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On Courage I have been asked to write a few lines on courage. The intent was to somehow inspire some members of this audience to dare to step outside of the peace they have made with the place they have made for themselves in this Work and act to save this Work and themselves – and their loved ones, if love can extend that far. Before a battle, the Roman general would, if there were enough time, stand on an improvised platform and give his men a pep-talk, called the hortatorium. He would remind them of who they were and what they had done, as well as his confidence in them and in the plan of battle. I feel inadequate to do this. I have decided, instead, to look at the origins of courage and hope thereby to find some elements with which to inspire, but I feel in a larger sense that the courage we need has initially to come from within the heart where words, even scripture, cannot touch. If my audience were composed of men whose cultural background, as lived today, and family expectation, and social environment required courage, then there would be something to say. The courage I see required is akin to the lonely courage of Christ, himself facing and undergoing the atonement. Again, we see as Jesus put it, that a prophet is not without honor, save in his own country. (Mk. 6:4) There is no glory, there is no comradeship, there may not even be a sense of seeking to do what is right for rightness sake, as Martin Luther and the other lone reformers did to bring about the deliverance of a portion of mankind from the gang of robbers and murderers called the Roman Catholic Cardinals. Nevertheless, someone has to stick his head above the parapet and dare to start having confidence in himself and in the Lord and start thinking about the issues we face or it will be said of us, “there is no righteous among them, no not one.” (Rom. 3:10) Those who have read of these blogs so far have already made up their minds to either avoid the pain by dismissing their message and thus justify to themselves avoiding the threat to peace and safety, or that their sense of what this religion is all about has made a profound and unalterable change in them, anyway. For the latter, the next steps will be the most crucial, but be assured, the Lord will fill in the void of fear, anxiety and doubt with a fire of calm assurance and events will arrange themselves soon afterward to make his will known. The Lord has a vested interest in saving this Work and his chosen ones who remain in it. My correspondent wants me to call men to courage and duty, but first they have to recognize the path of duty, and that is difficult when family, associates, culture and authority all pull the other way. Shall I call it the curse of the familiar? Is it more aptly named the curse of the follower? This seeking and choosing to know the Lord and his peace was what characterized the early saints who left communities and families, and friends and culture to join their faith and strength to the Joseph Smith church of years past. I see the call here is to reestablish in your hearts a new birth of the religion of Joseph Smith and nothing else. And I am afraid that this new understanding has to be an individual matter, as men who find agreement with other men will be few and far between – at least at first. The LDS Church have become masters of creating a social environment that cocoons its members such that leaving them, even doctrinally, is like being banished from Eden to Nod. Truth is kept in a vault that they know is there kept by the High Priests and that’s good enough to make doctrinal questions irrelevant. The discerning among us have concern that we are on the same course. Understand that an undertaking to purify this Work is just the beginning. It is not complete with a change of a figurehead, or a public confession, or a transfer of the ensign to other hands. Nothing less can satisfy the requirements and the need of the Lord than a change of how this religion is understood, how it is taught and how it is lived. A call for reform from others is not enough; reform starts from the heart – yours. Understand also, right at the beginning, that reform may very well not be complete and you will have to pack your own new-found or newly restored religion in your own kit bag and carry it yourself, both in association with others and in times when you are again, alone. But the Lord has promised that you shall have the Comforter to be your constant companion. Take him at his word. Just as though you were a cordless telephone or a cellular telephone, keep relentlessly trying to establish and maintain contact. Don’t give up. Being in knowing communication with the Holy Spirit goes with valid baptism and priesthood, but you must do your part to experience it. Doing your part includes embracing the life-giving commandments and blessing others as you are blessed. This relationship with the unseen, making it visible to others through your kindness, good will, care and love, is what makes the Holy Spirit flow through you and as you get better, powers will be added to you. Living this way, bringing the unseen into the reality of this world takes enduring courage. It is all too common a tradition around here and in LDS Mormondom that one must speak in the words of the mainstream or be shut down by others who have a better gift for memorization and parroting; thus it has been difficult, aside from the blogosphere, to share ideas that do not suit our zeitgeist or those who would rather be our masters than our servant-leaders. It