Follow Him: A Come, Follow Me Podcast - Ether 12-15 Part 1 • Dr. Doug Benson • November 25 - December 1 • Come Follow Me

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

How can our emotions be both a strength and a weakness? Join Dr. Doug Benson as he explores the concept of weakness, self-improvement and empowerment through Jesus Christ, and how Moroni lays out a pattern for the Saints to become like Jesus Christ.SHOW NOTES/TRANSCRIPTSEnglish: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM48ENFrench: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM48FRGerman: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM48DEPortuguese: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM48PTSpanish: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM48ESYOUTUBEhttps://youtu.be/G3wphmqC_fgALL EPISODES/SHOW NOTESfollowHIM website: https://www.followHIMpodcast.comFREE PDF DOWNLOADS OF followHIM QUOTE BOOKSNew Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastNTBookOld Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastOTBookWEEKLY NEWSLETTERhttps://tinyurl.com/followHIMnewsletterSOCIAL MEDIAInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followHIMpodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastTIMECODE00:00 Part I - Dr. Doug Benson01:34 Dr. Doug Benson’s bio02:28 Religious coping 04:32 Come, Follow Me Manual05:49 Ether 12:1-6 - Becoming like Jesus08:32 “Is there more?"09:40 Ether 12:4 - Hope for a better world13:07 Protective factors and covenant confidence17:08 Emotions are not facts18:59 Faith is an action word21:37 Dr. Benson shares a story about faith in an elevator23:16 President Nelson on hope25:23 Ether 12:13-15 - Mental health care30:38 Dr. Satterfield teaches scripture searching33:51 Weakness for our benefit35:46 Dialectics: two opposing ideas exist together38:15 Ether 12:27 - Centerpiece of doctrine39:42 Ether 12:27 - Accepting reality43:45 The dangers of perfectionism46:03 Dr. Manning and negative self-talk48:47 Fight, flight, or freeze51:11 Emotion can be strength or weakness54:20 Act opposite to become like Jesus56:34 Ether 12:27 - God in the moment59:16 Living in the past01:02:42 Shame and guilt01:04:18 Hiding vs making things public58:33 End of Part I - Dr. Doug BensonThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Cofounder, Executive Producer, SponsorDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com

Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of Follow Him. My name is Hank Smith and I'm your host. And I'm here with my sure and steadfast co-host, John, by the way, John, that is ether 12.4 sure and steadfast. Now, John, we are on our third lesson in the Book of Ether. We've had a great experience so far. What are you looking forward to in this final lesson? We feel bad for Moroni having to, let's see, I'm going to write about the destruction of my people, then I'm going to abridge an account of the destruction of the Jaredites. It's interesting to hear his voice.

And also, is it fair to say a little bit of insecurity? The Gentiles are going to mock at what I'm writing. This man that had to take over his father's life's work. Yeah, I wonder if he feels a connection to Ether as they both watch the destruction of their people. John, joining us today is a very good friend of mine. His name is Dr. Doug Benson. I call him Doug, but he is a doctor.

Doug, as you've looked into these chapters, what are you looking forward to? The thing that stuck out to me with the ether chapter 12 is the concept of weakness. This is the process of self-improvement, empowerment through Christ. Moroni lays out a pattern for us to incrementally become like Christ and like our Heavenly Father. John, Doug has never joined us before. He's very accomplished. Why don't you give us a bio before we get started? Yes, Dr. Doug Benson is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of emotion dysregulation and the provision of a dialectical behavior therapy or what they call

DBT. He graduated from Morehead State University in Kentucky with a master's in psychology and then went to Pepperdine in California and received a doctorate in psychology. Before we started recording, we were talking about your daughters and their mission. My daughter scout was called to the Jacksonville, Florida mission. My other daughter, Ruby, put in her papers. She just went into the MTC and she was called to the Jacksonville, Florida mission and we'll have an overlap of mission presidents. So that's unique. Very, Hey, I knew your sister.

Welcome. Dr. Benson, I understand you have a fascinating PhD study. I worked at a place called the Union Rescue Mission, which is a rescue mission in downtown LA, specifically with the homeless population down there. And I was a therapist and we did a study where we looked at what kind of religious coping people used in the homeless population. And there at what kind of religious coping people used in the homeless

population and there was positive and negative religious coping. Positive was usually when you would have a benevolent view of God and what God does in your life and that you attributed all the good things to God. Negative religious coping was usually more blaming, more negative attributes, because the Union Rescue Mission was a Christian facility. They had a program where they would mentor and do addiction treatment for people who were on the streets, and that was the reason they were on the streets. And the finding was that people in a homeless population used

both highly. It's like the idea of do all you can and then turn it over to God. Some people fall further into the do all you can part, some people fall into the turn it over part more. Within the homeless population, they used all of those pretty intensely. The hypothesis was that homelessness is a traumatic experience. Typically, when you're in some kind of situation where you can solve a problem, there's some leaning into the idea of, I'm going to do whatever I can and turn it over to God. Sometimes you have no control over the situation. The tendency is to lean into,

I can't do anything about this, so I'm just going to lean in and have faith, which is nice. It leads right into what we're talking about. Yeah, that's fascinating. I was interested when Doug first told me about that research. Doug has a soft spot for people who are suffering. Yeah, I'm probably going to cry. Yeah. And that's a gift, by the way. That is a gift. Let me read from the Come, Follow Me manual. I'm excited to follow you through these chapters. The lesson is entitled, By Faith, All Things Are Fulfilled. It starts this way.

