followHIM - 1-3 John; Jude Part 1 • Dr. Justin & Sis. Aislin Dyer • Nov 27 - Dec 3

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

How does a testimony of God’s love help during faith journeys? Dr. Justin Dyer and Sister Aislin Dyer examine how we can face today’s adversities with love, connection, and enthusiasm.Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.co/new-testament-episodes-41-52/YouTube: https://youtu.be/mHnMS4XbTrUFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/15G9TTz8yLp0dQyEcBQ8BYPlease rate and review the podcast!00:00 Part 1–Dr. Justin Dyer and Sister Aislin Dyer02:18 Background to Dr. Justin Dyer and Sister Aislin Dyer04:42 Background to 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, and Jude07:48 Recurring themes 08:19 Being discerning10:54 Making connections12:07 Jesus had a physical body14:26 Servants of Jesus17:15 Jesus’s goal for us19:10 Sister Dyer shares a personal experience with fellowship21:49 Hank shares a story about a Home Teacher/Ministering Brother26:39 Loneliness epidemic31:43 Moroni addresses loneliness34:53 Church as a potluck dinner37:05 Dr. Dyer shares a personal story about an answer to prayer37:48 Jesus as Lord of Light44:39 John shares a story about his missionary son in Iceland45:51 Love vs fear48:03 Sister Dyer shares a personal story about the power of music51:43 “Perfect love casteth out all fear”55:04 The reality of sin57:10 The advantages of a spiritual life59:49 Avoiding shame through the Savior1:03:26 Connection vs anger1:08:18 Avoiding the natural man1:10: 52  End of Part 1–Dr. Justin and Sister Aislin DyerThanks to the followHIM team: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 DesignAnnabelle Sorensen: Creative Project ManagerWill 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's Hank Smith. I'm your host. I'm here with my glorious co-host, John. By the way, hi, John. Welcome to another episode. Never had that adjective before. Thank you. You are a glorious co-host. I don't know what a glorious co-host would look like, but if there is one, it would be you. John, we're going to be in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John today. I bet these are some books that you love. We're also going to take a look at the Epistle of Jude. The title of the lesson, John, is God is Love. What are you excited for? That's what I remember about John.

There's a lot of stuff about love and light and little children. And I remember that in the Gospel of John, he gives us that great, by this shall all men know you're my disciples if you have love. And then he talks more about love here. I am excited just to look at, can we learn some more about God's love for us and how that works with our own effort to try to become more like God and keep the commandments and everything? How do those all work together? That's what I'm looking forward to. Yeah. I remember being in high school, getting into the scriptures, and I really, really was drawn

to 1 John. Did a lot of marking, I remember, in 1 John. I thought it was like a good little quote book. John, we are joined by a wonderful couple today. This isn't something we've done very often at Follow Him, maybe one other time. We're here with Dr. Justin Dyer and his amazing wife, Aislinn Dyer. Dyers, what are we looking forward to today in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John and Jude? I am really excited to talk about what God's love looks like in our life and how it can

absolutely transform our experience both here in our mortal probation and through eternity. Beautiful. And as I was looking through this, I love why he's writing about love. He's writing about love to answer a question. There's something going on. It's a really troubling thing. And he's going to answer this question with love and he's going to answer it with testimony. I'm looking

forward to that. It seems like the Beatles were right. All you need is love. John, the Dyers are new to our podcast. Not new to us. We've been friends for a while, but new to our listeners. Can you introduce them? Justin Dyer is a professor of religious education at Brigham Young University. He receives his PhD in human and Community Development from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was a postdoctoral fellow at Auburn University. Teaches classes on religion and family as well as graduate statistics. I'm laughing because I took a statistics class ouch i teach both religion and statistics classes the graduate statistics and i think people pray more in the statistics

classes than we do in the religion classes they're trying to access the power of god like nobody else in that in that class he's conducted research on incarcerated fathers and their families and he currently researches how religion family family, and mental health influence each other. In fact, he has a Why Religion presentation on mental health. Aislinn Powell-Dyer graduated from BYU with a degree in English. She has taught a Women in the Scriptures Institute class, loves to study literature, history, and theater. She is currently studying dramaturgy

at BYU and loves to serve as the drama mama. It was just fun to say that. At the local high school, Aislinn works as a storyteller at the Springville Public Library. She loves to sing, especially with primary children at church, and in the Nebo Holiday Chorus, an orchestra's production of The Messiah Every Christmas. And Justin and Aislinn are the parents of six musical children. We're really glad to have you. This is going to be fun. Thank you so much for having us. Maybe we should mention early in our marriage,

we almost argued or fought about nothing except for when we were reading the scriptures. Our scripture study. That's when the fights happened. For whatever reason, she would bring up a question. I'd be like, oh, well, obviously the answer is this or that or the other.

And she's like, you have the answer, do you? Yeah. This is going to be a discussion. We had the hardest time getting over that. Like that's when all the negative feelings would happen.

So if you need to pull out the fire extinguisher today, if things get heated, we have progressed, though. We've mostly progressed beyond that. That's what 20 years will do for you. We've got you two sitting close side by side, so we may need to get a referee. I might throw an elbow. Yeah, between you two. This is going to be fantastic. Justin, Aislinn, let me read a little bit from the Come Follow Me manual, and then we'll

turn it over to you and see where you want to go. The opening paragraph says, When John and Jude wrote their epistles, corrupt doctrine had already started leading many saints into apostasy. False teachers were questioning whether Jesus had actually appeared in the flesh. What could a church leader do in such a situation? The apostle John responded by sharing his personal witness of the Savior. Quote,

This is the testimony which we give of that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled, of the word of life. And then John taught about love, God's love for us and love we should have for him and all of his children. After all, John was a witness of that too. He had personally experienced the Savior's love and he wanted the saints to feel that same love. John's testimony and teachings on love are just as needed today. When faith in Jesus Christ is questioned and false teachings abound, reading John's epistles can help us face today's adversities with courage.

For there is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear. What a great opener. All right, Aislinn, Justin, where do we want to go from here? What do we need to do in order to get the most out of these chapters? Well, let's talk just a little bit about these teeny tiny little epistles. They're so easy to skip over. We tend to not think of them often, but they are filled with so many beautiful things. We're not 100% sure exactly who wrote these because there wasn't a name signed to them.

First, second, and third John, they have a lot of language in common with the gospel of John. They refer to Jesus as the word, focusing on love and light. Whether it was John himself or whether it was a group of people who were closely associated with him and were taught by him and picked up the way he taught the gospel, whichever it is, we call these the Johannine epistles because that means related to John. Then 1 John is a sermon that is kind of meant to be circulated around. I like to think of it like a copy of the Liahona, that it's filled with advice and teachings from church leaders, and they could share that with groups wherever they were.