is not enough to read and agree, if you want to have the blessings and rewards the risen Christ has promised to overcomers, you will have to start putting this religion into yourself by acting upon it. Put it into your own language, too, that’s how you understand things best. It’s not just a question of getting the leaders to reform; it’s much more important that you reform yourself. (If they don’t change, they are fated.) You can’t share as in discipleship, or as in fatherhood, if you can’t put it into your own understanding and won’t put it out from the sincerity of your own language that shows you have accepted the Savior and his thoughtful message as your own. It takes courage to dare to express your personal religion before others. “I know this, that, and the other thing is true” is fine as a closing or for what is expected in a public setting, but it is not a substitute for what it is that you know in real, experienced terms. All too often casual, tepid conviction is expressed in recitation of memorized scripture or formulae, whereas sharing one’s experiences binds you to those to whom you minister and them to the Savior. Personal expression will always weigh more and be memorable than scripted recitation. Transmitting the gift of salvation is personal and what you contribute after the “sale” can be just as important as what has gone before. Many of those in the mission field have experienced the flow-through as our testimonies impress themselves upon others, but to magnify and make real and sustain, that openness and concern and willingness to aid the Lord in aiding others must be available at any time it is needed. The third verse of “Think Not When You Gather to Zion” has no part in the ministry of any true servant of God. It reflects, instead, part of the disease process that weakens, like water and salt, the bridge of a community that supports the salvation of members and guests. Caring takes courage. People are saved to this gospel the gospel of Jesus Christ and to this Work the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ through personal attention and a friendship that doesn’t quit as soon as they have committed. Salvation is personal and life-long – and being a savior on Mt. Zion takes courage. If you do not reform yourself in this struggle for truth to prevail, you will simply be in contention with others who would contend to keep their place and the spirit of unbelief and unwillingness to attain that has characterized this Work for too long will remain. “Overcome evil with good,” is how scripture puts it. (Rom. 12:21) The gift of the gospel comes with instructions, but some assembly is required. Even for the instructions to be effective they have to be put in their proper order in your heart. Love, kindness, good will toward those you meet and minister to is the seedbed attitude you need for the spirit of God and His courage to grow in you. Loving the Lord with all your heart, mind, and strength goes and grows right along with this. Make them a unity in you. Seek out good people to fellowship share friendship with. It is a truth that supporting events take shape and opportunities, too when you start looking in faith and awareness. Give the Holy Spirit and the angels something to work with. The fullness of the fullness we so praise is empty if it is not grounded in the fundamentals of charity and respect for others, and practicing the law of God that ensures equal, fair, open and participatory justice for all. God cares so much for justice throughout His kingdom that He established through Joseph the “Council of Fifty.” Why does our Council care so little? You must get on your own knees and your own pulpit, and your first convert must be yourself. Accepting and joining with this new religion (the old one Jesus intended rediscovered) is learning fundamentalist Mormonism all over again. It takes courage to take responsibility for your own spiritual development, independently and in addition to the press of meetings, but it is necessary. The doing, the mindfully aware daily practice with other people in the world is as important as learning the doctrines. The wagon and the horse can’t do anything if they aren’t hitched up together. There has to be an attitude you adopt, whether you feel worthy or ready or not, and that is to open your heart to think and express charity that Christ calls love towards as many of our fellow creatures, near and far as possible. This is the mental and spiritual landscape that makes you available to the promptings and instruction of the Holy Spirit. Practicing Christians (those who, following his example, put the Savior first) among us are able, because they have made themselves available to the Holy Spirit to be prompted to go this way and that in order to be a help to others and to be helped. It takes courage to take a scripture or a word from another and make it real by making it a part of the way you live daily. Perfect love casts out fear (1 Jn 4:18) and there is plenty of fear that needs to be overcome. In fact, a fear that was so strong that it blotted out faith and love and humility was one of the factors that started the people of this Work down the path of spiritual isolation from the world, but more importantly, from each other. Once aroused, as a drive behind our social judgments, fear does not discriminate. What does the Lord have to say about our existential fear of the outside world, or fear of each other? Has anybody asked him lately? “Good fences make good neighbors,” is a New England saying we got from the Poet, Robert Frost. At the same time, the fences we have learned to keep around ourselves to avoid negative social judgments and loss of standing keep us from sharing the love of Christ and the growth that comes with it. A lingering atmosphere of wariness (accompanied by negative expectation) is a further bar to exercising courage that wears down good will and the ability to harmonize yourself with the Holy Spirit. Until you regain the inner sense of peace and calm that endorses first your attitude and then your acts, you must rely on the written word of Christ and those he has entrusted with the keys of an enhanced salvation to be your guides, which is to say the standard works and past, proven prophets that will shape the knowledge you will have when you approach the Savior. