Pray for . . .

the political prisoners in the U.S.A. and Canada - and for the women in Iran and other countries who are being beaten, arrested, and even killed if they show their faces or if their heads are uncovered.

Some things I cannot personally change, but I think if enough people pray for something, things can change, because God is powerful.

I am praying, and I'm also designating November 1st (one week from this writing) as an international day of prayer and fasting for these groups.

If you so desire, I would love for you to join me.

Jesus' Love for Me, for You

 The love of Jesus is deep and powerful. It encompasses us, draws us in, and changes us - but only if we are willing to be changed.

How can we not love someone who loves us so powerfully and so thoroughly even though he knows our worst defects and our hidden darkness?

How can we not love someone who has pulled us out of hell and into love, peace, and power (real power, not the fake stuff so rampant today. That isn't real power because devils are controlling them).

There is no way to glory in Jesus enough. His love is real. It isn't this weird "acceptance" and insanity the world has going around today, like a rampant disease. It's real. It's powerful. And if we accept it and turn to him, then our love for him increases and our appreciation of him is boundless, for how can you be pulled out of fear, terror, depression, anxiety, and so on and not have the deepest love and appreciation for him who pulled you out and filled you with his love and peace?

 

To quote part of a song:

I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me
Confused at the grace that, so fully, He proffers me.

 I marvel that He would descend from His throne, divine
To rescue a soul so rebellious and proud as mine
That He should extend His great love unto such as I
Sufficient to own, to redeem, and to justify

 

 If you have watched The Chosen series, most of the videos below will make more sense, even though I think the message can be received even if one has never watched it.

 These videos move me to tears. The sobbing kind. Perhaps it is because I have had such darkness inside and such fear, depression, and anxiety coursing through my soul for decades (which things I still fight) that I thoroughly identify with the poor souls depicted in these videos. The spiritually and emotionally maimed and wounded. The lost. Those that hell overcame - until Christ entered the picture.

 

 

 Minute 2:34 to the end of that video above. I have no words.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thoughts on the allegory of Adam and Eve and the Fall

Disclaimer: I don't know anything and I already know that.


When God said, "Don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," what he really said was, "Don't choose fear.".

The fallen one tried to get Adam to fear, but Adam wouldn't listen, so the fallen one tried to get Eve to fear. He found a way in, and Eve shared that fear with Adam. Perhaps she started a fight with him.

Then God returned and they couldn't bear to be in his presence because they had partaken of fear and anger. That made the Light and Love impossible to bear, so they had to leave to continue to exist.

And their children were born to parents who had learned to fear, and who had learned to be angry. And the fallen ones capitalized on that to create as much pain and mayhem and fear as they could get away with in all of the generations since Eva and Adam.

As far as the first clothing goes, I've heard the theory that Eve and Adam were clothed in Light until they "ate the fruit" - then that Light left and they had no covering to protect them, so God made clothing that would work in a pinch, but wasn't as good as what they had before.

Why, then, do the scriptures say the man and the woman were naked but not ashamed? Maybe because they didn't wear clothing like we do, but were clothed in Light.

What about Eve/the scriptures saying Adam and Eve would have had no children? It's possible they were in training and, at some point, the Gods would have taught them how to combat fear with love, then they would have gone prepared to the dark spot in the garden (see below).

Why were fallen ones allowed to roam the garden? I'm sure I do not know . . . but what if they were only confined to one area? What if they were confined to the spooky old house and yard in a certain part of the garden that was majorly creepy to anyone who knew what fear was? What if the Gods said to stay away from that creepy place? (After all, the fallen ones were kicked out onto the same planet. Maybe they demanded a place next to Adam and Eve's house. Far enough away to not overpower them unawares, but close enough to entice them because . . . well, I guess life is about choices. And, besides that, this planet was their turf.)

Adam wasn't interested in the spooky old house, but EVe wondered what it was, so crossed over the boundaries to explore it. In that case, the fallen ones had a chance to put fear and anger into her heart and mind.

