Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: (Matt 7:7)

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

House of Order

I apologize for not having any new posts lately. It seems I had lost what I was trying to achieve. I also got too involved with other blogs, and life. It wasn't until today that I read an article in the Deseret News that things were made clear again.

I hope this really long post will make up for my previous absence.


You see, I subscribe to the LDS News e-mails that are sent out daily with some great articles attached to them to read. The article today that caught my attention and that I ended up reading in its entirety was titled "Put homes in order, LDS told" found HERE. It was written by Carrie A. Moore about a recent stake conference that President Thomas S. Monson attended in the Salt Lake City North area. First of all, how cool would that be to have the prophet attend your stake conference?

But that isn't the reason I was intrigued with the article. President Monson tells us as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to put our houses in order. My first thought was "you mean clean it up?" Maybe I'm not well educated in those regards, but hopefully some of you thought the same too. He starts off the conference by telling us to love our neighbors. I live in the Phoenix, AZ area...so perhaps its different down here. I'm sure in Utah, when 80% of the neighbors in your neighborhood go to your church, its easier to know them and love them. But here in Phoenix, its a bit harder to get out and meet your neighbor. My wife and family moved into a new home about 2 1/2 years ago, in a small rural town south of Phoenix. We were so excited to be starting a new chapter in our life and really excited about the area we were in. We had lived in apartments up until this, so this was the first time to live on a "street" and have real "next door neighbors". So what do we do? Just what any other LDS family would do, we actually made cookies to take to neighbors and introduce ourselves! Wait...isn't that backwards? Aren't the neighbors supposed to bring over a cherry pie, or some treat to welcome the new neighbors? Oh well...we were too excited to wait around for anyone to finish baking and come to our door! We headed out the door with about 6 plate full of cookies. The first door we knocked on, no one was home. The next door we went to, we could hear the neighbors on the other side of the door quieting their dog, and trying to peep through the eye hole. We waited....and waited....and waited before we knocked, and they still would not answer. Maybe it was intimating to see a man and a woman with 3 small children and a newborn? So we left and went to another door, and again received the same response. We decided to at least meet the neighbor directly across the street from us. We were surprised when they answered the door. So we introduced ourselves, and gave them the plate while telling them we're new in the neighborhood. They seemed speechless. The gentleman fumbled and stumbled over his words, and wasn't quite sure how to act. We sensed his uncomfortableness, and told him we hoped to see them around sometime. We walked across the street and back into our home.

Fast forward 2 1/2 years later, and after living on the same street, we rarely see or even get to talk to this neighbor. But we have met some other great neighbors. Although we are required to love our neighbors (all of them), it sometime is difficult to get to know them. Now in the LDS culture we are taught that "neighbor" is not just in our neighborhood...but our fellowmen. Everyone we come into contact, we should treat them like our neighbor. Maybe not how we were treated when we first moved into our neighborhood, but with open arms and kindness. Again, this might be difficult in the Phoenix area depending on the type of neighborhood you live in, but we should not shut ourselves off from those that might need us.

Ok, well that was a long winded explanation to President Monson's first comment, that really wasn't the focus of his talk. =)

The focus was putting your house in "order", and I was hopefully going to explain what that meant.

The article didn't reference the scripture, so I had to do a little investigative work to find what scripture they were talking about. (Doctrine and Covenants 88:119) "119 Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God; "

According to this scripture a House of Order is not a "clutter free" house, but a house where the members are taught about prayer, faith, fasting, learning, and glory. It is a house of God.

A House of Prayer
I am so thankful for my parents making a house of Prayer when I was a young kid. Unfortunately it didn't always stay that way as we got older, but I recognized the importance when we did do it. Now that I am a father of 5 wonderful and beautiful children, I have wanted to share that same joy with them that only comes from prayer. Our kids range from 9 to 3 months, and three older ones have been saying their own prayers for longer then I can remember! (It stinks getting old!) The two year old started wanting to say the prayer a few months ago, and asks to do it (and needs a little help) every time we bless the food or pray as a family. It's amazing some of the things they say, and my wife and I have caught ourselves giggling and smiling at some of those. In the article, President Monson urged "Never dismiss the prayer of a child."