Ether's prophecies to the Jaredites were great and marvelous. He told them of all things from the beginning of man. He foresaw the days of Christ and the latter-day New Jerusalem. And he spoke of hope for a better world, even a place at the right hand of God. But the Jaredites rejected his words for the same reason people often reject the prophecies of God's servants today, because they see them not. It takes faith to believe in promises or warnings about things we can't see, just as it took faith for Ether to prophesy of great and marvelous things to an unbelieving people. It took faith

for Moroni to trust that the Lord could take his weakness in writing and turn it into strength. It's this kind of faith that makes us sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God. And it's this kind of faith by which all things are fulfilled. Wow, that's a great kickoff to this. Doug, what do you want to do first? When I was reading through this, the first thing that popped out to me were the first six verses. How this chapter and the gospel in itself and what's in this chapter is, I think the kids are calling it meta. It's very parallely. John talked about this a little earlier about Moroni reading about Ether and Moroni searching through Ether's writings and these plates. He comes to this point where we hit chapter 12. He's describing

what's going on, but it's like he takes a break. He pauses. This is what I'm learning. These six verses where it leads up to verse six specifically, when he breaks off, to me, it was like Moroni is receiving personal revelation right now about what he's reading. The Elder Scott said, if you want to talk to God, you pray. And if you want God to talk to you, you search the scriptures. That gave some gravity, even more gravity to this is that this isn't Moroni's going to teach a sermon. But even the way he talks about weakness, it's more like a personal revelation to him on how to tackle this, this thing that he's experiencing. I'm reading about this guy,

Ether, this prophet of God. I'm sharing the same experience with him. My dad shared the same experience with him. How did he cope with it? He describes ether. He could not be restrained because of the spirit of the Lord which was in him. He describes how he did this faith. The information we're going to get in ether 12 is personal revelation to Moroni on how to handle his own insecurities and how to become like Christ. Do the things he sees ether doing. Yeah, that's fantastic. As a religion teacher at BYU, this is what I want to have happen. They're reading scripture, they're writing, that turns into an experience with the divine.

My students push back all the time, don't make us right, don't make us right. I don't mind reading, but don't make me right. But the process of reading and then, what was he doing? Condensing, upridging this story. You're absolutely right there. All of a sudden, he stops and says, now I'm a Rhonai, I'm going to talk about this for a second.

What's fascinating to me is that his father did the exact same thing in Helaman chapter 12. He just stopped and said, let me write. You've hit the first principle here which is study scriptures, write about what you're reading and personal revelation opens up It reminded me of a talk elder Scott gave in 2009 where he talked about receiving revelation if you remember he was in a Sunday school class He felt the spirit. He felt like the things that were being talked about were important So he started to write them down

then he talks about pausing and important, so he started to write them down. Then he talks about pausing and asking, is this everything? Am I supposed to receive more? Then he received more, so he wrote it down. At one point he said he'd left the class because he wanted to be able to have some quiet and wrote more down. He clarified one of his current assignments. I like how you added that. I don't think I thought about the idea of writing. When you said that, that even brought more things back to my mind about how I learn and how I receive revelation. Writing things down and then being willing. That's going to be something you see throughout this chapter. Yeah, and it's difficult. It's a little easier to sit

down and read scripture, but then to pick up your pen and write or pick up your phone or your keyboard and start to type out. It can take us to a new level. I've always noticed verse four where he says, who so believeth in God might with surety. Sure love the surety part. The strong faith, hope for a better world. And I thought, yeah, Moroni's seeing this world. Ether was seeing his world and there was no, it's too far gone. But when you believe in God, you can hope for a better world. And it even sounds like it's a spirit world type place, even a place at the right hand of God. My current world, I can't fix it,

but I can hope for a better world. That will be an anchor for me. Jim In this chapter or in his revelation, weakness is the problem he's trying to address. And the solutions are hope, faith, charity, even before that, humility and grace. Jared Doug, we've talked about other scriptures that talk about charting a course and having a sail and a destination. Here's an anchor this time. Harold B. Lee said something about the importance of faith in an anchor. He said, the time is coming and facing you right now, you young people, when except you have the testimony of certainty that these things, the gospel, the church, and so on are true,

you will not be able to weather the storms that are going to beat upon you and try to tear you from your moorings today. But if you know with all your soul that these things are true that we have been talking about, you will know who Jesus your Savior is and who God your Father is. You will know what the influence of the Holy Ghost is. If you know those things, you will stand as an anchor against all the storms that shall beat upon you." Some of these seagoing type metaphors, there's the idea of being tossed about. But if you have moorings and an anchor, then you can be firm and steadfast, like we've talked about here, an anchor to the souls of men. And we're going to need something like that. I remember once I was up fishing in Alaska. I didn't realize how much the tide goes in and out of this bay that we were in. I figured it stayed relatively the same.

That's what happens at Utah Lake, where I'm from. One morning I went out. There was a buoy out in the water and it looked like it was going to be, like it was sinking. I'm like, what's going on? They said, oh, that's the tide going out. And I said, it's a lot of water going out of the bay. I remember Jimmy Rosenbrook was his name. He was our captain. He said, the water going in and out of this bay every day is like draining Lake Powell seven times, in and out. At that moment, I saw the importance of an anchor, like a solid anchor, or else you're gonna end up far away. It's not like you'd move a couple of feet.

We would end up miles and miles away from where we were. The interesting thing is these things are interconnected. When we talk about faith and hope, the combination of these two things, hope, is when we have a light, when we have something to look forward to, when there is something, protective factors are family, connections, religious beliefs are also a protective factor. Going back to dissertation stuff, it might depend on what your beliefs are, how you interface with religion or with your faith and which faith you are, how strong that is, that is also a protective factor. Because when we talk about hope, hope is the ability to see the promises that have been given to us. Elder Suarez talked about having confidence. There's that interchange again between faith

and hope. Faith is to me, and it's not a complete definition, but it's what comes to my mind is faith is behavior based on this hope that we talk about. And that's where it gets cyclical. When we act on faith, it increases our hope, which increases our faith or ability to act in righteousness. Covenant confidence is, oh, I've been given these promises, I've made these commitments. And when I keep these commitments, I'm supposed to get these promises, but I don these commitments, I'm supposed to get these promises, but I don't know that I'm going to get those. I don't see them. I don't see them. They're not in my hands. And I'm going to act on faith as if I have those. When people lack hope, then

they lose purpose and they start to lose an understanding of meaning. Like, why are we here? The old missionary questions, why are we here? Where are we going? The answers to those questions are important because they provide hope. Hope is important because it allows us to act on faith or behave effectively. And I would suggest that this chapter is a chapter of hope. That's why it's in here. He talks about hope in this verse. He sandwiches this idea of weakness with hope and faith because hope and faith are the answer to overcoming our weakness.

