When It's Your Time...

My mother used to always say, "When it's your time, there's nothing you can do."

She was referring to death. In other words, when your time is up, you can't stop death from coming.

My brother-in-law's youngest brother died recently. He had been suffering from seizures most of his life, and not the little ones either. The night he died, he had a seizure which eventually caused other problems that resulted in his death.

Was it his time? Was there anything that could have stopped it? Well, one can't know for sure. But there are a few things that I do know.

To begin with, God is all powerful (at least by our limited understanding... there's nothing that we can imagine that He can't do). Therefore, it stands to reason that God could stop anybody from suffering, dying, or doing anything else for that matter. He could stop hurricanes, he could stop earthquakes, he could put an end to seizures and all manner of illnesses.

And since God is all powerful, nothing happens unless it is His will.

Now, if I bring a gun to work and start shooting everybody, does that mean that God is okay with that? I don't think so. It is God's will that I be allowed to practice my free agency, therefore He would allow it. Now there are cases, I believe, where God might interfere and stop me from going on a shooting rampage. If it were vitally important to His plan that I not kill a bunch of people, then I'm sure I would be stopped.

Sometimes we're born with defects or other health problems that cause us to suffer throughout our lives, and in some cases even become the cause of an early death.

In such cases, is there anything we can do to prevent death from coming? Certainly, God gives us free agency in such matters. If there are medical procedures that can be done or medicines that can be taken to extend our lives, then we can decide for ourselves whether to participate in these things.

When I was in a motorcycle accident, the main blood vessel that feeds my right arm was destroyed at the shoulder. Had the doctors not gone in and replaced the destroyed vessel, I would have bled to death and died. I had to sign a paper that allowed the doctors to perform the operation on me. I could have refused to sign the papers and simply died. Even though it wasn't "my time" (I would have died with or without the surgery if it was), I could have decided on my own that it really was my time.

Also interesting to note is that had my accident happened 20 years prior, I would have died because the technology was not available to detect my life-threatening injury, nor was the technology available to repair it.

Anyway, where am I going with all this? I don't know, just some random rants I guess.

I guess the question is: Was there anything that could have been done to prevent the death of my brother-in-law's youngest brother?

From what I understand about the situation (which is admittedly very little), I really don't think there was. The brother had a physical condition that could be partially controlled with medication, but could not be done away with.

Would he have died anyway even if he didn't have a seizure that night? It's impossible to know for sure. But what we do know is that he did die.

And we could ask ourselves "what if's" forever more, but in the end we have to accept that when somebody dies and there was little if anything we could have done (even if something could have been done and we didn't do it because we lacked certain knowledge or understanding about various things (such as the severity of a particle seizure's attack)), it is acceptable to God what happened.

I guess what I'm saying is that... it was his time.

The Greatest Threat to Continued Righteousness?

In Elder's Quorum today, the lesson was about continued righteousness and what the teacher considered to be the greatest threat to it.

The greatest threat, as my teacher saw it, is pornography.

This has certainly been a topic spoken of oft by the brethren as of the last several years. It has certainly come to be a large problem, not just in the Church, but across the nation and the world. The internet hasn't help matters, as it gives everybody quick and easy access to pornography.

My teacher used the (spiritual) downfall of King David to illustrate his point.

You may recall that King David was arguably Israel's greatest king in its history. He did more for Israel and its people than any other ruler before, and perhaps since.

But that's not why we remember him, is it? We remember him because of his greatest sin, for which he was never forgiven. Though King David spent his whole life with a "heart after the LORD", and was Israel's greatest ruler, he is remembered for his murder of Uriah.

What's interesting to me is that his sin of murder started not with his affair with Bathsheba as many often think, but with his dereliction of duty.

2 Samuel 11:1 reads:

And it came to pass ... at the time when kings go forth to battle, that David sent ... all Israel; and they ... besieged Rabbah. But David tarried still at Jerusalem.

King David should have been attending to his duties as leader of his armies, but rather, he stayed in Jerusalem. It could be argued that had David attended to his duty as king, he would not have wandered onto the roof of his house, seen Bathsheba bathing (something that he should not have been watching), and consequently entertained thoughts that resulted from what he saw, and eventually have an affair with Bathsheba.

The lesson in Elder's Quorum, in short, reminded us that by looking at pornography we begin to have inappropriate thoughts and begin to entertain these thoughts. Fantasies result, which decrease our love for our spouse, even to the point that we can no longer love.

Indeed, pornography has caused the destruction of families. Recently in the news, we have even heard of a man's addiction to pornography leading him to attempt the murder of his own wife... all because she caught him looking at porn, wanted him to stop, to which he did not wish to stop. Rather than get a divorce or discontinue doing something he knew was bad for him (he understood its evil, at least to some extent, as he had talked with his bishop regarding it), he decided to kill her!

I have a couple of thoughts regarding this:

My teacher had spoken with a man that was addicted to hard core drugs. This same man had also been addicted to pornography. He plainly stated to my teacher that, compared to giving up pornography, quitting drugs was a cake walk.

We have all heard what lengths drug addicts will go to in order to get their next fix. To think that pornography's grip on man is many-fold tighter than that of drugs is a sobering thought to say the least.

I would submit that giving up food might actually be easier than giving up pornography. A study I read regarding dieting stated that those who have successfully "starved" themselves in order to lose weight have done an amazing thing. Hunger is man's second strongest drive. The drive to eat is the second strongest drive humans have. What could possibly be stronger than the desire to take sustenance? What thesee doctors stated was a human's strongest drive is the sex drive.

Knowing this, it could be argued that giving up food is easier than giving up pornography, which is driven by our sex drives.

Satan knows this, which is why it is so incredibly prevalent. Pornography, I believe, has become Satan's greatest tool to bring others down into misery.

Who Am I?

My name is Stu. I consider myself a "thinking Mormon", or as some people like to say, "A Mormon that thinks for himself".

Don't get me confused with Mormon's who see what they perceive to be "inconsistencies" in Mormon teachings and somehow try to justify why they are so. I am not what many would call an "intellectual Mormon", although I myself would consider myself to be an intellectual of Mormonism.

I have a full-blown testimony of the Mormon Church, of Joseph Smith, of all prophets to Gordon B. Hinckley, the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, and essentially all teachings of the Mormon Church today.

I came to the conclusion that the Church is true through thinking for myself, and seeking inspiration from the Holy Spirit. This did not come lightly. I was not raised in an active home. My father left the church after his mission (about 11 years before I was even born) and my mother is Catholic.

Mormon teachings were not prevalent in my home growing up. My testimony is undoubtedly my own. My testimony was solidified when I was about 23, an experience that was about as unamazing as one might imagine a visitation from the Holy Spirit might be. It was perhaps the most subtle realization of truth I had ever experience in my life, and yet its power was greater than any I had ever experienced.

This blog is intended only as a forum for me to publish my thoughts and to create purposeful discussion amongst myself and a close group of friends and family. I hope that my publishings are conducive to the Spirit, and help all who read come to a better understanding of the truth, and to increase their testimonies.

I don't allow comments to be posted because of the contention that is certain to occur from "anti-Mormons" and other "thinking Mormons".

I will do my absolute best to be respectful in all regards to Him, whom I will not mention out of respect for the sacredness of His name.