And, since it's an allegory, what if the Gods were Eve and Adam's parents (two couples) who had survived a global disaster, and had reached a spiritual level so high that they were, in reality, Gods?

Just wondering. It makes for an interesting story, to be sure.

Our Compassionate God

Recently, I was staying in a hotel in Boise, Idaho with a friend. Our room was directly across from the guests' laundry room. On one side of our room were the stairs. On the other was the room of the ladies who had given me a ride to Boise. Sunday morning, my friend left to go home (had pressing business that prevented her from staying the full weekend). That afternoon, the ladies and I were going to meet some people for lunch.

I was in my room, pretty much killing time, when I heard what seemed like a year old baby throwing a fit. I didn't hear adults and supposed they were ignoring the child. A few minutes later, I opened my door to go out and right next to the door, pressed into it, was a two year old toddler, screaming and crying hysterically. I glanced into the laundry room as I picked her up. It was empty. I had felt incredible compassion for the child the moment I'd opened the door, and I told her, "We'll find your mom." She stopped being hysterical, but was still upset. I knocked on the ladies' door, and when I did, the toddler calmed down even more. When the door was opened, I explained what had happened and that I was going to take the child to the office (front desk) to see if they could find her mom. The ladies went with me downstairs and, on the elevator ride, one of them coaxed out of the child that she was two years old (she never spoke the whole time she was with us).

When we got to the front desk, I explained what had happened, and told them it was on the second floor. One of the ladies behind the desk came around and held her arms out to the child. The child hesitated for a nano-second. You could see her deciding if she could trust this person. Then she leaned over and reached out to the lady.

After we got back from lunch, we inquired at the front desk. Was the mom found? The man there had just begun his shift not long before. He said he had not seen the child, but had heard others talking about the incident, and, yes, the mom had been found.

Later that evening, I was talking to God, and he told me, "The child is a sign to you." He told me that the compassion I'd felt for the child was the same compassion he felt for me when I was hysterically scream-crying out to him because of being homeless (or threatened with it), not having enough food to eat, worried about other problems, or just plain having a freak-out attack for no reason that I knew of. He also let me know that just as I had taken immediate steps to solve the toddler's problem when I realized what was happening, so he, also, took steps to alleviate my suffering when I was freaking out.

I am sharing this experience because he told me to. He told me that this compassion he feels toward me is the same compassion he feels toward everyone. Our sincere prayers are always heard, even if we don't see immediate results.

Being a Missionary for the Lord

I have just finished reading a blog post. It is very, very long but the light and knowledge I received from it was very strong, and I feel-very strongly-that I should post a link to it. Please feel free to pass the link along; I'm sure the young man writing the blog would be very willing to edify any and all who can be edified by his post. I would post a synopsis, but the synopsis would be quite long and I could not do justice to what the young man says in his own words.

http://keepit100withchapterandverse.blogspot.com/2017/07/life-off-old-ship-year-sojourn-through.html

Numbers

It seems to me that God likes 40, 7, and 3 ½. It also seems like God likes to use his messengers as signs to the people (see the Old Testament). He also likes to use heavenly bodies as signs (see Genesis).

I'll jump right into my thoughts. Denver Snuffer was baptized on Sept 10, 1973 (Second Comforter: Conversing with the Lord Through the Veil, page 88). 40 years later, to the day, he was excommunicated (see Lecture 1 in Boise, Idaho, of the 10-lecture circuit that stretched from Sept 2013 to Sept 2014).

His ministry began March 1, 1984 (Second Comforter, pages 104, 200-01). Interesting, I think: 1984. The name of a book about total loss of real freedom to act and be. A story about a man who tried to buck the system. I believe his ministry will either end or change 40 years later. On the exact day of March 1st, 2024? I don't have an opinion on that, though I do think it will be in the spring of that year.

And the moon shall turn to blood

When the moon is eclipsed, it looks blood red. No biggie, except there have been several blood moons on or near Jewish holy days, and even an LDS holy day (Saturday General Conference, April 4, 2015). You can read more about the eclipses and the holy days here and here. And here is a list of all the posts on Bare Record that talk about moon and blood, if you care to peruse it.

