Charity 5 - 1 Corinthians 13:7

Yesterday I ended with the question, “would Jesus attend a gay wedding if he were here today?” It’s interesting because this never would have even been a question for me before 2008 when Prop 8 became such a big thing. I feel like sometimes I’m caught between what I should do to stay right with Jesus and what that actually means. I spent the whole afternoon yesterday thinking about this so I asked two of my friends who are active members of the Church and who are quite a bit more conservative than I am if they thought that Jesus would attend a gay wedding and they both immediately answered, “yes,” like it wasn’t even a question in their mind. It was really amazing to talk to them about it afterward and some of the ideas that came up were attending a gay wedding would only demonstrate that we love the person who invited us and we want to show them support for a happy life. We have to respect the beliefs of others and if someone is getting married to a person of the same gender than clearly they believe that it is the right thing for them to do. It is a very special occasion in their lives and they want us to be a part of it.

Not attending the wedding because we believe that marrying someone of the same gender is wrong is saying to the person that invited us, “I’m choosing to love you on my own terms,” or “I will only be friends with you if you conform to my life style.” That’s not what a friendship is, that’s not what loving your neighbor is. I realized that it would be like being invited to a Bar Mitzvah and not going because it’s a celebration of another faith that is not the true gospel. One look at that situation and we can see that that would be wrong. Similarly, we can look at the gay wedding dilemma and see that of course we should go. If we are close enough to the people getting married that we are invited to their wedding, then we should be grateful that we were included, not discourteous because we don’t agree with everything. So it was really helpful for me to talk through that with them because they had such great insight.

Charity:

Beareth all things – When I substitute the word “charity” for the phrase “the pure love of Christ” I ask myself what is the meaning of “the pure love of Christ beareth all things?” In order to live charitably towards others, I would need to put up with their imperfections. This isn’t to say that we should allow ourselves to be abused because I definitely don’t believe in that. Jesus created boundaries and we should create boundaries as well. People are annoying, people do things that are messed up, they hurt our feelings or flake out on commitments, but charity means we should love them anyway. How do we maintain charity without becoming a door mat? I ask myself this question a lot when it comes to my ex-husband. I feel like I give him every possible opportunity to be a decent father and I usually just feel disrespected by him instead. But I give him the chances anyway, I make arrangements for the kids to do stuff with him and I never tell them, “I was the one who got those tickets and gave them to your dad and asked him to take you.” I let them believe that he made the effort to do something special with them, because if I did tell them, it would make no difference to me, they wouldn’t suddenly respect my efforts and thank me, they would feel even more hurt by their dad’s indifference. I still do those things because I want my kids to feel loved by him.

I guess it would charity here means not holding grudges, giving second, third, and fourth chances if the circumstances permit. Maybe it means being polite and civil when the urge is to become rude and belligerent. I think to these situations where two people who are divorced can’t even be in the same room together during their children’s weddings or graduations or other special events. They are so consumed with their hatred of the other person that they can’t yield to their happiness for the accomplishments of their children. Charity doesn’t always have to be this grand gesture, so many times it is simply staying quiet when we have a sarcastic remark, or smiling and making small talk instead of bring up old hurts they’ve caused us. Does that make us doormats? I don’t think so. A doormat comes when we are being taken advantage of to our detriment. If we feel like we are being taken advantage of, but it’s not causing us any harm, then maybe that is charity too, I don’t know, that is a tough personal call everyone has to make on a case by case basis. If we are civil to someone who has hurt us, and it is within our boundaries then that is charity, and that is bearing all things.

Believeth all things – A straight forward reading of this phrase might make us think that we should believe anything and everything that anyone ever tells us is true. Clearly that is not the case, as we should only subscribe to things that are actually true. This begs the question, how do we know what the truth really is? The scriptures tell us clearly that the Holy Ghost bears witness of the truth to us. So if the Spirit teaches us the truth, what does it mean to “believeth all things?” I think in a very simplistic way, this means for us to actually believe the truths that the Spirit teaches us. It sounds so common sense, like of course if I seek out the guidance of the Holy Ghost, I will believe what he teaches me, but I don’t think that is necessarily true. 

I think about my own circumstances, and I’m struggling right now, I’m not going to lie, and I can’t say with confidence that I’m acting like I believe all the truths that I’ve been taught by the Spirit. These truths include that I wanted to be born into this life, that my whole existence is known to God and has been planned out by Him, that every trial that I encounter has been hand picked for me by my loving Father for my own benefit. I’ve been taught that the difficulties that I’ve encountered in this life will be eclipsed by the joy that is waiting for me in the eternities, and that being faithful to the commandments is the way to that happiness. I truly believe in my heart that the life I’m leading now is planned and monitored by God for my salvation, but I don’t always act like I believe that. When I’m angry or bitter or just feel crushed by life, I’m not showing God that I believe this life is for my benefit. And with this attitude I’m also now showing God that I believe that he can improve my situation or that his grace can help me feel better about what I’ve got going on. 

