Godliness

Godliness is a word that long puzzled me. God has a lot of attributes, and I was never really sure which one the Gospel authors meant. But I think I get it now.

What separates God from man is that God can see the whole of time, from beginning to end, and all His plans take that into account.

What separates Man from God's lesser creations is that we have the ability to see the future. Dimly, imperfectly, and theoretically, but we can. A dog doesn't think about tomorrow. A person does.

A person can, in fact, project and plan for unseen years down the road. And the farther into the future the planning, the more like God he becomes. We are at our most Godlike when we are planning for the future.

Godliness - foresightedness

Satan prefers that we would not become like our Father, and often suggests the less rigorous path of planning no farther than what we have in range of our senses. Just like a dog. It's easier. It's more convenient. But it neglects our godliness.

The essence of Satan's temptations is always shortsightedness, and that's what ungodliness is.

Ungodliness - shortsightedness

UPDATE 4-24-20:

Godliness is "horizon vision" - gazing as far as we can to determine how to set our course.
Ungodliness is "shoetop vision" - never gazing beyond our own toes, and likely walking in circles.

Why would I as a non-believer have chosen godliness? Because it felt better. It clicked. It was harmonious. It was unifying to body and soul. It made me feel Christlike, even if I didn't have that name for that feeling at the time.

UPDATE 8-21-20

In the scriptures, the opposite of godliness is worldliness.

UPDATE 4-24-22

Godliness means letting wisdom, not mood, dictate your actions.

Quieter, Please

From Gordon B. Hinckley's October 2000 talk "An Humble and a Contrite Heart":

"Let us lower our voices in our homes. Let love abound and find expression in our actions. May we walk the quiet ways of the Lord."

Never yell across the house to communicate with a family member. Get up, go into the room where the person is, and TALK to them. Yelling ALWAYS drives the Spirit away. Because even when it's not done in anger, it's still done in selfishness. It says that "me sitting comfortably is more important than you".

I'm willing to make an exception if the house is on fire, but that's about it.

Murmuring

To murmur is to give Satan some of your agency power. That power (and time, since power = work/time) is wasted. If you're not working toward a righteous desire your work=0, so power=0

It could have been combined with God's grace and priesthood power to help you achieve your righteous desires.

"The same amount of work is done when carrying a load up a flight of stairs, regardless of speed. But more power is needed when the work is done in a shorter amount of time."

When you align your will (and power) with His, He will add his power to yours, enough to accomplish His miracles (the part that He adds is "grace").

Power

I'm still pondering this a bit, but I'm pretty sure about this.

Priesthood power is generally described as "the power of God given to man on Earth to do His will", but I've also heard it described as the power by which the worlds were created. It's the same power, it's just that man is only delegated a tiny portion of it.

But this implies that all power in the universe is Priesthood power. Mechanical power, electrical power, nuclear power, spiritual power - all of it originates with God.

Which makes sense, because power is energy/time.

But... there is another source of power in the universe, it is man's power to choose. The power of agency. The power to choose, in the human realm, what work to do and for how long. This power also originated with God, but a portion was given to us, to be ours to keep and use, and He will never take it away. It will always be ours to use as we see fit.

And the best way to use it is to align it with all the other power in the universe and bend it towards doing His will.

Faith, Belief, and Hope

These words get mentioned a lot in the scriptures, but they rarely seem to get defined. As someone who is not a native speaker of Gospel, I needed a translation. Which wasn't available, so I'm making my own

Faith - action in the face of an uncertain outcome

How strong your faith is, is measured by how much uncertainty you're willing to act in the face of. 1%? 25%? 75%? 99%?

Belief - an idea that one holds and believes is true, but does not act upon

Beliefs come in two flavors: empowering (as in "God can heal me") and limiting (as in "I don't think God will heal me this time"). You can, if you choose, limit your limiting beliefs (as in "but it's possible he might"), which can strengthen your ability to act in faith.

Hope - (n.) a righteous goal; (v.) to choose a righteous goal

Faith usually encompasses a hope, and so may be defined

Faith - action, in the pursuit of a righteous goal, in the face of an uncertain outcome.

UPDATE 4-5-20: I'm not exactly sure how this fits in, but I had this related thought:

Faith - willingness to act on an empowering belief

I don't think that's actually faith (because faith requires action) but I do think other people use the word faith this way. They also use it to mean the empowering belief itself. And sometimes they switch back and forth on definitions during a single discourse, which is why hearing people talk about faith often leaves me confused.

UPDATE: In certain contexts, faith can also mean the "empowering belief" itself.

UPDATE (3-8-23): More complete:

Faith - willingness to act on an empowering belief, believing that taking that action will make my life better.

Four Steps to Revelation

President Nelson gave a talk on how to receive personal revelation. It's a good read (or listen), and you'll probably get more out of it by going to the source than relying on my summary, but I'm writing this for me, so this is my very short version.

It's a condensation, really, of two key passages:

"Through the manifestations of the Holy Ghost, the Lord will assist us in all our righteous pursuits."

and

"As a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, I prayed daily for revelation and gave thanks to the Lord every time He spoke to my heart and mind."

So:

1) Choose a righteous desire that you want to pursue

2) Pray for revelation about how to accomplish it

3) Thank Heavenly Father for the revelation you receive

4) Act on that revelation

I can't remember an entire 15 minute talk, but I can remember "Choose, Pray, Thank, Act"

Who Are You Talking to?

I was praying one day. Not the typical long-distance call to a far-off Heaven prayer. More of an up close and personal conversational type prayer. I felt very calm and peaceful and guided and loved.

Shortly after closing that off, something irritated me, and - in my head - I started reciting an angry litany of everything that was difficult and unfair about the situation.

Then a thought occurred to me: "Brolson... who are you talking to?"

Because the tone of the litany was strikingly different from that of the prayer. Dark instead of bright, heavy instead of light, angry instead of peaceful. So I was pretty sure I wasn't talking to Heavenly Father anymore.

That stopped me cold. I don't really want to have conversations with the adversary. They don't make me happy. The never make me happy. All they do is make me feel darkly vindicated. But darkness isn't happiness. And neither, for that matter, is vindication. Vindication is a counterfeit of righteousness, and its main component is celebrating the fact that someone else was proven wrong. It's just schadenfreude. It's not joy.

So, at that moment, instead of listing everything that was wrong with someone else, I started telling my Heavenly Father how *I* was feeling. Mostly sad, and inadequate, and disappointed that things weren't turning out the way I'd hoped. And when you share those kinds of feelings with Him, He can send the Spirit to comfort and reassure you, and give you the strength to move forward from your sad place to walk in the light of happiness again.

So if you notice a voice in your head explaining why you deserve to be angry at someone else, just stop... instead, tell your Father how you're feeling about yourself, and let Him help.

Who are YOU talking to?

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