I'm reminded of that classic movie, The Prince of Egypt. Though hope is frail, it's hard to kill. I hope that's true. I'm sure there's many of our listeners who listen to this dog and think, that's me. I'm running out of hope. I like what you said there. Maybe we could say, okay, with this small amount of hope that you have, maybe you could do a small act of faith. Hopefully, like you said, it's cyclical. It will build. What you just said, that reminds me of Alma 32. Alma 32 is a wonderful behavioral experiment because Alma says, let's say you have a seed. You don't even have to hope for everything.

You just have to have a seed. And if you plant that seed right there, just planting the seed is behavior. You have done something. But if it's a good seed, then it'll start to grow. But you have to continue in the experiment. You have to water and you have to nurture. And as you do that, it continues to grow. The first sprout, as he says, is evidence.

Evidence will increase hope, which then by that will also increase faith. We'll be like, hey, look, I planted this and what? It's actually gonna grow. And because of that it makes us want to water it more and the eventual thing is fruit. We get to partake of the fruit of this tree that we've grown through this bouncing between hope, faith. Within dialectical behavior therapy we're gonna talk about this skill which I'll talk more about like that with weakness,

but the idea of just because I feel a certain way or think a certain way doesn't mean I have to act the same way. Emotions and thoughts are not facts about the world per se. They're just a piece of information. Even if I lack hope, even if I could muster up just a little bit, what is something? Like see that I can act on, that it may be in complete opposition to the way I feel or think about it,

I might get that evidence. This might be a silly example, but my son Mason loves to go to the gym. He's become a gym rat Sometimes he'll want to go and he'll look at the clock and think oh, I don't have time to go and I'll say well Why not and he'll say I'd like to have 90 minutes. He said I only have maybe 45 We've come up with a little phrase. That's look any workout is better than no workout And I thought that it's probably that same thing with faith because you said you don't have to hope for

Everything you don't have to just say I'm fully invested in this. Maybe it's just any Act of faith is better than no act of faith It reminds me of President Benson's quote The Lord is pleased with every effort, even the tiny ones in which we strive to be more like Him. I might be talking to a youth or even an adult who struggles with addiction or some sort of sin that they think, as soon as I get past this, then I can talk to God. I would say, even if it's a tiny bit of effort, just a prayer in your heart, that's better than waiting. I remember Stephen Covey working

with somebody and his strategy to get them out of where they were stuck was make a promise, keep it, make a promise, keep it. And it was as simple as getting up in the morning at a certain time. That created some momentum. I like what you said, Doug, about faith is acting. I know Elder Bednar talks about Joseph Smith did not pray which church was right. He said, which church should I join? It was an act of faith to join it. Maybe that's what real intent means when we talk about sincere heart, but real intent. I really intend to act in faith. So I like that. I never thought of that before. How did you say it? Faith is action? Yeah, faith

is behavior. Faith is behavior because it's a you're gonna faithfully do something. Yep. In fact, we use the term have faith when we might change our vocabulary, right? Doug to act in faith or move forward with faith. Behave faithfully. Yeah. I think that's why those things are the way they are. If you go way back to the lectures on faith, Joseph Smith basically makes this point. He says, faith is the moving cause of all action in temporal concerns, so it is in spiritual, for the Savior said, truly that he that believeth in his Baptism shall be saved. But he goes on and even basically says, everything we do is the result of faith. I brush my teeth because a dentist has told me that then my

teeth won't rot and I won't have cavities. I didn't do any research I'm not googling all the articles. Let's see what kind of empirical research there is on dentistry. Yeah my brother's a dentist and he's just said brush my teeth because it's better and I'm like okay I have faith in him and because of that I don't have cavities. When we talk about this kind of faith, we're talking about faith in Jesus Christ. We're talking about faith in the promises made. That's what Elder Suarez was touching on. It's like, we make these covenants and we don't see the fruits of those, maybe not these covenants and we don't see the fruits

of those, maybe not even in this lifetime, we don't see the fruits of those. Covenant confidence comes from behaving in accordance to those promises. That's hope. I don't know what is going to happen. I don't know if my teeth are going to rot out, but I'm just going to have faith. I'm going to brush. I think that's the power in hope. It gives us something to have faith in. I remember in graduate school, because it was a religious school, most of the other students had some kind of a religious background. I was the only LDS person in my cohort. We'd get in these energetic discussions about doctrine and things like that. I remember being on the elevator with one of my cohort and he said something about blind

faith and I was like, I don't think there's any such thing as blind faith. You have to know something to be able to act. I just remember this burned in my head because he's like, no, that's the whole thing of faith. You don't know anything. Then he got off the elevator and the door's closed. And I just remember this burned in my head because he's like, no, that's the whole thing of faith You don't know anything and then he got off the elevator and the doors closed. I was like no way. There's more You're missing it Back to the lectures on faith. We can't have faith in God until we understand his character Yeah, how do we even know what we're supposed to do?

You have to have a seed to be able to have hope and then to have faith. Elder John H. Groberg said once that the basis of all righteous hope is in the person of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. When I started thinking about the things I hope for most, they are things like I want to see my parents again. I want to be with my family forever. I want there to be life after death. All of those things come down to what Jesus did.

