A Quiet God is a God We Can Trust

 Happy Tuesday, friends! 

    Today's topic is one that's been on my mind all week, and I'm so excited to share my thoughts with you! My husband and I taught a lesson on this topic in Sunday School last weekend. In addition to this topic, I thought that I would also share with you all a quick life update. 

    My husband Aaron and I have been married nearly 5 years now after meeting at BYU freshman year. We recently moved down to Mapleton, UT from an apartment up in Draper and purchased a house! We are now only a few minutes drive from Aaron's family and have loved getting to spend more time with them and water ski on a nearby lake. 

    Our family grew last August when we had little Elsie. She is now 10 months old and the absolute joy of our lives. I have been blessed to take on the role of a "stay-at-home-mom" while my husband works up in Salt Lake twice a week and remotely the other three days. 

    I am still Irish Dancing as a certified teacher at Harp Irish Dance Co. in American Fork and have lately taken a liking to hot pilates. I am still writing novels, and I'm gradually getting better at cooking. 

    Our house is part of many new developments in the south valley, and so naturally, our church ward is huge. Lots of young families with little children. 

    In our new ward here in Mapleton, my husband and I were called to teach the 13-14 age Sunday School group every other week, and we are really liking our calling. Aaron is gifted at teaching and enjoys connecting with the youth in the Church on a personal level. While I find teaching the scriptures difficult, I also enjoy the opportunity we have to better understand the trials and challenges that the youth face today, especially as we begin to raise a little family of our own. 

    This past Sunday, we were able to focus on the weekly "Come, Follow Me" lesson in D&C 60-63. 

    Now, I don't have as strong of a background in this canon of scripture as I do some others, but I am grateful to be able to delve a bit deeper into the Doctrine & Covenants each week as we prepare to teach our Sunday School students. 

    There are several different topics that one can choose to focus on in each section of prescribed reading. My husband and I approach lesson making by each selecting one topic that speaks to us and then expanding on it by referencing scripture, General Conference talks, and other resources in the Gospel Library. For instance, I chose to discuss D&C 62 and honed in on how decisions in our lives should balance our personal judgment and the direction of the spirit.  

    This was a difficult topic for me, but I felt strongly that it was one that I needed to research and share with the youth. The "Come, Follow Me" manual introduces this concept by stating that while the Lord gives direction about eternal truths and principles, He often leaves it up to us to determine how to act on these principles.

    I understood this concept by sharing with the youth a personal application about serving a mission. As a woman in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we are encouraged to serve full-time missions, but we are not pre-ordained to do so like the men of the Church are. In other words, young woman can make the decision for themselves pending personal revelation. 

    While I was at BYU and Aaron had already left for his mission to South Africa, I wrestled with the question of whether I should serve a formal mission for the Church. For weeks, I prayed to Heavenly Father and asked Him to tell me what to do. So many of my friends were deciding to serve missions, but I couldn't understand why God wouldn't just give me a simple "go" or "don't go." Instead, I kept receiving a frustrating answer: I could go serve a mission, or I could stay. And whatever option I chose would be great. 

    I felt like God had gone radio silent. Why, if He truly has my best interests at heart, would He not tell me what to do? 

    Serving a formal mission is a good thing. In fact, service is an eternal principle that uplifts those whom we serve and brings us closer to God. We read in Mosiah 2:17 that "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." If this is true, than why did God not tell me what I should do when I asked whether I should serve a mission? 

    In this week's D&C reading, the Lord is commanding Joseph Smith and other elders of the Church to return to Kirtland, OH after visiting the future place of Zion in Missouri. He commands these men to preach the gospel as they go, but when it came to how these men should make their way back to Kirtland, the Lord said again and again, "it mattereth not unto me."

    As I sat on the couch preparing our Sunday School lesson, I turned to my husband and asked him why he thought God has us make certain decisions for ourselves when His guidance would make things so much simpler. Aaron directed me to the chapter that he was then reading. 

    D&C 61 describes how some elders, on their return trip to Kirtland, decided to travel down the Missouri River in canoes. The elders experienced many dangers on the river, insomuch that revelation was given to Joseph Smith afterward declaring that water itself is a mode of destruction. Still, this was a choice made by elders of the Church--one that God left in their hands, for He did not specify how they should travel back to Kirtland. 

    Why does God not decide every detail of our lives? Why would He not directly tell me whether to serve a mission? Why did He not warn the elders of the Church back in 1831 ahead of time that maneuvering a canoe on the Missouri River would be dangerous? 

    I posed this question to my husband and then again to our Sunday School students, and the answers I received were humbling. 

    Why does God not decide every detail of our lives? 

    Facing the consequences of our choices helps us learn and grow. 

