My Own Gospel Lens

What does this picture

have in common with his one?

 

What do either of them have in common with
this one?

Is there anything that all four have in common?

Now, there really shouldn't be much resemblance that you can see that would really make sense here. You could probably really stretch it and come up with something... but good luck. However, there is one thing in all four pictures that is so obvious that we overlook it entirely: The lens.

In the gospel, I have found that we all have lenses through which we see the world. Just like with these pictures, if we didn't have a lens, nothing that we see would maintain the same level of beauty. Things would be out of focus. The colors would melt together. The majesty of the image would be lost entirely. We would go from some incredible shots to some odd melted picture where we know something is there, but can't completely identify what. There is a picture of a lens in every photograph, and it decides everything.

Recently, I did a series of posts about some "Incomprehensible Joys" of my mission. Looking back and thinking on some of these experiences was incredible in and of itself. It got me thinking of more and more experiences. Most of these aren't very bloggable. They are conversations, quotes, and feelings I have had. Even the ones I shared I am positive are more dear to me than they are to any of you who read them. These all contribute to the lens through which I see the world and through which I see my religion and my God.

Even through all of this, there is one experience that I would say is the very essence of my lens. I am an odd sort, definitely not the common missionary. I like to seek questions so that I can eventually seek answers. It really is a bad habit that I sometimes take too far. It leaves me troubled for days or more sometimes, and yet in the end solidifies my testimony even more when I finally find the answer. Most of the principles I have the strongest testimony of are the very principles that were once the most in question for me.

I want to share an experience of my own conversion. My own incomprehensible joy, you might say. It has become the central anchor in my testimony, because it starts with my testimony being all but destroyed. Really, it is the lens that I see everything else through.

I went to college at Utah State University for a year before my mission. Loved it! Definitely where I was supposed to go. While the classes are admittedly not the most elite, the opportunity for student involvement was incredible. One of the activities I jumped right into was writing for the school's newspaper, The Utah Statesman. In my second semester, I was given a pretty minor assignment to cover an interfaith luncheon held at the LDS Institute. I went, interviewed the institute director and a few student of various faiths who were present, and finally I got to interview a religious leader from a non-LDS faith. His name was Jason, and he headed up a Born-Again Christian group there on campus called the Navigators.

I'm going to interrupt my story here and emphasize that I hold Jason in the highest regards. Even after this story, he and I have kept a very dear friendship and talk fairly regularly. I have no question that everything he did was truly looking out for me and my best interest. I want that to be very clear.

Anyways, our interview went well. It stayed more about the event than about his beliefs, since it was for a newspaper. But, only a month or so later, I was surprised to see Jason again! This time, he was speaking to my fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon. Our SigEp chapter was overwhelmingly LDS, so we wanted to have representative of other faith groups come and talk a little bit. Jason was first up. We had some great conversations about the differences in his beliefs and our own. Bit by bit, though, my fraternity brothers had to go. Eventually, some two or three hours later, it was just me and Jason talking with each other. He soon had to go home to his wife and kids.

I ran into Jason a third time a couple weeks after we talked at the SigEp event, when we were walking opposite directions across campus. We said hello, and he said he'd been thinking a lot about our conversation and wanted to talk some more over dinner sometime. I was all for it, so we decided after finals week, we would go get some Costa Vida.

We did just that. We ate and talked, mostly just about our lives. Eventually, the conversation transitioned into religion. We compared our beliefs and just had friendly give and take. "I believe this because of this"... "Well, I believe this because of this." It was great fun. But, after we sat in the restaurant for three hours (not exaggerating!), we decided it was time to go! But, we made it a weekly habit. Usually we'd meet at either Costa Vida or Café Rio, but on occasion we'd just meet up at the SigEp house. I had a blast with those conversations!

Now, to put this into perspective, I received my mission call in March. This was all taking place in May and June. I was within a few months or reporting to the MTC on July 5.

Well, one day, our conversations took an interesting turn. Jason started talking about grace. He showed a few scriptures in the New Testament that really seemed to emphasize that our salvation is all about grace through faith and faith alone. He pointed out that the LDS doctrine of obedience to commandments, the necessity of baptism, and the emphasis on the temple contradicted this teaching. I threw out a few feeble, "faith without works is dead" lines, but I was unconvinced, myself. Here were Bible verses that seemed in direct opposition to what I'd been taught. And yet, Latter-day Saints love and adhere to the Bible. How could this be?

