This week was pretty normal. The one thing out of the ordinary was that Kevin’s wife Lauren came to visit him. I picked her up at the airport on Friday night so that she could come and surprise him. He was so happy to see her. It was good to help out with them meeting up.
Other than that I have just been pondering life a lot. I have been able to go to the temple weekly, something I should have done when in Provo, and have really had time to ponder so much about life. So, I guess this week I will just ramble on about what I have been thinking about.
The first thing I have been pondering is why do we need to live by faith. There are so many people who question that if God exists why doesn’t he just reveal himself directly to us. If revelation is real, than why doesn’t God just tell us what we need to do. And obviously the primary school answer is that we need to learn to live by faith. But why is that the case? I have come to believe that it is the case because we have already lived by knowledge. When we lived with our father, everything was clear to our view. We have all already demonstrated that we can live by knowledge.
When we come to this earth it gave us an opportunity to learn about living by faith, something that we couldn’t do without this experience. As it is clear there are many that could live by knowledge, but now struggle to live by faith, thus the testing nature of this planet? By why is faith really that important to being a God? Obviously it is important now, but how does it work for eternity. This is one of the questions I currently ponder. I know that Joseph Smith said God created the worlds through application of faith, but what this fully means I do not know.
I have also been watching a bit of TV this weekend that has made me think of some things. Just today I rewatched the third Star Wars movie from the original trilogy. As I was thinking about the story of Anakin, I thought about how he sought immortality when he was younger. I then reflected on just how many stories we hear are about people who try to find a way to immortality. Why is this such a theme in our literature? I believe that it is because our spirits innately know that we are eternal. The very idea of having an ending contradicts so much with the core of our being. Maybe this is why so many fear death, because deep down they know that this concept does not actually match their nature.
Similarly, as I though on these subjects, I realized that I wanted to know more about what happened after in the story of Star Wars. Now some may think this is silly to draw a lesson from, but I have come to realized whenever I care about something be it real or fictional I want to know more about the subject, and I don’t want the relation/story to ever end. As I think of this I also believe it is because my spirit is eternal and therefor wishes the things that are connected to it to be eternal to. Before we came to this earth, we formed relationships that lasted eons, and had no expectation of them ending. Thus in this earth when we have connections/relationships broken, it is extremely hard on us. Our very beings are structured around the ideals of permanency, something which seems to escape us on this earth.
All of this also mixed in with me thinking about how I personally need to change my life. When I form a relationship with a person (not necessarily in the romantic sense of the word) I try to give my 100% to that person. I put my own personal well-being under the importance of theirs. Consequently I think I also avoid making as many relationships as I should because I am so worried about the pain that comes when we give that much and then have the other side either break of the relationship, or worse spitefully use us.
While we must all acknowledge that pain comes because people are not willing to live in the way that we are all meant to live in, it really should not be a reason for me to hide myself from the world. In my life I fear that I have far too often rejected opportunities for strong friendships, just because I thought things wouldn’t work. I have also stayed away from making strong friendships, because in some cases I knew they wouldn’t last.
Luckily I have a year in China to work these things out before I have to re-enter fully into BYU society. But even as I say that, I wonder how I can apply these principles to my time there. When I return from China, how many true new relationships will I have formed over there, or will I just end up with a gaggle of Facebook type “friends”?
With all that I guess it is up to me now to continue studying these topics, and prepare myself to be the kind of person that can form eternal relationships.
Wow… I must say, I did not originally intend to write this much, or this much of my personal thoughts. Oh well it will be good for my parents to read what I should probably tell them over the phone anyways. And besides those that know me will recognize these kind of drawn out speeches from me Until next time…
