A Lesson Learned From a Green Beret

08 SEP 2012 found me standing at the starting line of the Judges’ Classic 5k Cross Country race.  This course is tough, comprised virtually entirely of steep hills, and I was anxious.  My heart pounding with nerves, I asked my coach, a combat-seasoned Green Beret veteran, what he would say to his teammates to motivate them before combat missions.  He responded, “I didn’t have to: they were ready before they got there.”  Half an hour after this conversation took place, I was completely unresponsive, having blacked out from heatstroke.  The coming weeks would tell me exactly what Coach Bendy was talking about.

Unsurprisingly, getting back in the saddle (or running silkies, in my case) was difficult.  Painful memories of waking up with only partial brain function haunted me.  To this day, thinking about the starting line of a race makes my palms a little sweaty.  During strenuous training sessions, I realized something: discipline trumps fear every time.  With each passing lap of the training field, I learned that apprehension flees when one grits his teeth and jumps in with both feet.

This refusal to be silenced by a lack of faith allows one to accomplish much.  After conquering himself, a man is able to shunt aside fear and do what must be done.  He is able to place others before himself, and conquer any obstacle.  Through habitually looking doubt and fear in the eye before stepping right over them, one is able to master any challenge.  Believe me when I say that there is no other way to do it.  Elder Robert D. Hales, a modern-day Apostle of God, said the following:

“We cannot expect to learn endurance in our later years if we have developed the habit of quitting when things get difficult now.”

Discipline beats fear and pain.  It’s as simple as that.

I know now that Coach Bendy’s commandos were ready before the fight because they were disciplined enough to be able to choose courage.  Through consistent hard work, they had prepared themselves to face death itself.  They knew what they had to do, and they were ready to do it.  Oftentimes, faith looks an awful lot like the discipline to press on despite the temptation to take a low road.  The sun may be hot; the miles may be long; but none of that matters if you decide that it doesn't.

Do I REALLY believe that?

Recently, I have been asking myself a rather difficult question: “Do you really believe all those fantastic stories about Joseph Smith you’ve been raised with?”  Am I so sure that he was telling the truth that I will devote my eternal soul to that belief?  To be sure, the claim that Brother Joseph made, that he saw God the Father and Jesus Christ, two separate beings, in the flesh, is truly a very bold statement.  To say this is true is also to say that the Heavens are truly open.  Prophets aren’t just a number of unknown people theoretically dotted all over the earth, but never to be considered personally.  If Joseph Smith was telling the truth, then there cannot possibly be any true church other than the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Pretty heavy stuff with very potent implications.

Must everything hinge on the testimony of one man?  Fortunately, faithful Latter-Day Saints, and any who taste the sweetness of this Restored Gospel, do not have to take Joseph’s word for it.  Allow me again to reference my time on the Hill Cumorah.  Get used to Pageant references, because there are going to be plenty on this blog.  One of the final scenes of the show depicts the Prophet, Moroni, giving his final exhortation to the people of our day.  For those who don’t know, Moroni is the final Prophet to write in the Book of Mormon.  At the time he wrote these things, he had witnessed his entire civilization and family be utterly destroyed.  He is completely alone, and he does not mince his final words.

 

“And I exhort you to remember these things; for the time speedily cometh that ye shall know that I lie not, for ye shall see me at the bar of God; and the Lord God will say unto you: Did I not declare my words unto you, which were written by this man, like as one crying from the dead, yea, even as one speaking out of the dust?  Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God” (Moroni 10:27,32).

I now ask myself a much easier question: “How dare anyone deny the sincerity and truth of that testimony of Jesus Christ?”  The power felt in that testimony is undeniably that of the Holy Ghost.  If the Holy Ghost confirms that those words are true and good, Moroni must have lived.  If Moroni lived, then the Book of Mormon is true.  If the Book of Mormon is true, then Joseph was telling the truth.

            To answer the question I’ve asked myself, yes, yes I do really believe that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of the Most High God.  Yes, I do believe that God loves enough to keep talking to us.  Yes, I believe that Moroni lived.  Yes, I believe that Jesus truly is the Christ.  When it really comes down to it, that’s all Moroni and Brother Joseph were trying to say.  Jesus truly is the Christ. For a very powerful example, consider Joseph's testimony of the Savior:

“And now after the many testimonies which have been given of  Him (Jesus Christ), this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of Him: that He lives!  For we saw Him, even on the right hand of God, and we heard the voice bear record that He is the Only Begotten of the Father, and that by Him, and through Him, and of Him, the worlds are, and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God” (Doc. & Cov. 76:22-24).

 How dare anyone question such a witness?  I certainly cannot.  Yes. Yes I do believe.