Strength - Not of ourselves but of Christ

So I started a scripture study about strength almost a month ago and I kind of never finished it. I wanted to take time tonight to finish that study and share with you my feelings and thoughts about the first scripture I looked at.

So, since my last post, everything has been super crazy. Emotionally, I've been pretty stable. Maybe because it's been so busy. Maybe not. But this scripture helps me to understand what I have been going through and what I will go through in this next, crucial stage of my life.

The scripture is from The Book of Mormon, the book of Jacob, chapter 5, verse 66. As anyone who is familiar with The Book of Mormon, this chapter gives an analogy of a master and his olive trees. Easily the longest chapter in the Book, many people skim it or even skip it. I can say that I've read it closely only to the parts that (I thought) pertained to missionary work. This verse, however, sheds a whole new light on the whole in my soul and how the Atonement and the Lord helps me to overcome this trial. It reads,

    "Wherefore, ye shall clear away the bad according as the good shall grow, that the root and the top may be equal in strength, until the good shall overcome the bad..."

Now if we can compare that to what I am feeling, allow me to compare the bad to the grief, sorrow, pain, anger, frustration and other negative feelings that come into our lives. Now I am not saying these feelings are inherently bad, but I am just using this comparison. Let the good feelings be happiness, joy, the Holy Spirit and other positive feelings.

I am no expert on trees, but this is what I understand of grafting and taking care of trees:

With trees, you cannot just chop off the whole top all at once. As you do so, you kill the tree and the roots. With Olive trees, they can grow "wild" branches, or olives that are bitter and not useful. You can't cut off all the wild branches all at once because the good branches remaining cannot sustain and strengthen the tree. However, if you cut the bad branches off, one at a time, and allow new ones to grow in its place that are natural and "sweet", then you can transform the tree so that it is all "natural" branches. If your whole tree is "wild", then we must take some good branches from another tree and graft them into the tree you are working on. That process will be slow, but if done right can allow the good branches to change and strengthen the roots and allow the whole tree to produce good fruit.


Now lets bring it back to my life for a moment. In one moment, many bad and negative things came into my life. I felt a hole rip through my soul, leaving it an empty void, sucking the joy and happiness from my life. I became frustrated with myself, my past actions, people trying to help me but not understanding what I needed.... many things. Granted, I did not know what would help me, but I did know what wouldn't help me.   For a while, it seemed as if my whole life was bitter, motionless, robotic. As I saw a counselor, he helped me grasp onto one thing to start me which was keeping myself open to relationships and not closing myself off to protect myself from vulnerability. As I did so, I began to "re-experience" joys of being with friends and family. It wasn't easy; isn't easy. Thoughts still come to me like "What if this person got into an accident and died" or what if....(My parents can tell you all the what if questions I could muster up while I was little... They were quite a few.) I am scared of losing someone, anyone I am close to. I am scared of what would happen to me, how I would feel, how I would cope. It doesn't seem bearable. What would happen if I lost my twin brother? It would be excruciating. What would happen if I lost both of my parents? Devastating. These thoughts bombard me, surround me whenever I let my guard down.  Somehow I keep these at bay and try to keep myself open even though all these things that are possible. But keeping myself open is one way of cutting off a "wild" branch and letting a "natural" branch grow in its place. It isn't easy and it won't complete any time soon. But it's starting.

And that's how I feel - as I cut off the bad, wild branches and allow new ones to grow, I begin to feel better. Not that I am completely whole, but I am on my way. This empty, sucking void has begun to shrink, it's vortex losing power as I continue on. In the allegory, the servants dig, dung and take care of the roots. In my life, this has been faithful church and temple attendance, scripture reading, writing in my journal, sincere and yearning prayers. Am I perfect at them? Nope. I am working on it though. And as I do so, expressing and exherting self-control over my body and "natural man" (Mosiah 3:19), I feel better. I feel the spirit more, I feel full. I don't quite feel happy yet, but I feel fulfilled in a sense. Whenever you make a right choice, it's that feeling of accomplishment that fills you. That's what I am feeling as I write this blog post, read the scriptures, go to the temple and church, etc. I feel bad because I turned down an invitation to spend time with close friends. That's because I haven't learned total self-control and do things when I need to. I am working on it though. And I feel as I get better, I can extend more back into my normal self. Everything I write is expressly personal opinion.

As I write and express my feelings, I hope that you, as a reader, can make an application of what I share in your life. Not that I expect every reader that comes across my blog to affected;  I hope so, but I doubt it. I just hope that you can feel the Spirit of God, telling you what you need to fill your emptiness, your sadness, your trials and afflictions. I'm not the only one in pain. There are countless people surrounding me that are in such pain. But I hope to console, invite and lift people towards Christ and His Gospel. The Atonement or the sufferings and sacrifice of Christ is what lifts me up, fills me and helps me to keep going. None of this comes from me. Just our Lord and Savior. I could never have even started this long and arduous path without Christ. I hope you can do the same - let him into your life. Learn of him, how he helps you, how he loves you. He wants everyone to return to live with our families and our Heavenly Father forever. Of course it depends on our faithfulness, obedience and diligence - but Christ helps us to be able to have the strength to do so.

I took the time to read one verse tonight. All this comes from a dozen words or so. I know that as we study the words of Christ, the Spirit will guide us and direct us to what we need to know or do to receive the help that we need. The scriptures are revelatory of God's will, helping us know what is His will and recognize our purpose on the Earth. We're not perfect, but we can focus on one "bad" branch at a time until, "that the root and the top may be equal in strength, until the good shall overcome the bad." May our roots (our foundation) receive nourishment and strength from Christ and not from ourselves. As we rely on him, we can produce good fruits for all to see and to partake of.  He will take care of us and help us if we let him.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Mike