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Category Archives: Weakness

Treasure In Earthen Vessels

20 Sunday Sep 2015

Posted by Colby Alexander in General, Holy Ghost, Jesus Christ, Light, Love, Motivation, Opposition, Poems, Strength, Trials, Weakness

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jarsofclay

Sometimes we don’t see our own worth in the eyes of God. We are his children, and he knows and loves each one of us perfectly. We mean everything to Him. He knows us, our problems, our fears, our apprehensions, our insecurities, our weaknesses, our doubts, our reservations, everything. He knows how we feel, how we think, how we are afraid to open up to our problems, and admit them even to ourselves. He knows! And He understands. And yet, He still loves us unconditionally! Sometimes, we need to remind ourselves of our true worth in His eyes, not our own, or anyone else’s. Just His.

For our Sunday School lesson this week, part of the scripture reading was in 2 Corinthians Chapter 4. As I was skimming through those verses, I read this which beautifully explained this principle to me. This is Paul speaking…

6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
8 We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
9 Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

I loved these words of encouragement. Paul and all the Saints and apostles and disciples were being persecuted for what they believed. But, in their sadness, pain, and worry, they had solace in Jesus Christ and in the comfort that He gives. The closer to the Comforter we get, the greater our resilience to pain, and suffering becomes, and the closer we get to our Savior.

Lets all look at our difficult times as opportunities to become closer to the Comforter, and to Jesus Christ who sends Him to us.

 

A Humble Prayer

My God! Through vessel weak and frail,
Wherein thy treasure hides,
Come shine thy light through darkened veil,
reveal my heart inside,

Real power comes through thee, not I,
Thy will, not mine, I’ll do,
‘Tho trouble, pain, despair reside,
Thy comfort will be true,

And when dark hours shall pass me by,
and I, cast down, will be,
As I look to thy treasure’s light,
Thy face, Thy love, Ill see!

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Graceful Faceplants

12 Sunday Jul 2015

Posted by Colby Alexander in Failure, General, Motivation, Poems, Trials, Weakness

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Everyone loves a good face plant. They are kind of like a car wreck that you can’t turn away from. You watch the video clips in anticipation, not really wanting to see it, but you cant pull away. The video clips often come in the form of a dude on a bike trying some unrealistic acrobatic slide down the railing of some concrete stairs, he makes it down about halfway before something goes horribly wrong and he ends up eating concrete and sliding face first for several feet.

We all watch, cringe, hunch over and yell out, “ooohhhh”, and then bust out laughing and being super grateful that we weren’t the poor sucker that will have road rash on his face for 8 months…..then we watch another one, and the process repeats itself until our stomach starts to turn.

We all love them, because in one way or another, we have all had a face plant or two. We can relate to the feeling of using our nose like sidewalk chalk. Ive done it twice.

The first story occurred back in Brazil while on my mission. It was the last day in the country before boarding a flight to come home. It had been raining for most of the morning, which wasn’t a huge surprise, but the rain had left huge puddles in the road.

My whole district, a group of about 12 guys, had met up at the office and were on our way to the president’s house a few blocks away for a big celebration lunch. It was going to be awesome. We were all super pumped about seeing each other again after the 2 years in Brazil, and we were going to go have some seriously awesome food at the presidents house.

This is where the drama unfolds. The aforementioned puddles in the road? Yes, these turned out to be a huge obstacle in our 3 block walk because the sidewalk was right along the road, and the Brazilian bus drivers show no mercy. As a side note, Brazilian bus drivers think that using the clutch to shift while driving  is an unnecessary act, that only slows them down. So, seeing a pack of Mormon missionaries walking clumped together about 18 inches away from a 14 foot puddle in the road was certainly no reason to slow down. Can you see where this is going?

So, Imagine all 12 of us walking along this wet, 5 foot wide sidewalk, rubber shoes, 14 foot puddles, speeding busses, and of course, the star of the show, a metal guardrail post.

When it all went down, I happened to be walking right next to one of my favorite elders, who looked and acted a lot like Chris Farley. We were just coming up on a massive puddle, and we saw a speeding bus screaming around the corner towards us, I think upon seeing us, the bus driver  may have actually sped up, and likely swerved a little closer to the sidewalk in order to completely shower every one of us in our white shirts.

Me, being the ever vigilant and aware guy that I was, saw this coming and peeled out in my modified sketcher shoes, who’s soles had been replaced with actual tire rubber. I was first out of the blocks, and was on pace to make it to the other side of the puddle before the shower of dingy, oily, grimy, stinky water could ruin my day.

Then, Elder Chris Farley (not his real name) happened. He was rotund, and not especially sound in his sprinting technique. His arms and legs were flailing well outside of his designated lane. His poor technique mixed with a rather narrow sidewalk, wet ground, and 10 other scrambling Elders was a perfect storm for what happened next.

