Storms, Sirens, and Prophets

I've been assigned to give a talk in my home stake in Farmington (a stake is a collection of 10-12 congregations in the LDS church, FYI).  Since I'm a recently returned missionary, I was told that I would be asked to speak a couple of times in a couple different congregations.  The high councilor who called me with the assignment told me that my topic was "using agency to change our very natures." 

"Huh?"  I said.

"Yeah, that was my reaction when I heard the topic, too," he replied.

Well, that call was a couple of weeks ago, and my talk is going to be on the 27th.  I'm still not sure what I'm going to talk about, so I think I'll brainstorm some thoughts on here.

For the uninitiated, agency, in the LDS sense of the term, is our ability to choose  between good and evil.  It is a gift that every person is born with, and is something that is so important to God that he has never put a limit on it.  In other words, God has given us commandments and laws, but he will not stop us from choosing to break them.

Of course, even though we are free to choose to do whatever we want, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions.  For example, Jonah was commanded to go preach the Gospel to the people of Ninevah and command them to repent.  He chose to turn tail and flee to Tarshish (which is believed to be present-day Spain, which is as far in the opposite direction as you could go at the time).  It was Jonah's right to choose to do that.

As a consequence of his poor decision, Jonah was swallowed by a whale and had to live for three days in the whale's digestive tract.  It was only after he was brought to the depths of humility and repentance that Jonah was spared and given another chance to make the right decision.

One of the biggest ironies of our agency comes from the way we choose to use it.  In the Book of Mormon, we read of some of the consequences of sin:

". . .he [the devil] leadeth them by the neck with a flaxen cord, until he bindeth

them with his strong chords forever." --2 Nephi 26:22

"And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security

that they will say:  All is well in Zion--and thus the devil cheateth their souls,

and leadeth them carefully down to hell.

And behold, others he flattereth away, and telleth them there is no hell;

 and. . . I am no devil, . . .and thus he whispereth in their ears,

until he grasps them with his awful chains from whence there is no deliverance." --2 Nephi 28: 21-22

I love the imagery of these two scriptures.  Flax is a fine, golden material.  So when Nephi tells us that the devil leads us with a flaxen chord, he's saying that the devil's temptations always start out soft and appetizing in appearance.  And then these cords eventually turn into stronger chords and then into awful chains.

So, let's consider a  person who had made poor choices their entire life.  Let's say this person didn't study very much in school and started to hang out with a rough crowd.  Eventually, this person dropped out before graduation.  One thing led to another, and pretty soon this person was involved with drug addiction and started having problems with the law.  I could keep on going with this example until this person meets their bitter end, but I think you get the idea.

Sadly, I've met many people like this.  Sometimes they're aware of the misery of the situation they're in; other times, they still think they're on a never-ending joy ride, blissfully unaware that they're actually on a train that about to run out of tracks.

With each bad choice, our options become more limited. How much freedom does a drug addict without a job have?  It's truly appropriate to say that they have become bound with the 'awful chains' of the devil. 

Like I said earlier, on of the greatest ironies of agency comes from when our choice is to simply give it away.

Contrast that with someone at the other end of the spectrum.  When you study hard, get good grades, and finish school, multiple colleges will want to have you.  From there, you can pick your major, find a good job, meet the right person, etc.  So with each good choice, our freedom increases.

Alright, now that I've preached to you, let's move on to a story from my mission:

I remember almost a year ago, I was a missionary in the Walnut Grove area, which is a street in the eastern subdivision of Memphis, TN (Cordova, to be exact).  The area is on the wealthier, whiter side of Memphis and is famous for having the school where "The Blind Side" takes place.

Briarcrest Christian Academy: the real home of Michael Oher
of "The Blind Side" fame

Our lovely apartment complex.

Me, in the Walnut Grove area.  I wish I could say that
we rode in that vehicle.