I want hope that my mistakes can be forgiven. All of them come back to my hope in Christ. I hope my football team wins. That one doesn't, but all the piggies. Elder Adnerson talked about hope in the most recent general conference. The thing that actually struck me was a footnote in his talk where he quotes then I think Elder Nelson, but President Nelson in a BYU devotional from like 1995. And he said, have you noticed in the scriptures that hope seldom stands alone? Hope is often linked with faith. Hope and faith

are commonly connected to charity. Why? Because hope is essential to faith. Faith is essential to hope. Faith and hope are essential to charity, which Moroni gets to later in this chapter. And he goes on to say, they support one another like legs on a three-legged stool. All three relate to our Redeemer. Faith is rooted in Jesus Christ, hope centers in his atonement, charity is manifest in the pure love of Christ. These three attributes are intertwined like strands in a cable and may not always be precisely distinguished. Together, they become our tether to the celestial kingdom.

I feel like some of our greatest definitions of faith are here in Moroni 12.6 and then the footnotes. Hebrews 11.1 and Alma 32.21, which you just mentioned. It's a hope for things which are not seen. It's a hope without a ton of evidence. Is the assurance or the substance of things hoped for, the JST changes it to assurance? Yeah, things not seen. When you have faith, you hope for things which are not seen, which are true. They all have that common element in it. When you see those really powerful verses about faith, it was fun to see that they're all in the footnote of Ether 12.6.

It seems to me in verse five that Ether is prophesying great marvelous things, but nobody is acting. They don't see it first. It's almost like, show me the plates, then I'll believe. Instead of, I'll do the work to get to the evidence. Yeah. As we move into 13 through 15 too, and maybe Moroni is trying to punctuate that point that nobody's listening. It isn't that either if you look in the beginning of chapter

13, he goes into either even talked about New Jerusalem. These guys know, they guys have all the information. They're not acting on it. Before we move on from this topic, and John and I know on your mind every week is a listener out there who is in a dark place, who is losing hope. As you might guess, I'm sure that hope and faith are fading both together. Let's speak to those people for just a moment. And I hope if you're out there listening, if you're feeling this way, that you'll stay with us here as we talk about just a little bit of action.

Sometimes don't you think both of you that we can ask people, we can over flood them with things they have to do. And maybe this is, you're in a dark, difficult place. If you could just say a prayer, maybe it's been the first prayer you've said in months or years. What are your thoughts, both of you? Maybe a two-prong to that question. If you are feeling or have the thoughts about self-harm, I would encourage you to seek professional help. People who specifically specialize in the treatment of suicidal ideation, just like any medical treatment, mental health treatment has specific ways to address that. There's a hotline you can call 9-8-8 and they can give you tips or things to think about.

And then I love the idea of acting opposite to that urge on faith, that it can be different. The other thing to that is if you know someone or you're interacting with someone that you feel might be in danger, true ministering is the best intervention. I worked with somebody who made up their mind, they had a plan and everything. They said, okay, well, today I'm going to go to school. And if someone says hi to me, I won't. By divine intervention, somebody said hi. And they thought, okay, well, there is something out there. So maybe I will try. Maybe we'll see what happens. That's where I will suggest ministering is being like Christ. Saying hello to people, being kind, having charity, making space for people. Oh, thanks Doug. Doug, I like that you referenced Alma 32 where at first he says if it's a true seed and then he

backs off a little bit and says even just a good seed maybe you can't go to the place where it's true but can you accept that it's good? Even if you can no more than desire to believe, that's a step too. Then let that desire work in you until you can give place. It's one of my favorite phrases in there, give place, kind of a willful suspension of disbelief. I'm going to give place that something good, something hopeful might happen, then see what God can do when you give place and then act and move forward. But boy, what you said about just saying hi, what a simple thing all of us could do. I'm reminded of Sister Michelle Craig who was in line at a store.

Do you remember the story, Hank? Something said, look up from your phone and She started talking to the guy that was buying cat food and then he kind of let it slip, it's my birthday. Then she had a chance to say, hey, happy birthday. That's wonderful and everything. Had she not looked up from her phone, she wouldn't be able to do that. The idea is to let yourself be a tender mercy. In this chapter, we'll talk about grace, the idea of the Lord's

intervention. If we are listening and following the Spirit in our own lives, then we can not just receive tender mercies, but be someone else's tender mercies. That's almost, or I would say even better than receiving those yourself, that you get to be one for someone else. I encourage my students at BYU, take out your AirPods, because they walk with their head down, their AirPods in. I even want to show them the 1980s when people had their eyes up

and they were looking at each other. Maybe that's part of our epidemic of loneliness. Dr. Martin we've had a couple of weeks ago, he said, we've never been so connected yet so lonely. I can't tell you how many times I've said something to someone and they go, what? You know, something have to pull something out first because they didn't hear what I said. Thanks for that. Both of you. I just hope anybody out there listening know you are loved. Even though it might not feel like it right now, you are loved. Like Doug said, get help,

move forward. It's in small little steps. The Lord will be there for you. I know you've had Bruce Satterfield on the show. He was teaching at Ricks College when I went to Ricks College. Then he went to BYU when I went to BYU. Bruce Satterfield, basically, he taught me how to search the scriptures. I remember in one class, he had us read this verse. Whoever read it, they said weaknesses. And he said, okay, well, hold on though. Let's look at this word weaknesses. Does it say weaknesses? It doesn't say weaknesses. It says weakness. So let's read the verse, verse 27. Ether 12 27, and if men come unto me, I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto

men weakness, that they may be humble, and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me. For if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." If it's not weaknesses, then what is the singular weakness? And then he left it at that and said, go figure it out. I had to go on this journey of figuring out why it has weakness instead of weaknesses. And came to the conclusion that what he's talking about is our humanity, our fallen state. If you chase the scriptures, you can find other places where people say the same thing. Paul says the same thing about his infirmity. I think the brother of Jared talks about the same thing when he is

asking for him to touch the stones. He says, because of the fall of our natures, we've become evil continually. Even Nephi also alludes to this when he's talking about, oh wretched man that I am, Yay, my heart's sorrowed because of my flesh. There's this idea that our weakness is our humanity. It's our physical body. It's being in this carnal state. The natural man, King Benjamin would say. Yep.