    Choosing for ourselves is exercising the agency that God so diligently protects. 

    Acting independently with a basis of eternal truths and principles helps to grow our testimonies. 

    God gives us space to trust Him. 

    That last answer really resonated with me. God does not write out all the details of our lives so that we may come to trust that He is written in the details. His goodness permeates every aspect of our lives, and sometimes we need to have the faith to take a step into darkness and find it on our own. I am reminded of how crucial faith is in the Lord, His timing, and His love in D&C 62:6:

    Behold, I, the Lord, have brought you together that the promise might be fulfilled, that the faithful        among you should be preserved and rejoice together in the land of Missouri. I, the Lord, promise the     faithful and cannot lie.

    I did not end up serving a formal mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I made the decision to stay at BYU and finish my degree, and for that decision, I felt a measure of peace. The peace did not come immediately; I was too worried about everyone else serving a mission and often compared myself to others. But in time, I really have come to believe God's answer to me, that deciding to serve would have been great, but there were wonderful blessings I have experienced by staying as well. 

    Looking back on that season of uncertainty in my life, I have learned an important lesson: God allows us to choose some things for ourselves so that we may learn to believe that He is constantly at work in our lives, even when He is quiet. Sometimes, we must make a decision on our own first, relying on faith that he will confirm that our decision is right. 

    I'm so grateful that God has granted us the gift of agency, to be able to decide for ourselves the path that our lives will take. In doing so, He has trusted us to choose Him. The eternal truths and principles that are taught in the Gospel of Jesus Christ will help to guide our choices, but it is our faith in Him that allows us to take a step forward and experience the inevitable blessings that He has in store for us. 

Bold and Believing

Welcome to the Bold and Believing Blog, a series of posts written by me--Miranda Rasband! I consider myself a sojourning young woman navigating the trials of a turbulent world and hope to share with you my beliefs as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a candid yet light-hearted way.

This blog is, if you will, a "sequel" blog to The Blonde-Headed Believer: a forum that I actively ran from 2016-2018. Instead of continuing with my original platform, I decided to establish a new blog where I can share my thoughts and feelings about Christ's Gospel and Church Doctrine beginning from a new place of growth and understanding. 

And in case you were wondering, I am still blonde (though not so much naturally)!

There is much that has happened in the past few years, both in Church News and in my personal life; if you recall, I was a student at Brigham Young University in Provo, UT the last time I blogged. College went by slowly--I struggled and triumphed as all college students do. I can say, however, that I have never struggled more spiritually in my life than when I was a student at BYU. This fact of my experience will be explained later on, as it has since put me on a much brighter path with an even brighter testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Since 2018, a lot has changed about my beliefs; living in the Church's cultural hub of Utah, I have begun to understand the commandment stated in Matthew 5:48, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."

Perfection: the bane of my existence yet my brain's insistent mantra. 

I, more than anyone I know, am the furthest from perfect. No one is perfect--not a single living soul on this planet, and we all know it. We fall short of perfection every day! For all the perfectionist souls out there like me, that fact stings a little. 

However, when I first attended Brigham Young University, everything seemed flawless. Perfect location, as it was not too far from my hometown in Wyoming. Perfect campus with all my classes in a short walking distance. Perfect courses that piqued my interest in international politics. Perfect professors, perfect atmosphere, perfect people...

My expectations for BYU, its environment, and its students were high, and these expectations affected my views of the Church. I have always held the Church as an organization in high regard; the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints values families, encourages connection among different communities and cultures, and continues as a world leader in humanitarian efforts. Since BYU is an institution privatized by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I came to the pre-emptive conclusion early on in my experience at BYU that all the people, norms, and happenings at BYU were in direct connection with the Church. It was all going to be...perfect!

Here is where I started to go wrong. I began college by prematurely equating my personal experience at BYU with my feelings about the Church, and further reaching, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

As you can expect, I quickly figured out just how imperfect my experience at BYU was. The rosy tint to my biased glasses faded as I grew homesick the more I returned to a cluttered dorm room, lamented the walk up Freshman Hill to go to class each morning, dreaded Biology 101, and wrestled with the opinions of my American Heritage teacher. 

While I would not trade my experience at Brigham Young University to have gone to a different college, I realized that my experience at BYU was not perfect. Like any other college experience, there were classes I did not enjoy, difficult assignments, people I did not get along with, and moments when I wondered if I really belonged there. This is less a reflection on the university itself and more on the particular major, classes, and living situations I chose.

The biggest struggle for me at Brigham Young University came from the hypocrisy of some students acting one way during the week and another way on Sunday, along with the high expectations of the students that were embedded into the culture of the college itself.

