13 Keys to Greater Self-Discipline

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I’ve been feeling like I need to build more self-discipline in my life, so I went searching for principles and practices that could help me with this.  I want to share what I learned.  Some of these I can see have a spiritual component behind them, and others I have to think about it more.

1. Get your priorities straight. When you get up, think of the one major thing you are going to work on that day, the thing that if it were done you would be sooooo happy. Tackle it first.

2. Use promises to help you.

1) Make small promises to yourself.

2) Respect yourself as the general over the army of ‘you’ and do what you tell yourself to do. No whining. No complaining. No excuses. “Yes ma’am! Right away ma’am!”

3) Keep the promises you make to yourself and others. This helps build a pattern of integrity in your character. (It also ensures you don’t make promises lightly.)

3. Get rid of distractions. Put phone on airplane mode. Close email. Close all extra webpages. Close browser. TURN OFF WIFI.  Then DO IT.  Avoid checking email first thing in the morning; do it around 11am or so, after you’ve gotten a good start on hard work.  Make a goal of only checking email ONCE a day. (Treat it like your snail-mail box.)

4. Do hard work before you do something fun.  This helps build a habit of delayed gratification in small things, so you can grow towards delaying gratification in larger things for larger rewards. (And make sure the reward doesn’t undo the hard work, e.g. eating ice cream after working out.) 

5. When you think of something you ought to do, try to act on it immediately.  This builds a habit of making impulsiveness work for you. Following good impulses builds your ability to listen and follow the Spirit.

I should get in shape. Drop and do 20 push-ups now.

I should read my scriptures. Go read them now!

I should pray.  Go pray! Now!

I should call so-and-so to see how they are doing.  Call them now! If you’re in a place where you can’t, put it on your to-do list immediately.

6. Tell yourself you are doing it for the discipline, whether it is easy or hard. This sends a good message to yourself that you have a good long-term goal – discipline—that you are working toward. It feels good to know that everything good you do can contribute to it.

7. Cultivate positive self-talk. As the general of the army of ‘you,’ you must become skilled at rallying the troops. Encourage yourself. Remind yourself why you are doing the hard thing. When you fail or feel lazy, don’t yell at yourself or call yourself names. Instead, pull out your inner psychoanalyst and ask yourself why you failed or procrastinated or whatever. There is often a real problem underneath that needs to be solved first, e.g. skills that need to be gained and practiced, a gravitational well of a comfort zone that must be escaped, a lack of confidence that needs to be acknowledged and dissipated with positive achievements, some sort of negative pattern of experiences that has conditioned us to act a certain way that must be fought with positive conditioning.  Focus on finding and solving the problem.

8. Take action. Don’t stew about it. Don’t wait until you feel like doing it. Those ‘blah’ feelings LIE! Defy them! Deep down you do  care, or you wouldn’t be so annoyed at feeling ‘blah.’   “’Tis better far for us to strive, our useless cares from us to drive.”  Motivation often follows action.  Action is the best way for getting rid of that ‘blah’ feeling. Action is a positive use of agency.

9. Face obstacles head on, with courage. Things often don’t go according to plan. The more you practice facing life problems head on, the more you’ll develop the ability to overcome bigger obstacles and the more resilient you become. Your brain will adapt and grow and develop new ways of discovering solutions. Over time, you’ll find it easier to face common-occurring problems. You will meet each new obstacle with more courage, thanks to your mindset in the past.

10. Expose yourself to small amounts of hardship. You will gain satisfaction from overcoming the hardship and thriving anyway. You will learn tolerance for difficulty and discomfort, which will give you a layer of inner toughness and confidence to face future problems and obstacles.  Take a cold shower. Exercise daily. Weed in the hot sun.  Fast for 2 meals.  Work the math problem the long way.

11. Whatever it is, keep at it a little longer than you think you can. This will stretch your capabilities. It shows you that you can expand your limits.  Run 100 more yards. Work 5-20 minutes longer. 

12. Give it your 100% best effort. This is not the same as perfectionism. Best effort means complete focus of energy and attention, you search for resources to help and use them, and you ask for help when you need it.  It means you make corrections as you discover they are needed, and you deliver in the time required. In short, it means you do everything you can think of to make it work, mustering your best thinking and bringing all your talents to bear. It means you take responsibility for the outcome and don’t blame others.

13. Finish the task. Even though the shiny and excitement wears off the new project, you keep going anyway. Even though you are dying to drop everything and go do something different, you keep at it.  Some projects and tasks may be too large to complete in one blast of effort, so you’ll have to break it up into smaller pieces, but you still make sure to finish each piece.  Finishing small tasks leads to the ability to finish bigger tasks.

Conclusion

Ultimately, developing self-discipline is about creating a life in which you are not ruled by your feelings, desires, appetites, and passions.  It’s about keeping the things of the moment in bounds so you can enjoy the things that last eternally. 

The New Testament in Christ's Blood and Why This is So Revolutionary

19 ¶And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. 20 Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you. (Luke 22:19-20)

It struck me as I read this recently what it meant for Jesus to say that the cup (or the wine in it) was the new testament in His blood which was shed for us.

Up to that point, the major way that covenant Israel had an ordinantial testimony of the Spirit about the redemption of the Messiah came from offering animal sacrifices and eating the covenant meal of meat from it.

Here Jesus declares that from that point onward, covenant Israel would obtain that witness of the Spirit—the nourishing, healing, renewing witness working to sanctify them--from the sacrament. That is amazing. It's subtle, but incredible.

Who is the only one who can tell the Holy Ghost to change which ordinances to testify during and do sanctifying work during? Only another member of the Godhead. It's a major change of systemic spiritual blessing declared right there. Absolutely revolutionary.