I love this because this also is, to me, a seed. Sometimes, as humans, we have this tendency to see things to meet a seed. Sometimes as humans we have this tendency to see things in black and white. Our brain is built to do that. Our brain is built to say, oh, fire bad. Don't touch fire, danger. Put these things in boxes. Keeps us safer. When we talk about weakness, when we talk about carnality, when we talk about our physical body, you'll get these discrepant messages. The natural man is an enemy to God. That is true. But then we also read in Corinthians that our body is a temple. To me, suddenly I've got this hope based on this, we're all in a level playing

field. This is a common thing that everyone has is this weakness and it's not necessarily a curse It was given to us by God Now I give unto men. I didn't say I cursed men. We have weakness in Fact I would suggest that we have this weakness to our own benefit as he he goes on, it says, I give it to you so that you can be humble. If you're humble, my grace is sufficient for you. I think there's two parts there. When I think about what our brain does, we have our emotion center in our brain, the limbic system. Our emotions are hardwired. We all have emotions and I'm

setting this up because the next three chapters talk about emotions a lot. A lot of times people, they understand this concept of emotions are hardwired. We have emotions but then they also have these beliefs about emotions that would suggest they are bad. Being angry is bad. I shouldn't feel this way. The problem is you're gonna. You're gonna feel all the waves because they're hard wired. They're there. In fact, it's been given to us. Why do we have that weakness? Well, because without that weakness, we wouldn't have a vehicle to become like our Heavenly Father.

We wouldn't be able to build the characteristics necessary to be with Him. This mortal body, this fallen nature comes with emotion. And those emotions are going to come with urges that I need to control or learn to act on, learn to not act on? We'll even read when we get into Ether, within the same verse, it talks about how Quarantimer's people and Quarantimer are full of anger. All of the wickedness is because of their

anger. And then it'll say, and then the wrath of God was unleashed on them. Okay, well wait a minute, those are both words for anger. It comes down to this idea in DBT that we will talk about with dialectics and it's the idea that two opposing ideas or two opposing truths can exist within that same moment. So the idea that we can both have a weakness that is both detrimental to us and a positive to us, that's not a foreign thing in the scripture. You can either partake of the fruit and you shall die and I also want you to multiply and replenish the earth and they're both true. Justice and mercy are two opposing things. How can you be 100%

just? How can you be perfectly just and perfectly merciful? Those two truths, those things need to be reconciled in our minds. That's where hope comes from you when we talk about weakness and this process that he's going to describe on what to do with weakness because, oh, I'm not a bad person. Oh, I have this emotion. Oh, I'm not a bad person. People have emotions. What do I do with it now? We go back to this acting in faith. Now what do I do with this emotion? I really like that, Doug. And to me, that goes back to our previous discussion that

this weakness is a gift. Oh, well, that gives me hope that I'm on the right track just because I'm feeling these emotions It seems like that Maroni is feeling a little bit of shame in these previous verses Oh, I can't write I'm terrible at writing and yet that's a good thing In a way, it's leading him to something Well, it leads him to understanding faith hope and charity. That's the idea Jared super powerful when I read it and I look at reformed Egyptian and I'm also kind of clumsy And I don't get the same thing from what I'm writing I'm gonna ask the Lord if he's gonna be able to fix this for me. How's this even gonna work right there? He's

humbling himself and the Lord answers his prayer. Grace is sufficient for him because of his humility and his faith. He had to actually pray. He had to talk to God about this. You said verse 27 is the centerpiece where the Lord teaches the doctrine, but we can see this play out in Moroni's exchange here. Anyone listening who thinks, I'm not good at that, I'm not even close to that person, those moments of, oh, this is what Moroni is going through. That happens whenever I'm around John, by the way. I am not as nice.

I am not as kind. I am not as funny. And the Lord would say, if you'll be humble, I can turn those things you lack into strengths. Now, both of you can answer this. I don't think the Lord is saying, I can take your weaknesses and make them strengths, but he's saying, I can use your weakness, your mortality to your advantage.

Yeah. I think that's where I go back to this idea of we can't become like God without this weakness because we make mistakes, we humble ourselves, faith repentance, baptism, gift of the Holy Ghost. Which wouldn't have been part of our life had we not. Yeah. If we jump ahead to verse 37, I love this statement. And because this is what the Lord said to Moroni, because thou hast seen thy weakness, we could ask the question, what would prevent you from seeing your own weakness, seeing your fallen state? Because thou hast seen thy weakness, thou shalt be made strong.

And then remember, an anchor to the souls of men so that what they might with surety hope for a better world Even a place at the right hand of God and this says because thou has seen thy weakness thou shall be made strong even unto The sitting down in the place which I have prepared in the mansions of my father if we have weakness and we see it That's good. That's why I'm getting here. Yeah, If you're not seeing your weakness, that's not good, but if you see your weakness, you have hope to sit down with the Father one day. I'll talk about this in terms of understanding and accepting reality, things as they are in the current moment. That's what we're describing here. You have accepted reality as it is, Moroni.

And because you have done that, you can now move forward in faith. Many times I have not accepted reality as it is. I looked at things the way that I wanted them to be, or I saw things the way I think they should be. The problem we want to solve, that we think we know the solution and we just move forward like we know what we're doing. In that case, I'm not focused on reality. I'm not aware of my weakness, that my plan or my solution isn't the actual solution. Therefore, I don't see the fruit of my faith. I have faith in my own wisdom rather than in the way things really are. What would be an example, Doug, of someone rejecting reality? Because Moroni is accepting reality.

This is what it is. And the Lord says, good, good. So what would be the example? What would Moroni say or anyone else say to reject reality? I would say perfectionism is a way that people reject reality. The Lord is saying, hey, guess what? You're not perfect. In fact, you were built that way.