From the first link:

. . . the fact that these four blood moons will occur on significant Jewish holy days is not only rare, but significant. The first blood moon will be on Passover on April 15, 2014. There will be another blood moon on the following year on Passover which will be April 4, 2015. The other Jewish Holy Day is the Feast of Tabernacles which is  Oct. 8, 2014. On this day as well, there will be a Blood Moon Eclipse.. and then the following Feast of Tabernacle on Sept. 28, 2015 will be the 4th Blood Moon.

 The sun shall be turned to darkness

There's something interesting about the full eclipse of the sun (August 21, 2017) that goes from the west coast to the east coast of the continental United States. First, it falls on the birthday of "the venerable leader" of the LDS Church. Second, it is the first stroke of an X. The second stroke will come on April 8, 2024 and will begin in Mexico and end in a tiny bit of Canada, crossing the United States in the process.

As you can see below, it marks a giant X over the continental United States (as an aside, God's handwriting is very artistic. The X is not a straight, austere duet of lines but poetic curves). It's as if God will be saying, "I've had enough of your wickedness, rebellion, and nonsense, dearest Gentiles. I'm done. You are no longer a nation. The Gentiles have proven themselves fruit worthy only to be cast out and burned." I suspect it's all quickly downhill from there for us.

Sidenote: It was made known in a conference in St. George, Utah in March 2017 that God was offering another covenant. People will have the opportunity to accept or reject that covenant on Sept 3, 2017. The words of that covenant were given by the Lord in, if I remember correctly, July 2017, and 7 years from that conference is March 2024. Also, 7 years from verbally accepting or rejecting that covenant is Sept 2024.

Spring 2024.  
Denver's 40-year mission is complete. March 1. 
 The X is complete. April 8. 
The covenant is either accepted or rejected by our behavior; the time possibly past, and the country erupts into violence, the like of which has never been seen before. March to Sept.

It will be interesting to see how it all plays out. Maybe, just maybe, this post is not the vain musings of a religious lunatic. I wonder if we should, perhaps, "fear and tremble" and look into our own hearts for pride and rebellion against God, look into our own hearts to see if they are filled with love or with anger/accusation against our fellow beings. Truly, the earth is quickly filling with more violence than it has experienced for a long time. Not too many years from now, I expect, until the whole face of this land is one continual round of murder and bloodshed (see Mormon 8:8) and violence from one end to the other.

Teach Your Children to Honor God

These are just some random thoughts I'm having. I don't claim to know what I'm talking about.

Teach your children to honor God. How do you do that if, like me, your kids are grown? What does "honor God" mean anyway?

I thought about that, and came up with nothing about a week ago. But, today, something did come to mind. We honor God by loving and forgiving each other. We teach our children to honor God by loving and forgiving them, as well as loving and forgiving all who cross our path.

For example, this latest fiasco in the restorationist movement. A blog post written in haste, accusing Denver, casting aspersions on the new scriptures, raising an alarm about a man no one knows - only to find out that the person writing the blog had her facts wrong. What was wrong with her heart? Nothing? Something? That is only for God to judge. My point in bringing her up is that I, also, have reacted in alarm and anger in my life, saying and doing foolish things that I later regretted, things that did not show charity toward my fellow humans.

Matt Crockett wrote a blog post some time ago, in which he essentially commanded Denver, using God's authority (in vain/erroneously, in my opinion) to be our king. This was because Matt did not know that many of us did not need Denver to be a king, and would resent having one, because we were working with God, even if we listened to and believed every word coming out of Denver's mouth (believing every word is probably not wise, as he is a man and prone to error; I simply used that as an example). I reacted to the post uncharitably. I even emailed Denver, complaining about the post. I was so focused on that part of the post that I did not notice the good things in it.

