This post first appeared on Power in the Book of Mormon.
InΒ chapter 6Β of Moroni, we get a glimpse of what it was like to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Nephite Saints:
And the church did meet together oft, to fast and to pray, and to speak one with another concerning the welfare of their souls.
In the Church today, youβll see a lot of fasting (like today). Youβll see a lot of praying. And youβll probably see a little too much speaking one with another. But how often do we speak to each otherΒ about the welfare of our souls?Β When you take those words at face value, it just sounds a littleβ¦ I donβt knowβ¦ invasive? I got a chuckle imagining how conversations at Church might sound if we were to start asking about the welfare of our souls:
Me: βPretty good. The kids took turns exchanging a cold all week, you know how that is. You love it because theyβre cuddly, but at the same time you know theyβre going to make you sick.β
EQP: βHaha, yeah kids are nothing but cute little disease vectors. Anyways, howβs your soul doing? Are you studying your scriptures every day individually and as a family?β
Me: βI mean sometimes the kids canβt handle scripture study but we try to hit most days. I always get my personal study in though.β
EQP: βI see. Well, my soul is not doing too bad, either, in case you were wondering. Although I remember my coworker sent me some troubling YouTube videos about some stuff in Church history. I think Iβm fine, but it just kind of bugs me that I donβt have answers, you know? Do you think that means my testimony is not strong enough?β
Me: βI think youβre probably fine.β
EQP: βNice. You know Bro. So-and-so told me last week that his marriage is kinda rocky right now. Letβs go talk to him and see how thatβs going.β
What does it mean to speak concerning the welfare of our souls?
Somehow I donβt imagine thatβs quite what Moroni had in mind. So previously as Iβve read that verse, I just interpreted it to mean that the members talked about the welfare of their souls withΒ ecclesiastical leadersΒ in the Church. Or that they just focused a lot on the Atonement (the source of welfare for all souls) or discussed the welfare of their souls in super general terms like Sunday School lessons. But last week in Elders Quorum, I experienced something different.
We were discussing Pres. Nelsonβs challenge to the Priesthood holders last April to βdo better and be better.β If you havenβt read it recently, go do it now. There are many parts of the talk where you just want to take a sentence out of it and study it for a few minutes by itself. There is so much there.
The talk is all about repentanceβ what repentance is, and what it is not. How Satan tries to get us to see repentance all wrong, and how not repenting is seriously depriving families and individuals in the Church. Priesthood holders who were paying attention will remember the prophet of God taking us all by the lapels, shaking us a little, and taking us to task in as bold a sermon as I have heard in a long time. But with tons of love and great insights, as usual.
The discussion in Elders Quorum was great. Brethren shared their insights about what repentance means in their lives. We talked about how to repent. We shared stories of when we had misunderstood repentance in the past. We discussed how to properly teach repentance and the Atonement in our homes. We talked (in general terms) about temptations we have faced and the work we have done to try and not just be clean again, but beΒ better. It was a great discussion.
As I drove home today, I realized this is what Moroni was describing. Frank, open, honest, edifying discussion about the basic principles of the Gospel and how to apply them in our lives. We didnβt go into Bishop interview territory, but we were truly βspeak[ing] one with another concerning the welfare of [our] souls.β
We donβt care about each othersβ souls enough
So hereβs the question Iβm pondering now: why is that lesson different from the everyday? Why donβt we get down to brass tacks more often? Why do we talk in concepts but rarely share something personal and relatable in our lives? Why was this Elders Quorum lesson the exception and not the norm in the Chuch?
I think thereβs a lot to be said about proprietyβ we want to stay as far away from matters of worthiness as we can, obviously. But honestly, I think when it comes down to it, we frankly just donβt really care about the welfare of each othersβ souls.
I know that sounds harsh, but hear me out.
Imagine a less-active family you are ministering to is not improving in their Gospel living. How do you feel?
Imagine a member of the quorum or class you have stewardship over has stopped attending as regularly. How do you feel?