After about 5 or 6 full speed strides, his right leg, and rather large foot reached out and grabbed my entire left leg and stopped my perfect sprinting form in its tracks. I went down. Not only did I go down, but I went down hard, I was in full stride, running like my life depended on it. My leg had been taken out by Chris Farley.  Time slowed down, as I saw what was coming. I reverted back to instinct. All my years of baseball had prepared me for this one moment. I had just enough time to raise my arms and perform a perfectly executed Pete Rose dive and slid along the wet cement as fluidly as if it were a slip-n-slide. It was a thing of beauty…..until the guardrail.

About 7 feet later, I met the guardrail….with my face. My hands were doing their best to keep my face from becoming part of the sidewalk, so I was helpless. All I could do was close my eyes. I hit with the force of a rhino.  Im sure kids in Texas came running for supper after the sound of that dinner bell as my cranium nailed that post. It was epic. I then spent the rest of the afternoon bleeding, and cleaning small bits of gravel out of my hands. My suit was ripped, I tore my shirt to bits. It was awesome. It was the very epitome of a graceful Face plant.

Here is photographic evidence.

FullSizeRender

The second story comes a few years later, while we were living in California during school. My son had just received one of those Razor scooters for christmas, and I was showing him how awesome they were. He was about 4 years old.

I was obviously dressed appropriately for action sports in my shorts, and flip flops. Nothing could go wrong right?  Well, I was due for another wipeout.

This one was also not my fault. As I was showing him how to ride out on the asphalt parking lot, a little pebble, probably put there on purpose by someone who was jealous of my Razor skills, nearly ended my life.  That little pebble, against the small scooter wheel, won. The scooter stopped immediately. I, however did not.

Fortunately, there was my wife to witness what happened next, or no one would believe me. I flew over the handlebars, leaving my flip flops behind, and turned full ninja in midair. I tucked my head and shoulder, curled into a human ball of momentum, hit the ground like a cat ball, rolled forward twice, and popped out of my curl back upright, as if it were planned that way. I looked like an olympic champion after a death-defying floor routine on asphalt.  I brushed the dirt off my shoulders, and looked at my wife, and said, “Yep, that just happened.”

The look in her eye said it all. I was her hero, for a few minutes at least. I had survived a possible subdural hematoma and 8 weeks in the hospital eating through a straw, all because of a pebble the size of pea. Don’t try that at home kids.

So, what do these face plants have to do with anything?

We all face plant in one way or another in our life. No one gets through without one.  We have to know, and expect that we will bite the dust at some point in our lives.  Its part of our learning experience here on earth.

We have to expect that there may be big scary things in our lives that get in the way of where we want to go, and who we want to be. These tend to be somewhat easy to avoid, or at least easy to see coming, They may be drug use, crime, or being unfaithful to a spouse.  These obvious things are like the speeding bus.  Sometimes, though, even as we avoid the speeding bus, we get tripped up. And sometimes, its even because of someone we like and enjoy being around. We cant avoid it all, and we aren’t meant to. The important thing is getting up.

If we can change our attitude to the point of expecting, and being prepared for our falls, we can be a lot more graceful in our face plants.  Sometimes something really small, and seemingly insignificant can take us down, or at least try to. These small things can be like forgetting to pray, or read our scriptures, treating someone unkindly, or forgetting to pay an honest tithe. These can be like the pebble under the wheel. It only takes a small one to trip us up.

But, if we are prepared to fall, and understand that it is part of life to do so, it helps us pop up so much quicker, and more gracefully.  It is still a fall, but it happens to everyone, and we all will fall again and again. We just need to better develop our ability to tuck our head and shoulder, and roll with it, and pop back up as soon as we can..

Many of the Lord’s best Prophets had their versions of a face plant. Aaron and his brethren, in the Book of Mormon, were working very hard, trying to teach the Lamanites the true gospel. They had separated from Ammon at the start of their mission, and had run into some serious pebbles. Ammon had been lucky, and had some success. Aaron and his bros? not so much. They were thrown in jail.  Eventually, Ammon and Lamoni came and rescued them from their trial.  In Alma 20 verse 29 it describes them after their unfortunate face plant like this, “And their skins were worn exceedingly because of being bound with strong cords….Nevertheless they were patient in all their sufferings.”

We can learn a lot from our own mistakes and falls, sometimes its the best way.  Let’s take the bad times along with the good, and learn to be more like Aaron and his brothers, and be patient in all of our sufferings, so that eventually we will become who we are meant to be.

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A great and kinda not so great, but really great gift

04 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by mainealexander in Gifts, Strength, Weakness

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Adapted from EQ discussion 1/4/15:

Like any father, our Heavenly Father loves to give his children gifts.  He gives us these gifts because he loves us.  The majority of the time we don’t deserve them, but they keep coming.  He also doesn’t make mistakes in giving us specific gifts.  The gift of the Holy Ghost, spiritual gifts, life, a plan of happiness, etc… One particular gift that He gives is seldom thought of, but can bring great joy, if used correctly.