Believing all things isn’t a cop out to accept any and all policy that anyone spews that appeals to us. Believing all things isn’t a passive thought process, it’s a mechanism of action where our behaviors and attitudes demonstrate a confidence in the truths taught to us by the Spirit. It is me acting like my trials are beneficial for me and that God can strengthen me to outlast them, and being happy for the opportunity to do so.

Hopeth all things – I didn’t really understand how this concept was different than “believeth all things,” but an article discussing this verse from thegospelcoalition.org has an interesting perspective. I really like the way that the article explains the concept of “hope” because this is one of the difficulties I have with this word in a spiritual sense. It says, “It is the Christian ‘hope’, not the finger-crossing wishing upon a star of the world, but a certain expectation of God’s people. It usually has reference to the believers confidence in salvation.” While “believeth all things” has a similar meaning in that we actually believe that this is all for our good and act accordingly, the article points out that our hope (confidence) in salvation shouldn’t just be limited to us ourselves, but to others as well. The article says, “the difference is that ‘believing all things’ has an eye to the present, to ‘hope all things’ has an eye to the future.”

If we truly believe that this life is for our own good and progress, then we can also expect that this life is for the good and progress of everyone else. God is just as invested in the success of others as he is in our own personal success. It can be frustrating to see others struggling with the gospel, or even not have the gospel at all in their lives, but if we truly believe, then we can be hopeful and confident that God will work with them on the same salvation that we expect to receive. Because our lives are so tied up in the lives of others, friends, family, etc. it is not enough for us to believe in the truth just for ourselves. Imagine if I believed that God was heavily invested in my spiritual success and being able to return to him, but not that of anyone else. That would throw the wrench of cognitive dissonance into the wheels of our confidence. We feel that those we love are entitled to the same amount of potential eternally as we are. The article notes, “If we are to ‘hope all things’ it means that we invest the same kind of confident expectation that we usually reserve for God, Himself, in the people of God. To ‘hope all things’ means to confidently expect the long-term spiritual growth of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.”

This whole time I’ve been considering what hope means to me and my relationship to God, and while that has been very profitable, if I don’t consider what it means for my relationship with other people, then I miss a large portion of learning. We use the word “hope” in English so trivially that it really has lost a lot of it’s meaning when it comes to spiritual concepts. I’ve always interpreted it as a trust, a confidence like the article says. When I “hope all things” it means that I am confident in what I have received as revealed truth. But it also means that this applies to everyone else as well, meaning that we are all on the same path back home and even though the ways that we travel are all different, God is just as eager to have everyone else come home as he is to have me. He puts just as much work into the lives of others as he does to mine. This is really a freeing concept because it means that I’m just as special as everyone else, and I don’t want to leave other people behind.

Endureth all things - One way that this concept can be considered is in terms of who we allow our trials to turn us into. I’ve said it before but bitterness is my default emotion, it is my natural state of being. I think that a lot of why I am that way is because of the trials that I’ve gone through, I have allowed myself to become angry, hostile, and aggressive as a self-defense mechanism. To understand “enduring” something we have to think about what the opposite of that is, which is “not enduring.” In what ways can we “not endure” our trials in this life? Obviously, first there is suicide, that’s the biggest way we can not endure. When we talk about suicide, we have to understand that it is a very complicated issue, but in a lot of ways not so much. This life is hard, so many people have trials that I couldn’t even imagine. People have to battle demons that are so horrific that only the ultimate unknown, death, seems like a way to peace. There is so much that goes into suicide like mental health issues and deep, serious trauma, that none of us are qualified to have an opinion on it or the people whom it touches. Death is the ultimate unknown, there hasn’t really ever been anyone who has come back, except for Jesus. I’m a firm believer that anyone who suffers so much in this life that they stare into the greatest of all unknowns and take that permanent leap, has suffered enough.

Another way that we don’t endure our trials is when we don’t endure them well, meaning we allow negativity to overcome us and we become angry and bitter about our lot in life. I think it’s important here to note that it is absolutely our right to be bad feelings towards what happens to us in this life, we all have circumstances that are worthy of our distain. But the point is that harboring those negativities does not serve us, it does not make us happier in any way, and honestly, even when we use it as a subconscious defense mechanism, we are not actually more protected because of it. Some people are naturally good natured and forgiving and optimistic, but I’m not one of them, therefore I must expend effort when trying to overcome these detrimental character flaws. This is what charity is, we embody the pure love of Christ when we refrain from complaining, when we are grateful, when we have good attitudes despite being tried heavily and relentlessly.

The article about this chapter from gospeldoctrine.com says, “Our trials need not overcome us. In fact, they can teach us humility, faith, courage, and compassion, and can ultimately help us develop charity, the pure love of Christ.” If we are going to endure hardship, we must have a reason why we are doing so, and that is the eternal perspective. We can be able to be of good cheer when we remember why we are here, where we are going, and what’s waiting for us there. This is the belief and hope that is discussed earlier in the verse. Basically, the pure love of Christ is patient in all afflictions, believes that everything is for the best, is confident in the Plan of Salvation for all of God’s children, and lives a life consist with those beliefs regardless of what comes along the way.