I don't know if I can fully explain how I felt. Here I was, about a month from going on a mission, preaching a message that I didn't fully believe myself. It seemed that, with the LDS Church, I would be going to Hell, and then as a missionary I'd be dragging souls right down with me. The best way to describe my feelings would be that it felt like I had just finished a long race, only to get whacked in the stomach with a baseball bat at the finish line. It was a disgusting, queasy, complete uneasiness. Here I was, about to go for two years to Rochester, NY, and I was pretty convinced that my beliefs were false.

The thought and worry stuck with me for days. (That may not sound like long, but my mission was coming,

and it was crunch time.) Eventually, at work one day, I was reading a Conference Ensign, and found this advice from Elder Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve:

"When I am faced with a very difficult matter, this is how I try to understand what to do. I fast. I pray to find and understand scriptures that will be helpful. That process is cyclical. I start reading a passage of scripture; I ponder what the verse means and pray for inspiration. I then ponder and pray to know if I have captured all the Lord wants me to do. Often more impressions come with increased understanding of doctrine. I have found that pattern to be a good way to learn from the scriptures." (How to Obtain Revelation and Inspiration for Your Personal Life, April 2012.)

I didn't really have a chance to fast since I read this in the afternoon, but that night, I went home and prayed. I told my Father in Heaven that I needed help now. I needed to know the truth now. In the Church, we talk about praying with real intent a lot. As missionaries, when we teach investigators to pray about the Book of Mormon, we emphasize that they need to pray with the real intent of acting on their answer, of being baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ if the Book of Mormon is true. As Latter-day Saints, we are really good about praying with the real intent to stay with the Church and keep following the prophet and keep believing that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, but I don't know how often we pray with the real intent to do otherwise if that is what God tells us.

This time was different. If God had told me that the whole Church was a farce, I would have been done. If God had told me that a mission would be detrimental, I wouldn't have gone. Possibly for the first time in my life, I had REAL real intent.

After I prayed, I didn't really know where to go, and didn't have any overwhelming direction one way or the
other. So, I figured I would just read Romans 3-5, as Jason had suggested earlier. I did decide, though, that I would read chapters two and six, just to make sure I had a better sense of the context. With these chapters and even the message of chapters three, four, and five surrounding the verses Jason had used, I realized that I wasn't quite as damned as I had felt. With a few references to Doctrine and Covenants and other verses of the New Testament, I saw that I wasn't fully done for. But... all the while, there was nothing too convincing that I was reading one way or the other. Maybe I wasn't so glaringly wrong.... but I didn't feel too overwhelmingly right, either.

As I read through the chapters of Romans, I kept seeing cross-reference after cross-reference in the footnotes to Alma 42. I seemed like Alma 42 must have been just the companion chapter of the Book of Mormon to Paul's Epistle to the Romans! Looking back, it is interesting to note that, in those five chapters, there were only three footnotes to Alma 42. But to me, it seemed like there must have been at least a dozen. Anyways, I decided that once I finished Romans 6, I would just go and read the whole chapter of Alma 42.

This turned out to be possibly the most important decision of my life.

Alma 42 is a lesson Alma is teaching his son Corianton. Corianton doesn't understand how justice and mercy can coincide in the same God. Alma goes through and explains that justice must be paid, but mercy will claim the penitent because of the Atonement of Christ. In my mind, it was the perfect explanation of how works (justice) and grace (mercy) work hand-in-hand. I was pretty stoked while reading it. But then the chapter ended with a few verses that I can never forget. Keep in mind, I was about a month from going on my own mission, and that was really what troubled me the most.

"And now, my son, I desire that ye should let these things trouble you no more, and only let your sins trouble you, with that trouble which shall bring you down unto repentance. O my son, I desire that ye should deny the justice of God no more. ... And now, O my son, ye are called of God to preach the word unto this people. And now, my son, go thy way, declare the word with truth and soberness, that thou mayest bring souls unto repentance, that the great plan of mercy may have claim upon them. And may God grant unto you even according to my words. Amen."

Here I was, a boy about to go on a mission and struggling to understand the nature of God's justice in order to know if I should really go on a mission. What happens? I read a talk by an Apostle of the