Here is some insight I have gotten recently (quoted from messages I wrote on Skype to a couple of friends):

I think we each saw different parts. Kind of like the blind men and the elephant. I saw that part and was "offended" that he would command Denver to be my king when I was relishing my freedom from kings, thank you very much! I think I feared that if he was listened to I would be brought back into bondage. I've been in bondage to [exhusband], to the LDS Church, to the school system, to the judicial system, and to the medical system (albeit only when I was young, as far as the medical system goes), and there's no way in hell, on earth, or in heaven I wanted someone to push bondage on me again.

You, having no such issues, saw more expansively. You saw several good things in there that I saw later (after you pointed them out, most likely), but my fear of Matt having the power to force me into bondage to Denver ticked me off, and made me protest.

One of my friends replied:

Yet the bondage would have been of your own choice.

I replied:

But I couldn't see that. In fact, the insight I'm sharing here in regards to my own feelings was something I couldn't clearly see then. But now, today, I can clearly see that it was all my own issues. The problem was me, and whether or not Matt was out of line really made no difference - because, as you say, I still had a choice though I feared that choice would be taken away from me.

My point in sharing all this: We honor God by owning our weaknesses, and ceasing to be offended by others. We honor God, and teach our children to do so, by our willingness to own our offenses and not project them onto others, who are only acting as humans will act. We honor God by our willingness to forgive and to love.

Son doesn't want to serve a mission? Leave him in the desert

In my opinion, this story is evidence that God really has abandoned the church that professes His name, because they have abandoned Him. Charity (the pure love of Christ) is not the ruling factor. Neither is freedom to choose. There is no freedom to choose in the LDS Church anymore, it seems. The ruling factor is, what? What do you get out of this article? I get, "Force you to go on a mission, even if it means you can die." I mean, there was no guarantee that the kid would find someone to give him a safe place to spend the night. No guarantee that he would be able to get in touch with his grandparents.

I would recommend reading the comments. I doubt more comments can be added, as this is a cached version. It appears the original was taken down. Embarrassed the Corp? Scared the parents? I don't know, but I do know that the corporate Church relies heavily on public opinion polls. And they really hate negative publicity.

Note: I am not posting this to bash the Church, but to hopefully wake people up to the fact that this type of behavior is not okay. And that it is not good to "follow the prophet" at the expense of your child's sanity or mortal life. (Neither is it good to pay tithing if it means your family goes hungry, your electricity gets turned off, or you get kicked out of your house because your rent is not paid.  All but one scripture about tithing says tithing is for the poor, not to be paid by the poor - and especially not by the poor to a wealthy corporation that can afford to buy and build a city in Florida, build a billion-dollar mall with million-dollar condos on top, and so forth.)

Edit: I didn't realize the article was initially published on LDS Living. Here is a good post about the article, and its subsequent retraction/alteration on LDS Living. 
heres-why-a-mormon-website-published-the-least-inspirational-story-ever/

Feed the Hungry

No kid should go hungry is a thread on reddit that needs to be shared. The info in it, anyway.

The opening post:

With the recent reiteration at GC stating that people need to pay their tithing before buying food for their family, etc. and knowing that while this is insane and stupid there are those TBMs that will follow this and there also are just people in need in general, this will hopefully help at least one or two kids this summer from going hungry:

. . . .  Community post for UT area! Copying from a friends wall: edited I was told this is for the US in general!
"If you are financially struggling and you need help feeding your children this summer, or if you know of some hungry children, please text "food" to 877877.

No paper work, no questions asked, just show up and all children under 18 eat free all summer.
It will ask you to enter a zip code or address and will respond back with the nearest locations (school, community center, library, park, etc.) where meals are available throughout the day. Even if you aren't in need, someone else's kids are. No child deserves to go hungry, ever!
Please copy, paste, post or share!"

I think it is sad that a multi-billion-dollar organization that can afford to pay cash to build a high-end mall with condos, and who can build a whole city in Florida without going into debt preaches to the poor to give them money. Especially damning is the doctrine to give this rich organization money even if it means your kids go hungry, your utilities get shut off, and you get ousted (made homeless) because you can't pay your mortgage. If this is the teachings of their god, then their god is the devil.

The Fulness of the Record of John?