Second John seems to be like a cover letter to a specific congregation that you could put with a larger sermon and maybe has a little more specific things that they're talking about. And then third John seems to be a letter to a specific person named Gaius. We might think of it like here is a copy of a letter from church headquarters. It is sent to, say, a ward, and there's a letter saying, hey, in your ward specifically, please take these teachings to heart. And then maybe there's a separate little note to the bishop specifically talking about these things. Jude is attributed to one of Jesus's brothers.

It seems like James, the brother of Jesus, was the bishop of Jerusalem. And after he died, it may be that Jude kind of stepped into that role. But we don't know a lot about him, but we know that this is a pastoral letter, him writing to people he cares about. Fantastic. They're small and simple, these epistles, but they can bring about great things. John, I just quoted the Book of Mormon there. I don't know if you noticed. That was really good. These letters, they're going to have a lot of recurring themes. They're kind of like a piece of music, like a symphony, where we're going to have a lot of the same topics circling back around,

like little melodies that we go, oh yeah, that's familiar. And then they'll elaborate on it in a different way. Today, we're going to kind of jump around a lot among them because they're all going to talk about love. They're all going to talk about sin and the need we have for a Savior. So we'll kind of bounce around a lot. Yeah, kind of a cyclical message between love and light and truth. Let's start here at the beginning of John 1, and the background here is really important. Why is he writing this particular letter to all of the churches in this area? In 1 John 2.26, he says, these things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you or that are deceiving you. It's interesting in 2.19, he says, they went out from among us. So what you have is you have

these Johannine churches that are connected closely with, here's the Apostle John, and there's people within those congregations that are leaving and trying to deceive them. In 3. John, we get the name of one of these individuals, and Aislinn always has to pronounce this one for me. How do we pronounce that? I say it, Diotrephes. Diotrephes. That sounds Greek to me. Diotrephes, who he seems to be rejecting John and the other church leaders in there. It says in 3 John, Diotrephes, who who likes to put himself first does not acknowledge our authority.

So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. I love that phrase. They're talking wicked nonsense. Wicked nonsense. I use that with my kids. Sometimes my eight-year-old does that. She talks wicked nonsense against me. Wicked nonsense against me.

So we have these individuals that seem to be trying to take the church in a different direction. And in fact, one biblical commentary says that the Johannine epistles, quote, describe the fracturing of the Johannine community itself. John's going to talk a lot here about fellowship and about love and how do we connect these two. You're going to see the word fellowship come up again and again. And of course, me as a Tolkien fan, I have to think of Fellowship of the Rings. The last chapter in the book, The Fellowship of the Rings, is called The Breaking of the Fellowship. It seems maybe that's what's happening here.

We're breaking the fellowship. We have John here really trying to emphasize how do we connect. And in some ways, this gives me a lot of hope because you could imagine people at the time, wow, this Christianity thing, it's clearly not gonna get off the ground. They're fracturing, the fellowship is broken,

but the work of the Lord will get done. And throughout the history of Christianity in the beginning of the restored gospel, you had some fracturing that was happening, and yet the work of the Lord just continues on. I was thinking back, I've been a bishop a little over four years now. Just a few months after I was called as bishop, we had 2020. There was a lot of fracturing going on in societies. Just the other day, I happened to look at an email that I'd sent to the ward, and it was when we were just starting to get back and do church again. And it was like, okay, this third of the ward is going to come on

this Sunday. The next third of the ward is going to come on this Sunday. The next third on that Sunday, we're going to stay distant. You're going to sanitize your hands when you come in. We're going to tape off some benches. We're not going to sing, disinfect afterwards, all these things. There was a lot of stress put on our community with that. Shout out to the Mapleton 26th Ward. They did so good during this, but you still work with some fractures and some difficulties. We had epistles from the first presidency about what we needed to do. And sometimes it was really hard for people. I love how what he's trying to do is he's trying to say, hey, let's connect here and let's get some fellowship going on. Yeah. So it seems the problems of today are not new. They've been around for a while. Yeah. John wasn't dealing with a pandemic, but it seems he was dealing with some cultural forces at the time and cultural beliefs

that were taking people away. Ducetism, I think that's how you say it, was one of those things. This group really didn't have a very high opinion of the material world and our physical bodies. So they thought, well, there's no way the Son of God would have come into a physical body. That's just impossible. They saw, well, Christ and Jesus was really just kind of a reflection, and he didn't really come in the flesh. He couldn't have really died on the cross. That wouldn't have really died on the cross. That wouldn't have really happened. It would just appeared to have happened. And another thing is they kind of had a different view of salvation. Salvation was more, okay, well, I got to get out of the flesh. And that's really what it was about. It wasn't really about sin. You can imagine the

apostle John saying, oh my goodness, these people don't believe that Christ came in the flesh and they don't believe in sin and the need of a Messiah. These are vital pieces of the church, the doctrine of the church. Exactly. I love 1 John 1. So with these beliefs, what does John very first start out with? And Hank, you kind of went over it initially. He says, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled the word of life, for the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father was manifested unto us. So right off the bat, to combat these

things that are going around, John is saying, look, I have seen, handled, I know He really did come in the flesh. And what an amazing thing to have these special witnesses that can testify. We're not maybe necessarily dealing with this. We have our own things, but we still have our special witnesses today that can tell us what we need to know and combat what's kind of going on in the world. Yeah. As we drift around this way and that way, someone says, wait, this is where we need to be. I was there. I witnessed this. I like that. An anchor keeping us there. There's something that President Ballard said in his talk about staying in the boat,

if you remember that. He said, we cannot separate Christ from his servants. Without his first apostles, we would not have an eyewitness account of many of his teachings, his ministry, his suffering on the Garden of Gethsemane, and his death on the cross. We needed them then, we need them now. This is really helpful to understand this idea that came also from Greek philosophy, this idea that matter is coarse and unrefined. And also, why would you want to be resurrected? Why would you want a body? Because having a spirit is more transcendent, it's better. That's one of the things I noticed reading John how many times.

No, you have to confess that he came in the flesh. So he really did have a body. Without the resurrection, what have we got for him and for all of us? Could see why that's important to John. And maybe that's why it's important for Satan to fight against it. That maybe he really didn't have a body. Maybe God doesn't really have a body sort of a thing. And maybe the body is something to have disdain for.