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of me who giveth liberally to all men and upbraideth not.” This is just one of the foundational messages given to us in scripture to help us to reconnect. Why does it bear repeating? Why not. “Knock and it shall be opened unto you . . .” (Mk. 7:7) “If ye have faith, even as a grain of mustard seed . . .” (Mt. 17:20) These foundational messages are what are necessary to reconnect, or connect with the Holy Spirit. If we cannot bring ourselves to take our God at His word, then how do we think this religion is going to do it for us? How can it do more than enable us to have a basic degree of salvation? We must recover the spiritual dimension of this gospel and give to it enough power in our lives by overcoming our natural separatist man or we shall always be dependent on someone else to direct us, channel us, and reward our conformity with measured, painted, scripted words. Listen to LDS Conference for examples. We can be separated from God through accepting false interpretation of God’s word (don’t betray, that is don’t correct the brethren in their sins), or doctrines that have no basis in God’s word (follow . . . even if he’s wrong), and/or failure to engage by not undertaking an active practice of the religion, the way back to the presence of the Father and the Son by being one with them. Becoming one with them eventually turns into becoming one of them. This is a process, by the way, that can be endorsed by men, but not governed by men if you are already under the Lord’s direction. Being under the Lord’s direction is the only safe way to live this religion. In this religion the injustice that happens to one will be shared by all as the evil bears fruit in wounded lives and more and more people become unequally yoked and defective teaching in the home and bad examples emerge in the persons of the next generation. This is where we are now as a Work, and these defects expressed as estrangement from God and the inability to connect with God are not the affliction of one man or a few. Repent is just a word if there is no movement to take the active steps that make it so. It takes courage to believe you can become worthy to be a companion to the Savior and actually take the steps necessary to do this. With the Work in the state that it is in now, it is all the more important to live and work the way you would have Jesus find you living and working than to live and work with the aim of having the favor of men. With men, you can appreciate what you see, but you invest your faith in what you don’t see, not with men, but with the Lord. Generations of sincere young men have had their spirits tarnished, some worse, by getting their priorities wrong when it comes to how and where they will invest their faith. Unhappily, the lesson of how to weigh the worthiness of another to speak and act in unison with God has not been taught with the parables and anecdotes that make the lesson real to those unfamiliar with the selfish willfulness and misrepresentations with which men are capable. “Had I had but served the Lord my God with half the zeal I served my king, He would not have given me over in my grey hairs.” - Cardinal Woolsey in the last hours of his journey to impeachment by Henry VIII. “Trust, but verify.” Hold back within yourself a reserve of watchfulness. Make the Lord and his righteousness and his Spirit the iron rod by which you measure all men for all time. Climbing into the lofty heights above the clouds also involves facing the frigid blasts of temptation, and not all men who attain to seats and houses above the tree line remain unaltered or unscathed. “Power [or the sense of it] tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Lord Acton This truth is based on human experience observed over millennia of human history. Joseph Smith warned of it in Section 121. You must start at once to be perfect in small things before you now, so that you can be steady and rooted in righteousness when the opportunity presents itself to commit error and nobody’s looking. Those who look upon their share in the Work of God as participating in a stock market with opportune times for a little profit taking are missing the point. A little profit taking - carries with it a little estrangement from God and then the momentum builds. “Sin never was happiness,” Joseph once said. I think he knew what he was talking about. This is not the sort of experimentation men of God would recommend to those who would likewise be men of God. It takes courage to resist your own impulses, your own apparent self-interest that would recommend to you to put self above goodness and God. This form of error is what has brought our relationship with God as a Work to silence and has caused the things of God, the means of enhanced salvation to