Work (general post)
(This post is subject to extensive revision)
One of my general principles for unravelling gospel knowledge is the principle of work. This principle is one of those pervasive ideas that shows up in numerous places in the true gospel. It is well illustrated in Doctrine and Covenants (see scriptures at www.lds.org) section 9. Oliver Cowdery is told to first do as much for himself as he can, then let the Lord take over. The same principle is stated in the quote at the very end of lesson #4 of the Old Testament teacher's manual. Supplemental ideas #4 has a quote about doing what you can to teach your children, then let the Lord take over, if they still manage to stray.
Work has three steps, as described in a holy place.
1. Clearly learn about and/or describe the work to be done.
2. Bust your tail at doing the work as precisely as possible.
3. Evaluate and/or report the results.
Then go to step 1 with your new knowledge.
Here are some places that work appears:
Well known principle of management style. If you miss any of the three steps, your management will suffer or even be non-existent.
Scripture study. You could just ask the Lord to tell you everything face to face. But that's not work. He has given us scriptures, general conference talks, scripture footnotes, other resources in the scripture volumes, Sunday school lesson manuals, an eye-popping ton of resources at the LDS Church distribution centers, thoughtful books by LDS and other authors, etc etc. Immediately after I was baptized at age 19, I bought dozens of LDS books. My LDS gospel library after 40 years was 10 feet wide by 5 shelves high, most of which I had read. There was another 20 feet by 5 shelves of other books. There is no such thing as reading too many books. Knowledge is one mortal posession that we take into the eternities.
Expectation of living in heaven. Many people think that if they live a good life, they will automatically like and know how to live in heaven. They are clueless on the nature of God and heaven. The reality is that you have to be trained to live there. Heaven is a society of people who know what they are doing. They learned to do heavenly things by being taught commandments, which are based on laws of celestial society and happiness.
When you follow the recipe, you usually get the result -- whether or not you intended that result. My standard example is that if I see you following the recipe for making chocolate cake, I will not believe you if you tell me you are making stew. Happy marriage is one example of a recipe. Learn the formula, and you cannot lose your marriage. On the other hand, if you follow the recipe for falling in love with someone not your spouse (office romance), you will get lots of trouble -- even when you deceived yourself into thinking the relationship is harmless.
One of my general principles for unravelling gospel knowledge is the principle of work. This principle is one of those pervasive ideas that shows up in numerous places in the true gospel. It is well illustrated in Doctrine and Covenants (see scriptures at www.lds.org) section 9. Oliver Cowdery is told to first do as much for himself as he can, then let the Lord take over. The same principle is stated in the quote at the very end of lesson #4 of the Old Testament teacher's manual. Supplemental ideas #4 has a quote about doing what you can to teach your children, then let the Lord take over, if they still manage to stray.
Work has three steps, as described in a holy place.
1. Clearly learn about and/or describe the work to be done.
2. Bust your tail at doing the work as precisely as possible.
3. Evaluate and/or report the results.
Then go to step 1 with your new knowledge.
Here are some places that work appears:
Well known principle of management style. If you miss any of the three steps, your management will suffer or even be non-existent.
Scripture study. You could just ask the Lord to tell you everything face to face. But that's not work. He has given us scriptures, general conference talks, scripture footnotes, other resources in the scripture volumes, Sunday school lesson manuals, an eye-popping ton of resources at the LDS Church distribution centers, thoughtful books by LDS and other authors, etc etc. Immediately after I was baptized at age 19, I bought dozens of LDS books. My LDS gospel library after 40 years was 10 feet wide by 5 shelves high, most of which I had read. There was another 20 feet by 5 shelves of other books. There is no such thing as reading too many books. Knowledge is one mortal posession that we take into the eternities.
Expectation of living in heaven. Many people think that if they live a good life, they will automatically like and know how to live in heaven. They are clueless on the nature of God and heaven. The reality is that you have to be trained to live there. Heaven is a society of people who know what they are doing. They learned to do heavenly things by being taught commandments, which are based on laws of celestial society and happiness.
When you follow the recipe, you usually get the result -- whether or not you intended that result. My standard example is that if I see you following the recipe for making chocolate cake, I will not believe you if you tell me you are making stew. Happy marriage is one example of a recipe. Learn the formula, and you cannot lose your marriage. On the other hand, if you follow the recipe for falling in love with someone not your spouse (office romance), you will get lots of trouble -- even when you deceived yourself into thinking the relationship is harmless.
posted by Jim | 5:46 AM
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