I love this idea that we have special witnesses and that this is a critical way that the Lord organizes his people. We see through all history, he sends a messenger who has received something from him that he can then share to others. As I have studied these epistles, I had a really special experience reading them alongside of the Gospel of John chapter 17, the Lord's Great Intercessory Prayer. And that's an idea for some of our listeners. That could be a really good experience to go through that chapter and go through these little epistles. There is an extraordinary amount of parallels. It's very close, the ideas that are there. And if we look at that intercessory prayer as the desire of our Savior's heart, that that's what he wants.

It's really powerful. Just to do a few verses from John chapter 17. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they were, and thou gavest them me, and they have kept thy word. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee.

Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I sent them also into the world. And neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their words, that they may all be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou hast

loved me may be in them, and I in them. I pulled a few verses there, but I feel like that's Christ's goal for us, that we understand who he is and why he came and the love of God. And he gives this message to his special witnesses and the ripples just keep moving outward. And we share them with one another. And he prayed for us because we are part of that group who are receiving these words from his witnesses. And what are we going to do with this? He prays that this will unify us. I see these very much as being the goals of these epistles that we're reading now, that the author of this, he wants the same thing that Christ prayed for in that prayer. This is a fantastic visual for me.

We've got these churches that John is speaking to and kind of some wandering going on, kind of some drifting. Hey, come over here. Listen to me. No, come over here. Listen to me. And all of a sudden you have John declaring from the very first moment, come listen to me.

Let's get back centered. I was there. I saw him. And almost you can feel, hopefully these churches turning and going, oh yeah. And that's maybe the role of a prophet. We wander a little bit. We go and listen to this group. We listen to that group.

And here the prophet says, okay, come back, come back, come back to center. Let's come back to what we know. Let's read 1 John 1, verse 3. That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. What does fellowship mean to you? What do you think it looks like? It feels like brotherhood, sisterhood. It feels like friendship. It feels like we're all in this together. Justin mentioned COVID, and I just remember the feeling when we started to come back again to the chapel and how good that felt just to see everybody and to hug everybody and say,

how you been? I haven't seen you. And that was a feeling of fellowship, perhaps. I really like the phrase that crops up in a few places in the scriptures, in Moses 7 and in Doctrine and Covenants 45, that God's people are of one heart and one mind. That's what we're going for, the feeling. And I love how every time that phrase comes up, heart comes before everything else. It's there of one heart and one mind. We disagree about a lot of things. Maybe we can find that place of unity in our hearts. That's probably the first thing. If we can agree about how we want one another to feel, if they feel loved, if they feel included, how we want one another to feel, if they feel loved, if they feel included, that we want them to feel close to God and that their questions and their

problems are things that matter to us and we're in this together. And if we can find a way to unify with our hearts, I feel like the rest we will figure out with time and with the Lord working on us. But getting our hearts right. I have an experience where I felt so fellowshiped. The Sunday right after I graduated high school, I was trying to decide where I wanted to go. If I wanted to stay attending Young Women's until I would left to college, or if I wanted to go to Relief Society, and that felt kind of weird and scary. And the great thing is, is there's not a right or wrong answer. Young women can choose what they want to do shortly after they've graduated. And I was kind of feeling out the waters and I poked my head into the Relief Society room and kind of looked around.

Two seconds after I poked my head in, Sister Stevenson's on. And Sister Stevenson is one of those fairy godmothers in my life. She just noticed me. She would say hi in the halls and she kept track of what I was doing in my life. And she talked to me like a person. She didn't just kind of let her eyes skate over me. She saw me and her hand shot up and she waved it. She said, Aislinn, Aislinn, you come sit by me.

And I didn't feel like I had a choice at that point. So I came down and I sat next to Sister Stevenson and she squeezed my arm and she said, I am so glad you are in Relief Society with me. And I have got to tell you, from that moment, I knew I belonged in the Relief Society. No matter where else I have served in the church since then, no matter how big or how small, you know, the Relief Societies I've been a part of since, I'm a member of the Relief Society of this amazing global organization of women. And Sister Stevenson was glad I was there. She communicated how God felt that he was glad that I was there. And I have thought since then,

don't we all need that? Don't we all deserve to have an experience where we say, you are here. We are so glad you're here. You come sit by me. Aislinn, I love that story. It's so small. It's not something grand with a lot of fanfare. But that moment can really impact someone's life. I'm thinking of a home teacher I had when I was 14. His name was Ray

Padrastic. I didn't love it when the home teachers came over. I'll be honest. As a 14-year-old, my parents would say, okay, come on, sit down. The home teachers are here. And I thought, oh, they stayed for so long. I sat down and he could tell, I think I was just drifting, just kind of staring out the window. I still remember this. He said, have you ever heard of Frank Sinatra? And I said, oh yeah, yeah, I've heard of Frank Sinatra. He said, I was friends with Frank Sinatra. I said, no, you, you were not.

And he said, no, I, I was friends with him. I was a doorman in Las Vegas. He said, I was friends with him, with Sammy Davis Jr., with Dean Martin, you know, as this doorman in Las Vegas. And it piqued my interest. I said, are you serious? I said, what did they say to you? And they're like, oh, hey, Ray. And we would talk all the time. And he had me. I don't know. He was interested in me. He was interested in me being interested. I liked it when the home teachers came over here. It reminds me

of sister Stevenson who just said, come here. I am so glad you're here. I am interested in you. He shared part of himself with you, something that was meaningful to him. And I think that is such an important part of fellowship is that we understand one another. You can't really be in fellowship with somebody that you don't know and don't understand. And when we get to know each other, oh, that makes all the difference in the world. I mean, I think that's one reason why Christ can love us perfectly because he knows us perfectly. The better we know ourselves and each other, this is life eternal that they might know thee.

So knowing God is that fellowship and that love that just emerges from that. I think it's really wonderful that the church is not just telling us, everybody stay in your own bedrooms and study the gospel and get your personal revelation there and just live your own life. And now let's come together. Now let's share what we've learned. That's the glory of the diversity of God's creation is that we all experience this a little bit differently. And there's tremendous richness when we bring it together and we share it. I think that's part of our consecration is willing to share ourselves with other people. That's fantastic. John, did you have anyone fellowship you? Yeah, I knew Frank Sinatra too.