Imagine that you have an old friend who was strong and active growing up, but now you see a picture of him/her on at a ball game holding a beer and obviously not wearing the Temple Garment you know they at one point covenanted to wear day and night in the house of the Lord. How do you feel?
If youβre like me, in almost of these situations, you immediately start thinking things like:
- Itβs not my place to get involved.
- Iβm not her Bishop or parent. Iβm sure theyβve already talked to her.
- Heβs free to make his own choices. I canβt stop him.
- Maybe theyβre just going through a hard time and will return someday.
- I was never really that close to her, so it shouldnβt really matter to me
- I never really knew that family very well anyway.
Looking back on all the times I have thought such things, I feel guilty. I feel guilty for notΒ feelingΒ more. I feel guilty for not taking a more active interest in the welfare of the souls of those around me.
Donβt let it roll off your back
My wife and I had this discussion just the other night as we reminisced about our teenage years. We had grown up in the same ward. It was a pretty large ward and at the time had a very large, very active group of close-knit youth. As we started listing off all our friends and class members from those years, I started wondering how they were all doing.
Luckily, Facebook is a great stalking tool, and when someone stops living their covenants and have left activity in the Church, they usually make it pretty obvious on social media. By the end of the night, we had determined that at least half of the active young women and well more than half of the active young men we had known were now living lives that obviously prevented them from enjoying the blessings of the Sacrament and the Temple.
I felt a little melancholy about that the rest of the evening. My wife didnβt initially understand how I could feel bad about them. We were both pretty introverted as teenagers, so we wouldnβt list any of the youth in the ward as our βbestβ friends, and it had been 12+ years since we last talked to many of them. Why should their choices affect me like this? Why should I really care all that much? I was a missionary for crying out loudβ certainly, I didnβt get bummed out every time someone rejected the message of the Gospel right?
Itβs so easy as a missionary to steel yourself against rejection by becoming uncaring. I donβt mean that you harbor ill will for the person who slammed the doorβ more that you just donβt care at all and move on. After all, whatβs one slammed door among the three hundred that you will knock that day? Thatβs a common attitude to take on the mission. It keeps you from getting depressed. It keeps you from feeling like the work is pointless. My mission president would often tell us how buffalo on the prairie have no shelter when storms come, so they orient themselves to their oily hair would channel the torrential rains to run right off their backs and weather the storm standing. The point was for us to steel ourselves against rejection and let it roll off our back just like the buffalo.
But if weβre not careful, we can go too far and just stop caring. And thatβs the wrong feeling to have.
Letβs be a little more devastated
I couldnβt explain it to my wife at the time, but now, reflecting on the words of Moroni and the eldersβ quorum lesson, I realize now that I was not feeling bad about the choices of those young men and women from our ward. I was also feeling bad aboutΒ notΒ feeling bad earlier.
In a stirring rebuke that only Elder Holland can really pull off, we are told that when those around usβ our brothers and sisters, children of Godβ either avoid or break sacred saving covenants, the proper response is to:
Be devastated! β¦ Much of the time we are just too casual about all of this. This is eternal life. This is the salvation of the children of God. Eternity hangs in the balance. β¦ It is the most important path [a person] will ever walk. But if he or she doesnβt know that, at least you do! So take control of this situation. Teach with power and authority, and then be devastated if [they donβt follow through].
When we remember that we are brothers and sistersβ children of Godβ all of the sudden itβs not weird or nosy or improper to be concerned, even anxious about the choices others make. What kind of friend or brother or sister sits and watches silently while their sibling commits spiritual suicide? Who sees a family member on the bridge about to jump and says βwell, they have their agency and there are so many people jumping nowadays that I canβt afford to get too emotional about this one instance?β
Itβs painful to watch someone turn away from the truth. As well it should be. And no one knows that better than Heavenly Father. He watched a third of His children rise up in open rebellion against Him premortally. He has watched individuals, families, nations, and entire dispensations destroy themselves in rebellion against Him here on earth, too. He knows our potentialβ worlds without number. He knows the price His Son paid. And yet would you think that God would eventually grow βused to itβ or stop caring when one of His sheep wander from the pasture to the lionsβ den? Of course not. He is devastated.