You were built imperfect. Oftentimes we will reject that reality or we'll pretend we're not supposed to be this way. We're not supposed to be weak. And people read this way. We're not supposed to be weak. And people read this scripture, I will not be weak anymore when I have done this process. When I have faith, I'll no longer be weak. But the Lord is saying, I will make it strong. He's not saying, I will take it away. Even when we go back to Paul, we mentioned earlier, Paul never had his infirmity

taken away, whatever it was. He doesn't say what it was, but it was never removed from him because my suggestion or my thought would be that it is part of his mortal life. It's a weakness that he has or it's weakness in general. A lot of times people reject reality in this even within the scriptures and they rest the scriptures to justify the idea that they are supposed to be perfect now. Be therefore perfect even as I am. That scripture becomes something that people beat themselves with because they reject the reality that they are not perfect and that actually they won't be in this life. It's like one of those dual prophecies when we talk about then I will make weak things become

strong unto them through grace. So the dual prophecy is I will actually change you now in small ways, small and simple things, line upon line, precept on precept. You'll become a little bit better here and there as you follow this process. And then I'll resurrect you. Then your weak thing will no longer be a weak thing. It will be perfect and immortal. That's the promise. You're hitting it very relevant topics today.

Put on your therapist hat here and let's say there's a listener out there who really struggles with perfectionism. I know it's pretty prevalent. Walk us through in therapy terms how someone might reject reality and how they can use this, what you've been teaching us. We go back to this idea of dialectics. Two things that might coexist that go together are this idea of acceptance and change. They seem like opposites, but oftentimes, even within this verse, we have to accept that we are weak, which then allows us to act in faith. So that's acceptance, and then acting in faith is change. That's how my talk about this, right?

It's like, well, it might be that you need to accept there are certain things that are currently happening in your life that you don't like. There might even be things about yourself that you don't like that you need to accept. But they need to be things that are actually real. I can't accept something that's not real because it's not real. So if I'm like, I'm a horrible person, well, I can't accept that because that's not reality. The Lord don't make no joke. Yeah.

But I can't accept, oh, things aren't the way I want them to be right now. That allows me to move forward. When we talk about perfectionism, like I'm not this thing, whatever the bar I've set myself for, and my acceptance of reality is like, okay, I'm not this thing. That's true. That's the reality that I exist in right now. I can do this,. I can do this or I can do this. Oftentimes people get stuck in this dichotomy of I'm perfect or I'm a failure. It's not a real dichotomy.

That's not how we exist. It's more of like, what can we do that's going to work? What's going to be the most effective? You said earlier, the Lord loves effort. If we're moving forward, we're accomplishing maybe what we can rather than what we think we are supposed to. I'm not perfect and God loves me. Yeah, I'm not perfect and I'm good enough. When Dr. Craig Manding was here and he talked about people's negative self-talk that to stop himself and say, is that like you said somebody saying I'm a failure they're probably succeeding at a number of things but they had one failure therefore I'm a failure come on is that accurate I always mess up a real do you

always or did you mess up this one time back off a little bit and ask yourself, is that really accurate? Yeah. Is Moroni accepting reality when he says, I'm not that great at writing given my situation, but he doesn't say, therefore I'm the worst person ever. I can't be helpful. Or I'm going to quit. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad he didn't quit. Yeah, me too. We wouldn't be here right now. If I'm struggling with perfectionism, you're telling me to accept the fact that I'm not

perfect right now. And in fact, the Lord has no expectation of that because he says right here, I gave you your imperfection. Yeah. When you talk about that, John, the idea of evidence and looking for evidence in dbt, they would call that checking the facts is where we try to look at our thoughts and our emotions and see if they actually are consistent with the context that we're in. That's another way to do that. Is this reality kind of an idea? Does my emotion fit the facts? Because emotions are hardwired. We have our learning history.

We can have an emotion that might not fit the current context. It doesn't fit what's actually going on. That's where I go back to this idea of weakness and emotions. We have emotions and the emotion doesn't necessarily have to be a fact about the world. Just because I feel a certain way that isn't a fact about the world. It's a piece of information that my brain is giving me. Same with thoughts. Just because I think something doesn't mean it's a fact about the world. We think about hundreds of things a day and a large portion of them we ignore because they're not pertinent or we've learned just through our experiences to pay attention to certain ones and not certain ones. That

can be helpful and that could be harmful. The idea of checking the facts would be checking to see whether my emotion fits the context, whether my thoughts are fitting the context, whether the intensity of my emotion fits the context, whether my thoughts are fitting the context, whether the intensity of my emotion fits the context. How long has this emotion been here? Does that fit the context? Each emotion Hank referred to has an urge that's hardwired to it. I've heard previous people talk about fight or flight. When we feel fear we have a built-in urge to run away or to put up our dukes and fight or to freeze the deer in the headlights. For a deer in the wild the most effective thing they can do is sit still. Prey's not gonna get

them most likely if they just freeze. The problem is when you're on the freeway and the headlights are coming at you, freezing is not an effective response. You talked about fear. Let's say my son is past his curfew, therefore I'm thinking in my head his curfew, therefore I'm thinking in my head either he is out there doing something terrible, so I'm angry at him, or he's hurt, so now I'm scared, now I'm fearful, and I start planning his funeral in my head, and what I'm going to say, you're saying I should stop and go check the facts. He's just not home. Yeah.

I might ask, what's the likelihood that any of those things are currently happening? Yeah. There's a possibility. There's a difference between a possibility and a likelihood though. Is this what people do when they tell themselves stories without having facts? My friend doesn't text me back, therefore he's angry with me that I've planned all that I'm going to say because he's not a good friend. And then he says, Oh, I'm sorry. I was in the temple. That's why I didn't text you back.

Yeah. I don't have signal. I was in Costco. I didn't check the facts. Two hours of suffering. I could have avoided by checking the facts earlier. I like that. I like that too. Well, you know, why assume the worst?

