine our actions, we do.  We still have our agency.  But because everything is present before Him, He can see the end from the beginning.  He knows the choices we are going to make and will always provide a way for us to do what He asks us to do.  What peace and comfort that can give us when we are dealing with hard stuff.  As tough as it is, if we will allow ourselves to learn from those hard times instead of becoming bitter by them, then those hard times will become stepping stones to our exaltation.  I am in awe and reverence of how perfect God's plan is for each one of us.  I know God is real and I know God loves us so much that He gives us the hard times so we can be all that we were created to be!

Incredible and powerful truths right?  Well, let's move on in the story.  Moses is then shown a vision of all God's children that have ever lived and that will ever live on this earth.  Moses saw us and our day!  As the vision ends, God leaves and Moses faints from complete and total physical, spiritual, emotional and mental exhaustion.  As he awakes, he says this:

Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed.

He recognizes the truth that we are nothing.  So that is where I got "I am nothing" from.  Moses sees all of God's earthly creations and realizes his insignificance.  He knows that he was created from the dust of the earth and that there are countless numbers of God's children like himself.  But this truth in and of itself was insufficient.  He didn't think that he was less than or better than God's other children.  He realized he was equal to all of God's children because all of God's children had a purpose and a work to perform just like him.  All of God's children would have trials and weaknesses and also gifts and strengths in order to accomplish their work and achieve their greatest potential.  Moses also BELIEVED in what it meant to be a son of God.  He realized that he meant everything to God because he was His son.  He realized that even he, one man among many, must be important to God or God would not have spent that time with him showing him His creations and then giving Moses such an incredible work to do.  And that's where I found the truth of "I am everything".  Even though we may be nothing as we look at the grand picture, to God we are everything because every one of us are His children and He needs every one of us to fulfill our own plan in order for His grand plan to be accomplished.  I love it when my kids ask me who my favorite child is.  I immediately reply, "You are all my favorite children!"  I know that is the way God feels about each one of us.  I may not perfectly show it all the time, but God obviously does.  Some of us earn certain blessings and privileges because of our actions while others don't (isn't that true about our own children?), but that doesn't mean God loves any of His children more or less.  He loves all of us equally and wants to give all of us everything He has.

Well, right in the moment that Moses was thinking all of this, Satan comes tempting him.  Why?  Because Moses realized the truth of who he was and Satan was going to do all he could to distract him from that.  Satan says to Moses, "Moses, son of Man, worship me." Whoa!  God had just told Moses he was a son of God and look how Satan tries to get Moses to forget that truth by calling him a son of man.  Moses stands strong and asks Satan where his glory is because Moses can look on him with his natural eyes whereas he just saw God and had to be transfigured in order to behold His glory.  Then Moses makes this most powerful declaration:

Get thee hence, Satan; deceive me not; for God said unto me: Thou art after the similitude of mine Only Begotten.

Moses knew who he was and because of that he was able to recognize Satan's deceptions.  That is powerful!!  When we know who we truly are, it is then that we have the ability to recognize the negative, deceiving lies that Satan is planting in our heads.  But Moses wasn't completely successful at casting Satan out yet.  Moses says a few more things which causes Satan to rant and rave and tempt Moses all the more to worship him.  In fact, Satan even calls himself the "Only Begotten".  Do you see how Satan twisted the truth in order to deceive Moses?  Does Satan not still do that today?  Let me assure you that he does!  Well, at this point Moses starts to fear.  Really interesting right?  As Moses starts to fear, it says "he saw the bitterness of hell".  Wow!  When we fear, isn't that when we get down and discouraged and depressed to a point where we even see "the bitterness of hell"?  So what is fear?  I love this definition of fear based on an acronym of the word.

F=False
E=Evidence
A=Appearing
R=Real

Is that not so true?  Fear is false evidence appearing real.  Fear is absolutely Satan's tool to get us to fall into his trap of misery and despair, to get us to plummet down that negative spiral.  It really is the door to hell because we allow ourselves to get wrapped up in things that are untrue and unreal.  So how do we keep ourselves from opening that door and falling in?  What Moses does next in this story is the answer.

Nevertheless, calling upon God, he received strength, and he commanded, saying: Depart from me, Satan, for this one God only will I worship, which is the God of glory.

And now Satan began to tremble, and the earth shook; and Moses received strength, and called upon God, saying: In the name of the Only Begotten, depart hence, Satan.

And it came to pass that Satan cried with a loud voice, with weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth; and he departed hence, even from the presence of Moses, that he beheld him not.

Moses 1:20-22

Do you see what just happened there?  This is where my little equation comes in.

Humility + God = Power to do all things

Moses immediately recognized his fear and called upon God for strength.  He was humble and recognized his inability to completely cast Satan out on his own.  As soon as he asked for God's strength, it was given to him.  And then with God's strength, he was able to cast Satan out for good.  He had tried before saying the same things of "get thee hence Satan" and "depart hence Satan", but Satan didn't leave Moses' presence until Moses combined his humility with the strength and power of God.  That is where it's at my friends!!  In recognizing who we really are or in other words being humble, we realize that we need God's help and strength.  In order to conquer Satan, in order to get through trials and tribulations, and in order to turn weaknesses into strengths, we need God!  We need His strength and we need His power.  This is why the Atonement was made by Jesus Christ so that we could repent and have access to God's power and strength.  This is also what the write and burn helps us do.  It helps us kick Satan out of our minds by identifying the deceitful untruths and negative beliefs about ourselves that he has planted there.  Then we use the Atonement as we burn it to help us let go of those beliefs and feelings.  When we are humble and unite ourselves with God's strength and power because we realize we can't do it on our own, we will then gain all the power needed to do and accomplish all that is required of us!  

Favorite Scriptures #10, #11 and #12:

I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

Philippians 4:13

And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.

Mark 10:27

Yea, and how is it that ye have forgotten that the Lord is able to do all things according to his will, for the children of men, if it so be that they exercise faith in him?  Wherefore, let us be faithful to him.

1 Nephi 7:12

Down through time the same admonition and promise is given.  With Christ, we can do all things if we will just believe in Him!  

So please take this to heart.  Realize who you really are!  You are both nothing and everything at the same time and equal to everyone around you.  Couple that belief and humility with the power of God and you will be able to do all that is required of you!  You will get through the difficult times!  You will create that peace and joy in your life!  I know all of this is true.  I know the happiness that I feel in my life is because with God I was able to overcome Satan and the devastating untrue beliefs that he planted in my head.  My journey is ongoing and I continue to have to overcome Satan on a daily basis, but my weakness has been made into a strength because I now know what to do and where to turn for that strength.  It can be the same for you.  So hang in there.  Because of Jesus Christ, there is hope!  You are not meant to live in despair, misery, and depression.  You are meant to have joy now!  Use the write and burn.  Use the little black book or whatever other tools you may have that help you be aware and identify Satan's lies.  Then let the lies and untruths go.  Live in the moment.  Be humble and turn to God for strength to overcome.  And again please email me if there is anything I can help you with!

You are amazing!  So go and . . .

be.YOU.tiful!!!