If men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness.  I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.1

So what is the gift?  Weakness.

Everyone has weaknesses – and its ok.  It is not a mistake or a punishment that we have weakness.  Upon encountering a blind man, a disciple of Christ asks who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?  Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be make manifest in him.2 This man later, through Jesus, the priesthood, faith, and obedience, receives his sight. He bears strong testimony of the Son of God.

This man was born with a physical weakness.  I am sure that he, at times, had an incredibly difficult life filled with misery and anguish that I can’t imagine. When we meet him he lived in the streets begging for food.  He could not have possibly known that there was a purpose for his struggles and suffering.  But, through Christ, we do.  How often do we know why we are given the weaknesses, whether physical, intellectual, spiritual, or emotional?

The scriptures are riddled with examples of ‘weak’ individuals becoming strong – even spiritual giants.  David described himself by saying I am a poor man, and lightly esteemed.3 Funny enough, this is after killing Goliath.  Talk about humility.  Moses was not eloquent, slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. He was so hesitant, that the anger of the Lord was kindled against him.4 Enoch was but a lad, slow of speech5 when he was called.  Mormon was in his sixteenth year6 when he was appointed leader of the Nephite army.  Joseph Smith was an obscure boy, only between 14 and 15 years of age7 when he entered the Sacred Grove.  Moroni feared that the gentiles would mock at these things because of our weakness in writing and awkwardness of our hands when comparing his writing to the brother of Jared’s. 8

These people were able to become strong out of weakness.  We have been promised that we can do the same.  How?  Moroni teaches that if they humble themselves before [God], and have faith1 we can do so.  We must become as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, and full of love.9

Undertaking this transformation can be overwhelming.  Is there a more simple or succinct answer?  Yes.  When Mary anointed Jesus’ head with expensive oil, Judas murmured, thinking that she should have sold the oil and given it to the poor, but Christ, the Master says, Let her alone, why trouble ye her?  She hath wrought a good work on me … She hath done what she could.10

How awesome is that!  She hath done what she could.  We just need to do our best.  We, with our weakness, our imperfections, our guilt, our pride, our sorrow, our addiction, our sin, just need to be humble, admit that we have weakness, turn to Christ, repent, follow in faith and do our best.

At times we may be instruments in helping others overcome weakness.  In turn, others often help us overcome our own.  I can name several that have helped me personally in just the last few months, most unknowingly.  Tests and trials that we have overcome give us the valuable opportunity to assist others in a way that many who have not struggled in a similar way cannot.  Knowing someone else has overcome a similar trial or weakness gives strength and confidence to continue forward in hope for a more bright future.  In helping or serving others we become more like Christ.  We are able, as He is, to support, to comfort, to succor.

“Through an ever-closer kinship with God, a person’s worst flaws and failings may eventually be transformed into shining strengths.  What consolation!  When we acknowledge our weakness to the Lord and receive His aid, a precious side-effect follows — fervent compassion for others and a new concern to love and lift”.11  We do not judge as a natural man9, but have charity toward our struggling neighbors.  We realize that we are all beggars12 in the same boat, depending on and looking to the same source for light and life.  Let us help each other instead of putting others down because their weaknesses are different than our own.

So, our weakness can always become strength?  Not necessarily.  Paul taught another important lesson concerning weakness.

Paul had a weakness that he called a thorn in the flesh that kept him humble.  He asked the Lord three times to remove this weakness.  All three times the Master Teacher answered ‘No’, explaining my grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness.  Paul, because he is awesome, got it.  He wrote, I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then am I strong.13

Boom.  Paul just dropped the mic.

There must be opposition in all things.14 God did not accidently give us weakness nor accidently give us a trial that we cannot overcome.  We need to learn to work, to struggle, to be meek and mild, to rely on others.  We need to understand forgiveness and rely upon the mercy and atonement of our Savior to find happiness, to succeed.

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.15

Now, I don’t mean to glorify weakness.  Truly, we should constantly work to overcome and convert our weaknesses into strengths and keep them that way.  We can, however, glory in the knowledge that we are not alone in this fight. There is a way, a truth, and a life.16  Like Paul, the power of Christ will rest upon us when we are humble.  That, we can glory in.

1 Ether 12:27

2 John 9:1-3

3 1 Samuel 18:23

4 Exodus 4:10-14

5 Moses 6:31

6 Mormon 3:2

7 Joseph Smith – History 1:22

8 Ether 12:23-24

9 Mosiah 3:19

10 Mark 14:6,8

11 Truman G Madsen, I Have A Question

12 Mosiah 4:19-20

13 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

14 Tyson Alexander, Opposition.  See also 2 Nephi 2:11

15 1 Corinthians 1:27

16 John 14:6

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