Advantage in the World to Come

D&C 130: 19 "And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his dilligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come."

This scripture has gained a much more immediate meaning to me over the last few weeks.  I have experienced a temporal application of this eternal principle which has strengthened my belief in the truth of this doctrine.  Currently I am taking a math class that seems to be in a different language.  The subject matter is one that I should have learned years ago.  However, my freshman year I never understood this area of math and really slacked off.  I thought that it never was going to matter, and in all my Chemical Engineering classes it hadn't mattered for 6 years. But now that I am preparing for graduate school, everything is coming full circle.  I feel like I am at a significant disadvantage because I never learned what the professor takes for basic knowledge.  But who do I have to blame but myself? I thought that I could hide from my past and that it would never catch up to me.  I thought that 2 years of a faithful mission would allow me to ignore my previous mistakes.  On a very temporal and small scale I am learning now why it is that we should strive to learn eternal truths in this life rather than in the next.  The learning curve is steep and I miss out on the more important lessons because I still haven't mastered the basics.   If we want to be exalted we will have to learn how to love our enemies, either now or in the eternities.  It's better to get a head start now, so that we can focus on our eternal progression afterward.

One with the Lord

Proverbs 3:5 "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding."
2 Nephi 4:34 "I will not put my trust in the arm of flesh; for I know that cursed is he that putteth his trust in the arm of flesh. Yea, cursed is he that putteth his trust in man or maketh flesh his arm."
Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."


      So the last few days I've felt completed overwhelmed as I realize that there is no way that I can do all the things I need to this semester.  As I brainstormed ways that I might be able to manage surviving this semester, my solutions always followed the lines of "I can..." or "I will...".  No matter how could the proposition sounded, this solutions never calmed my nerves. Instead they probably added to them as I realized how much I would have to do.  It wasn't until fasting about this problem and feeling the Spirit during testimony meeting that the answer came.  The Spirit told me something I had always preached but in a way I had never thought of before.  "Trust in the Lord and not in myself." "All things are possible through Christ."  Although I have heard these principles numerous times, usually by the time they get to my brain I interpret them as "I've gotta work hard and pray every once in a while so God knows I want his help."  As I knelt and prayed to break my fast this time, I found myself repeatedly saying, "I can do this if you help me" but every time I said that I realized that in my mind I still felt like the entire burden was upon me.  Although the principle was true, (there is nothing wrong with looking it as God helping you) it just wasn't sinking into my Spirit that way.  I tried saying that phrase at least three times in my prayer, but each time my whole soul rejected it.  It wasn't until I said, "we can do this" that my heart was at ease.  It was that perspective that made my burden seem light. It's not me and God separately working. I'm not the day shift with him as the night shift. We are one, and we can do this.  Of all the times in my life, I need now more than ever to be unified with God.  I know that Christ can accomplish anything and it would be stupid of me to have him sitting on the bench and playing 1 on 5.
     My biggest challenge this semester will be managing my time and trying to accomplish all that I feel I need to.  Erica and I were discussing how the Savior knows everything we can ever go through because of the Atonement.  But when it comes to my dilemma, the Savior not only experienced that vicariously, but of all the people that ever lived upon the face of the earth he understood what it felt like to not think there was enough time in the world to accomplish all he needed to.  Just think about it.  Because of Jewish custom he wasn't allowed to start his ministry until he was 30 years old and he knew that he would only leave a few years.  In three years he had to: restore the truth, organize the Church, be a light to the world, prepare for the Atonement and atone for our sins (to name a few).  If I truly am one with the Lord, "greater works than these shall we do" (John 14:12).