Now, before I go any further, I would like to reiterate that I love BYU--this is in no way a poor review of the campus, the academics, or the people who work and learn at the university. In fact, I would recommend Brigham Young University to any person searching for a quality education on a clean and well-kept campus surrounded by people who share similar standards of behavior and excellence. 

However, I began generalizing--trying to find any flaw in my experience and comparing it to the Church itself. Snooty, stuck-up girls who thought they were better than others because they had a Relief Society calling? Yep, there were several of those. Rumors of students who had been thrown out of the university or put on probation because of a spiritual matter they had talked to their bishop about in an act of repentance? Had those too. Kids who bore their testimonies on Sunday about the importance of following the commandments and then were caught in questionable situations in the back of their car at Squaw Peak the night before? Yeah, that was a thing. 

By actively searching for and fixating on the issues that I encountered during my college years, however, I began picking apart the Church. I began reading the negative experiences of other students and seeking stories that exposed the organization for what I slowly started to think it was: a hypocritical institution that encouraged toxic behavior among its members and disparaged those who were harmed by its rules. 

This was a dark period for me; my testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ started to crumble. I turned bitter toward anyone who showed me kindness on campus because I started to believe that it was all an act required as a member of the Church. I started missing Sunday meetings because I couldn't stand the way speakers would tell the congregation how much God cared about His children when I struggled to feel His love. I started reading the scriptures purely to ask questions that couldn't be explained quickly and plainly by my Church friends or leaders. 

I can tell you, however, that throughout this journey, I found no fulfillment or closure that eased the anger and hurt I harbored from having my visions of perfection shattered. By telling myself that BYU and the Church were full of hypocrites did not make me feel closer to God. By convincing myself that some of the rules at BYU and in the Church were unfair did nothing to improve my testimony. And by actively looking for flaws in the Church and in the scriptures did not answer the two most important questions that I should have been asking myself: 

Who am I? 

Is the Gospel of Jesus Christ true? 

I started this post by talking about perfection. The purpose of the ensuing discussion where I shared some of my experiences at Brigham Young University was not to condemn the university or slander the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

The main takeaway that I have tried to convey in this post is that the people who call themselves members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the members who govern and attend BYU are not perfect--they are regular people like you and I. They make mistakes. They can make others feel small, unknowingly enforce a culture that causes harm, uphold expectations unfairly, judge someone before themselves, and even commit crimes. Such is the nature of our "natural man." 

No one is perfect. So, why would we expect the people of the Church to be? 

This statement is not made to pardon the wrongs that some members have done, nor is it to make light of real situations at BYU and in the Church organization that have caused real damage to others. However, it is important to take into perspective that one Relief Society Counselor, one Bishop, or one Stake President do not represent the whole of the Church or the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it is in your life. One member, one outdated and revoked practice, one controversial statement made in General Conference cannot possibly represent--nor can it separate you from--the love that Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father have for you!

Brigham Young University is not perfect. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is far from perfect. 

But I am here to tell you that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is perfect! His love for you and me, His sacrifice, His promises of joy, and His redemptive power is without flaw and without end. 

If you have been hurt by a member of the Church or have felt as if a standard or rule has alienated you, please turn to the true source of peace and wholeness. From my personal experience at BYU, I have come to know that there is no happiness or peace down a road of resentment and anger. There is no rest in a place of fruitless fighting. 

In saying these things, I also understand that you may not be in a place to stop the fight. You may feel too wronged, too hurt, too justified in what you're fighting for. I will not judge those who have stepped away from the Church for an experience that has caused heartbreak and anguish, but please only do so after considering earnestly the two questions I posed: 

Who are you? 

Is the Gospel of Jesus Christ true to you? 

I am a daughter of a loving Heavenly Father. I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I am a curious mind who seeks answers. I know the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true. I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior and my Redeemer. I will live with Him again someday and experience an eternity of joy without fear and without pain.

If you choose to leave, I hope you are able to find happiness and fulfillment elsewhere. I could not. I came to a personal conclusion that while some members and rules of the Church organization can and have caused harm, I have stayed because of Jesus Christ. Through Jesus Christ's atonement, we can feel understood, rectified, and joyful again in any circumstance. 

And just like there are both kinds of people in all organizations, the same is true for the Church. While I have met some distasteful people in the Church, I have more often met the most wonderful, caring, and compassionate people who have influenced my life for the better! There is so much more good than bad--now read that sentence again. 

Please, choose to stay. Not for me or to spite the snooty girl in Relief Society. Not for your mom or because you told a young missionary you would when he came knocking at your door. Not for family tradition or expectation. Not for an idea of perfection that cannot possibly be achieved on this earth. 

Stay for you, because Jesus Christ is here at the Church's center. While the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members are imperfect, Jesus Christ is not. He is perfect. And through Him, someday I hope to be, too!