Back when we were kids. Yeah, he told me he left his heart in San Francisco and I said, well, I don't think that's physically possible. And then he taught me what a metaphor was. But I love the story. But the idea of the heart being mentioned first. Oh, my goodness. That's in my notes. And just this idea, Aislinn, thank you, that we can disagree about a lot of things in our gospel doctrine class, in our Relief Society, in our Elder's Quorum,

but we can still be of one heart. That is a really interesting thought. And our hearts focused on the Savior, on loving each other in the midst of our different experiences. And I really like that idea. And I thought of Zion too, one heart, one mind. And maybe we can even disagree in Zion, but we can be of one heart. I don't think unity means sameness. Have you heard that phrase, harmony is being different together? The idea of being of one heart and how that's listed first, okay, my mind's going to be racing on that. You'll have to stop me from time to time because I'm going to be thinking about that for a while. And John, you mentioned about the one in Christ. Going back to 1 John 1, 3, he's testifying of these things. We have seen, we've heard, declaring to you

that ye may have fellowship with us. Isn't that an interesting idea? That he's declaring these things so that they can have fellowship together. They might be different in so many other ways, but oh, coming together in the Lord Jesus Christ, that's where we can really find that fellowship, that connection is in him. Isn't it interesting that the church gives one-fourth of all of their potential preaching time with everybody together to fast and testimony meeting, where people get to come up and share what they have seen and heard and experienced and testify of the Savior and the experiences that they've had. What a tremendous thing that our church is organized such that they say, this is important, this is valuable,

that the primary child can get up and say what they have to say, and the teenager can say what is dear to their heart. And let's make a space for sharing what we feel, what we know, and we're all stronger when we do that. I love what we're talking about here, all of you, because loneliness today is an epidemic. The fellowship, the sociality, the friendship that the church can bring can literally, I think, literally save lives that you have a group that you belong, that you're involved in something bigger than yourself. I think all of us could sit here for a moment and just think of the friends we have made

from being part of this church. And that right there, just that, I mean, there's so much more that the church provides and offers, but just that right there is, is worth the price of admission. The beautiful people that I've come in contact with. I could just start listing off people who have changed the direction of my life. And you think of those across the earth. I think that in the UK, there's now a minister of loneliness in the government because it's such an epidemic. Just as this, something you've looked into at all. You know what? There's actually quite a bit of research that's been done on loneliness,

sense of belonging. There's a researcher at BYU that did a really fantastic study and turns out that feeling lonely is as bad for your health as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. I mean, it's actually physically really bad for you to be disconnected with other individuals. My research on religion and mental health, and this is the general research on religion and mental health, and this is the

general research on religion and mental health, religious people are, in general, on average, less depressed, less anxious, fewer thoughts of suicide, lower suicide rates for religious people. And this has been something that's widely acknowledged within the research literature. And one of the reasons is because you have that sense of connection, that sense of belonging within religious organization. And we give the kids emblems of belonging. And you don't have to do anything for those emblems of belonging. You get the necklace, you get the ring. You have these emblems saying, you belong here. You have the Sister Stevenson that's grabbing you and sayings saying, you belong here. You have the Sister Stevenson

that's grabbing you and saying, no, you belong here. President Nelson is grabbing each one of us saying, you belong here. Let me just mention that one of the things that I have researched is suicide. This is such a sensitive topic. Those of us whose lives have been impacted by the suicide of a loved one, the feelings are just so overwhelming and they can be very complicated. And we can think about what we should have done, what could have been done better. When we are working with this topic, we just need to know that there are so many things that go into a person being suicidal or deciding to end their life. And there's no one factor, right? There's nothing that one person did. There's so many things that go into that,

that we just need to make sure we don't oversimplify it and that we don't do the woulda, coulda, shoulda sort of thing with suicide, but just realize, and I think the church has done a masterful job of this recently. If you go to the church's website or your gospel library app in the life help section, there's a topic of suicide and you have Elder Renlund who does a fantastic job of talking about it. There's some really good materials there. So for anybody who is suffering from those kinds of thoughts, reach out. If we know anybody who has those thoughts, reach out to somebody who you can get help

from. Again, the church does a really wonderful job with that and is so understanding of individuals who have these kinds of thoughts and what a challenge that is. The highest risk for suicide are actually men in their 40s to 60s. That's the highest risk for suicide. Your elders quorum is actually the most at risk by far from dying by suicide. We don't do a very good job as middle-aged men of connecting with each other. We sometimes don't find friendships with each other. Obviously,

this is something for the whole ward to focus on, but boy, those elders quorum presidencies have a wonderful opportunity to create that fellowship. My ward, we're going to watch the football game all together as an elders quorum during the weekend. It's those moments where can we create that? It matters so very much to our mental health. In fact, those feelings of disconnection rank really high in terms of the kind of psychic pain that we can experience. Some of the most prominent theories and research on suicide, the beginning point, the point where the suicide ideation begins is what we refer to as thwarted belongingness. I'm trying to belong and I can't. I'm trying to be a part of a group and I just can't be part of that group. The second, the twin thing that goes along with that, that can lead to that then is perceived burdensomeness. And we'll

talk a little bit about shame later, but just this idea that I can't connect with anybody and I'm just a burden to other people. And those are the two twin things that really begin thoughts of suicide and form the basis for that. So anything that we can do to help connect with other individuals, to see them, to make sure that they know you're not a burden being here. We love you and you can contribute no matter who you are. Elder Christofferson once said, no matter who you are,

all of us can contribute to the unfolding of the kingdom of God in your age. Talk about a guy who maybe experienced loneliness. Moroni might be in that age. Talk about a guy who maybe experienced loneliness. Moroni might be in that category. John, you'll know this better than me. Moroni chapter six, he talks about the church and that their names are taken, that they might be remembered and nourished. And they did meet together often and did speak to one another concerning the welfare of their souls. That's almost, how are you? How's your soul, right? How are you doing? It seemed when I was

a kid, I don't know, maybe I just experienced St. George in the eighties. It was just a ward family. Everything we did was about each other. Maybe I just had a special childhood. Maybe it was just all of us who got to grow up in the eighties. Right. I'm with, I'm with you there, Hank. I'm fascinated by this too. And Justin, I was wondering if the research shows that is technology contributing to loneliness because you can feel connected and we even call it that, but can that contribute to, I'm so into my device that I'm lonelier? Is that possible? Absolutely. I don't think there's much of a question that technology has been part of creating these lonely spaces. Kids nowadays, they go out with friends

less, they leave the house less, they socialize less than they did in previous generations. And there really is something about being physically with other people. Our bodies, our minds are born to bond with other individuals. They're not set up to bond with cell phones and the technology. Now, I love technology. We're using it here. But if we are doing that at the expense of actual personal sitting down, holding somebody, we're missing something that is so deeply necessary for us as human beings, as children of God, that we will starve ourselves of bonding. And I think loneliness is that starvation for the actual connection with other people. And being physically present with somebody

