The Parable of the Dogs

At our house, we keep quite the menagerie of animals.  It’s not that we have multiples varieties of animals, but instead we have a LOT of animals.  The easiest animals to maintain are the pond fish.  We have close to 30. We also have three cats, two of which came with us from Germany.  They make us laugh a lot because they all have different personalities.

Finally, we have five dogs.  They range in age from 6 years old down to 1 ½ years old.  They are all Australian Shepherds.  Let me tell you about their breed.  They are in the same family as Border Collies which if you know them at all, you know that they need a job to be happy.  They aren’t the kind of dogs to curl up beside you at nighttime.  They are raised to protect the flock and their territory.  In our house, we humans are the flock, and their territory is our 11 acres of land.  They have taken it upon themselves to protect all of us 24/7.

When the dogs are inside the house, they want one thing:  to be outside of the house.  They will park themselves next to our back door, watching the park and walking track that border our land.  They will begin barking at the first sign of any person within a mile of the house.  Pearlie, one of our girl dogs, is adept at opening doors.  In fact, when she wants to go outside, she has learned that she can open the door.  The other dogs have learned to not crowd her as she jumps up to pull on the doorknob—if they are patient, she’ll get that door open, and they’ll all rush outside.  Unfortunately for us, she doesn’t think about closing the door behind her.

They love going outside.  They love protecting the land.  They love running.  They love barking.  They figure they have made a good choice.

Once the dogs are outside, and have scared away anyone daring enough to come close, they want one thing:  to come inside.  They realize that we aren’t out there with them, and their main loyalty lies with us.  We have learned to bolt the door, or Pearl will once again let them all in.  It can be the most beautiful day outside—a cool breeze, the sun shining,  acres and acres of grass, but they can only think of one thing.  Getting inside.

All of a sudden, their choice doesn’t seem so great.  They might even wonder why they ever left the comfort of our home.  They can sit outside for hours, waiting to get back in.  Finally, to their great joy, and running from anywhere on the property, they vault themselves back in, only to find that they want to go back out again.  The cycle begins all over.

My family sometimes asks me what I’ve spent the day doing at home (they think I sit around watching TV and eating bon-bons), and in all seriousness I can tell them, I have been letting the dogs in and out all day.

On rare occasions, I get tired of letting the dogs in and out, so if the flies aren’t too bad, and the wind is blowing, I will leave the back door open.  I have noticed that they park themselves as close to both options as possible.  They will lay down on the threshold of the door with literally one foot in the house and one foot in the back yard.  They like having the choice of going either way, depending on which option seems the most appealing.

Matthew, chapter 6 says: ¶^aNo man can ^bserve two ^cmasters: for either he will ^dhate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and ^emammon.

When Jesus first gave this scripture, he was speaking to his disciples.  They had chosen to follow him.  They had been asked to give up their worldly lives.  He wanted them to understand that they needed to make a choice and stick with it—they could choose to continue living in the world, or they could follow him.

In other words, Jesus was teaching that we can’t sit in the doorway (like my dogs like to do).  We can’t have it both ways. And whichever way we choose to go, there will be consequences.

·   We can’t go to church, dressed in our finery and preach about keeping the Sabbath Day holy, only to follow up our church meetings with waterskiing on the lake and a shoreside barbecue.

·   We can’t choose to wear the latest, most fashionable immodest clothing items and attend weekend drinking parties, and expect to be temple worthy.

·   We can’t watch rated-R movies and listen to foul music, only to hope that the Spirit will be with us when we have a talk to prepare or a difficult decision to make

There’s no sitting in the doorway here.

D. Todd Christofferson, in the 2009 October General Conference said, Moral discipline is the consistent exercise of agency to choose the right because it is right, even when it is hard. It rejects the self-absorbed life in favor of developing character worthy of respect and true greatness.

Mosiah 3: 19: For the ^anatural ^bman is an ^cenemy to God, and has been from the ^dfall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he ^eyields to the enticings of the Holy ^fSpirit, and ^gputteth off the ^hnatural man and becometh a ⁱsaint through the atonement of Christ the Lord.

President Monson in the 2011 October General Conference warned us: It may appear to you at times that those out in the world are having much more fun than you are. Some of you may feel restricted by the code of conduct to which we in the Church adhere. My brothers and sisters, I declare to you, however, that there is nothing which can bring more joy into our lives or more peace to our souls than the Spirit which can come to us as we follow the Savior and keep the commandments. That Spirit cannot be present at the kinds of activities in which so much of the world participates. The Apostle Paul declared the truth: “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”  The term natural man can refer to any of us if we allow ourselves to be so.

We must be vigilant in a world which has moved so far from that which is spiritual. It is essential that we reject anything that does not conform to our standards, refusing in the process to surrender that which we desire most: eternal life in the kingdom of God. The storms will still beat at our doors from time to time, for they are an inescapable part of our existence in mortality. We, however, will be far better equipped to deal with them, to learn from them, and to overcome them if we have the gospel at our core and the love of the Savior in our hearts.

I find great comfort in hearing President Monson tell us that “the storms will still beat at our doors”.  Surely he understands that always choosing the right can be a difficult thing.

One of our family’s favorite authors is C.S. Lewis.  In fact, I believe Mark may have used the exact quote from this pulpit that I’m about to use.