The Power of Covenants in Alma 44

In this chapter, Captain Moroni and his army had just cornered the Zoramite-Lamanite armies around the river Sidon. Captain Moroni commands the Zoramite-Lamanite army to surrender, commanding in the name of God, by all the Nephites hold dear, and by the Lamanites’ self-preservation that they surrender and take an oath that they will never fight again. Then Zerahemnah, the Zoramite captain, says he will surrender, but refuses to take an oath he knows his army will break, so the battle resumes until they are willing to take the oath.

One of the features of this story that puzzled me was why Zerahemnah tries to kill Captain Moroni when Captain Moroni refuses to let the Zoramite-Lamanite army go without the oath of peace. It seems like a childish tantrum taken way too far. It makes one wonder why the Zoramites and Lamanites put this guy in charge at all if he couldn’t take it when anyone got in his way and stopped him.

However, I noticed that before Zerahemnah went berserk, Captain Moroni made an oath—“as the Lord liveth”—that the only way the Nephites would let them leave was by taking the peace oath. It is possible that Zerahemnah thought that if he killed Captain Moroni, then the Nephite army would be released from having to carry out the terms of Moroni’s oath and would let the enemy go without requiring a peace oath.

Of course, Zerahemnah failed to kill Captain Moroni, and then many of the Zoramite-Lamanite army made the peace oath when Zerahemnah’s fallen scalp was used as an object lesson to illustrate their imminent danger of death. So, Zerahemnah had to try to avoid the oath by fighting more.

As another case, a Zoramite Lamanite army attacked the city Noah because the Zoramite leaders all made an oath that they would conquer it. The battle continued with great loss to the Lamanites until all the leaders who had made the oath were dead. Then the Lamanite army could withdraw its purpose. (It is also shown as a case study of the problem of making bad oaths.)

Thus, I think one of the lessons of the post battle interchange of Alma 44 is to show us how powerful oaths are, when people are determined to do what they promise.

There is a bit of difficult irony for us to notice here. At the beginning of the chapter, Captain Moroni says the Nephites do not desire to be men of blood or to kill their enemy. The oath of peace becomes their best weapon to disarm their enemy, to prevent them from ever fighting again. (It is possible Zerahemnah feared the Nephites would begin future wars and making a peace oath would preclude Lamanite self-defense.) However, because Zerahemnah refused to make the peace oath, Captain Moroni is forced by his own oath to restart the killing of the Zoramite-Lamanite army. His oath that they will only depart with a peace covenant requires him to do what he was trying so hard to avoid in the first place—kill the enemy.  That is the difficult irony.

But the irony also extends to Zerahemnah as well. The man who didn’t want his hands tied by a peace oath is eventually forced to make one anyway or die. To his mind, he probably felt he would die if he didn’t and eventually be killed by Nephite aggressors if he did.  However, knowing their future history as we do, we see they had nothing to fear from the Nephites except from Nephite dissenters stirring them up to anger.

So I think we need to be aware that in keeping our covenants, we will be put in difficult situations that test our resolve.

But if it is difficult for us, we can always consider God’s position, which might remind us a lot of Captain Moroni in this story.  God wants us to stop fighting Him, and if we enter saving covenants with Him, He won’t destroy us (for our sin) and we can have peace.  The only way out of our predicament is the covenant. If we don’t take it, we face spiritual death.  He doesn’t want any of us to be lost, damned, or destroyed. He doesn’t want the fight.  But if we persist in avoiding or breaking those covenants, He will be forced to destroy us. 

Personally, I’d rather keep the covenants so I can be saved and have peace.

“How can I keep my covenant to always remember the Savior?”: Insights on the Youth Sunday school lesson

I had my first experience last Sunday with teaching from the youth Sunday school curriculum “Come Follow Me” manual. 

I really like how it is structured around questions because I’ve found good questions to be one of the best ways to get me interested in learning. 

At first glance, these questions seem both easy and difficult.  Easy because you feel sure that there is a good fast answer that you could give and then be done.  Difficult because you wonder how you could spend a full lesson learning about that particular topic.

I’ve found that in preparing these lessons, it is very important to read all the scriptures and talks suggested in the prep material, especially since the little blurbs describing the scriptures don’t often give a sense of the full deliciousness thereof.

I learned a lot from the lesson “How can I keep my covenant to always remember the Savior?” and I want to share some of the things I got from it that have helped me.

For a long time I have pondered how the sacrament prayer says we promise to “always remember Him” and I have wondered, “Does that mean all the time?  How does a person even do that going throughout a typical day?”  I’ve pondered this for years.  I’ve seen how my mind works, and I know that I can only focus on one thing at a time.   As I’m writing this, I’m thinking about what I am going to say, and that only, though I may take little mental breaks to deal with low-level concerns about other stuff in my life that pop up at me.

Also, I’ve had this idea in my head that “always remembering the Savior” means to think specifically about the events of the Atonement and Crucifixion only.  I’m not sure where this idea came from.

So I want to share with you some of the scriptures and pieces of conference talks that expanded my views.

But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. (John 14:26)

I think it is neat that while we promise to always remember Christ, this seems to promise that the Holy Ghost can help us remember too.  And I suppose remembering Christ’s words is part of remembering Him, so that will work too.

36 Yea, and cry unto God for all thy support; yea, let all thy doings be unto the Lord, and whithersoever thou goest let it be in the Lord; yea, let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord; yea, let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever.

 37 Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day. (Alma 37:36-37)

These two verses seem to me to describe a bunch of different ways of praying and looking at things while remembering the Lord. 

I particularly like how Alma says, “Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings.” It gives me a picture of someone taking a problem to a counsel, much like ward counsels.  But of course, when you counsel with the Lord, it’s just you and Him. 