6  And John saw and bore record of the fulness of my glory, and the fulness of John's record is hereafter to be revealed.
18  And it shall come to pass, that if you are faithful you shall receive the fulness of the record of John.
Doctrine and Covenants 93

I've not read the pdf (the quote below is a link to it), but I intend to. It might prove enlightening.

... a newly revealed account of John the Beloved’s Testimony of Jesus the Messiah 

Edited to add: I've been reading this pdf. It is the testimony of John the Beloved, not John the Baptist. Still, there is incredible enlightenment. I had no idea that the Father was so closely involved with us. I was pretty sure that Jesus was and is, but the Father seemed so remote to me. My mind is enlightened, my soul is lifted up to the heavens. I feel within my heart to proclaim my gratitude to God for this revelation, and feel even more desire to serve Him and only Him.

It also is sobering to me to realize that it would have been much harder to listen to a man who says the things Jesus said about himself and about his standing with the Father, than it is to accept a simple messenger from the Lord, a messenger who continually admits he is not worthy of our adoration, but is like us, and is only here, pointing us to the Savior, because the Lord called him to do the task.

Baby needs some help

This is a plea from a father who is concerned about his baby. I read it and wanted to help, though I have no funds to do so, so I asked if I could post his request in the hopes others would see it and perhaps be led to help if they can.

I don't usually do things like this but as a new father I need to humble myself and know when to reach out for support.

Like I said I am a new father, my son is almost 6 months old now. He was born with a cleft palate and required CPR at birth. He was hospitalized for the first 15 days of his life and during that time transferred via helicopter to a larger hospital. My son, Jayden, is also missing a large portion of his 4th chromosome (25 genes to be exact). The chromosomal deletion and the cleft palate are huge obstacles for him to overcome in this life.

This is where my family could use some support. Jayden has a lot of food aversions; milk and soy are the two biggest. My wife has been pumping to feed him for the last 6 months and hasn't eaten any dairy or soy for that time. Her milk supply has dried up and we have tried dairy-soy free formulas and Jayden just wont eat for the last 2 weeks. We are left with the sole option of making our own homemade formula so he can eat and doesn't get hospitalized. This option is very expensive and we are left drained of all our savings. My wife keeps a blog to keep friends and family up to date on Jayden's progression. Remember when I started I said I had to humble myself? This is that part. If any of you feel inspired to help out my family, no matter if it's a couple dollars, you can visit my wife's blog and donate. All the money raised will go to providing for Jayden. It takes a lot to admit that I need help providing for my family so I will forever be grateful to you for helping me. Thank you so much for listening to my troubles.

You can visit my wife's blog at liljaydensjourney.blogspot.com
 

Taking Offense - Contention

So, I wanted to go all eloquent on this blog and post the pain I've been seeing around me. Misunderstandings. Contention. Hurt feelings.

But words fail me.

I, myself, hurt someone by something I wrote without intending to do so. Their hurt made me feel terrible.

In this mass of anger and contention that I see swirling around me, attempting to drown every person involved, I see some bits of light.

I see examples of those who refuse to be sucked into raging against those who rage against them. I see those to whom God is more important than how others treat them. These people struggle to forgive and heal - and because of their faith and dependence on the Lord, they do forgive. They do heal.

I was given this wise bit of advice a couple of hours ago:

Let this pain work in the manner it was intended, to bring you closer to Him, to seek His counsel and His comfort. He knows your heart and intentions.... Not us imperfect beings

 It inspired me to pray for the person I had not intended to hurt. I felt as if my prayers helped this person, who is going through a lot of pain right now.

That's the thing. People hurt. People misunderstand. Sometimes we don't get along like we think we should. That's when and where Jesus should be invited to step in. His love is perfect. Ours is not.

There is a movement under way. A movement that could very well land us in Zion. Because of that, the adversary of our souls is nervous, is threatened, and will do anything he can to prevent and destroy this effort.

He was successful with our forebears. Will we allow him to be successful with us? Or will our humility, faith in Christ, and our intense desires to succeed carry us through to victory?