Peace - John 14:15-31

Jesus continues, "if ye love me, keep my commandments." This has always been a difficult concept for me because for the vast majority of my life, I didn't love God so I needed another form of motivation for being obedient, and honestly, because I didn't have any other reason, I didn't keep the commandments. Having some distance from that belief, I can now see how this statement could appeal to both sides of people. If you genuinely have an innate love of God, which many people do, regardless of their native religion, then you want to follow the rules that your God has set forth because you believe that it is in your best interest. On the other side though, for those who do not automatically love their God, we could use the inverse. Instead of "if you love me, keep my commandments," it's also true, "if you keep my commandments, you will love me." This is a horse/carriage situation because do you keep the commandments because you love God or do you love God because you keep the commandments? It's a personal preference, but both statements are true.

 
I love the statement, "you serve those you love and you come to love those you serve." This is the same principle, if you don't love God, then try doing what He says and He will rain down on you blessings and joy and peace and comfort and lots and lots of love. He won't force anyone to love him and he won't force anyone to change their behavior, but if we voluntarily give him an inch of obedience, he gives us a mile of assurance. It's like the saying, "you can't give God a crumb without receiving a loaf in return." As we learn the gospel and universal truths, we can build a relationship with our Heavenly Father, and it's beautiful and amazing. The IM quotes Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin as teaching, "when we love the Lord, obedience ceases to be a burden. Obedience becomes a delight." I think this is the stage that I'm at now. I used to look at all the things I "can't" do, like drugs, alcohol, random sex, etc. as punishments, like God trying to keep me from living my life and now that I've done my time in the dirt I realize that God didn't forbid those things because he wants us to be unhappy, in fact, the opposite is true. God commands us to stay away from so many things BECAUSE he wants us to be happy. He knows the way to happiness, and he's telling us the pathway to go, and he's doing it in a way that we will understand depending on our generation and psychology.
 
It doesn't make sense that I remain single because I haven't found a man worth marrying that can take me to the temple. Society tells me that I can't be happy as a single woman, but Jesus tells me that staying virtuous and waiting for a righteous husband is what will make me happy. I've lived both ways and guess who was right? Jesus. I am so much happier living the way I do now vs. living in any other manner. Don't get me wrong, sometimes I think it would be so much better to be married regardless of what I had to do to get a husband, but no, definitely not. Does living my life single make me over the moon happy? Of course not. Is it everything that I ever hoped and dreamed? Definitely not how I imagined that my life would end up. But I have a peace and spiritual stability that I've never had before and it's only because of my relationship with Jesus that I'm ok right now. Stuff happens, bad things to good people, and there's no one else who would ever be able to take care of me the way that Jesus does.
 
This disconnect between what the world says will make me happy, and the way that I feel now is explained by Jesus to His disciples during this conversation saying, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: no as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." Society has messages all day long about how to be "happy," what the purpose of life is, how you should act and dress and think, and I've lived on both sides of that fence and I will never go back, ever, I will never leave Jesus, ever. So what does that tell us about where the real truth lies? I'm a logical person with limited loyalties, if I for one second thought that this life was the only one we had, I would for sure give up everything I have and do whatever I wanted. If I only have one chance at feeling alive, then you best believe that I would take it, no matter what it cost. I wouldn't spend hours everyday working on this blog because, of course, I would rather be playing a game or reading articles or talking to people. But over the last several years I've found that my return on investment is infinitely higher doing intense scripture study than any other thing I could spend my time doing. I've found my return on investment infinitely higher going to church on Sundays instead of shopping or sleeping or anything else that I really want to do.
 
But the fact of the matter is, I've lived a lot in my life and I've seen both sides of the grey. What has helped me know where to go and what to do? What has shown me the true way of happiness? The peace that comes with obedience which was promised to the disciples, and is promised to each of us, if we so choose it. But how do we get this knowledge, this comfort, and peace? Jesus says, "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." For some of those who don't believe in God or don't believe what he says, the peace that Jesus talks about here doesn't make any sense. About this promised peace, the IM quotes Elder M. Russell Ballard as teaching, "was He promising HIs beloved associates the kind of peace the world recognizes- safety, security, with the absence of contention or tribulation? Certainly the historical record would suggest otherwise. Those original Apostles knew much of trial and persecution throughout the remainder of their lives... Peace- real peace, whole-souled to the very core of your being- comes only in and through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
When I was studying the Book of Mormon, I remember asking, "who is more powerful? King Noah who was so terrified to die that he ran away from his friends and family to out run the Lamanites or Abinadi, who stood unafraid as he burned to death?" Who is more powerful, the converted Lamanites who knelt and prayed as they were killed or Amalickiah who was a slave to his hate and anger?  Where did that power come from? Were they all just so done with life that they welcomed a violent and horrific end? It doesn't sound like it, because that's a terrible way to go and they all had opportunities to denounce their God beforehand, they had a way out, but they didn't take it. The inner peace that these martyrs embraced came from God because they truly believed that Jesus would take care of them. They had peace while getting hacked and burned to death that most people can't conjure up on a best day, we have to ask ourselves, where did that peace come from and would it be important for us to have it? Does Jesus give that peace to everyone? No, he won't force it on anyone, he gives us a choice and when we accept Him, he will give us what He has, but until we want it, He will not force us to take it.
 