When I counsel with the Lord, I usually go to an empty room and shut the door so that no one can hear me, and then I talk out loud to Heavenly Father just as though He were right there in person listening.   “Heavenly Father, I have this problem and it is this: ________.  It is really worrying/frustrating/angering me.  I’ve tried ____, and I’ve tried _____ and I’ve tried ______.  I’ve thought about trying ____, but if I do that, then _____ will happen.  And if I try this other thing, then ____ will happen and I don’t want that either.  I don’t know what to do, and I need help."

When I get it all out, I sit there and think and feel. And the first thing I feel and know is that Heavenly Father has heard me.  That impression comes by itself and it is wonderful and comforting. And then the next feeling that comes is a great sense of hope and optimism, that things are going to work out. It is so buoyant and joyful.  And sometimes I get impressions of what to do, and sometimes I am led over a period of days to a solution, and sometimes things just… iron out by themselves.  Feeling heard by Heavenly Father helps me be patient when I don’t get immediate impressions of what to do.

One part of the lesson suggested showing the youth pictures of Christ’s life from the Gospel Art Book and inviting them to think about how remembering these stories could help them during their daily lives. 

I thought this was a curious activity, so I decided to try it on myself.  I had the Gospel Art Book at home and I looked carefully at the pictures representing stories from Christ’s mortal ministry and I found myself thinking of times in my life when I identified with someone in the picture, or with an experience Jesus had. 

When I looked at a picture of His baptism, I remembered my own and the sweet feelings of that.  When I looked at a picture of Christ ordaining his apostles, I remembered when I had been set apart for my callings by priesthood authority. When I looked at the picture of Christ talking to groups of children, I remembered experiences I’d had talking to and playing with children and what a joy that was.  So many pictures I could identify something in my own experience to link it with. 

That’s when it sunk in that remembering Christ could be more than just remembering His atonement and death.

From Elder Holland’s talk “This Do in Remembrance of Me” Oct 1995:

We could remember the Savior’s premortal life and all that we know him to have done as the great Jehovah, creator of heaven and earth and all things that in them are. We could remember that even in the Grand Council of Heaven he loved us and was wonderfully strong, that we triumphed even there by the power of Christ and our faith in the blood of the Lamb (see Rev. 12:10–11).

We could remember the simple grandeur of his mortal birth to just a young woman. . . .

We could remember Christ’s miracles and his teachings, his healings and his help. We could remember that he gave sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf and motion to the lame and the maimed and the withered. Then, on those days when we feel our progress has halted or our joys and views have grown dim, we can press forward steadfastly in Christ, with unshaken faith in him and a perfect brightness of hope (see 2 Ne. 31:19–20).

We could remember that even with such a solemn mission given to him, the Savior found delight in living; he enjoyed people and told his disciples to be of good cheer. He said we should be as thrilled with the gospel as one who had found a great treasure, a veritable pearl of great price, right on our own doorstep. We could remember that Jesus found special joy and happiness in children and said all of us should be more like them—guileless and pure, quick to laugh and to love and to forgive, slow to remember any offense.

We could remember that Christ called his disciples friends, and that friends are those who stand by us in times of loneliness or potential despair. We could remember a friend we need to contact or, better yet, a friend we need to make. In doing so we could remember that God often provides his blessings through the compassionate and timely response of another. For someone nearby we may be the means of heaven’s answer to a very urgent prayer.

We could—and should—remember the wonderful things that have come to us in our lives and that “all things which are good cometh of Christ” (Moro. 7:24). Those of us who are so blessed could remember the courage of those around us who face more difficulty than we, but who remain cheerful, who do the best they can, and trust that the Bright and Morning Star will rise again for them—as surely he will do (see Rev. 22:16).

On some days we will have cause to remember the unkind treatment he received, the rejection he experienced, and the injustice—oh, the injustice—he endured. When we, too, then face some of that in life, we can remember that Christ was also troubled on every side, but not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed (see 2 Cor. 4:8–9).

When those difficult times come to us, we can remember that Jesus had to descend below all things before he could ascend above them, and that he suffered pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind that he might be filled with mercy and know how to succor his people in their infirmities (see D&C 88:6; Alma 7:11–12).

To those who stagger or stumble, he is there to steady and strengthen us. In the end he is there to save us, and for all this he gave his life. However dim our days may seem they have been darker for the Savior of the world.

In fact, in a resurrected, otherwise perfected body, our Lord of this sacrament table has chosen to retain for the benefit of his disciples the wounds in his hands and his feet and his side—signs, if you will, that painful things happen even to the pure and perfect. Signs, if you will, that pain in this world is not evidence that God doesn’t love you. It is the wounded Christ who is the captain of our soul—he who yet bears the scars of sacrifice, the lesions of love and humility and forgiveness.

Those wounds are what he invites young and old, then and now, to step forward and see and feel (see 3 Ne. 11:15; 3 Ne. 18:25). Then we remember with Isaiah that it was for each of us that our Master was “despised and rejected … ; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3). All this we could remember when we are invited by a kneeling young priest to remember Christ always.

We no longer include a supper with this ordinance, but it is a feast nevertheless. We can be fortified by it for whatever life requires of us, and in so doing we will be more compassionate to others along the way.

One request Christ made of his disciples on that night of deep anguish and grief was that they stand by him, stay with him in his hour of sorrow and pain. “Could ye not watch with me one hour?” he asked longingly (Matt. 26:40). I think he asks that again of us, every Sabbath day when the emblems of his life are broken and blessed and passed.

This helped me realize that always remembering the Savior doesn’t mean I am restricted to only thinking about his suffering in Gethsemane or his crucifixion.  I can think of all the other parts of His life too.  In fact, since many things I do are similar to things He did, I can think of Him at those times and ponder how He did those things.