We canβt kill God. We canβt hurt Him. We canβt even change His mind. But there is one power over God that we mortals haveβ we can (and frequently do) break His divine heart. We make God and all the hosts of heaven weep over us through our bad choices (seeΒ Moses 7). If God weeps at the loss of one child, how can we not weep at the choices of others?
Righteous anxiety
If youβre saying to yourself right now, βIt sounds like this guy is advocating for us to all develop stress and anxiety,β then I have two words to say to you:
Youβre right.
At least about the anxiety part. We need to be more anxious. Not in the emotional struggle kind of way. But in a scriptural way. The way prophets and apostles are anxious in the Book of Mormon:
- βI desire that ye should remember to observe the statutes and the judgments of the Lord; behold, this hath been theΒ anxietyΒ of my soul from the beginning.β
- βI am desirous for the welfare of your souls. Yea, mine anxiety is great for you; and ye yourselves know that it ever has been.
- βBecause of faith andΒ great anxiety, it truly had been made manifest unto usβ¦ many revelations, and the spirit of much prophecy; wherefore, we knew of Christ and his kingdom, which should come.β
- βI this day am weighed down with much more desire andΒ anxietyΒ for the welfare of your soulsβ
- βMy beloved brethren, I will unfold this mystery unto you; if I do not, by any means, get shaken from my firmness in the Spirit, and stumble because of my overΒ anxietyΒ for you.β
- β[they] became exceedinglyΒ anxiousΒ that every man should have an equal chanceβ
- βAnd now, my brethren, I wish from the inmost part of my heart, yea, with greatΒ anxietyΒ even unto pain, that ye would hearken unto my words, and cast off your sins, and not procrastinate the day of your repentance;β
- βThey were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea, even the very thoughts that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble.β
There are so many more examples. But yes, I am calling for more anxiety about the work.
Ministering to the welfare of souls
While serving in a branch presidency, I was humbled by humble members who poured their hearts into βsmallβ callings like hymnbook coordinator. They were anxiousΒ to make sure they gave it their all. They taught me a great lesson. A lot of us are engaged in the Lordβs work, but how many of us areΒ anxiouslyΒ engaged?
The fact is, when it comes to the welfare of souls, we have a lot to be anxious about. As ministering brothers and sisters, whatever our callings, we are on the front lines in the battle for the souls of men and women. As Pres. Eyring taught, if you assume someone is in serious trouble, youβll be rightΒ more than half the time. That means there is a lot of rescue opportunities out there, even if we donβt see them. When we minister, we need to take that into account and take it seriously.
Again, am I suggesting we get in everybodyβs face and show up with furrowed brows any time someone misses a Sunday? Of course not. But I am calling for us to be a little more direct in our conversations with others. We should maybe drop the veneer of βeverything is wonderfulβ once in a while and actually speak about the welfare of souls in a frank but loving, uplifting way.
Iβm calling for us to be especially careful and observant. I am calling for us to minister with more of a sense of urgency. Iβm calling for us to be a little more devastated when covenants are not made or not kept. Iβm calling for more sincere prayers for those we know are strugglingβ even when they really donβt want our prayers. MaybeΒ especially when they donβt want our prayers. Iβm calling for us to take quick action when we see our brothers and sisters start to slide. Most will not ask for helpβ itβs up to us to go outside our comfort zone and rescue them while the rescue is easy. Christ didnβt wait for Peter with his failing faith to sink to the bottom of the seaβ He was instantly at his side pulling him up. Thatβs the kind of rescue Christ gives us. And thatβs the kind of rescue He asks in return.
This post first appeared on Power in the Book of Mormon.
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