The ability to face trials, pain, death, tests, temptations, and feel at peace inside on even your worst days, that is a gift that I think most people would fine valuable. The IM quotes President Howard W. Hunter as teaching, "We will all have some adversity in our lives. I think we can be reasonably sure of that. some of it will have the potential to be violent and damaging and destructive. Some of it may even strain our faith in a loving God who has the power to administer relief in our behalf... Throughout his life and ministry he spoke of peace, and when he came forth from the tomb and appeared unto his disciples, his first greeting was, 'Peace be unto you.' But Jesus was not spared grief and pain and anguish and buffeting. No tongue can speak the unutterable burden he carried, nor have we the wisdom to understand the prophet Isaiah's description of his as 'a man of sorrows.' His ship was tossed most of his life, and at least to mortal eyes, it crashed fatally on the rocky coast of Calvary. We are asked not to look on life with mortal eyes; with spiritual vision we know something quite different was happening upon the cross. Peace was on the lips and in the heart of the Savior no matter how fiercely the tempest was raging. May it so be with us."
 
I loved that quote. I look at my life and I look at the life of the Savior and I have to think, "did Jesus really suffer more than me?" And logically I know that he did. But some part of me feels like he had an unfair advantage in his understand and belief of "peace." Looking at His life, up until the last few years, Jesus lived a pretty good life. We know that he was raised by very loving and capable parents, at least until he was 12 years old or whenever Joseph died. He was a man so sexual assault risk was minimal. The Jews were governed by the Romans at the time, but he seemed to not be impacted too much by that. He wasn't born a slave in the traditional sense. But we also know that Jesus was not born with the knowledge of who he was or what his life's mission was, just like us. I just don't know how he was able to resist temptation even as a child, when the rest of us can't. Maybe it's one of those things that I will have to learn in the next life.
 
Let's look at what we do know about the Savior's ability to live peace in even the most intense times. We know that he had an intense and active relationship with the scriptures, he understood them, read them, thought about them, and taught from them. I can personally testify that the scriptures bring peace, perspective, and the Spirit, so I can only assume that that's what happened for Him as well. We know that he was constantly in prayer, and not the "Hail Mary" type of recitations, but personal, deep conversations with His Father. We know that He kept the commandments of His time, even though there were many ways around the rules, He maintained the letter of the law but also the spirit of the law. Because he valued his relationship with God so highly, he spent much of his time and energy cultivating that relationship and that's how he came to understand who he was and what he was there to do. I look at all those things that He did, the way that He lived his life and I don't see anything there that we can't do ourselves. There is nothing stopping us from becoming just a spiritual as He was, and receiving the same benefits of peace and understanding that came to Him with the same process.
 
This begs the question, how do we go from keeping the commandments to having inner peace, at a glance, the two seem completely unrelated. It's like saying "if you make a sandwich, you'll come to know how dolphins think," the only response is "How?" Jesus tells us that the connector between obedience and peace is "the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." Again, I can personally testify that this is true. I have learned concepts and understood principles and events and the plan of salvation like I never have before and it wasn't because I learned about it from a book or a movie or anything like that. I learned everything through the Holy Ghost, things I couldn't have ever even dreamed of, concepts that were completely foreign to me 2 minutes previous, I could now understand thoroughly. This is something that I've firmly grown a testimony of, put a little bit of effort out there, and the Holy Ghost will teach you all the things you are ready for, and you'll be able to understand things that you couldn't in any way otherwise.
 
The IM says, "Two of the vital roles of the Holy Ghost are to teach us and to remind us of what we have learned. President Gordon B. Hinckley taught: 'The Holy Ghost is the Testifier of Truth, who can teach men things they cannot teach one another... Moroni (declared), 'And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.' While serving as a member of the Seventy, Elder Glenn L. Pace taught that the spiritual witnesses that come to us are sometimes the Holy Ghost helping us to remember truth: 'Sometimes the feeling (of a spiritual witness) is like a memory. We first learned the gospel in our heavenly home. We have come to this earth with a veil of forgetfulness. And yet lingering in each of our spirits are those formant memories. The Holy Ghost can part the veil and bring those things our of their dormancy.'" I love the teaching that most people will eventually accept the gospel because we all already accepted it in the pre-mortal world. This makes totally sense to me, when things sound familiar, or sometimes what someone says just doesn't feel right, and you can't explain it. Maybe that's why the Holy Ghost can speak to our spirit, because it was our spirit that experienced pre-mortal life, so our spirit is more sensitive to spiritual matters in this life, not the body, not the brain, but the spirit.