makes a huge difference. It's interesting how it takes all of us pitching in to make that. Sometimes it can be a little bit easy for us to say, well, when I went to church, I didn't get anything out of it. Nobody was watching out for me. And I'm willing to come and send my kids to the activities that feel relevant to their interests or whatever, but I'm not going to worry about everything. And of course, we can't all do everything. Right. But I love that metaphor of the church should be a potluck, not just a buffet. We don't have a youth program if nobody's willing to show up and be there for the youth,

even though sometimes that takes a lot of time. We don't have a good Sunday school discussion if nobody's willing to be the teacher and take the lead. And we all, of course, we want to get things out of this. And that means we all need to give what we have. And we're going to give different things. My definition of adulthood that I tell my children is that you contribute more than you consume. I said, it's not just when you get married or when you have kids, because who knows what life plans will be like, but when you're ready to say, I'm here and I'm building and we all need to consume

something, we all need things and that's fine. But you're also looking around and saying, how can I give in my own way? Yeah. It feels just as good to give as it does to receive, to give that fellowship, to know the names of the people in the benches around you and to call them by name and to shake their hand and to say, how are you? That can really be life changing. Thanks for that. I really got to my heart there. John, you look like you have something to say. Yeah, I was thinking about when Elmer the Elder led those who believed to Benedi out to the waters of Mormon,

he gave what Elder Holland called the most complete list of what the newly baptized commit to do and be when he said, are you willing to come into the fold of God and be called as people? And then notice how much is more about contributing than consuming. To mourn with those that mourn. Every week we can do that. Comfort those who stand in need of comfort. So much of the baptismal covenant is not just about you. Part of it is, but it's about now you're part of a community

and how we're going to take care of each other. So that resonated with me. I wrote that down. I contribute more than I consume. I'm going to stick that on our fridge, see if it works around here. The other day as a bishop, I was consumed with a lot of different administrative sorts of things, and a lot of things just pile up. I was praying about Heavenly Father, how can I lift this burden here from me? I thought of this elderly woman in our ward who's suffering from arthritis and all kinds of things, a lot of pain.

And I went over and visited her and I left and I just felt so good. You cannot contribute more than the Lord will bless you. You contribute that and the Lord just gives. And getting past all the administrative stuff just to sit with somebody who appreciated a visit is soul healing for me. It was a really beautiful moment. Yeah. I've never thought about the fact that John may have learned this from the Lord himself, the fellowship with the Father and with his son, Jesus Christ. I'm wondering if John, maybe I'm going too far here, but John is remembering

the fellowship he had with the Lord and still has. I love that. Let's read verse 5 in 1 John 1. This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. I just love to hear what pops into your head with that idea of God being light. That's a very, very common metaphor that we hear in the scriptures for God. And this does sound like the gospel of John. He hits that right, I think it's the fifth verse. I could go look it up, but I think right when he said, look, in the beginning was the word

and the word was with God and the light came into the world and the darkness comprehended it not. It sounds like John is making the same connection he made in his gospel. This is the light. The first thing I thought of was I drew some musical notes in the side of the verse. There is in his side no darkness at all. Yeah. Your mom must have been in the tabernacle quite a lot. The Lord is my light yes and so i thought of that and then i thought of what's become one of my favorite it's always dangerous to say my very favorite but it's really close and that list can change daily but section 50 verses at 23 hank that

which is of god is light and he or she that continueth in god receiveth more light and that I just love that idea of continuing in God. And I think it comes up in these epistles too, of continuing in God and don't discontinue God. If you're looking for more light, you don't discontinue the source of all light. So you continue in God. If you have looking for more light, you don't discontinue the source of all light. So you continue in God. If you have questions, great. Own them and continue in God because that's where the light is. So that's what I thought. I love that.

I think a lot about the verse in Isaiah that says, the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light, that they were in the shadow of death and the light came upon them. And I think it's one of the biggest metaphors of contrast that we get in the scriptures. death and the light came upon them. And I think it's one of the biggest metaphors of contrast that we get in the scriptures. That's something that everybody's going to understand. The difference of what you're able to do and how you might feel and what you're capable of when you're in the darkness, what you can understand about the world around you. And then when those lights come on, when that sun rises, that's when we do think. That's when we get

out there and experience the world and learn and God is light. That's something that permeates everybody's experience. If God permeated our lives the way light permeates mine, if I was connecting with God every time I flipped on a light switch, that kind of frequency, that idea that he's with me, the sun all day long is shining and he's with me. I love what Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf said in 2017 in his talk, Bearers of the Heavenly Light. He said, every time you turn your hearts to God in humble prayer, you experience his light. Every time you seek his word and will in the scriptures, the light grows in brightness. Every time you notice someone in need and sacrifice your own comfort to reach out in love, the light expands and swells. Every time you reject temptation

and choose purity, every time you seek or extend forgiveness, every time you courageously testify of truth, the light chases away darkness and attracts others who are also seeking light and truth. Christ's light brings hope, happiness, and healing of any spiritual wound or ailment. Those who experience this refining influence become instruments in the hands of the light of the world to give light to others. I love his examples of when we can feel and experience that light. And I think we've talked a lot about that. If we're having a feeling of fellowship. God's light is with us. Yeah, you can feel it.

You can see it in our faces. Maybe I should look at this closer. Justin and Aislinn, you have six children. I've noticed that when it's dark outside or even dark in the house, they have a tendency to not go to those places. Something that is totally fine in the light. They'll play in the backyard. They'll go in the basement as long as it's light. But the moment something is dark, they have a tendency to

say, Hey, can you run down to your room and get the, uh, no, will you, will you come with me? Why? There's something about the light that is inviting, but man, in the dark, I remember when I used to walk home, you guys are bringing back all sorts of memories for me with all this fellowship. I remember walking home to my childhood home and during the day that walk home was just fine. It was just a simple walk home. But man, at night when it was dark, it was eerie that walk home. I just kept looking behind me and then eventually I just started running, I think, to get home. I think it's the perfect metaphor. God is light. It's inviting. It's comfortable. It's safe. When I see something where God is probably not present or he's not there, I hesitate.

I don't want to go there. It makes me anxious. It makes me nervous. Do your kids do that? You know, actually, our youngest, Thomas, he went through a period where anytime he'd wake up in the morning, he would go through and he would turn on every light. Every light, yeah. Because he was awake.

