"Happy Are Ye...": A Best Friend's Lesson

A few years ago, I was told a story out of the New Testament about Christ’s final hours.  From this story, I learned a lesson that transformed the way I view others, difficulties, and how I cope with them.

Everyone has moments of great anxiety, stress, or doubt.  Life is tailored to test every individual according to his or her specific weaknesses.  It is interesting to note that people rarely struggle with their strengths.  Everyone has empty, pensive moments that leave us asking or wanting to ask, “Why?”

The lesson taught by Christ himself to his best friends shifts our prayers away from the question, “Why?” to the new question, “How can I thank you enough?”

The night before Jesus was crucified, and a matter of minutes before he trudged across Jerusalem to a lonely spot on a hill called Gethsemane, he spent some time with his closest twelve friends and Apostles.  He taught them essential lessons about their dependence on him, about how to truly love, and about what he was asking them to do once he was gone.  It was the most intimate setting in which he had spoken, and a lot about his personality and his loving care comes out.  If you want to get to know the Savior, read John 13-18.

During this time, he said, “This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you.  Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,” (John 15:12-13).  He said so knowing that he would shortly be doing exactly that. 

He knew that it was going to hurt more than he could possibly imagine.  He had been preparing for it all his life—physically, spiritually, and mentally.  The weight of the stress, the worry, and the monumental nature of the task of atoning for the sins, mistakes, and pain of every creature bore down on him so much so that his soul was “exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death,” (Matt. 26:39).

Yet in the midst of this time of great anxiety—while the Savior had a score of reasons and probably a right to be worried and concerned about himself—when he stood in the face of heartache like no man has ever known, he looked outward.

He washed his disciples’ feet.  In the ancient world, washing someone’s feet was considered a high honor because of the lowness of the task.  Callused, blistered, dirt covered feet were all they knew as they walked the dusty roads of Judea.  Jesus gave them a great symbolic service that night.  When he was at his most painful moments in his earthly life, he gave the most care to those around him—even the one who betrayed him.

Jesus served in suffering.  He did not become a cocoon of self-pity, but became a beacon of hope to those who do ache.

Christ explained why he did this in very simple language.

“I then, your Lord and Master… have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.”  He served in suffering.  That is the instruction given by his example and words.

To this, he adds a promise.  “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them,” (John 13:14, 15, 17). 

This promise was not conditioned on any time period.  He did not say that we would be happy sometime afterward.  There was no other condition to the promise once we have done these things in actively thinking of others.  It is says simply you will be happy.  Even if it is only for those moments at which we lift another person up by giving our time, our talents, our knowledge, our attention, our consideration, our compassion, or our affection, we are promised joy.

At our lowest points, where do we look?  Do we look inside ourselves for the secret to happiness? Or do we look away from ourselves to find that the door is already opened?

The secret to happiness is not to worry or think about being happy—it is to be concerned at making others happy.  When that happens, we become more like Christ, and these words of our Best Friend to his best friends take power in our hearts to lift us out of whatever situation we may be in, if only for a moment—but that will be enough to get us through the day with a smile.

After all, are we not here to be happy?

  

Forgiveness Has Come to Stay

Today marks the beginning of a new year.  Every 365 days, we are given an opportunity to reflect upon our decisions over the previous 52 weeks.  A few years ago, my sister told me, “Sometimes people have bad days.  Sometimes it may be bad weeks, months, or even years.  The point is that there is a finite amount of time attached to the bad.”  To some, the previous year was full of light.  To others, it was a relentless battle with darkness.  But whatever the status of 2011, we have a chance to make 2012 the best year we have ever had.

Amidst all of the reflection of the New Year, I have thought a lot about what it means to start afresh.  In order to truly look forward to what God has in store for us, it becomes essential for us to let go of the pain of the past.  That requires forgiveness—of others’ mistakes, of traumatic situations and events, and perhaps most importantly, of ourselves.

One story overlooked in the scriptures that has a lot more to offer than we give it credit for is the book of Jonah.  It holds a lesson within its pages that, if we are willing to look for it, can change our whole lives.

To be brief, the story of Jonah begins with God commanding the prophet Jonah who lived in Israel sometime between 786 and 746 BC to go to Nineveh and preach repentance and faith in God to the inhabitants of the city.  The alternative to changing their ways was destruction.  Jonah flees the command of God, and after being swallowed in the belly of a whale or great fish for three days, finally preaches to the Ninevites, who then immediately repent and turn their hearts to God once more.  To this, Jonah turns an angry eye.  He sat atop a hill nearby in a desire to watch Nineveh decimated.  Unfortunately, people do not often look past the part of the story with the fish.