From Elder Eyring’s Oct 2007 general conference talk “O Remember, Remember”:

When our children were very small, I started to write down a few things about what happened every day. Let me tell you how that got started. I came home late from a Church assignment. It was after dark. My father-in-law, who lived near us, surprised me as I walked toward the front door of my house. He was carrying a load of pipes over his shoulder, walking very fast and dressed in his work clothes. I knew that he had been building a system to pump water from a stream below us up to our property.

He smiled, spoke softly, and then rushed past me into the darkness to go on with his work. I took a few steps toward the house, thinking of what he was doing for us, and just as I got to the door, I heard in my mind—not in my own voice—these words: “I’m not giving you these experiences for yourself. Write them down.”

I went inside. I didn’t go to bed. Although I was tired, I took out some paper and began to write. And as I did, I understood the message I had heard in my mind. I was supposed to record for my children to read, someday in the future, how I had seen the hand of God blessing our family. Grandpa didn’t have to do what he was doing for us. He could have had someone else do it or not have done it at all. But he was serving us, his family, in the way covenant disciples of Jesus Christ always do. I knew that was true. And so I wrote it down, so that my children could have the memory someday when they would need it.

I wrote down a few lines every day for years. I never missed a day no matter how tired I was or how early I would have to start the next day. Before I would write, I would ponder this question: “Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us or our children or our family today?” As I kept at it, something began to happen. As I would cast my mind over the day, I would see evidence of what God had done for one of us that I had not recognized in the busy moments of the day. As that happened, and it happened often, I realized that trying to remember had allowed God to show me what He had done.

More than gratitude began to grow in my heart. Testimony grew. I became ever more certain that our Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers. I felt more gratitude for the softening and refining that come because of the Atonement of the Savior Jesus Christ. And I grew more confident that the Holy Ghost can bring all things to our remembrance—even things we did not notice or pay attention to when they happened.

The years have gone by. My boys are grown men. And now and then one of them will surprise me by saying, “Dad, I was reading in my copy of the journal about when …” and then he will tell me about how reading of what happened long ago helped him notice something God had done in his day.

My point is to urge you to find ways to recognize and remember God’s kindness.

I really liked this bit from Elder Eyring’s talk because it shows how looking back over the day to see what God has done for us is yet another way to remember Him.  And what’s even cooler is that it shows me that journaling about what we notice is actually a way to make a tangible memorial of how we’ve been keeping that covenant.  And that memorial becomes a memory aid for our future selves so that we can remember even more.  It builds on itself. 

From Elder Christofferson’s talk “To Always Remember Him”:

I wish to elaborate on three aspects of what it means to “always remember him”: first, seeking to know and follow His will; second, recognizing and accepting our obligation to answer to Christ for every thought, word, and action; and third, living with faith and without fear so that we can always look to the Savior for the help we need. . . .

You and I can put Christ at the center of our lives and become one with Him as He is one with the Father. We can begin by stripping everything out of our lives and then putting it back together in priority order with the Savior at the center.  Whatever we “get away with” in life or manage to hide from other people, we must still face when the inevitable day comes that we are lifted up before Jesus Christ, the God of pure and perfect justice.  We know that challenges, disappointments, and sorrows will come to each of us in different ways, but we also know that in the end, because of our divine Advocate, all things can be made to work together for our good.

So I see a bunch of different ways that we can remember Christ from what Elder Chrisofferson said. 

1)   Seeking revelation about what we should do.

2)   Looking at everything we do with an eye towards how Christ would approve or disapprove of it on the day of judgment (and of course choosing to not do what He would disapprove).

3)   Setting our life priorities with Christ first.

4)   Facing challenges by trying to discover how the Lord will make them be for our good.

5)   Looking to the Savior for help in our challenges.

It’s a good bet that a lot of this is pretty engrained in us already.  (Or at least it should be.)  It is neat to know that these things constitute part of fulfilling that covenant to “always remember Him.”  I guess I had never thought of it that way before.  I never thought they were related to that promise to “always remember Him.”

After all this, when I was studying, I remembered something I’d learned long ago as a writing tutor about Cognitive Load Theory.  This theory says that a person can only keep in their working memory a limited number of things at a time, and when more things are put on it, stuff drops off.  We can only remember so much.  As a writing tutor, this theory was the reason we encouraged students to write down on their papers what they were going to do to fix their paper so that they could still remember it all once the tutoring session ended. 

But I could see a new application of Cognitive Load Theory when I related it to the covenant that I would always remember Christ.  It meant that I would have my list of mental things that I’d need to remember, and Christ required that I place Him on that list and keep Him there all the time.  When I take little mental breaks, and check my mental lists, Christ needs to be there. 

As I’ve been trying to practice this, I’ve noticed that it really does feel like Christ is with me, at least in my mind.  I have to wonder if this is the same thing that Christ experienced with respect to Heavenly Father when He said:

And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him. (John 8:29)

I told the class I was teaching that they were lucky to be getting this lesson this early in their lives because it really has the potential to change everything.  Little changes in things we do often mean the harvest is multiplied.  I think if I had had this lesson and applied it at their age, my life would have been much better.  I would have been able to avoid a lot of the mistakes I made. 

I really want to be changed because of what I’ve learned from this lesson.  I think it could make a big difference my life.  I recognize it will be something I need to work on continually, and I really hope it doesn’t turn into something I do just for a week and then forget about.  Because I know that I have a tendency to do that, as Mormon wrote:

1 And thus we can behold how false, and also the unsteadiness of the hearts of the children of men; yea, we can see that the Lord in his great infinite goodness doth bless and prosper those who put their trust in him.