You know, if he needed to go downstairs and get a new box of cereal or something, he would go downstairs and not only turn on the lights that helped him make his path to the storage room, but every single light. And six hours later, I'd end up going downstairs and be like, all the lights, all the time. All the lights are on. Electric bill is what it is. But you know, I love that you spoke to that, his need to be able to see and perceive what's around him and feel comfortable and how important that is.

There are so many decisions we have to make in our lives. And oh my goodness, how often do we feel in the dark about those? Flipping on that light or having the light of faith, just having that faith, having that light, oh, can keep us from that paralysis that sometimes we experience when we're trying to make a decision. But if we have that faith, you know what? I'm going to follow the light of the world. Maybe I don't know everything, but I do know this. If I follow the light of the world, it's going to be okay. Yeah. We're just like those kids. We're trying to turn lights on all over. I feel in

the dark. I go to the temple. I'm trying to turn the lights on. I want to see. And God doesn't begrudge the electric bill. Yeah. Why are these lights on again? He's like, please, please, will you turn on the light? Yes. My son, Andrew, went to the MTC to go go to iceland his mtc companion went home after only a few days he was alone in the mtc he learned icelandic when he got to iceland the sun came up at 11 a.m and set at three or four oh goodness it was cold and dark and windy I'm so proud of him because he, and then COVID hit. And he was inside. Maybe Justin, you know about this, but some kind of a happy light or something. The missionaries had to have a light in their apartments to give them a certain amount of light physiologically each day to keep them sane.

So light is a fascinating topic to me. And when I think of the mist of darkness in Lehi's dream, one of the things it did was it isolated people on the path. We talked about belonging and loneliness because now you couldn't see that there were others in front of you that were trying and others behind you that were trying. The decision to go on had to become an individual decision, but I wonder if they couldn't see, but they could hear the great and spacious. And wow, what a circumstance. I'm alone. I'm hearing all that, but I've got the iron rod. I'm going to press forward. And I wonder if that mist of darkness being that metaphor kind of goes along with what we're talking about. What do you guys think?

That makes me think of the verse a little later on, perfect love cast without fear. Because I think when we get in those dark places, it is scary. We have the mist of darkness. We have people yelling at us. I've got this iron rod. Now I can't see the tree anymore and it's scary. And what do I do? All of a sudden, some of the trust we had before when we could see the tree begins to dissolve. And perhaps part of that verse there about perfect love casting out fear, we can say, I'm not quite sure, but I know God loves me. Like Nephi said, I know God loves me and I know this is his word. And that's all the light I have right now. It feels pretty dim, but it's the light that I have. I'm going to stick with it.

And eventually you stay on that path and the mist does dispel and the light does come. There are those moments where we are in the dark, where we're not quite sure. And it might be day after day, week after week, sometimes year after year, but the Lord promises us. And I know that if we stay moving forward, that light will shine again. And we will feel that. And we will be out of the fear that we're experiencing. That verse is 1 John 4, verse 18 and 19. He says, There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. And we love him because he first loved us.

Elder Uchtdorf once taught that sometimes that fear might be because of us. What if we're causing fear for somebody else? This was in a 2017 in his talk, Perfect Love. Maybe we, through our actions, through unkindness, through bullying, through us having a lack of fellowship, a lack of light in our life, we might be a cause for somebody else's fear. And if we can be transformed with God's light and God's love, it's apparent. This is really profound to me. How can I remove fear from my relationships?

It's love that's going to push that. I had an experience about 10, 15 years ago. I was in a place spiritually where I had a lot of really big thorny questions. And they'd been things that I'd wondered about my whole life. But for some reason, at that space of time, those questions got bigger and wartier and spikier until they were really pressing out anything else that I could think about or see or experience. At that point, the term faith crisis wasn't as much in vogue. You didn't really hear that term very often. I personally am glad because when I hear the word crisis, I think everything's in crisis. Everything's bad. Everything's broken. And that was not my case. I had wonderful

experiences in my family, in a ward family, in church callings, in scriptures, and with the prophet. And I mean, I had so many good things. But I also had these questions that just really, it got to the point where I struggled to have peace. I was very concerned. And a lot of them focused around what my place was in eternity, and with God's plan, and what was this going to look like. I was really at a place where I was suffering, where I was hurting a lot. And Justin sure tried to be a good listener, but he really wasn't sure how to help, and it was me. Then I received an invitation to serve as the primary music leader. And I was excited for the calling because I loved working with kids and I loved music and it sounded really fun. I had no

idea what kind of impact that was going to have on me. Over the course of the first few weeks and months as I served in that space, I began to have profoundly revelatory experiences where I would be standing at the front of the room and leading the kids in a song, and I would be filled. I felt like a vessel that was overflowing with God's love and God's light. It's almost like I was getting a download from heaven. I would see in the middle of dancing around and leading a song and whatever it was, it's like I would see these faces and I would see each one of those children. And I became hyper aware of, well, they're having a rough day today, or it's kind of tough for those two to sit next to each other, or wow, that kid is really connecting

in a way that they don't usually. And it extended to the teachers, noticing that that's a teacher who's feeling this. And I was so filled with God's light and God's love. And it was happening over and over and over again until I realized that light and that love was pressing back on the difficulty and the pain that my questions brought me. I knew from my experience, it almost makes me think of Nephi's language where he talks about to the consuming of his flesh. I was filled with this sense of love and light. And I thought, if God feels that way about these precious children, I'm one of his children and I'm included in that. And the peace that that brought me, the way it dispelled my fears and my concerns was nothing short of miraculous. And that is a space where I continue

to feel those feelings and feel my testimony get deeper and stronger. And it has transformed my life. Something that we should have put on her bio is that she is the best primary music leader in the church. She's had that calling for 10 years, a different time. Wow. I just did my 11th program. Yep. Oh, wow. It is legitimately the best calling in the church. Any other thoughts on Perfect love cast without fear? These two are tied together in 1 John, aren't they? The idea of fellowship and light, because he goes on in chapter 2 to say,

He that saith he is in the light, but hates his brother, doesn't fellowship, is really in the dark. He that loveth his brother abides in the light. It seems that John might be connecting light with love and fellowship and fear and hate with the darkness. Chapter two, verse 11, that he that hateth his brother is in darkness and walketh in darkness and knoweth not whether he goeth because the darkness has blinded his eyes. So do you see that connection being made here? Love and light and darkness, fear and hate all kind of tied together. I love how our prophet the last number of years has been inviting us to examine ourselves for things that could be based in hatred, whether or not we're aware of them. You know, He's invited us to look at what are our biases?

