Me, a marathon runner? Nah! Or am I?

We all started out as babies, and almost every one of us learned to move, then to turn over, to crawl, to toddle, to walk, to run.

Some of us went on to run in school races. Some to school competitions, inter school competitions, regional competitions, provincial competitions, inter-provincial competitions, national competitions, international competitions, and a small number to a global arena like the Olympic Games!

Some of us ran because our parents encouraged us to. Some ran because our friends ran and we were just following the crowd. Some ran because we became seriously passionate about it and because the runners' high was so - well, worth it!

Running is wearying... It comes with discomfort, sore muscles and blistered feet, sweat and probably tears.

Whatever the reason that we ran, we would have felt some benefits of running. These include the runner's high, feeling good about the achievement (improved self-esteem), burning calories, shedding and burning fat from the body - and keeping it off, and low-cost exercise... An internet search for 'benefits of running' shows that there are many other benefits to physical, emotional, spiritual and mental health from running.

I never was a marathon runner, but I did participate in inter-school badminton (and I was not particularly good in inter-school cricket...) and so I can relate in a small way to the satisfaction that comes from working at sport. I did some cross-country races, sprinting, hurdles, high jump, and other athletics at school, but I was not passionate about that. But I do take off my hat to those who have a passion for, and who excel in, running marathons and other great achievements.

But - can you consider someone who regularly ran marathons, initially because her parents expected it of her while at school, then her peers dragged her along, then she became a self-starter and ran for the love of it. And she really loved it! She has certificates showing her accomplishments. She has several witnesses to the fact of her running, completing gruelling marathons - and loving it! But life changed. She lost interest, stopped exercising, stopped enjoying the benefits of running, and even became very deriding of anyone who runs. She denies that she enjoyed it. She always blames her parents for making her run against her will. She has become flabby and insulting of those who run, telling of many important reasons to not run - why no intelligent person would run.

Does that sound like a story that I concocted, or are there people like this? Do you know people like this?

Paul related Gospel living to running a race (1 Cor 9:24, Heb 12:1) and says of himself that he had 'fought a good fight' and finished his course (2 Tim 4:7). I have known so many people who have run valiantly and have medals, certificates and witnesses to prove that they ran spiritual races. The evidence attests that they ran with great passion and success while they were in trim spiritual condition, exercising every day by studying, pondering, praying, fasting, obeying the commandments, and that they had felt that spiritual runner's high. They personally spoke of their love for running spiritual marathons. 

I know that there is a real spiritual scientific experiment that has been conducted by thousands of people. They have studied the subject, applied the method, tested the promises, obtained the results, and reached the conclusion that the method is sound and the results are consistent. I know that if anyone will follow the same method and apply the same tests that they will obtain the same results and draw the same conclusions. 

Despite all of this evidence, there are people who have never conducted the experiment who are certain that the results are false and the conclusion is erroneous. There are those who did conduct the experiment and who experienced the results and bore personal testimony that the results were sound and true, but have changed their mind after ceasing to live the way that yields the results of spiritual health and well-being.

So - while I was never a marathon runner like the tens of thousands who run the Two Oceans or Comrade's Marathons in South Africa, or the over 800 marathons run throughout the world each year and almost on a weekly basis, I guess that I can say that I have been running a spiritual marathon for just about all of my life. There were times when it was because my parents encouraged me, or friends were dragging me along, but most of it is because I have kept going because I have felt the benefits of maintaining that level of spiritual fitness - and revelling in the runner's high.

I have come to know God. At school, church and university I learned about the scriptures, religion, god, evolution, natural selection, and other philosophies. Through my personal study and exercising my faith I have come to know God and that the scriptures are His word to us. I hope that I shall always keep myself in spiritual peak condition so that I can continue to feel the spiritual runner's high. It is a wonderful feeling - and it can only be appreciated by personal experience - no-one can adequately describe it to persuade anyone that it is worth the effort required to experience it. I hope that this inspires you to work on being spiritually fit so that you will enjoy the benefits of running our spiritual marathon in order to reach the finishing line with honour. I know that it is worth every effort!