2 Yea, and we may see at the very time when he doth prosper his people, yea, in the increase of their fields, their flocks and their herds, and in gold, and in silver, and in all manner of precious things of every kind and art; sparing their lives, and delivering them out of the hands of their enemies; softening the hearts of their enemies that they should not declare wars against them; yea, and in fine, doing all things for the welfare and happiness of his people; yea, then is the time that they do harden their hearts, and do forget the Lord their God, and do trample under their feet the Holy One—yea, and this because of their ease, and their exceedingly great prosperity.

3 And thus we see that except the Lord doth chasten his people with many afflictions, yea, except he doth visit them with death and with terror, and with famine and with all manner of pestilence, they will not remember him.

4 O how foolish, and how vain, and how evil, and devilish, and how quick to do iniquity, and how slow to do good, are the children of men; yea, how quick to hearken unto the words of the evil one, and to set their hearts upon the vain things of the world!

5 Yea, how quick to be lifted up in pride; yea, how quick to boast, and do all manner of that which is iniquity; and how slow are they to remember the Lord their God, and to give ear unto his counsels, yea, how slow to walk in wisdom’s paths!

6 Behold, they do not desire that the Lord their God, who hath created them, should rule and reign over them; notwithstanding his great goodness and his mercy towards them, they do set at naught his counsels, and they will not that he should be their guide. (Helaman 12:1-6)

It is likely that I will forget, but I want to remember.  I suppose Satan will try to tempt me to forget, to think that it is too much effort to try to remember Christ always. 

But it’s not.  It just requires a thought. You can’t get much easier than that.  I just have to mentally reach for Christ and keep reaching.

Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not. (D&C 5:36)

What do you do to always remember Christ?  What mental habits have you built for yourself?

Abraham cuts a covenant with the Lord and resists Satan

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7 And he [God] said unto him [Abram], I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.

8 And he said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?

9 And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.

10 And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not.

11 And when the fowls came down upon the carcases, Abram drove them away.

12 And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.

13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;

14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.

15 And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.

16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.

17 And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces. (Genesis 15:7-17)

In order to certify that His promises to Abram would be fulfilled, the Lord told Abram to take a heifer, a nanny goat, a ram, turtle dove, and a pigeon to cut a covenant with him.  The covenant of this sort was made by cutting the animals in half, and both parties to covenant walked between the two pieces.  It was to demonstrate the kind of death that would happen if either party broke the covenant.  It is interesting that the Lord doesn’t have Abram cut up just one animal, but three.  I suppose this is to make a point about how serious the Lord is about keeping this promise.

So Abram prepares the animals, but the Lord doesn’t show up right away, so Abram has to drive away the vultures from the animal parts.

In v12, something happens that is puzzling.  When the sun goes down a deep sleep falls on Abram along with a horror of great darkness.  What was this?

I suspect that was Satan trying to prevent Abram from going through with this covenant with the Lord.  Satan does not like people to make covenants with God, and tries to disrupt impending spiritual experiences in any way he can.   (This fits very well with the opposition Satan hit Joseph Smith with before the first vision, as well as the opposition Moses faced when having his vision.)  Satan could have attacked Abram with thoughts that the delay of waiting for the Lord meant that the Lord had changed His mind.  He could have also tried to scare Abram away by suggesting that once he made this covenant he’d be stuck and any little deviation would put him in Satan’s power. 

Even though we do not have the details recorded, Abram would have had to call on the Lord for strength to resist.  And in the process, he was filled with the Holy Ghost, which seems to have filled him with the spirit of prophecy and he was inspired to know what would happen to his posterity up to four hundred years in the future.

And finally the Lord came, like a smoking furnace and a burning lamp, and passed through the pieces to confirm the covenant.

Once I read between the lines, this story reinforces the principle that there is opposition in all things.  Satan was at work trying to disrupt Abram’s faith just as much as he is at work today.  The solution is to pray always.

Jonathan tests Saul at David’s request

When David goes to Jonathan in 1 Sam. 20, he has one major question, which is, “What have I done?...and what is my sin before thy father, that he seeketh my life?”   Jonathan has to be convinced with an oath that this really is a problem, and David requests that Jonathan do a test to determine Saul’s disposition toward David.

It is actually a very clever test.

5 And David said unto Jonathan, Behold, to morrow is the new moon, and I should not fail to sit with the king at meat: but let me go, that I may hide myself in the field unto the third day at even.

6 If thy father at all miss me, then say, David earnestly asked leave of me that he might run to Beth-lehem his city: for there is a yearly sacrifice there for all the family.

7 If he say thus, It is well; thy servant shall have peace: but if he be very wroth, then be sure that evil is determined by him. (1 Sam. 20:5-7)

In essence, the test is to see if Saul will react well or badly to David’s absence with Jonathan’s leave.  If Saul reacts badly out of all proportion to the “offense” of David’s absence, then that is a clear sign that he is determined to harm David any way he can.

It so happens that this test can also be seen as a red flag for any abusive person – do they react with rage out of all proportion to the “offense” committed against them, even when the “offense” is innocuous or even permitted by another authority figure?

The occasion from which David absents himself is that of the feast of the new moon.  Saul seems to have continued to observe the religious holidays, even though his disobedience and impenitence prevented him from deriving spiritual benefit from it.  It is rather ironic that Saul didn’t question David’s absence the first day on the grounds it was possible David was ritually unclean, but then he goes into a rage when he learns David was given permission to celebrate it with his family elsewhere.  (What?  Being gone for uncleanness is okay, but being gone by permission is not?)  Saul may be ritually clean enough to participate in the feast, but you can see his murderous heart is spiritually unclean.

Saul’s angry words to Jonathan are curious –

30 Then Saul’s anger was kindled against Jonathan, and he said unto him, Thou son of the perverse rebellious woman, do not I know that thou hast chosen the son of Jesse to thine own confusion, and unto the confusion of thy mother’s nakedness?