Is it racism? Is it these other things? Where do we struggle to have love? He's invited us to heal the conflict in our lives, to be peacemakers. As we talk about God being love, if we're not being loving, we're not in alignment with him. As we try to become like him, that means just increasing our capacity and our ability to feel and share and experience love. And we can be blinded to the fact that we are in the dark and in hatred. What does John say here? The darkness has blinded his eyes. I might assume, oh, no, I'm doing fine.

I'm in the light. I'm doing great. And it's like, no, you need to do that introspection that president Nelson is talking about. Is there things in your heart that are of darkness? I think about the times when I've had difficult feelings towards somebody, maybe somebody has done me wrong. It can become just so all consuming. You're in bed asleep. And at 2 AM, this little lawyer in your brain wakes up and opens his briefcase and starts to litigate how right you are and how wrong the other person is. We just spin on it and just keep going over and over it. I can say that just feels like darkness.

It feels kind of good to think about. In fact, they've done studies where they look at a person's brain when they're thinking about getting even with somebody. I'm going to get back at that person. Pleasure centers light up. It's like you're eating chocolate. But oh, is it so destructive to our souls. It wears away at our physical system. It just does. It just wears us down and we can become sick because of it, because they're hating on people. And it just blinds you to the beauty of life, to the beauty of that person, to the fact that they're a child of God. You just can't see clearly.

Hatred does a real number on us in terms of being able to see reality clearly. It seems like that's what's happened to this one man that you talked about in 3 John. What did you say his name was? Diotrephes. Diotrephes, who loves to be first, blinded by pride, and he does not like what John is teaching. You might say to him, you're not seeing. You're not seeing the truth and the light that's being offered to you. Pride has blinded you. One thing I think that's tied to all of this, and it's really interesting, again, the people at the time were saying, well,

there's no real sin. And here in 1 John 1, verse 8, he says, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. And then in verse 10, if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. It is so critical that we recognize when we make mistakes. From a mental health perspective, one of the worst things we could possibly do as a society is believe that all choices and all beliefs are equal to each other. That in reality, there's nothing bad. Recognizing that there are some things that are much better than others is a very mentally healthy thing for us to do. And we all have those moments, right? When we're doing something,

we don't want to be told that we're doing it wrong. And the other day I was trying to fix our shower and Aislinn had to come in three times and say, I don't think you're doing that right. Cause I'm yanking on something, trying to get it off. And I'm like, you're going to make it worse. I know I'm not Mr. Fix it, but I'm trying to be. And finally I'm like, okay, yeah, I'm probably doing this wrong. And so I call my neighbor, Jared, and he has all the tools and he gets in and he gets it off just fine. I'll have to swallow my pride in that instance and recognize, yeah, I was kind of breaking it and we maybe kind of had to fix it a little bit after I was through. But it is so good when we recognize that we do something wrong.

If we never recognize when we do something wrong, then we really can't progress at all. I think it's so important that we realize how vital the gospel patterns are. Those are the right choices, even though they might be difficult, even though we might have to swallow our pride, and even though they can be really strenuous. Boy, those are the right choices. I've been crunching numbers on mental health for a long time, literally run thousands of statistical analyses on mental health. I can tell you that God's patterns lead to a significant advantage in life.

And sometimes when we sin, I think Satan kind of has maybe two things. It's like a balance beam. Satan is trying to push us off one side or the other. Pushing us off on one side, he says to us, if we sin, that really wasn't sin. No, that really was okay. If we say we have no sin, we just deceive ourselves. Maybe we even get angry at a commandment that we broke. We say, well, no, that's not really sin, and we kind of go down that road. That's interesting that we can deceive ourselves

about that. I think all human beings are a little bit prone to that. As I was studying verse 8, I was thinking about that. Why do we deceive ourselves? Sometimes we're rationalizing because maybe repentance feels uncomfortable or scary, and we'd like to avoid it. We'd like to not need that. Maybe we are afraid of change that would need to happen. Maybe we are afraid of losing face or losing status in admitting we did something wrong. I know I've been in a situation where I have been fearful when I knew that I needed to confess something, that that person was going to get mad at me, that it would damage a relationship. Again, that fear.

Fear can be one of those things that leads us to deceive ourselves. I remember when I was in high school, there was a guy I really liked and he liked me too. And I was too young to be dating according to the standards my parents had encouraged me to keep. And they said, you know, just be friends. Let's not be dating. And I told myself, well, we're not dating. He's my best friend. We're not dating. I'm too young. We're just best friends. And now when I look back, I go, oh yeah, we were dating. My kids laugh at me because I'll kind of tell them, look, if it looks like a cat and if it sounds like a cat and if it acts like a cat, it's probably a cat.

But sometimes we tell ourselves, no, that's a turtle. I think we're really prone to that. But again, if we have the love of God in our life, it can push out our fear of repentance. If we know he loves us, maybe we don't have to be so afraid and so avoidant and so prone to deceiving ourselves. Yeah. Huge win for the devil is to get us to believe that sin is not sin. On the other side that he might push us off is when he wants us to fall into the despair and self-hatred. He doesn't say that, oh, it's not sin, but he says, oh, it's so bad and you are so bad. You are so wrong. You're broken. Yeah, you're broken. And that then gets into the shame area of things where it's not that thing I did was bad, but you are

broken. You are evil. And that just makes it so you are disconnected from other individuals. As leaders and as parents, we do have to walk the straight and narrow as well. And we have to tell people the whole truth. It's so critical we tell them the whole truth. The whole truth is, number one, yeah, that's something wrong. Number two, you are loved infinitely. We have to tell those twin truths, right? That love and laws, it was brought up earlier, that we have both of those. We have to tell those twin truths, right? That love and laws was brought up earlier, that we have both of those. We have to tell the whole truth to people. It's not kind to hide it from somebody. I was talking with somebody the other day, a really nice guy. He's got teenage kids. And I was mentioning about how the mental health of Latter-day Saints is,

on average, we have our mental health issues, certainly, but on average, better than most, about how gospel patterns really feed into that good mental health. And he brought up shame and, well, so important to realize, but then mentioned that one of his teenagers had started drinking. In an effort to not shame, the dad said, well, just be safe. Number one, drinking is illegal. You can get into a lot of trouble just on that score. And number two, drinking is also associated with poor mental health. Now, I don't know the full story and the full relationship, so I don't want to say too much there. But there is this reticence today to say that certain things are actually wrong. We need to make sure that we are not shaming the person by telling the whole truth that it is wrong and God does love you infinitely and all things

can be made right through the atonement of Jesus Christ. But it is, again, as a society, one of the worst things we could be doing is to not tell people when things are good or bad because then you're really in the dark. You're really in the darkness not knowing which way to go. We have to be able to do that. And I just tell church leaders, I say, you teaching right and wrong to your youth, you're literally saving lives. You're literally saving lives. Obviously, let's stay away from the shame. That's something we have to do. We also cannot hide from our youth and adults that there really are some things that are wrong and we need to avoid those. Yeah. Can you imagine trying to help someone get somewhere and which

way is North? Well, whichever way you choose, right? Whichever way you choose is in North, whatever North feels good for you. Well, how am I going to get anywhere? How am I going to get anywhere? If you're not telling me where the lines are, where the fences are, where I can go, where's dangerous, where's not dangerous? Justin, I think it might be helpful to kind of define that. I remember, I think President Packer gave a talk about guilt and compared it to like the warning light in a car that says, you're low on motor oil. You need to get this fixed. And it's a really good thing.