See also:

https://runrepeat.com/what-running-does-to-your-body

https://www.podiumrunner.com/culture/10-amazing-benefits-running-might-not-known/

https://www.shape.com/fitness/cardio/11-science-backed-reasons-running-really-good-you

https://www.womensrunning.co.uk/health/the-health-benefits-of-running/

https://www.active.com/running/articles/6-benefits-of-running

https://www.healthline.com/health/fitness-exercise/running-everyday#benefits

https://www.letsdothis.com/blog/7-benefits-of-running-for-just-30-minutes/

https://www.businessinsider.co.za/health-benefits-of-running-2018-4?r=US&IR=T

https://www.openfit.com/benefits-of-running

https://www.runnersworld.com/training/a20808326/26-tips-for-running-your-best-26-2/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon

Compost, braai ashes, flames!

I have a special appreciation for compost because my mother taught me from young about its value.

I spent some time in 1980 to 1981 working under the lofty title of Horticultural Chemist. Part of that involved visiting a place where pine bark compost was made. They had large mounds covered with plastic sheets that would increase the buildup of heat in the mound and prevent excessive evaporation.

Compost is lovely. It is wonderful to dig a hole and put my hand into the hole. It is dirty (clean dirt), but it is hot, even without a plastic sheet over the heap. That heat is generated by earthworms, lice, bacteria and other decomposers that are working away at breaking down the organic material in the heap, releasing nutrient rich, light textured, dark brown material that is wonderful to add to soil for improving the quality of what is grown in the enriched soil. It gives a wonderful water holding, nutrient rich, aerated and well draining substrate that improves the growth of most plants. Some plants cope well without compost, some are better off without compost, but those are rare exceptions.

Sometimes I'll go to the compost heap that I have in my garden and pour on large amounts of cold water. That is not to dampen the spirit in a successful decomposer party, but that cold water is very quickly absorbed by the organic pile and the moisture improves the ability of the decomposers to do what they do best!

A few years ago I had a braai (barbecue) fire on which I cooked some meat on a Saturday afternoon. After the fire cooled I poured the ashes into the compost heap because ash adds valuable nutrients and texture to compost. I was confident that the ash was cold, and I would probably have watered it down with a hose to make sure that it was cold.

The next morning I was startled, to say the lest, to see flames leaping up outside my bedroom window. I rushed outside to hose down the compost heap! Some of the ashes must have got buried as I hosed  them down more than 12 hours before, and as cold as they were, had enough warmth in them that heat built up again with the warmth of the compost heap and then reached a point of combustion. The flames were about 2 metres high!

I was very glad that I was on hand when this excitement occurred and I could immediately douse the flames. A little later and I would have left home to go to Church and then the flames might have been undetected and it is scary to contemplate what damage might have occurred.

This little experience reminds me of the flame of testimony that may seem to be dead, but that can rekindle when enough warmth is added as in the "hot coals" story. It won't happen without warmth, and may not happen with warmth, but if it happens, it can be dramatic! May it happen as much and as often as Heavenly Father wants it to, and may we help to make it happen whenever He wants us to have a part in it.

Imperfection, hypocrisy

When is imperfection acceptable, understandable, justifiable, tolerable?

 Sometimes we see a bug and are not aware of the flaws. Then we look at another perspective and we see that we are looking at a rather unique insect. In this case, instead of six legs that are typical of an insect, this one has only five.

But I suspect that this bug did not choose to have five legs! Our choices are what make us what we are.

I have heard that there are people that refuse to go to hospitals because hospitals are supposed to make people well, but are of no value because they are full of unwell people. The very reason for going to a hospital is to become well, and it is foolish to condemn a hospital for having unwell people in it! If it is helping to improve the state of well-being of patients then it is achieving its purpose. There will be no shortage of people who are unwell, and hospitals will always be occupied by people who are unwell.

Indeed, it is very possible for one patient to infect a fellow patient, health care professional, or an innocent visitor. One can easily go away from a hospital with a bug that he or she did not have when entering the hospital. But I laud the efforts of people who care for unwell people and wish them well in their efforts. On the whole, people leave hospitals better for having been there.