lie about unusable like power tools without their chargers. Unhappily, a priesthood justice system is only as good as the personal integrity and core righteousness of the men who administer it. It takes a surpassing degree of courage to be a true brother, but remain a stranger to error when necessary. This is what separates a true man of God (Rulon) from a lesser man. This Work cannot be a perfect or reliable vehicle to edify its members, if the members are not engaged in striving to make it so, both for themselves and for their brothers and sisters. Men want passive, obedient followers; God wants active, engaged practitioners, whose obedience is a given. “God is a spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” (Jn. 4:24) These become living words when we live by them. The purpose of Mormonism, as it is in some form or other throughout Christianity, even where the light of Christ shines ever so dimly, is to get men to give up their own selves held separate from the Lord and permit themselves to be transformed to be like unto him – whether they are told that, or not. This transformation process takes unceasing effort, but when it comes, and come it will, it will be like seeing the gospel in Cinemax. We must be about changing ourselves and we then set about recognizing that change in others (including those in leadership roles) and find agreement with them through shared beliefs and codes of conduct. It’s not in dependent following that we are on the path of exaltation, but in finding agreement with others, as we discover the gospel for ourselves and incorporate it into ourselves. There is a new dimension of priesthood power you will experience when you start blessing others, both as you are prompted by the voice of the Holy Spirit and by an inner force within yourself. “Go and do likewise.” The Savior is about raising others physically and spiritually through his servants apprenticing to be his friends. Courage gradually becomes a habit as you are impressed and impelled and act on those impressions and impulses. Learn to do by doing; learn to be by being. We can see what a dead end it is to master doctrinal knowledge and scriptural knowledge if we use it at variance with the Lord’s intent. We can see it in the careers of the unholy trinity and those akin to them. Whether we feel bound by the law or not, we are nevertheless bound by the word and power of Christ to approve our decisions, or we are not his on a friendship basis – and we are not on the path of exaltation. (In Catholicism and Protestantism the Holy Trinity refers to the 3 parts of the Godhead.) * * * As an aside, the liberal divorce/release-from-sealing policy we have goes hand-in-hand with a liberal marriage policy, as it does with the LDS Church. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” until it runs out of pavement altogether. “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath,” it is said (Mk. 2:27), but I know of no such affirmation for Celestial Plural Marriage. It would appear that marriage form was made for men the better to serve God’s purpose to nurture, educate, and preserve a righteous seed. It’s an offering to God and a joy to us if we can make it so. “neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord” Jesus said. (Is 55:8) If we are the Lord’s people, should we not make our ways his ways, or have I missed the point, somewhere? * * * Those whose walk in life involves raising up and employing courage know that men do best when they can forget themselves and focus on something else. The “something else” is often cited as their training, the job they have been taught to do. What job have we been taught to do that is of sufficient import to override our fear of getting it wrong when others are of a different mind? Our training has to come from us, here a little, there a little, invested in seeking the counsel and friendship of the Lord as he has said. It’s ours for the asking, but we have to do the asking, over and over again until we get our minds and our intents ready to receive and act. We don’t get everything we ask for because the process is like Dad or Mom holding onto the handle bars and then letting go and then holding onto them again so we learn to balance and pedal for ourselves. Each new level of growth takes on a similar on again, off again process. The Lord isn’t about making slaves, or even servants; that’s one of those doctrines of men. He’s about taking us through those stages, making us eventually into junior colleagues and friends. It takes courage to set your sights higher, and set your sights higher than men would have you to know or understand themselves. With training in the Lord’s school of seeking and doing and feeling, comes discernment so you can with increasing ease tell the difference in the presentation of doctrines and teachings that lead to exaltation and those that lead to stagnation and dullness of mind. Others have gone this way ahead of you, by the way, others such as Joseph and Brigham and John and Joseph Musser and Rulon. It takes courage to recognize the need to employ discernment within our own house and then do it. Another principle that is foundational to courage as cultivated by those professions that depend on it is getting people to care deeply about something more important than themselves. It could be the tribe, the family, or some other organization of men in which obstacles and dangers are faced together. In our case this is difficult because we are faced with disunity among our own and isolation. Men do very well when sustained by the group, out