I have used that on myself. Most likely it's this. Being able to say, well, those things are possible. That's very unlikely that it's that. That helps me to calm down. Doug, if I have a symptom of something, if my body's hurting, I probably shouldn't go online and read that symptom because I might end up with I have four or five fatal diseases. Yeah, you've caught WebMD. Yeah, because I know that you have a tendency to do that. I'm gonna go online, I'm gonna read about this and oh no, I have cancer. I'm for sure I have cancer, right? That's where I might go like, okay

What's the likelihood that this is the thing that also goes to where we go back to this balance idea or these dialectics? Sometimes our emotions and our thoughts are accurate and we need to do something with that We don't want to ignore our emotions. That's where we go back to this idea of this weakness is also strength. That's how it becomes a strength because we love our children. That's an emotion. Anger protects us. Fear protects us. We need that emotion.

That's maybe another way to think about this idea of I make weak things become strong. In that, yes, our natural man is a weakness. And it is also through the grace of Christ, it's made strong. It's something that can be helpful because he's going to go on and talk about charity, which is love. So far Doug, you've walked me through how to come out of a hopeless state. You've helped me understand why to accept the things that are real, accept reality. I am not as funny as John, by the way, and that's okay. Funny looking, right. What do you want to do next? When we talk about weakness, you

mentioned Mosiah 3 19 as the natural man. If you look at that, the natural man is an enemy to God and has been from the fall of Adam, another indicator that this is a rod thing. It's not a specific, oh no, I have that penmanship. And will be forever and ever unless he yields unto the enticings of the Holy Spirit and putteth off the natural man and becomeeth a saint through the Atonement. Then he gives all these things to do. I like the term or the phrase putteth off the natural man. He doesn't, put it off the natural man. It doesn't say get rid of the natural man.

It doesn't say eliminate the natural man. It doesn't say don't have it. It says what you need to do is put off the natural man. Become submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love. All of these things that we already talked about, this acceptance of reality, the humility, we're humble, we're more teachable, that's what he's describing here. But he's saying to do that we need to put off the natural man through the enticings of the Holy Spirit. Rather than when I have an emotion saying I need to get rid of this emotion,

or I need to get rid of this urge that I have. It might be more about I need to put it off. I need to act opposite to it. Depending. We talked about this idea of checking the facts. If my emotion makes sense, if it's a piece of information to act on, if I'm a deer in the woods and there's a bear, I need to freeze. But if I'm a deer on the free and there's a bear, I need to freeze. But if I'm a deer on the freeway, I need to run. It might be that when we have these urges, we put off the natural man. We act opposite to those things is what we would call it. What does that mean, act opposite?

So I have a natural urge, do the exact opposite of that natural? Or do something that would replace it. Usually our urges are there to help us resolve whatever the emotion is. Feeling afraid, so I run away so that I won't be afraid anymore. Let's put that in real context though. I get asked to speak in state conference or I get asked to do a podcast. We're back to meta. Suddenly we're noticing fear.

We have this emotion of fear. And my fear is going to tell me that I should run away. Tell them no. Sorry, stake president. I will be out of town that weekend. Say no. I can't do this. If we check the facts, what's going to happen if I speak in a state conference? What's the worst thing that could happen? Well, the worst thing is that I get up and I stumble and then it's over.

Probably not going to die. It's not going to kill me to speak in state conference. What's more likely going to happen? Well, it'll be a learning process. I'll get something out of at least preparing the talk, even if I do stumble. We go back to this, be the tender mercy. Maybe somebody will get something out of what I said. I'm gonna act opposite to my emotion, which is I'm not gonna say no, and I'm actually gonna throw myself all the way in, act in

faith, I'm gonna write my talk, I'm gonna stand up there, and I'm even gonna feel fear up there. Now, that being said, right, that's probably one of the hardest things I've just described to somebody with social anxiety. They're thinking, well, what was that? That was the sound of thousands of people switching to Taylor and Tyler, right? As soon as I said that. What was that I heard? No one's listening anymore. It's a hard, hard thing to do. That's why the other part of this verse is that my grace is sufficient. We're back to comfort. These are things that we might need to do that are different. We might need to act in faith, to act on our hope.

That would be opposite action, right? It's behavior. But don't worry. My grace is sufficient for you when you do that thing. You'll see it sprout. It's gonna come forward. If I'm in a fearful place, the stats of young people and even adults who deal with anxiety seems to be increasing. And again, it might be a medical issue like you talked about earlier. But I'm feeling this anxiety, this fear, acting opposite to it would be turning towards this

thing that I'm afraid of and doing the exact thing I don't want to do. Yeah, it's really probably one of the hardest things to do. When I talk to people about this, I'm very upfront about this is difficult. I can't get around difficult. The only way around difficult is through. And the comfort is that you're not doing it by yourself. Doing it is going to increase your ability to become like your Heavenly Father. In the long run, in the short run, you'll be less afraid. Yeah, you'll see you can do things.

Mm-hmm. You can do things you never thought you could do. If you don't mind, I want to go back to Ether 1227 because something happened to me recently that I hope was being led by the Spirit. I had a student ask me a wonderful question, very sincere question. He said, I'm not doing well in school. I'm studying really hard, not getting the grades I want, getting C's when he wanted to get A's. He said, so I've been putting God first. And then he referenced this verse. Basically asked the question,

when does my weakness become a strength? And I think what he meant was, when do I start getting these A's that I'm supposed to be getting? I think it was the Holy Ghost that gave me an answer. I've never given this answer before at any question. I said, what if you never get the A's you're thinking of, but 20 years from now, your daughter says,

Dad, I'm so dumb. Everyone around me is getting A's. I'm not. What's wrong with me? And now you can comfort her in a way you couldn't have before. Is that the Lord making your weakness your strength? I think he both liked my answer and didn't like my answer.