I was told recently about someone who found some imperfection in an individual - a hypocrite - and feels that the entire Church is to be condemned as being imperfect because it has one member who is a hypocrite. 

I have often thought of our perceptions. 

Today we sustained three new Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ. Elders Ronald A. Rasband, Gary E. Stevenson and Dale G. Renlund. I have no hesitation in saying that each of them is imperfect. Two of them inferred it themselves!

So - do we condemn the entire Church because three, or fifteen, or 100, or 500, or 5 million of them, or each and every one of them is imperfect?

In 1973 I received a personal witness from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself declaring that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the only true and living church upon the face of the Earth 'with which I, the Lord, am well pleased, speaking unto the church collectively and not individually—For I the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance;'

I leave that ending with the semi-colon because the reader would benefit from reading the context of the extract from Doctrine and Covenants 1.

I suppose it is reasonable that people would judge a church by its leaders. One prominent church leader criticized his leaders. He boldly declared them to be hypocrites! He also drove people out of the temple! He also spoke judgmental words of his close associates and others. He was strongly criticized for many of his actions, most particularly because he was accused of blasphemy. Jesus Christ is that leader. The Jewish faith was the only true and living faith. He was devout in His faith. But He did criticize the leaders, the Scribes and Pharisees, telling them that they were hypocrites. He did drive people out of the Temple with a whip. He did reprove Peter and others for their lack of faith and other weaknesses. He, who declared that we must love our enemies, do good to them that despitefully use us, He it was who did these things. If a person is looking for faults, I daresay he will very easily interpret these actions as failings and hypocritical!

Peter denied Christ three times before the cock crowed on the morning of the Christ's last day of mortality. He went fishing rather than leading the saints following the crucifixion. His state of conversion was challenged when he was told 'when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren'. Would we refuse to accept that church because Peter was quite apparently a hypocrite?

Judas Iscariot betrayed Christ - now is that not extreme! Do we deny the entire church because it had one of its top leaders who was such an extremely bad person - a hypocrite?

Ananias and his wife Sapphira lied to the apostles about freewill offerings that they had made. Hypocrisy!

Yes - if one is looking for faults, he or she will find them!

But equally, if one is looking for good, there is abundant good to be found. 

My father once said that he was so glad that he did not have to judge someone who had erred, but could leave that to the bishop. He did not have to be burdened with being a Judge in Israel. Sometimes we look at things that people do and assess them in one way without knowing what is in the heart. We may condemn them for gross imperfection - for hypocrisy. And we are probably absolutely right! They probably are imperfect. And so am I. And so is the reader, and every person, especially those who condemn the conduct of anyone else.

The true Church of God is likely to always have less than perfect people in it - it is the hospital for sick souls. It is there to make bad men good, and good men better. It will always have an abundance of spiritually unwell people to help to improve.

But the challenge to the reader is to judge where we can affect some change. I cannot bring about change in anyone else. But I can bring about change in myself. My responsibility is to assess my own performance relative to divinely appointed standards of performance and work to improve myself. I need to strive to be better each day than I was the day before. I can be so busy working on myself that I really do not have time to judge and condemn others because I will be all too conscious of the beam in my eye that is causing me to not see clearly the mote in the other person's eye.

The Lord Jesus Christ did declare that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the only true and living church upon the face of the Earth 'with which I, the Lord, am well pleased, speaking unto the church collectively and not individually—For I the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance;' He made it very clear that He cannot look upon my weaknesses with the least degree of allowance. 

I must clean up my act! My act! Not someone else's imperfections. My act. I have so far to go before I think I'll be worthy of hearing those blessed affirming words 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant'. I am trying! But I know all too well that I am not at that stage as yet. 

Please clean up your own act. But, in the meantime, ask God the Eternal Father, with a sincere heart and real intent if the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints is the only true and living Church on the face of the Earth, and if He is indeed well pleased with it. And if He says that it is, then do something about making and keeping covenants with Him by being baptised by His authorized ministers, and pressing forward toward Temple covenants, then enduring faithfully to the end, even receiving the greatest of all gifts of God, Eternal life.

So, to answer my question. Imperfections are a part of Mortality. They have always been, and will always be. That does not make them alright, acceptable, justifiable. 