31 For as long as the son of Jesse liveth upon the ground, thou shalt not be established, nor thy kingdom. Wherefore now send and fetch him unto me, for he shall surely die. (1 Sam. 20:30-31)

Just about any way you look at Saul’s works, they are a shocking insult to his wife, as he alleges that Jonathan’s mother must have been unfaithful for Jonathan to turn out so contrary to Saul.

Saul’s pronouncement that Jonathan’s kingdom would not be established as long as David remained alive could be taken two different ways.

It might be an appeal to Jonathan’s self-interest to try to show him that David wasn’t just a threat to Saul’s kingdom, but a threat to Jonathan’s as well.  Happily, in the same chapter, there is recorded that Jonathan and David renewed their covenant of friendship that David would not cut off Jonathan’s house, so Saul’s argument would not be convincing at all.  Jonathan’s covenant kept him safe from the fear that Saul tried to inspire in him.  I like that—covenants can keep us safe from fear.

Or, Saul’s pronouncement also might have been a command that unless Jonathan helped kill David, Saul would not confirm the kingdom upon him, in effect making Jonathan’s inheritance of the crown conditional upon the death of David.  This meant that if Jonathan were to keep his covenant with David, he had be willing to give up his kingdom. 

Happily, Jonathan did not fear the threats or insinuations of his father.  Instead, he asks a simple question about David.  “Wherefore shall he be slain?  What hath he done?” (1 Sam. 20:32)   This is the big question that David wanted to know too, and Jonathan serves both David and himself by asking if there is any justice behind Saul’s anger.

But Saul doesn’t answer.  He can’t answer since he has no just grounds.  And his frustration with having nothing to say against David finds vent in throwing a spear at Jonathan. 

I think David and Jonathan take a healthy approach to the problem.  David essentially asks, “What did I do?” and Jonathan asks “What did David do?”   Sometimes as we go through life we find we have made enemies and the best thing to do is to ask, “What did I do?”   If we have really offended, then we’ll find out what it is and be able to make peace.   And if we haven’t, then..  obviously we’ll have to forgive and we’ll know how David (and Christ) felt, being hated without a cause.

Captain Moroni’s Impetus for Peace Covenants with the Lamanites

One of the things that is remarkable about Captain Moroni is how he frequently tries to bring battles with the Lamanites to a close by requiring the Lamanites to enter into a covenant that they won’t go to battle against the Nephites again.  This is very peculiar and refreshingly large-hearted and trusting.  How did he get the idea that he could do such a thing?

I suspect that he might have gotten the idea from the record of Zeniff and Limhi.  Zeniff is the first one that makes promises with Lamanites and we can see that at the beginning these promises did a pretty good job of allowing Lamanites and Nephites to live in fairly close proximity to each other without bloodshed.  Perhaps this was previously believed to be impossible.

Captain Moroni could have learned from Zeniff and Limhi’s records that the Lamanites had a culture that took their promises, oaths, and covenants very seriously, and this made him willing to try using that factor to build peace between the Nephites and Lamanites.

We can also make agreements requiring nonaggression from our enemies.  Conficts happen, but if there is a promise not to fight, then that keeps fighting from happening except in really serious conflicts.

Re-examining Samson’s First Philistine Romance

Before Samson ever met Delilah, near the beginning of his story, we are told about his romance with another Philistine woman who remains nameless.

1 And Samson went down to Timnath, and saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines.

2 And he came up, and told his father and his mother, and said, I have seen a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines: now therefore get her for me to wife.

3 Then his father and his mother said unto him, Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said unto his father, Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well.  (Judges 14:1-3)

This relationship automatically strikes us as bad news because of the commandment to not intermarry with the Canaanites, so we usually think of the Philistines as the beautiful-enticing-forbidden-evil type.  We think of Samson as someone who is just foolishly captivated with one look at this woman.

However, I suspect that it may not have been that simple.

Consider that the Israelites had forsaken the Lord and served Baal, and at this stage the Israelite girls may not have been much different from the Philistines.  When Israel is corrupted like everyone else, the commandment to marry inside the covenant seems either near impossible or near meaningless.

There is also at least one sign that Samson’s interest in this Philistine woman was not based on her looks because when he loses her, her father offers Samson her younger sister who is “fairer than she.” (Judges 15:2)  If Samson had only been interested in beauty he would have gone for the younger sister in the first place, so he must have seen something in this particular woman that he liked more than physical beauty.

Also, when it says he saw her, we don’t know how long he watched.  Did he glance once and fall in love?  Or did he observe her and what she did? 

How does this change our notion of the choice Samson has?  It is easy to say “marry in the covenant” when there are lots of possible choices who are good, but the choice becomes much harder if you find a good person outside the covenant community and the choices inside have corrupted themselves.

I’m not excusing Samson; it is important to marry in the covenant, but I think we underestimate the difficulties he was up against.

If we change our assumptions about this Philistine girl and assume she was better than most, the rest of the story with her becomes kind of a tragedy because Samson marries her, but then loses her.  The writer of Judges makes meaning out of it this way: “it was of the Lord, that he sought an occasion against the Philistines: for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.” (Judges 14:4).

It seems that Samson’s relationship with this girl was meant to highlight the problems with Philistine society in such a way that Israel would eventually become determined to fight their way out from under Philistine dominion.  Samson was to be a judge in Israel, so the judge has to see where the injustice is.

Let’s look at how this happens.

First there’s a bit of traveling back and forth to Timnath and on one trip, Samson meets a lion that attacks and he tears it to pieces.  On the second trip, Samson goes by the lion carcass and notices that a hive of bees has taken up residence inside it and made some honey.  It’s very odd; something you wouldn’t expect would ever happen, but the detail becomes important later.

Next there is some feasting as part of the marriage.