When you're talking about shame as a bad thing, what can our listeners know that that's not appropriate? Shaming somebody, what does that mean? That's a great question. When we shame somebody, we indicate to them that how could you have done such a thing? Is it like you said, you're bad, not what you did is bad, but you are bad? Is that? Yeah, it is. It's saying to the person that you are bad and indicating to them that you are the problem and not what's happened is the problem, but you are the problem. Let's say a kid comes home after their curfew. The parent says, you are so irresponsible versus, hey, we've talked about this. You know that we have these rules and we've talked about the consequences. And so we're going to follow through with the consequences. By the way, there is no law written in heaven that when

a kid comes home after curfew, that you have to immediately be angry with them and talk about that first. There's no irrevocable law that that has to be the first thing. Right. Right. I would begin with, how was your evening? How did everything go? And talk to them and connect with them. And then, all right, with that built, and so they know that you love them, now let's talk about, hey, you were late. What happened? And my guess is that if you ask them how the night went, they'll probably start by talking about why they were late. But then you can get into, all right,

a rule has been broken. We know the consequences, and hopefully we have talked about the consequences, and then we can enact those consequences. Sometimes parents use the consequence of anger. If you do something wrong, your consequence is for me to get really angry at you and for me to try and heap upon you the fire of the internal pit so that you just feel small and bad. In my parenting head, that makes me think, oh, that'll just feel small and bad. In my parenting head, that makes me think, oh, that'll stop them from doing that next time. There's something logical about that. I'm wrong, but I can see me as a parent going, oh, if I bring this painful experience on them, the next time they'll go, well, I don't want to have that painful experience.

But you're right. I'm actually doing more damage, aren't I, Justin, at that point? It's good if we can explain to our kids, this was really hurtful to me when you said this. This really created some difficult feelings in me or I felt angry. So expressing those things is not a bad thing. But when we use anger as the whip and we say, I'm going to whip you into shape by just bringing all brimstone down on your head, that really can make the individual feel very small or it can make him feel defiant one way or the other versus, hey, we've set up these rules. You came in late.

You know that you're not going to be able to go out for another two weeks. Okay. Well, you know, moving on now, not all kids react like that, and I totally get that being a parent. I understand that. Sometimes we think that if we just verbally flagellate the other person enough, then that'll keep her from doing it again. And quite frankly, we also think that doing that to ourselves will correct us. I don't know if you've ever done this, but you do something wrong and then you say, I'm so stupid. I'm such an idiot. I'm so dumb. We call ourselves all the most horrible names in the book for about five to 10 minutes. And we think, okay, now that I've called myself all these mean names,

I have somehow atoned for my sins, or I've somehow now indicated to myself, I've given myself enough pain that I won't do it again, when in reality, we've just lied to ourselves. We've just said how bad and evil we are and how stupid. Well, guess what? That stupid, evil, bad person that we've just told ourselves are, well, we're probably just going to do the same thing again. Versus saying to ourselves, I know I did something wrong, And I know I used my agency to do something wrong. And we didn't excuse it. A real apology looks like, not like, oh, I'm sorry I snapped at you, but I was really tired. A better apology is, I snapped at you because I used my agency in

a bad way. We're not shoving it off to anything else. We're owning that, no, I did this. This was me, but I can fix it and I can move forward. And I'm a child of God. And I have somebody that has infinite power and has infinite love that can help me through this. We can hold our heads high as children of God and walk forward. And guess what? When we realize we hurt somebody, that will bring about the remorse of conscience. I think that's such a critical thing. In fact, it's a very mentally unhealthy thing when we hurt somebody that we don't feel a little bit of remorse or empathy. Like we should feel that. That's good. But we don't cross over into the shame area where we feel like we are horrible people. The thing was horrible. We should acknowledge it, face it straightforward,

and then say, all right, I'm going to fix this. I'm going to do something that's going to improve this situation. And I can connect with people, especially with God, that can help me do that. Justin, I find it ironic that oftentimes I'm upset with my children for giving into the natural man. So I'm going to show them how upset I am by giving into the natural man, right? Like, how dare you give into the natural man that way? Let me now lay into you with my, what the natural man wants me to do. It satisfies the natural man to say you are so selfish versus let's talk about this. That was not a very effective decision. That one is being self-restrained and the other is let me heap coals upon your head and make you feel small and awful. Along with this, 1 John 3, verse 9,

it says, whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin. It's like, oh, I guess I'm not born of God, but the JST helps us out a lot by saying, doth not continue in sin for the spirit of God remaineth in him. And he cannot continue to sin because he is born of God, having received that Holy Spirit, a promise. So you don't continue in the sin. When I see, going back to his bishop, somebody coming in and saying, I messed up. I'm like, you are born of God. I'm like, this is so wonderful. You have been born of God. This is holy because you don't want to continue in sin. People that don't want to continue in sin, that's being born of God. It's not very useful for John to say, oh yeah, those that sin and those that don't sin,

because we're talking about Jesus and the rest of everybody else. But he's talking here about those that continue in sin and those that don't, or don't want to continue in sin, are working not to. That's born of God right there. So the guilt that I feel might tell me who I really am, that, hey, I am a divine being. I'm a good person. I feel guilty because that thing happened. I like that. Guilt is a sign of a person who was born of God. You might remember Brad Wilcox's talk about the young man struggling with the problem. And

he said, I can't go to church because I'm such a hypocrite. His leader said, well, you're a hypocrite if you try to deny it or say it didn't happen or don't confront it or say that the church shouldn't have such high standards. But here you are confessing it and trying to deal with it. That says something about what you just said, Jesse. This is who you are. Look, look at what you're doing. Please join us for part two of this podcast.