She informed me that she wasn't going to hurt herself, after all, she'd just done it and didn't get hurt.
This is a common response at my house. A day or two later, my seven year old child, Eli, was tossing a ball around the family room. I have asked him to stop throwing things in the house every single day since he could walk. (Maybe it's embedded in the y chromosome.) This time was no different. I asked him to stop. He countered that he threw things all the time, and everything was fine.
A few moments later, he broke a one-of-a-kind wooden vase.
I have been thinking ever since about how we all do the very same thing with our Heavenly Father all the time. He looks down on us, omniscient, and loving. He doesn't want us to fall off the chair and compound our break, causing a splint to be exchanged for a surgery with a pin and a full body cast. He knows that our actions could lead to a broken vase, or in almost all cases, something far, far worse.
He has sent prophets to give us scriptures. He has made those scriptures readily available in this day and age, and even more helpful in some ways, we have local church leaders. You may call them pastors, or deacons, priests, or bishops. You might have a "visiting teacher" assigned to you, or just a friend from church who comes by to see how you're doing. You may have family members who come to talk to and uplift you. You may run into missionaries who share thoughts that help remind us of God's rules. These are like the voice of a concerned parent, trying to help you minimize your pain here on Earth, by making righteous decisions.
Each and every one of us can hear, if we are listening, the voice of the Holy Ghost, reminding us not to throw the ball in the house. Of course, that ball isn't really a ball. It could be substance abuse. It could be stealing, lying, cheating, or adultery. It could be milder, but no less insidious. It could be gossip, or unkind words. It could be so many, many things, but our Heavenly Father has his rules in place for a reason.
How about a few examples?
If you abuse alcohol, you do and say things you shouldn't. You can be unkind, selfish, or depressed. You can harm yourself, and everyone around you.
If you gossip about others, you could hurt their feelings, or wind up hurting your own. You could lose a friendship and bruise a heart.
If you stop reading your scriptures for a day, it can turn into a week, and then a month. Pretty soon, you may start thinking you don't need God's counsel, or His word, because you are doing fine on your own. If you skip church, ditto. God's way is not the easy way.
If you fail to give generously to others, and to God's church, you risk becoming selfish, and you begin to worry only about yourself. You may also forgo the blessings God wants to shower you with, because he can't reward a greedy heart.
If you take offense at something someone says (whether they mean to offend you or not), you could harden your own heart, and lose the opportunity to receive the teachings of the Holy Ghost, or fail to hear his admonitions.
Which leads my to my final point. If you take away nothing more from this post, please remember this part. If you want to lead a life of joy, a life where you turn to God, you must listen to Him. This past week, I had something happen that made me angry. I was frustrated, and I got mad about something I shouldn't have, something tangentially related to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I had two options after this thing happened. I could have stuck out my lip, and insisted that I was justified in being mad. I could have continued to throw that ball until I broke everything around me. I really wanted to do that, because I was mad.
Or I could shut out the world, and read in my scriptures, searching for an answer to my frustration from my Heavenly Father.
I chose the second option and I ignored what the world was telling me, and listen instead to my Heavenly Father when He told me something through the Holy Ghost. When the Spirit spoke to my heart this week, my anger evaporated, because His message was one of love, of clarity and of peace. My father told me not to stand in that chair and plop myself down over and over. He told me that instead of saying, "I've stood here once and I'm fine," I should trust in Him to know that there were risks, risks I couldn't see or calculate in what I was doing and feeling.
I sat down. I stopped throwing the ball. I hearkened to the counsel from my Father in Heaven, and I have already felt the blessings of that decision. So if there's a rule, a commandment, or a request that the church, or the gospel of Jesus Christ makes of you that you disagree with, or you chafe against...
Let it go. Stop kicking against the pricks and listen to a loving parent who only wants the best for you. I promise that He knows and loves you and He wants you to be safe, happy and peaceful. You just have to turn to Him enough that you can hear His counsel. And then you have to listen to it.