Three questions within the context of this story illuminate the lesson we can take away from it.

1)      Why did Jonah flee?

2)      “Doest thou well to be angry?” which God asks of Jonah when Nineveh repents.

3)      “Should not I spare Nineveh?”

Why did Jonah Flee?

Jonah had been told to teach the people of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire, which was considered one of the most fearsome and brutal nations in history.  But Jonah didn’t necessarily flee from the call because he was afraid of the Assyrians.  He did it out of seething hatred.  The nation of Israel had been involved in a long war with Assyria that had begun as early as the 9^th century BC and ended in the annihilation of Israel in 721 BC.  Jonah had good reason to despise the Ninevites.  The Assyrians had been responsible for killing his countrymen, pillaging, raping, and forcing the Israelite kings to pay a bloody tribute to them.  He wanted Nineveh to burn to the ground, and he wanted to see it.  God’s sending him to teach repentance, a doctrine based on love and forgiveness, meant that there was the possibility of redemption and escape of a terrible fate for Nineveh.  The thought elicited pain and anger for Jonah.  He was trying to protect his heart from the agony of facing those who had hurt him and God’s people.  He fled Nineveh because he wanted them to taste a bitter retribution, so much so that he said, when seeing Nineveh go untouched by God’s hand, “It is better for me to die than to live.”  That’s how deeply he loathed them.  To give you an idea, it would be like an American being told that they needed to teach Al Qaeda about God with the promise that if they changed their ways, they would be spared.  How would we respond?  I think we may do the same thing Jonah did.  But God knew what was in Jonah’s heart and wanted to change it.  That is why he called him to teach, love, and forgive the Ninevites. 

“Doest thou well to be angry?” 

So when we are hurt deeply—so much that we say we would rather die than see those who have harmed us receive mercy—what do we do?  God asks us the same question.  What does being angry give us?  What purpose does holding on to bitterness and resentment serve but to poison us and destroy our peace?  There is a reason that God has said, “Of you it is required to forgive all men.”  What is that reason? 

Forgiveness was not given to man as a tool for people to be absolved of responsibility for sin.  It was given as a gift for the forgiver to receive peace.  To not be forgiven for something for which you have no remorse does a man no good.  Receiving forgiveness is not the point.  If someone asks for your forgiveness, it may be easier to give.  If they do not, the requirement is still in force.  But why? 

The Atonement of Jesus Christ extends not only to save sinners, but also to save those who are pained by the effects of others’ sins—even our own.  Christ suffered for every pain we feel.  This includes the turmoil we feel when we refuse to forgive someone and nurse the wounds of the past.  To say that we will not or cannot forgive someone else or ourselves is to suggest that the Atonement, Christ’s infinite sacrifice, is not sufficient; because for every minute we lose our peace, Christ must suffer more.  So what’s the point of holding on to any pain from anyone?  If we can let the Savior do what he came to do—to save us—we will find what we need in order to be healed.  Holding on to the pain makes his job harder.  In essence, we refuse to let the physician heal our wounds because we think we can do it ourselves.  The command, “forgive all men,” is a strong way of saying let it go—I will take care of it.

“Should not I spare Nineveh?” 

The book of Jonah ends with this question.  It’s a question posed to us for whoever may have wronged us for whatever reason.  Only we can answer for what is in our hearts.

The Atonement extends to everyone.  Everyone.  That includes those who have hurt us.  If we expect and want mercy when we have made mistakes, we must extend the same to others.  Doing otherwise is hypocrisy or assuming God loves us more than he loves his other children.  He loves us the same—none less than another.  Looking at either extreme (that we are more loved or somehow less loved) is dangerous.  The requirement to forgive encompasses our own mistakes as well.

“Should not I spare _______?”  Put your own name or own situation in the blank and see how it feels.  Learning our own lessons may spare us from the dark experience of Jonah if we will let it.  In order for us to embrace what God has planned, we should let loose past pain from our aching, trembling grips.  After all, a clenched fist can never take the hand of friendship.

Perhaps in a quiet moment of the day, we may stop and look inward to realize that our tears have stopped, that our hearts are at peace, and that forgiveness has come to stay.  Learning to forgive and making the decision to have a forgiving and tender heart will put us one step closer to being like Christ and tasting the same sweet joy he knows so perfectly. 

Happy 2012.  Let’s do this one right.