often not well at all when they feel they are alone. Social control by those whose expertise is with force know the value of getting people to think about their own safety and so they make examples out of some and the rest fall in line. The men who disarmed the gunman on the French train were friends who knew each other had supported each other in the past and so one phrase was spoken and they all moved together. One of the problems we face, however, is in dealing with a group who have put a man-centered friendship ahead of duty, not in the service of duty. Another part of this -is that of developing a personal conscience that is connected to God with such strength as to overcome the force of social conscience. Like working out one’s salvation, this is an individual matter. Here is a quote from a lady with a conscience strong enough to reveal the guilty secrets of a federal agency all by herself. “When you hear the call to stand, you stand up even if your knees are shaking.” Men who have had to live by cultivating their courage know just what she means. Courage comes in more than one variety. One is physical courage, often sustained by physical health and mastery of skills. Another variety is moral, the courage to question authority. Moral and physical courage seem to be two separate things in some men. A few of you will remember this quote given by Fess Parker as Davy Crockett in the Walt Disney TV series: “Be sure you are right; then go ahead.” This, by the way, was a principle lived as much as uttered by men and women who have altered the course of American history in politics, industry, invention, and war. As servants of God, we are not so far removed from the duty to alter the course of the people with whom we share this land. The kingdom of God is passed from person to person individually and personally. The kind of courage required to examine the fundamental elements of our faith and our culture takes deliberate, sustained courage, the kind of courage that comes from a shift of fundamental perceptions of who we are and who God is. The great thinkers and builders of the Reformation saw a different moral reality than those around them. We need to do the same. “We have the truth,” the scholars of the Roman Church would say. “What have you done with it?” The reformers said. This same question men of God would place before this Council. It is the same question that the Lord will place before those who have stood in these offices as his stewards at the judgment. It takes courage to act with God under such circumstances. One brother among us already stands. Where do you stand? It takes courage to show a way to save a people from themselves. You first have to recognize a problem exists, and then what the nature of the problem is. The bias of these articles is to persuade and encourage there to be directed prayer to approach God, as though for the first time, as an investigator. For some, even that private step is blockaded by teachings and emotions acquired in childhood. Our Savior is not the other. Our Savior is not our adversary. He has the unenviable job of trying to separate us from as much error as possible without crushing our spirits. He also has to warn us about the dire consequences we will suffer if we don’t amend ourselves to accept the process of change to be able to be partakers in his peace and joy. In addition, he desires that as many of us as want to can take upon ourselves and into ourselves a nature like unto his. That’s what the Sacrament is about. The Sacrament in a single act represents and summarizes what we should be about as God’s people. The sacredness with which we hold the act should complement what we are actually doing in daily life so the two become as one. We have to have a sense that what we’re doing is right, supported by scripture and the Holy Spirit. One of the fundamental changes we have to make is we have to change our reference point from which we take direction. If we’re going to make our way aright, we have to develop our own sense of direction with men only confirming what we have already determined for ourselves. Courage and the Abyss To exercise courage we have to recognize the danger and the response required. Sustaining unworthy leaders who are not approved by God through His confirming manifest power as though they were puts the exercise of our priesthood in jeopardy, our spiritual growth likewise, and ultimately the degree of our salvation. Are we of Paul, are we of Cephas, or are we of Caliban, or are we of the Lord Jesus Christ? “My sheep hear my voice . . .” (Jn. 10:27) Whose voice do you hear? As with teams, Coach Christ is about to make a cut. He’s got some big games coming up and he needs only the best who know how to execute plays and take direction in the clubhouse and on the field. One of the qualities he needs for his players is courage in all its forms, because all that has gone before has just been practice. He has said, “neither are your ways My ways”,” so we had better be sure we know what his ways are. The Roots of Courage The first thing that impresses itself upon my mind is that courage does not stand alone in all of us. In watching detective dramas from Italy and France, I have heard the authors put in the words of more than one wronged and bitterly disappointed woman, “Men are cowards.” In point of fact, courage is much more easily manifested when men are in groups of their own kind with whom they feel a kinship. Women who have mastered the art of establishing kinship with a man do much better than those who don’t. “War is made by