The Lord cannot look upon sin with the last degree of allowance. We all have imperfections. But if we choose to act in imperfect ways, then we sin. Ignorance is not sin. Little children are innocent doing things in ignorance. But I suggest that anyone able to read this blog is likely to be able to discern between good and evil. If we choose evil, we sin. That is never acceptable, understandable, tolerable, excusable, justifiable, allowable. We are in Mortality to learn to choose good and to not choose evil. That was what Adam and Eve learned in the Garden of Eden. That is what we learned early in life. We have to continually refine our ability to make right choices. To think as God thinks, choose as He chooses, act as he acts. Then we will be continually refined and redeemed by the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, enabling us to more effectively refine our ways to become more god-like.

I bear my solemn witness that Jesus Christ does live, and has declared this to be His only true and living Church.

Ye may know with a perfect knowledge

The Saviour Jesus Christ personally invited all in Matt11:28 ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ This is very clear and inclusive. At the same time, He personally said in Matt 7:21 ‘Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.’ He clarified that it is those who do the will of the Father that shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.

On the one hand he offers a free gift, but on the other hand he tells the cost of discipleship. I certainly would not feel comfortable sitting at a celestial banquet with the likes of Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Christ and others who paid the high prices of discipleship and feel like their peer if I had done nothing in line with the will of the Father. I would feel like a fraud.

It is true in this life that we do not get anything for nothing, and I suggest that it is equally true in the promise of celestial glory. Let it be quite clear that it is by grace that we are saved. All will be resurrected. The physical redemption is free and applies to every mortal who has lived, does live or will live. But the spiritual redemption, exaltation and eternal life, which I visualise as ‘sitting with the noble and great ones at the celestial banquet’ will be for those who do the will of the Father, but the redemption is still a free gift, for we cannot save ourselves.

If you ever have the feeling that these promises apply to others and not to you, then I would suggest that you ‘can know with a perfect knowledge, as the daylight is from the dark night’ (Moroni 7:15) that such thoughts are inspired by the devil because Christ’s invitation is always to all – ‘Come unto me’. Verse 13 of Moroni 7 says ‘But behold, that which is of God inviteth and enticeth to do good continually; wherefore, every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God’, and verse 17 says ‘But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the devil work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him.’

Moroni 7:16 says ‘For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God.’

We invite you to each write your own 13 Articles of Faith next to those of the Church. Please do not give in to the temptation to say ‘Oh, I don’t believe that’. Write what you do believe and commit to it. It is fine if it is different to those that we believe, then at least you have something by which to measure your belief and associated actions. But if our beliefs are not in harmony with your beliefs, then please ask yourself seriously if you will feel comfortable standing before God one day and explaining why you had your name associated with a Church whose beliefs you did not support.

If this is the Church of Jesus Christ as we claim, then you have made covenants, and you will be asked by God to account for how you kept those covenants. If you do not subscribe to them, then why is your name associated with us? If we are not the Church of Jesus Christ then you will be asked why you had your name associated with the church of the devil. How are you doing the will of the Father?

1 We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.
2 We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.
3 We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.
4 We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.
5 We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.
6 We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.
7 We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.
8 We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.
9 We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.
10 We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.
11 We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.
12 We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.
13 We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

In Gethsemane Jesus Christ said in Doctrine and Covenants19:18 that He did ‘tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink’. He preceded this by saying in verses 16 and 17 ‘For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent; But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I’.

I had thought that as each of us faces our own Gethsemane, that we need to suffer, but I am impressed that Alma the younger suffered until he cried within his heart ‘O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death. And now, behold, when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more; yea, I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more.’

I have come to realise that my Gethsemane will have as much suffering as it takes for me to cry within my heart for salvation, saying as Christ is recorded in Luke 22:42 to have said ‘Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.’ The sooner we offer our will to God, the sooner we will remember our pains no more, and be harrowed up by the memory of our sins no more.

We invite you with open arms, as does the Saviour Jesus Christ, whose servants we are, to do good and to come unto Christ, believe in Him, believe Him, and be perfected in Him. Please come back if you have strayed. We need you, and we all need the atonement.