10 ¶So his father went down unto the woman: and Samson made there a feast; for so used the young men to do.

11 And it came to pass, when they saw him, that they brought thirty companions to be with him. (Judges 14:10-11)

It is kind of the people to bring 30 companions to Samson to help him celebrate his marriage properly, but it puts Samson in a tricky situation.  Here he is, one Israelite among 30 Philistines at a party.  Is this a spiritually safe place?  The potential for negative peer pressure is huge.  The potential for all kinds of raunchy things to happen is huge.  What does Samson do?

He proposes a riddle to them that has to do with the strange thing—bees making honey inside a lion carcass--he saw on the way to Timnath.  I almost have to wonder if this was an attempt to distract and dominate the focus and conversation of these 30 companions so as to prevent them from pulling out the wine and so forth.

12 ¶And Samson said unto them, I will now put forth a riddle unto you: if ye can certainly declare it me within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty sheets and thirty change of garments:

13 But if ye cannot declare it me, then shall ye give me thirty sheets and thirty change of garments. And they said unto him, Put forth thy riddle, that we may hear it.

14 And he said unto them, Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness. And they could not in three days expound the riddle. (Judges 14:12-14)

To make it really exciting, Samson proposes a bet to go with the riddle.  If you notice, the terms of the bet are really unequal.  If the Philistines lose, each one of them only needs to provide one change of clothing, but if Samson loses, then he has to provide them with 30 changes all by himself.  This bet has the potential to either bankrupt Samson or enrich him.  The terms are also extremely gentle on the Philistines.  (This is a time when clothing took a lot of manual labor to make, so a single extra outfit would be a big deal, and 30 extra outfits would be unheard-of largesse.)

Sadly, the Philistines are bad sports and they cheat.

And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they said unto Samson’s wife, Entice thy husband, that he may declare unto us the riddle, lest we burn thee and thy father’s house with fire: have ye called us to take that we have? is it not so? (Judges 14:15)

What does this tell us about Philistine character?  They can’t stand the idea of losing to an Israelite.  So they cheat and ask Samson’s new bride to help them.  Actually, they don’t ask; they demand and threaten.  She must find out the answer for them or they will burn her and her whole family.  (We have to note that this woman was threatened, unlike Delilah, who was bribed with an enormous sum of money.)

The 30 companions also suspect that this riddle was cooked up by the bride and her family with Samson as a family conspiracy to impoverish the Philistine neighbors instead of just to be nice to Samson and give him some friends to celebrate with.  Because the 30 companions think they are being cheated, they think they are allowed to cheat back. 

Notice— the Philistines are bad losers, suspicious, cheaters, and extortioners.

16 And Samson’s wife wept before him, and said, Thou dost but hate me, and lovest me not: thou hast put forth a riddle unto the children of my people, and hast not told it me. And he said unto her, Behold, I have not told it my father nor my mother, and shall I tell it thee?

17 And she wept before him the seven days, while their feast lasted: and it came to pass on the seventh day, that he told her, because she lay sore upon him: and she told the riddle to the children of her people.

18 And the men of the city said unto him on the seventh day before the sun went down, What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion? And he said unto them, If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle. (Judges 14:16-18)

It is sad, but Samson’s bride caves to the pressure from her people.  I personally have to wonder what I would have done instead if I were in her place.  I could tell Samson, but what could he do to help?  (Well, we see later he could do plenty, but she didn’t know that.)

And Samson’s bride eventually worms the answer to the riddle out of him and tells it to her people.  The 30 Philistines give the answer to Samson in a way that makes it seem like they just figured it out by logic, but the nature of the riddle is such that it can’t be figured out through logic. 

Naturally, Samson recognizes that they have used his wife as a tool.  And he’s mad.

19 ¶And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, and slew thirty men of them, and took their spoil, and gave change of garments unto them which expounded the riddle. And his anger was kindled, and he went up to his father’s house.

20 But Samson’s wife was given to his companion, whom he had used as his friend.  (Judges 14:19-20)

The fact that Samson went and killed 30 men in Ashkelon and looted them to pay his debt shows that he was perfectly capable of protecting his wife and her family.  If she had just stood firm and confided in him, he could have helped protect her and her family.  Or they could have moved into Israelite territory instead.

Samson paid his debt, but he was still mad at his wife, so he went back to his father’s house.  On one hand, you have to give him credit for not directly taking that anger out on her or the 30 companions.  On the other hand, withdrawing still caused problems because it gave the impression that he had abandoned his wife and that she could be married again to someone else.    

So she did marry again.  And to whom?  “to his companion, whom he had used as his friend”  This may have been one of those 30 Philistines who had been brought to Samson to celebrate with him, one of the group that had threatened Samson’s bride and her family!

What does this tell us about the Philistines?

It tells us that the Philistines had a very loose idea of what constituted divorce.  It’s looser than what our society has today, but they interpreted Samson’s mere absence to mean he had divorced her.  And it wasn’t just the men who thought this, but Samson’s new bride did too and her father.

This girl had plenty of time to get married before Samson got interested in her, but she wasn’t, which makes it seem like no one had even noticed her or wanted her before Samson showed any interest.  Then after the wedding and after Samson leaves in a huff, someone else is interested in her now.  The Philistines don’t seem to want something until someone else wants it.

Trouble happens when Samson cools down and wants to make up with the missus.

1 But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not suffer him to go in.

2 And her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to thy companion: is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray thee, instead of her.

Samson may have been mad, but he still considered himself married, unlike the woman he married.  And you have to give him credit for bringing a gift with him to try to smooth things over.  I imagine at that time bringing home a goat would be like bringing home a paycheck today.   But he’s prevented from even getting close to his bride, by the father, who gives him the bad news that she’s no longer his wife.  That must have been absolutely devastating.