The Screwtape Letters is a series of letters that a devil, Screwtape, writes to his nephew, Wormwood, a devil-in-training.  Screwtape attempts to teach Wormwood the best way to tempt us humans, and to drag us away from the teachings of Jesus Christ. 

In Letter 8, Screwtape describes the “Law of Undulation” to Wormwood.  We, as humans, live in a series of troughs and peaks, or as I like to think of it, hills and valleys.  The peaks are the easy times—the times when we aren’t struggling.  The times when there aren’t a lot of decisions to be made, and when the Lord seems close by.

The troughs are a different story.  The troughs (or the valleys) are the difficult times—the times when we ARE struggling.  The times when we have hard decisions to make, and the Lord doesn’t always seem so close by.  In fact, these are the times when we might feel completely abandoned by the Lord.

Screwtape describes it this way:  He (Heavenly Father) will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation.  But He never allows this state of affairs to last long.  Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives.  He leaves them to stand up on their own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish.

He continues:  It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that they are growing into the sort of creatures He wants them to be.

In other words, it’s during the hard times that we grow.  It’s during these times that we are asked to do what we know we should do, even when it doesn’t seem that appealing.  We are asked to continue to choose the right.

 It is here that I would like to share a personal story.

Prior to moving here almost six years ago, I considered myself a “strong” person.  I’m not talking spiritually, or emotionally.  I’m talking physically.  I had run a couple of  full marathons, and I had run on relay teams for marathons, including when I was 8 ½ months pregnant with Glo.  I also enjoyed lifting weights, and could help move people just as easily as the men.  A regular part of my day was heading out for a run.  Five miles was easy, and I frequently felt at the end of it “That’s it?  That’s all I need to run today?”  Physically, I was living on a peak.

Fast forward to today.  I have gained close to 50 pounds since that time.  I have undergone six separate surgeries in the last 5 ½ years, 2 for my sinuses, 2 for my back, and 2 for my broken ankle.  After my first back surgery, I felt so good that a week later, I was out running again, despite the warnings from my surgeon.  Three months later, I was back in for my second surgery.  I have now been told that if I want to avoid more back problems, I should never run again.  Physically, I am now living in a trough. 

Before, I had a love/hate relationship with running.  I hated the thought of heading out on my daily run, but I loved how I felt afterwards.  Now, I can’t begin to tell you what I wouldn’t give to run again. 

A few months ago, I was feeling pretty bad about this.  I am not spiritually mature enough to be thankful for my physical trials like Sister Balliff has told us she was.  I felt as if Heavenly Father didn’t love me because he had let these things happen to me.  Couldn’t he have protected me, or strengthened my body when I needed it?

To add salt to the wound, I was the recipient of mounds of criticism a few months ago.  Just when I would overcome the idea of someone speaking ill of me, someone else would do it.  I just couldn’t get away from it.

And during this time, my two boys are gone.  Gone doing good things, but gone nonetheless.

I felt completely abandoned by God, and I still have some of these feelings.

I had a choice to make.  Accept these trials as trials, and have faith that Heavenly Father was aware of my struggles, or be angry with God and turn my back on him.

A very inspired woman wrote me during this time, and asked me how I was doing.  She was the only one who I ended up telling all of these feelings.  In fact, I’m not sure why I opened up to her, but I’m thankful now that I did.

She related that she too had felt similarly at one point in her life.  She had felt completely alone, and she too had spent hours pouring her heart out to the Lord, asking why she deserved her struggles.  When she was presented with a choice of being angry with God, or accepting her trials, she found that she could do something.  She didn’t feel that she had much faith, and she didn’t feel that Heavenly Father was near, so she turned to what she knew.  She knew that she believed in the Book of Mormon.  Each morning, she would read from the Book of Mormon and write down one scripture from her reading that she would then put in her pocket.  During the day, when feelings of loneliness or loss came to her, she would pull out that scripture and gain power from it.  She felt she could go on.

She encouraged me to do the same.  To find the one thing that I knew to be true and to hold onto that truth for dear life.

I didn’t want to.  I wanted to be mad at God.  I wanted to hurt him, as I felt he had hurt me.  However, her story was so poignant, and her advice so real, I knew I needed to do it.

I suggested to John that we go to the temple that weekend.  My most spiritual experiences have happened in the temple, and I know that when I have gone before, fears and worries have been washed away from my mind because Satan can’t be in the temple.

I took a family name.  The research that I have done on my family has led me to love these family members of mine.  I have very little extended family, so my ancestors mean a great deal to me.  As I held that name in my hand, I thought in my mind, “I need you here with me today.  I need someone to help me through this hard time.”

Although I am still struggling with feeling the love of the Lord in my personal life, I am thankful that I made the choice to keep on doing those things that I have been doing for years and that have brought me comfort.

Screwtape continues:  Heavenly Father wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there, He is pleased even with their stumbles.

I know that I am stumbling now, but I have the will to keep on believing.  It would have been easier at the time to abandon God and to lean on the comforts of the world, but thankfully I chose to keep trying.

There’s no sitting in the doorway.  Heavenly Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ, want us to choose them.  They promise us that if we do, we will be so much happier, and I testify of these things

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.