As a Child...

Sunday as I stood in a house of prayer with a few others to pronounce a name and blessing upon a newborn granddaughter, I was reminded of the most important lesson life has to offer regarding health, strength, and happiness. As you consider the following message, realize that no diet, gym pass, or healthy hobby has as much to offer you in matters of health as the lesson I was reminded of Sunday. That these other habits are good and right it is true, but without enabling the following lesson, they are trivial by comparison.

No matter who holds a newborn, from saint to sinner, or from common laborer to the most educated among us, a newborn teaches us to love purely. From lumberjack, to bronc buster, to rancher -- who spend much time in the rougher elements, to preacher or even drunk -- all who hold and gaze upon a newborn infant are drawn to its innocence and capacity to receive and to give love.

Life enables us to experience good, bad, pleasure, and pain. We experience the full spectrum of hardships, betrayals, kindnesses, and so forth and there probably isn't anyone who doesn't want to be okay and to be loved. Three times in my life while sharing my love for Jesus Christ to others, I was inexplicably filled with His love to an overflowing that knew no measure. It was so complete and perfect that it remains indescribable to me to this day. Since then I have reflected upon these precious experiences time and again, drawing what I can from them. I would give anything and everything required to experience such matchless love always. 

Today, some 33 years later, I am still drawing upon those sacred and precious experiences. After a significant betrayal that occurred to me in my life, I struggled with feelings that I did not want to experience, but which I seemingly had no power to overcome. One evening as I sat suffering on my porch, gazing into the stars, the image of a dog clinging to his bone came into mind. I recognized that the feelings I was experiencing and was clinging to, made even less sense than the nature within a dog that drives it to fight fiercely for a bone. Yet I knew I could not let go of the real feelings I felt. They had power over me.

I prayed and confessed to God that I had insufficient power to let go of the feelings of pain, anger, and betrayal I was experiencing. I then remembered my three experiences of being filled with perfect love and peace. I cried out to the heavens that I would gladly give away inescapable feelings, if they could be taken from me and replaced with God's perfect love and peace. In that very moment an Infinite power came into my heart and the pain left me forever. Pure love and peace entered into my soul and from that day to this I have never again experienced unkind feelings to those involved in the betrayal; rather, I have prayed for and sincerely desired their welfare and happiness. Knowing how I once felt, I recognize this mighty change as the miracle that it is. I have experienced other hurts and pains in life and this experience under the stars reminds me of the pattern I can employ to receive perfect God's love and peace.

As I continue to experience joy and sorrow and various levels of pain and suffering I have come to realize that we must come to know all truth and all of truths opposites if we are to be able to gain power over forces of darkness for eternity. For that reason we get to experience disappointment, sorrow, joy, pain, good health, poor health, and all shades of the rainbow. We are here to gain a fullness of truth and we become exalted no faster than we gain a knowledge. There is a formula for gaining a fullness of knowledge: Truth A + opposite of truth A = Fullness of truth A. This formula holds true for every truth (A, B, C, D, etc.) under heaven. We must experience all truth and all truth's opposites to receive a fullness of truths. As we gain this valuable experience and knowledge, it is sometimes easy to become cynical if we do not pause to remember.

This life is so short and the presence of a newborn child can help us to remember where we came from -- a place of perfect love -- and how we want to dwell now and forever. That remembrance can enable us to overcome the pain of opposition through Christ. If we would be forever healthy and strong, then we must recognize that which we want most and pray with all the energy of heart for the gift of the pure love of the Savior. Because of my personal experiences with this love, I can imagine nothing I want more and am thus willing to give up or sacrifice anything required of me to possess this love forever, including my worthless bones that I want to cling to. Pure love remains the singular beacon of hope that lights my path in life through life's glorious learning experiences -- both good and bad.

We must come to determine for ourselves that we too would give away all darkness, every weakness, and all sin within us just to know Him and to become as He is. Each day recently, as I observe that which I like and don't like about my life, my relationships, my present, and my future, I am struck again and again with this simple truth. I am a being of light and darkness who possesses agency. It is my privilege to pray to be filled with His love and light forever and to ask Him to remove all darkness from within me. There is nothing anyone else can do or say for good or evil that has any power over me but that which I give. As I become willing to confess and give unto Him my weaknesses, He is willing to take them from me and fill me with His light, knowledge, and the power of His perfect love.

I know He is the Savior of the world and that as we forsake the darkness within us and seek to draw near unto Him in heart, mind, and soul, He draws near unto us and that He will do so for anyone on earth. As we call upon His name for deliverance from the bondage of darkness and sin that has power over us, He hears and answers us and fills us with a measure of His light -- as much as we are able and willing to receive. And as we become willing and desirous to obey His voice and to do His will in all things, He makes His perfect will known. As we use our gift of agency to submit to His will and to obey His voice -- as a child submits to his father -- we grow in light, knowledge, and faith. And as we protect and shield ourselves from powers and influences of darkness by keeping His commandments, we continue to grow in truth, light, knowledge, and faith as fast as we are willing and able -- until we lay hold upon sufficient faith to enter into His presence to be made pure and holy.

Praying for and receiving the gift of His perfect love enables us to be kind to everyone, including our enemies, and we discover that His love alone enables us to keep every commandment and to shield and protect ourselves from all darkness forever. We become forever strong as we choose to sacrifice darkness and to ask and receive the gift of His perfect light and love.

As soon as you can, hold and love one of life's most precious gifts, a newborn child. As you hold and exchange love with a child, consider where that child has recently come from and the reality of its innocence, and the fullness of the love within the child. Remember your home of perfect love on high and also remember, that just as a child, you too can remember and dwell in perfect love always. It is a part of your heritage and insofar as you choose it over all else -- no matter what -- it will become both your present and future. No one has the power to take from you anything you do not surrender, and your perfect Brother has the power to give you the gift of His perfect love.

I've worked full time in the world of health since 2004. In all that time I have never discovered anything that has remotely as much power over weakness, illness, and suffering as love. I am grateful for the dietary wisdom that God has shared with us. Truly our bodies are meant to become temples wherein God can dwell. Truly when Moses stood before God and was asked to remove His shoes from off His feet for the ground whereupon he stood was holy, we learn the ground was holy because Moses himself stood upon it -- who had become a holy temple unto the Lord. We too must become holy temples that the ground beneath our feet will also be holy and yield forth in its strength unto us.

Our brother Jesus Christ became a just and holy being made perfect, possessing all the characteristics, attributes, and perfections of God and has invited each of us to follow Him and to do the same. He is the way, the truth, and the life. Through Him alone it is possible to realize our greatest potential for light, happiness, health, and strength. Through Him alone we may come to possess the fullness of power He and the Father hath and can be enabled to do all things He did and greater -- as He prophesied.

As we become as a child before Him, He promises to show us the way and to fill us with His light, truth, love, and life. If you would be perfectly strong, healthy, and alive, look no further than Him for the one and only true Master who has the power and perfection to help you to achieve whatsoever that is important to you. Trust His promise, that whatsoever you ask of Him, nothing wavering, will be given you. Trust that as you seek and ask, He will answer whatsoever you truly desire to know. I know these promises are true and faithful.

Life can be hard and complicated, or life can be simple. As you avail yourself of the opportunity to hold and love a precious child, determine to simplify your life, to forsake darkness and receive only light, and to become as a child...