The father thinks he can placate Samson by offering Samson marry his bride’s younger sister instead, but this dismisses Samson’s whole basis for choosing the girl he did.  If he wanted the first girl for her character, her young sister isn’t necessarily going to be the same way.

So what does Samson do about this?

3 ¶And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure.

4 And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails.

5 And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives.

6 ¶Then the Philistines said, Who hath done this? And they answered, Samson, the son in law of the Timnite, because he had taken his wife, and given her to his companion. And the Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire. (Judges 15:3-6)

What Samson does to the Philistines strikes us as really extreme, not to mention cruel to the foxes.  However, consider that according to the Law of Moses, his wife had essentially been permitted to commit adultery with one of his companions.  The father’s protest only gives plausible deniability.  For adultery, his bride and the man whom she’d been allowed to marry should have been burned, but the Philistines all think there is nothing wrong with the remarriage, so their whole society is culpable as well. 

Seen this way, Samson’s burning of the Philistine fields, crops, vineyards, and olives is a mild warning.

Samson’s use of the foxes can also be seen as a sort of object lesson, albeit a cruel one.  The two foxes tied together by their tails might represent marriage, and the firebrand between them represented both the power inherent in sexual activity.  300 couples with a fire between them that they can’t (or won’t) control or which pulls them in different directions would destroy a town’s society just like those 300 foxes destroyed the Philistine crops.

Okay, so what do the Philistines do when they find out Samson has done this?  Do they go after him?  No.  They go and burn his wife and her father.  There is not a word about punishing the companion who had married her. 

At this stage, it becomes rather ambiguous about whether the Philistines burned Samson’s wife and father-in-law as retaliation for Samson’s act, or whether it was imperfectly and belatedly executed justice and they hoped to get Samson off their back with a show of doing the proper thing.

What does this tell us about Philistine justice?  They make a show of justice, but it isn’t really just.

What is Samson’s reaction? Is he going to accept it?

7 ¶And Samson said unto them, Though ye have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease.

8 And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam.

I think what Samson is saying here is that because they let the companion go and killed his bride and her father, by law that looks like retaliation and not justice, so that indicates yet another way their society is messed up and he has to do something about that. 

So he kills a bunch of them.  I don’t know what “smote them hip and thigh” means.  It sounds like an obscure idiom.

9 ¶Then the Philistines went up, and pitched in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi.

10 And the men of Judah said, Why are ye come up against us? And they answered, To bind Samson are we come up, to do to him as he hath done to us.

11 Then three thousand men of Judah went to the top of the rock Etam, and said to Samson, Knowest thou not that the Philistines are rulers over us? what is this that thou hast done unto us? And he said unto them, As they did unto me, so have I done unto them.

As an oldest child who used to help settle fights among my younger siblings, I read this and kind of snicker because it sounds like the protests I heard at the beginning when both parties were squawking.

Actually, it is another sign of the problems in Philistine society because they knew what they had done and they would not take correction, especially not from one man, and certainly not from an Israelite. 

Even though the justification of both the Philistines and Samson are incredibly abbreviated here, we must assume that the men of Judah got an earful of both sides of the story, enough that they would be able to tell where the fault was.  Yet because they were under the dominion of the Philistines and they didn’t want to rock the boat, they took the Philistine side!  They had enough people that they could have taken Samson’s side, and fought the Philistines, but instead they did the equivalent of delivering the judge into the hands of the criminals.   

12 And they said unto him, We are come down to bind thee, that we may deliver thee into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said unto them, Swear unto me, that ye will not fall upon me yourselves.

13 And they spake unto him, saying, No; but we will bind thee fast, and deliver thee into their hand: but surely we will not kill thee. And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him up from the rock.

14 ¶And when he came unto Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him: and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands.

15 And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith.

As we have seen, the Philistines would not give Samson justice, so he had to take matters into his own hands.  In doing so, Samson made powerful enemies.  His own people wouldn’t maintain his cause and would only promise to not kill him themselves.  Samson really had no one to help him but God.  And when it came down to this moment of greatest extremity, God helped Samson and gave him the strength to fight and maintain his cause as judge against an army of Philistines.

Even when no one else was willing to do justice, and Samson was alone, God helped him execute justice.  (And yes, here execute is an appropriate word.)  No wonder he served as judge in Israel for 20 years. 

Reading this makes me thankful for the justice system we have today.  It also shows the importance of having a fair justice system. 

The way Samson is able to stand when everyone is against him teaches me something about what it will be like at the second coming when Christ comes again.  It also teaches me about Christ’s ability to judge at the final judgment when all are brought before Him.

At the beginning of this post, I pointed out that the writer of these chapters makes meaning out of Samson’s unfortunate experience with the Philistine woman this way: “it was of the Lord, that he sought an occasion against the Philistines: for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.” (Judges 14:4).

Samson experience reveals the Philistines to be:

--entertained by high risk bets, but unwilling to risk losing to someone of lower status

--bad sports

--cheaters

--demanding and threatening in order to get their way

--extortionate

--suspicious, suspecting conspiracy where there is none, or at least making a show of it to manipulate

--loose in their views of marriage and grounds for divorce

--unjust

--retaliatory

It seems the Lord was trying to show the Israelites the problems that were caused by being under Philistine dominion, by showing them how they could not ally themselves with that way of life.  Samson became an irritating factor to stir things up.  His strength through his Nazarite vow was supposed to show the Israelites they could be stronger by keeping their covenants.  Sadly, so many Israelites missed the message of hope that Samson was supposed to be.

The lesson for us today is that the Lord does not want us to be comfortable wallowing in our sins, and He will and does bring irritating factors into our lives to try to show us our sins are bad for us, to show us we should fight the sin instead of giving in to it, to show us the real evil of our sins.