young men, whose virtues are courage and hope. Peace is made by old men, whose vices are mistrust and caution.” Sir Alec Guinness as Prince Feisal in Lawrence of Arabia How as a Work are we prepared to do the missions set before us in this, our time of probation? Is it with courage and hope, or mistrust of God and caution? Courage is a part of culture. Cultures and civilizations die when courage dims or is absent. Courage doesn’t stand alone, it has origins. In order to have courage, we have to have a sense of valuing the things courage is about, beyond the things of which we have fear. Some men have to have permission to have courage, so courage is best begun to be taught at home. It is a thing fathers teach. It is one of the virtues that enable men to flow or push themselves along into life and through life. The success or failure of fathers to pass on the value of courage and how to employ it will inevitably lead to the continuation of civilization or its loss. Look around you – far and near. Courage has to be learned through successfully overcoming things. This is one of the qualities organized sport can provide. Courage is intimately connected with overcoming what is unpleasant, so courage can be learned through experience in the workplace. Cultures direct the youth’s pursuit of courage into socially constructive forms. Courage is a part of a healthy culture (and a healthy Work of God). Courage is a part of a man’s personal religion of selfhood. Exercising courage carries with it a sense of reward, at least, at first. The boy’s drive for courage can be directed so reward is experienced in beneficial ways, or it can be directed into destructive pursuits by peers and bad examples, and there are psychic rewards for that, too. “It’s a good day to die.” Sioux Lamanite saying A boy whose developing selfhood is neglected can find his own rewards in pursuits that have nothing to do with courage. Courage is a quality that is shared among brothers, teammates, and gang members. Men like to have an audience of admirers, or those who at least show respect. There is an optimum time in a young man’s life when appropriate use of courage can be taught and learned. When that time is past, it is difficult to recover. A father’s instinct toward a son he cares about will be to get the boy to take manageable risks so the boy expands his powers and his confidence through experience. Courage is the religion of manhood, because with men, unlike with women, it does not stand alone. A father or anyone involved with the raising of a boy will also teach the proper inner control of emotions outward from self-preservation to mastering the situation. Courage is a part of a man’s personality. Boys among themselves will challenge each other, encourage each other and punish the weak. It’s a rough school, but many have had their courage developed thereby, that they will apply elsewhere. In the world of electronic communication, we are learning that young people who are adept at typing messages lose the ability to relate to people other than through the keyboard. An intimate connection with others is one of the components of mature courage. The opportunity to exercise it by degrees builds confidence that there will be a light at the end of the tunnel, or a stream over the next hill and, if not, to continue to press on, regardless. Courage has to be learned and developed through early correction, example, and opportunity. Those who have experience in such things and depend on courage know it has to be cultivated and renewed. A man has only a finite supply. Courage also comes and goes. Men have moments where courage like the tides are at flood and at an abb. Directors of conflict fear the uncertainty of courage in those upon whom they depend. This is why it is so important to make courage an intimate part of one’s being or enable a boy to make courage, like the Holy Spirit, his constant companion. Men will fight for each other. If there is no connection, no shared valuing, no mutual dependence, no friendship there is little reason to invest courage other than one’s pride in one’s self. This is why you want to find the right friends and cultivate friendship by being trustworthy yourself. Loyalty to God, however, must come first. In the largest sense, it’s in everyone’s best interest to put God first. Many men have gone entirely off the track by misplacing friendship above loyalty to God. The Joseph Smith religion provided a way back for men in error, hopefully before the error got too bad. It was called the Lord’s justice system. (I use the past tense for reasons that should be obvious.) One of the things I was once told by someone intimately acquainted with the culture of this Work is that courage is neither recognized as a virtue, nor cultivated among us. Other virtues centered around usefulness and being good followers, take precedence. I see a disconnect here because Christ and his apostles were men of courage, as were Joseph and his faithful core of friends and associates. Many of you, I was told, have ancestors that suffered starving times during exile and migration and decades even lifetimes gaining their lives from the dry earth. Some defied the strong arm of the law and the ire of the LDS Mormons in their retrograde to fellowship with the world. The Construction of Courage Courage does not stand alone, and if want of courage is the only thing that keeps you from building a personal, active religion, weighing our situation and then seeking the right course, it is important that you recognize that truth. Know where you stand. Know