All of us missionaries had been warned for several months that tornado season was coming up, so be extra cautious.  We were given packets on what to do in case of a tornado and told what the warning signs were.  My mission president's wife warned us that if we went out of our way to get a picture of a tornado, she'd kill us.

Well, one night, my companion and I woke up at 2 AM to the sound of tornado sirens going off.  We got out of bed and went straight to our balcony to see what was going on.  It was a little windy, but nothing catastrophic was happening.  There were a few other people in the surrounding apartments who were also on their balconies, but none of them were panicking.

My companion and I looked at each other.  We didn't know what to do.  Missionaries aren't allowed to watch TV or listen to the radio, so we had neither in our apartment, so we were clueless whether or not we should take this alarm seriously. Our options were:

•  Call a member of the congregation and ask them to check the TV for us
• Stay up and see if conditions worsen
• Run to Wal-Mart and get food
• Hide in the bath tub
• Go back to sleep

In the end, we decided to go back to sleep.

Shortly after we woke up, the sirens started going off again.  This time, we felt comfortable calling someone and asking them what was going on.  We were informed that the sirens in Memphis are set up so that whenever a tornado goes off anywhere in the county, all the sirens in the county start sounding.  At the moment, the sirens were for a tornado that was several miles away and didn't pose any danger.

We breathed a little bit easier.  But now the wind outside had been replaced by a downpour of rain.  Here's a video of some of the action:

The tornado sirens continued to go on and off for the remainder of the day.  Sometimes, the sirens would last for up to two hours.  Every time they went off, we would find out where the tornado was, and every time we found out that the tornado was several miles away and posed no threat to us.  But because of the rain, we were stuck in our apartmet for most of the day, and the sirens started driving me insane.  I eventually just started to tune them out. 

When I finally went to bed, the sirens were still going off.

The next day was Sunday.  When we went to church, we discovered that a tornado had ripped right through Germantown Parkway--which was only a couple miles south of us--at around 3 AM.  The sirens had gone off, but I had slept right through them!  I repeat: I slept through a tornado siren as well as an actual tornado!

It was the first Sunday of the month, so we had a testimony meeting.  One of the members talked about how their day went yesterday.  It was pretty similar to ours: lots of tornado sirens, a run to Wal-Mart to get supplies, eventually tuning out the sirens, etc.

When this guy went to sleep, he had an interesting dream.  He dreamed that the sirens were still going off, but the sound was replaced by the prophet's voice.  He could hear Thomas S. Monson on the giant speakers all across the city saying over and over things like this:

"Keep a supply of food storage. . . Keep a supply of food storage. . ."

"Do your home teaching. . . Do your home teaching. . . Do your. . ."

"Read the Scriptures. . . Read the Scriptures. . . Read the Scriptures. . "

Sometimes, we wonder why the brethren ask us to do the same things over and over.  I remember one time my little brother said how annoyed he was that he had heard three sermons on the evils of pornography in the last month.  "I'm so sick of hearing about it! I get it!" he said.  My dad replied that the reason we keep hearing about it is because many people in the church aren't listening--so we're going to keep hearing about it until they do.

Prophets, scriptures, personal revelation.  All these things are sirens to help guide us in the storms of life.  But none of them can ever force a person to change their behavior.  A change in our nature has to come from within; from the proper exercise of agency. 

Does that mean that preaching the Gospel to those who are bound is a waste of time?  No, of course not!  Quite the opposite.  The only thing that can cut those awful chains that bind us and keep us from heeding the sirens of our day is the healing power of the atonement.  This is the reason that Lehi councils Laman and Lemuel to "awake! and cast off the chains that bind you."  He was hoping that something he was saying would sink into his sons' rebellious hearts and awaken something in them.  Sometimes in the scriptures we see this work.  Other times it doesn't.  But there is always hope that we can change our future by coming to Christ.

That's why prophets, apostles, bishops and missionaries keep saying the same thing over and over and over again.