Ponder for the moment this example, a person whose prime interest in life is money. This person studies it, practices it, goes to school to gain more knowledge about it. This person focuses his/her life primarily to gain wealth and status. With this interest and prime focus, this person seeks the “wisdom” that prevails in the practice and life of money and develops him/herself in their life to “live” the focus. (Have you heard of the teaching that to succeed you must live it, eat it and sleep it, daily?)

As you ponder further, ask yourself this question – “How would such a person perceive life and how would such a person practice and choose in life?”

Have you noticed in life, from one person to the next, that their view point of the same thing can be so different and in many ways, contradictory? When you experience this difference again, try to take notice of what these people are practicing in their life. How or what they choose and what this manner reflects as to their “focus” in their life. As you make the effort to take notice, you will find that you do not need to personally know these people or their lives in order to see what they follow.

Allow me to explain a bit further.

Taking the example above, such a person will run their life in the manner that pertains to money. This applies to everything they do, not just specifically about money. The principles, beliefs, “wisdoms” they learn from this prime focus in life will permeate throughout everything they do. For example, the person in that example learned the “wisdom” of not spending money on things of no return value. This person will then act, choose and behave in a manner that reflects this “wisdom”. Such as this person will not spend time with his own children on small or unimportant things because to him/her the return value is negligible.

When a person follows a worldly path in life to succeed in whatever they want to do, their life in mind, body and soul will become that very thing they set their heart into. A person that lives life in the manner of their chosen interest will live that interest in every aspect. This is why we see people express different ideas, beliefs and even “wisdoms” on the same matter. A person who lives money will express his/her life in the manner that pertains to money. A person who lives medicine will express his/her life in the manner that pertains to medicine. A cook in the manner of a cook, a criminal in the manner that is criminal and so on.

So you may ask as to what this all leads to here on this site of Mormon Direction?

Easy, this leads me to speak on the difficulties of living the life of a Christian faithful to God and why God keeps telling us that we are to leave the ways of the world and take the ways of the spiritual man. This article is to relate to you the conflict that seems to occur to any person who joins the Lord’s Church and finds it a hardship or difficulty in making the “adjustment”. This even applies to those who were born in the Church and still find it hard. What I relate here is a means to cope and understand one reason for the frustration and upset. This includes the angers and upsets one may feel or experience of how other members seem to not accept the “viewpoints” you express or may experience that you feel so out of place.

When a person follows the ways of the world, he/she will live those ways. Such ways are not transferable into the Lord’s Church and his doctrine, whether in the Bible or in the Book of Mormon. A person cannot expect to assimilate the way of God into their life when they refuse to let go of their ways of the world. Basically, you are what you follow.

This does not mean you stop or quit your career as an economic analyst, or as a police officer, or as a restaurant manager, etc. What this means is that the beliefs and “wisdoms” you learned from the world to partake of those worldly interests must change and make way for the beliefs necessary to accept the doctrine of God and wisdoms that God provides in this scriptures and through personal revelation or inspiration.

If you find yourself feeling like the odd wheel in the membership of the Church, be patient knowing that the change needed to be part of God’s Church is gradual and requires that you do your part and endure. Accept the fact that the ways, beliefs and wisdom of the world, in any worldly interest or career, cannot match or blend with the ways and wisdom of God, no matter how similar they may appear. Allow yourself the freedom to change and open up to God teaching you what you need to know, his way, which is always through experience. This says that what contradicts or conflicts with God’s word and wisdom will be raised from within you to face in life. In that reflection you will be tasked to make the choice of what you choose to follow, the ways of God or ways of the world. God will respect your choice, but it is by your choice that determines if you grow spiritually or remain stagnant.

When faced with challenges or adversity that seems to bring your personal beliefs to bear, remember your faith and remember that faith is foremost irrespective of your worldly belief. This means, for example, that if something of the Church kicks off an issue that resided in you, a disbelief or thing that you dislike, be aware that it is not the Church that is in question here, it is you and where you stand in mind and heart. The adversity you experience is yours, it came from within you and it is yours to face. The Church is of God and you are still working to be the same way, so of course you are going to experience shortfalls and hurdles. To expect different is not realistic.

For members who have difficult times with converts or “born in the Church” members, keep in mind that he/she is behaving in accordance to what they follow in life. All of us in the Church are tasked by God to repent continually and overcome the nature of sin natural to the flesh mortal body and existence. Mostly this is to show and explain that a personal process with God is going to lead you into some affliction that will reveal, if you allow yourself to see, the ways you carry and live and that these ways cannot remain; if you wish to develop spiritually.

There is a limitation to a person’s mind and heart because of these manners and wisdoms held from the world. This limitation will not allow you to clearly perceive many doctrines of God and when there is adversity toward any doctrine of this Church, a person needs to reflect on themselves and their manner of thought and belief. This limitation is only temporary if the person seeks the Lord for inner change, but it is permanent so long as the person chooses to remain with it and in it. Is this not what Jesus meant by “clean thyself within first, so the outside may be clean also”?

We are what we follow and study, simply says that we must each create a priority of what we are to follow and study in life. To realize and know that so called “wisdoms” found in worldly practices cannot be used in conjunction with the wisdoms of God. The main key in this is found in the first commandment spoken by Jesus Christ. To learn to place the things of God first and foremost, and learn how to use the things of God in making our plans and achieving goals in life. To at least accept the belief that God’s ways and wisdom does not conflict or contradict the things studied and learned in the world to be productive and good. Of course the thing sought in the world must be good, by God’s definition. There is no conflict when we choose God over all other things, the conflict is the choosing the world over God. The transition to the ways of God is gradual, and at times hard, but not impossible.

To realize that the Church does not need to change for you, but we are to change for the Lord’s Church, which is changing for the Lord.

You are what you follow and study.

Amen

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