with whom you stand. Know who and what you stand for. Those who stand opposed to a realignment of this Work with the Savior may very well not have analyzed and isolated the problem, or recognized its true nature. Perhaps the problem they accept is not one of restoring godliness, but of maintaining governance. The two are the same only in the understanding of men. It takes courage (and familiarity) to put the honor of God ahead of the wisdom of men. I should think this problem of worthiness in the Work requires a fundamental examination of our state and a reordering of priorities. How much do you really want to return in friendship to the presence of the Father and the Son? How much do you think you can rely on wishful thinking or the doctrinal sound-bites that pass for guidance to light your path to make your way home? I recommend if you really want these things you will have to cast off much of what you believe now that keeps you in static, timid waiting followership. Courage begins with taking Jesus Christ at his word and starting to actually do what he says. Take him up on his offer to seek and find, knock and it be opened, ask and he won’t be offended, reason together. The word of a wise woman has reached me that I will share with you: “the gospel belongs to everyone.” The thing is, you have to claim it by acting on that truth in belief and in how you treat others and what decisions you make. Brigham, himself, got rebuked more than once when he exercised unrighteous dominion. Brigham, however, took correction. The way back to the Savior’s presence requires courage; therefore if you have it not, be like the ten wise women and get up your supply now. Courage is a prerequisite, just like all the rest of the things you have been taught, but you have to have courage in order to do many of these things. Courage consists of overcoming fear and perils, but also in being diligent and consistent. It doesn’t get easier, but it does get more familiar. How to get courage: first be aware that’s what you’re building. At first it can be private, experiment with your prayer life. Be deliberate. Do the things you do with a purpose in mind and enlist the Holy Spirit in your efforts. Some would have you believe you can't trust yourself to develop your relationship with God, but that’s a dead end. The gods have to be independent thinkers, but independent thinkers who reach the right conclusions. How do they do that? By learning from known sources and by experimenting, practicing. You get courage by caring about other people and putting their interests along with yours in what you do. Pray for them. Pray to understand them, the better to help. Build courage by developing a love of doing for others, ministering in the spiritual and the physical. Caring about others will not only get you courage, it will get you insight into situations you didn’t have before. Make common cause with the Savior and his war against sin and evil. Don’t take man’s word as to where it is and where it isn’t, take God’s word. Daring big things starts with daring small things, such as believing what the Holy Ghost tells you. Ask as many times as is necessary to become convinced and then act according to that conviction. That way, you’ll get more. Exercise your courage by practicing your religion; minister to others who have been slighted, shunned, ignored. If you get in your head what is of God and what is of man you will be prompted not only by an inner voice, but by an inner force to do the right thing as Jesus would do. God is not a stranger, except to sinners, so let’s start to figure Him out. If you build on a good foundation, how little or how much you know is of less importance. “Father, what would you have me do?” Is a good enough place to start. And the rest is to be persistent; don’t accept failure to connect. Keep trying. That’s courage, too. One grand key to courage is getting rid of your own concerns and acting on behalf of someone else, such as the Savior, himself does, because that’s what priesthood is supposed to be all about. If you don’t understand or are taken aback by a scripture, step back and look at the bigger picture. As a priesthood holder you are here to affirm the Savior’s love and good intent for you and for those around you. He is much more developed, but he’s not a stranger to your condition or your thought process. Like a little child, accept the Savior’s good will and good intent, and don’t let anything, whether a doctrine of men or an individual scripture take that away from you. “I shall trust in my Savior for every good thing.” Another useful way to get courage is to get busy, get so busy, in fact, that the things of fear just get in the way of getting your purpose accomplished, so you figure out how to overcome them so that you can proceed with the life mission you are sharing with God. “Evil has no power, unless the good make themselves weak.” The Outer Limits One thing that saps courage is sin. What is left of man’s authority when the Spirit of the Lord departs? “I’m not afraid of you; you’re nothing but a pack of cards.” Alice to the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll Here is a definition of courage, from its roots in French and Latin: cor – Latin, the heart; the French form is cour, and –age- French, a state of being or the existence of. So we could say that courage means “heartedness”. Courage is an ability to exert the will to do something, to overcome something, to persevere. Is that not what living the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about?
— A posthaven user