Friday, February 27, 2009

Food for thought

Are these two questions the same, at their heart or even on the surface?

Evangelical Christian to the Mormon:

Why do you guys waste your time trying to convert Christians instead of focusing on those who don't already know Him?

Mormon to the Evangelical Christian:

Why do you guys waste so much time trying to break our faith when we believe in Christ and do so much good when you could put those effort towards fighting the evils of this world?

On the surface I think they are similar. Fundamentally, I think they are different.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Faith, Hope, Charity


Almost three months and no posts! Things have been pretty crazy with opening the new office and putting out all the fires that came up last minute. This craziness has continued to a certain extend even though the office has been open for about 2 weeks now. Mainly, because I have moved on from the big things to all the little things. I have moved from the crazy psycho person level to now just crazy...or psycho, take your pick.

While laying in bed the other night waiting for Marisa to finish her get-ready-for-bed routine I was thinking of how I need to be more relaxed, both for me and for my family. Thinking of how to do this I realized that I have felt inspired to make various decision in my recent history. I need to remember that. Similarly, if I live righteously I'll be blessed. By remembering those two facts I can be more at peace that everything will go well despite the difficulty of the task and the fear of things like the economy. Finally, by being more positive and peaceful I will be more likely to be loving, patient and basically just more mentally present with my wife and children.

I continued to ponder all of that plan and suddenly I realized something...remember....peace/positiveness...love. That sounds awfully similar to faith, hope and charity. In other words, if I remember that I have been guided in my decisions and therefore things will work out for the best (FAITH), then I can have the peace (HOPE - hope that things will be ok) that comes from that knowledge. By being more at peace I am able to avoid the overriding influence of stress that lowers my patience with and ability to focus on those around me (CHARITY - or lack there of in this description). So, just as Moroni explained...if you have faith, you can have hope which allows you to have more charity. It was kind of cool to draw my own cause and effect relationship between those three attributes that parallels what Moroni and Paul said.

Late Edit - I forgot to add on what is now written in green.