I think he thought, oh yeah, that's a good thought. But wait a second, I want my good cranes. Do you see that in verse 27 that maybe we expect a certain strength to come? Yeah, that leans into another thing we'll talk about, the idea of mindfulness. We have a tendency to want to be in the past or the future when really God is ever-present. Oftentimes we think about God is ever-present means that God is always around us, but I like to think about it that God is always in this moment. Mindfulness is paying attention on purpose in the present moment. We get hung up on this future thinking about expectations.

We usually don't have the information to be able to be accurate in that. I don't know what my life map is. I have a thumb sketch. So when I try to figure out exactly what's gonna happen in the future and I make plans, I get stuck because the journey isn't what I think the journey should be. The idea is that we let go of this assumption of how things will work out and do what's effective now. What would it look like for someone to live in the future? Is that what you mean? They're constantly thinking of how things should be. Yeah, I did this thing, God, so I should get ace. The Lord knows what's going to make us or help us become what we can become, like fulfill

our eternal potential, and we don't. That's fascinating, yeah. And what would be an example of someone living in the past? The emotion of sadness comes from living in the past, or anger can come from living in the past. We're going to read about that, like Coriantum or there are all these wars based on things that happened. You killed my brother and you did this thing to me. We live in the past instead of the current moment. The past comes and crushes the current moment.

We can't really enjoy or be effective in the current moment because we're stuck. My wife and I are both stressed, we're busy, we've got five kids, all of whom seem to need something at all times. I'm frustrated. Can you walk me through that? There's so many listeners going, oh yeah, that's me. Oh, that's me too. Well, first of all, what emotion is frustration? Unmet expectations?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, first, what emotion is frustration? Unmet expectations? Yeah. Yeah. I would ask myself, does this fit the facts? Why am I frustrated? Does the frustration make sense? Are there good reasons why things are happening the way they are that might reduce my frustration or my anger?

And I might say, well well I am frustrated by this part of it and this part might not fit the facts. The intensity of my emotion is too intense for the situation but I'm being frustrated makes sense because I wanted things to be this way and they're not. Then I might move into problem solving and have a conversation with my wife about that thing. Too often, we value short-term reinforcers over long-term reinforcers, meaning it's late, I'm going to go for peace now, maybe we'll talk about it later. But then we never talk about it later.

Okay. We've gone for the short term and that might mean saying, hey, there's something going on. Is there a way we can fix it? Is there something, let's discuss it. And then sometimes if we get to the point, like I'm frustrated and it doesn't make any sense

or it doesn't fit the context, then it would be, I'm just gonna act opposite to this. And that's not the same as stuffing it down. It's acting opposite in a way that will change the emotion. So I would say, like I'm gonna take a time out, I'm going to gently avoid this person. By gently, I mean I'm not gonna stomp off, not slamming doors, because those are anger behaviors, right? That's acting on anger. Instead I'm gonna take some quiet time and go, okay, need to calm down. And then because emotions are not necessarily just behaviors, they're a full system response, I might have thoughts that are gonna keep the anger going. Even if I go take a break in my room and I'm sitting there thinking about how they wronged me and how

terrible they are. And then we're back to Coriantumor in a few minutes. Then my anger's going to stick. So I'm going to have to sit and think about real good reasons why things are happening the way they are, why it might be this way, just to kind of bring that anger down and then go do something nice, have charity. Doug, I'm really enjoying this little exercise we're doing. Let me give you one more. Let's say I'm in church and a wonderful, well-meaning member of my ward is bearing a testimony or giving a talk,

telling the congregation about how wonderful their family is, how their children have all been obedient. This never happens in my work. And I'm sitting there going, my life is not that way. So maybe I'm feeling ashamed of my family. Maybe I'm feeling some sadness. When we talk about shame specifically, shame is an interesting emotion. People think about shame in black and white terms like it's bad all the time. But it's hardwired, so there must be some effective reason to have it. It can be prosocial. There are probably things that we shouldn't do in public. And I think shame and guilt get confused. Guilt is the emotion we have when we've done something that goes against our values when we've done something against our morals shame is more of when you're

going to be rejected by people that you care about you might ask yourself what's happening because of my family are people rejecting me because of my family are people like not talking to me because of this or am I being kicked out of church? If the answer is no then shame does not fit the facts. I would act opposite to that and the urge that usually comes with shame is to hide. When something we've done is shameful we just hide it, cover it up. We don't want anybody to know about it. The opposite of that is to make it public. Usually when people actually do that, people don't respond the way they expect, which is further shame. They're like, oh, how can we

help? We move past the veneer that we might show people and we allow them into our lives. Sometimes shame fits the facts. If I get up and say certain things in testimony meeting, it's likely people will ask me not to bring my testimony again. Right? It's not a public appropriate. So that's why people don't get up and confess their sins at the pulpit because that's not where that happens.

So we want to problem solve. We might change our behavior, do things differently based on that emotion. Rick Oh, and maybe anger for that person that did that. And I don't need to act on that either. You know, the person up there speaking, I don't have to hate them because of what they said. Jason Or hold bitterness in my heart or stop coming to church or those things because that doesn't really do anything to that person. It doesn't make their family different. It has more impact on me. I like the way these principles can be applied to a myriad of situations. One thing that came to mind was there's a wonderful religion teacher at BYU and I was sitting outside of his classroom

waiting for him to finish so I could go in and teach. And he was talking about marriage and how he was being very open about some of the difficulties. He's been married 40 years. He said, have we ever gone to bed angry? Yeah, yeah, we have. Have I ever come to my bedroom door and found it locked? Yes, I have. Yes, I have." He said, but she was so sweet, she set out my pillow and blanket. As you were talking, Doug, it reminded me of that. I like the idea of, I'm not going to try to hide the fact that we're mortal. Coming up in part two of this episode. You've got your Spock as your

reasonable mind, you've got your bones as your emotion mind, and then Kirk tries to bring those guys together. He takes what they're both saying and put them in something, a package we can all listen to. The younger people that are listening, you might be thinking about Hermione as the reasonable mind and the Harry Potter and Ron is the emotion mind and Harry would be the wise mind trying to Put it all together