A House of Faith
How I wish my faith was like a little child's. They are innocent and untouched by the cruel world we live in. They have such wide eyes and huge hearts to love all things and expect the best. How important it is for us as parents to delicately handle these spirits. They will believe anything and everything you tell them. So impressionable, so fragile. My heart hurts for those children that are placed in trying situations, or dangerous circumstances. I can not even tell you the many times that I have actually learned a lesson in faith from one of my children. We talk openly with our children about things they will encounter in life at their age. One of the main concerns is peer pressure and the influence from children that do not share our morals and belief standards. We do not teach our children to avoid this kids, or to shun them. Quite the opposite. We tell them to love them, and to even share with them what we believe. Our seven year old (six at the time) would tell us numerous of times about kids that were not being nice or saying mean things (not at him, but other kids) and he would tell them that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints don't do those things. He would also tell them that Jesus was watching them and sad. What faith he must have to have the courage to tell his peers that. How many of us would have the courage to tell our co-workers or people in the grocery store to not say some of the things they do?

A House of Fasting
As mentioned above, we have a nine year old. How amazed I was at his attitude towards fasting once he was baptized. I'm ashamed to say that he has had to remind me a few times that it was Fast Sunday. I took for granted his great attitude towards it, that I was no help to a friend in the ward that asked us for help. Their son had just turned eight, and was not so excited about the idea of "starving". We could only suggest to get the kid more involved with the parent's fasting. To teach him more about what it was for, and to allow him to pray with them or help him come up with an idea to fast for. President Monson related an experience he had as a young boy with fasting. His mother would have him take a plate of food down the street to a neighbor who was alone. One Fast Sunday he asked his mother if he could take the plate once he had eaten his own meal. His mother declined his request and told him that his own food would taste much better if he did this first. President Monson said "She was right, it did."

A House of Learning
We have made academics a priority in our house. In today's society, if your children fall behind in school, they will not make it far in the working world. An undergraduate degree has become the new standard for hiring someone, like the High School Diploma use to be. Our oldest son is in the gifted program at school, and has already read more books in the last couple years, then I have in my entire life and he is only in 4th grade. Our 2nd grader is not as excited to read and do his homework, although he excels in anything he puts his mind to. We are blessed to have bright, intelligent children. But is that all they should be learning? Of course not, they should also be learning the gospel and its teachings. We should be reading the scriptures with our families, and we should be reading good books with them as well. Our children look forward to the time we have nightly scripture reading. Just last night during Family Home Evening, we had read the scripture in 1st Genesis about the creation of the world. Afterwards our six year old waited around and asked if we were going to read scriptures. We explained to her that we had read scriptures for the night during the lesson. She was so use to us doing this other way, that she didn't even realize we had in fact "read scriptures". I still have not decided if that was a good thing or not. But my wife started us off with a great family tradition a couple months ago. My mother gave our oldest boy a series of books called The Book of Mormon Sleuth. A couple nights of the week, we would read a chapter out of the book. It took us a couple months to finish the first book, and we are already excited for the next one in the series. It is pretty entertaining for adults to. In fact, when my in-laws came down to visit, we read two chapters on two different nights. At the end of the chapters she would get excited and didn't want us to stop reading. They have some great cliff hangers at the end of the chapters, that also keep children excited for the next time.

A House of Glory
I wasn't exactly sure what this one meant. How do you create a house of Glory? Well according to the talk President Monson gave at the stake conference, this is what he said "Making one's home a house of glory includes the need 'to be sincere with God. You can not be one person and pretend to be another. We can't live a lie...it is by being consistent that we can assure a house of glory." To me, that means we need to be "real." How many of us know a person, or persons that act differently in public then they do in private? These can be members of the LDS church, or they can be our co-workers. By truly being sincere with God, we are ourselves in all we do and places we go. In a round about way, my wife and I have been teaching our children this. We are sure to lead by example as well. There is nothing more that irritates me is when I see someone living a double life.

A House of God
By doing all these things, I truly believe we will then have a house of God. "A house of Order is going to include time for family, for work, for study, for recreation and for ourselves, and above all, time for Christ." As hard as I try, I have not found the perfect balance for all those things. It seems as I am being stretched in more ways then I am capable of, but its because I have not put my faith in Christ to help me out. It may not mean that we have time for all of these things every day, but they all need to be touched on and addressed. Our actions reflect what kind of household we come from, and currently belong to.

President Monson concludes with telling the congregation that this is our "building project." For those of us that need to work harder on some of these things, he recognizes that. Unfortunately we are not perfect in this world, and never will be. But we are to be constantly learning and improving ourselves. This building project is a great way to make sure our lives and children's lives are less complicated on this Earth. I testify this is true. As I have worked with my family and myself to strengthen ourselves in these areas, we have not had to face some of the challenges others around us do. Only when times get tough that we have to step back and reorganize ourselves and find out what we are lacking in doing. But always remember we will never be trial and tribulation free. We must continue to grow and learn in our mortal life to overcome temptations, so that we may return back to our Heavenly Father. I leave this with you all in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.