Fatal  Flaws

By Larry Doyle Crenshaw

MeditationsInLight.Blogspot.com

Of all the most foolish and fatal flaws

Being quick to do bad and slow to do good

Are a combination that gives heaven pause

As often, we fail to do the good we should

The older we get and the more experience we have, we become more sensitive and attuned to what are called fatal flaws.  These are deeply destructive behaviors we usually know about, but find so difficult to manage or remove.  Some, rather than seek help to eliminate them, spend their lives and energies covering and concealing them with layers of compensating behaviors – hiding them from others and sometimes, with enough doses of denial – from themselves.  It is a condition from which none of us are immune and for which most of us have some personal experience.  Hence, the need for persistent vigilance, faithful diligence, and humble teachableness.

Fatal flaws may be found in our character, our ethics, our management of relationships, or our business or management acumen. And, by definition, if they are fatal flaws, they will be destructive to our patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting at significant life-moments.

These are not those pesky, negative, and minor personality imperfections that we find a nuisance, but generally benign.  Neither do we refer to mental health impediments arising from our DNA and bio-chemical influences which cause our ever-so-temporal vessel to be sometimes fractured or broken.  These may be addressed by medicinal, behavioral, and spiritual remedies that remediate, moderate, or by gracious tender mercies that enlarge our capacity to manage and endure.

The fatal flaws of which we speak are often learned and reinforced throughout our life, but, even they are subject to remedial cures when we find the correct prescription.  These particular flaws run deep, even into the fabric of our soul, and when they do, our spiritual life may unravel and spiral downward.

The good news is that even these fatal flaws are subject to the life-saving, the life-restoring medicine of Jesus’s Atonement.  This week’s meditative verse focuses on addressing our spiritual fatal flaws and prayerfully pleads that we may be:

Quick to accept God’s kind courtesies

Quick to abandon the vile and the vain

Quick to obtain God’s tender mercies

Quick thru heaven’s gate to live and reign

Fatal Flaws

O how foolish, and how vain, and how evil, and devilish, and how quick to do iniquity, and how slow to do good, are the children of men; yea, how quick to hearken unto the words of the evil one, and to set their hearts upon the vain things of the world!

5  Yea, how quick to be lifted up in pride; yea, how quick to boast, and do all manner of that which is iniquity; and how slow are they to remember the Lord their God, and to give ear unto his counsels, yea, how slow to walk in wisdom's paths!

Book of Mormon   Helaman 12:4-6

Of all the most foolish and fatal flaws

Being quick to do bad and slow to do good

Are a combination that gives heaven pause

As often, we fail to do the good we should

O that we be not:

Quick to reject good works – believing them a bother

Slow to turn away from worthless and useless things

Quick to follow Lucifer, the evil son of the Father

Slow to forsake sin and the baggage it brings

And,

Slow to walk in God’s straight path

Slower yet to see our awful condition

Quick to evoke God’s rage and wrath

Quicker yet to shadow the Son of Perdition

O that we might be:

Quick to embrace God’s will

Slow to engage the sorrows of sin

Quick to serve others with Godly skill

Slow to join the evil and worldly din

And,

Quick to accept God’s kind courtesies

Quick to abandon the vile and vain

Quick to obtain God’s tender mercies

Quick thru heaven’s gate to live and reign

Larry Doyle Crenshaw

The American Decree

By Larry Doyle Crenshaw

MeditationsInLight.Blogspot.com

God has decreed that America be a land that’s free

An America of promise, but only if Him we serve

For once America denies Him and ignores His plea

Ruin comes and we’ll receive the deserts we deserve

We have come to appreciate that there are many wonderful lands and people.  Each nation has a history and heritage of promises of well-doing and covenants of well-being for its people.  However, civil society comes at a price and the human condition often exacts its will on those who struggle and sacrifice to give birth to freedom and its institutions. 

So it was with America, long before it was America according to one scriptural text.  It seems God has had His eye upon this land even as with Israel to whom He said,  “3 And ye have seen all that the Lord your God hath done unto all these nations because of you; for the Lord your God is he that hath fought for you….6 Be ye therefore very courageous to keep and to do all that is written … that ye turn not aside therefrom to the right hand or to the left….8 But cleave unto the Lord your God, ….11 Take good heed therefore unto yourselves, that ye love the Lord your God.”  (Joshua 23)

The Lord’s message to America was equally terse as He proclaimed, “And now, we can behold the decrees of God concerning this land, that it is a land of promise; and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall serve God, or they shall be swept off….” (Book of Mormon, Ether 2).  Whether or not one accepts the ancient Mormon text as scripture, its words and creeds are consistent with God’s message to all of His children everywhere, and in all places and seasons of history.

God’s ancient covenant with America, we call The American Decree.  Like the decree spoken to Israel of old, it is a homily of hope and promised bestowal of blessings, but predicts dire penalties if His divine will is ignored or He is no longer recognized and welcomed as its sovereign.

In advance, we regret the dark and burdening tone evoked by this meditative verse.  However, rather recent but foreshadowed events in the body politic and a seemingly immoral and crumbling civil society have evoked troublesome reflections, a heavy heart, and a troubled spirit. 

Thus we observe:

Seemingly gone, are statesmen of virtue, truth and liberty

Rejected by the crowd - discarding principle for popularity

As by degree, we usher in the dark-side of the American Decree

When that which we hold dear and revered, is no longer a verity

The American Decree

And now, we can behold the decrees of God concerning this land, that it is a land of promise; and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall serve God, or they shall be swept off when the fulness of his wrath shall come upon them. And the fulness of his wrath cometh upon them when they are ripened in iniquity.  For behold, this is a land which is choice above all other lands; wherefore he that doth possess it shall serve God or shall be swept off; for it is the everlasting decree of God. And it is not until the fulness of iniquity among the children of the land, that they are swept off.  And this cometh unto you, O ye Gentiles, that ye may know the decrees of God—that ye may repent, and not continue in your iniquities until the fulness come, that ye may not bring down the fulness of the wrath of God upon you as the inhabitants of the land have hitherto done.  Behold, this is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ, who hath been manifested by the things which we have written.

Book of Mormon   Ether 2:9-12

God has decreed that America be a land that’s free

An America of promise, but only if Him we serve

For once America denies Him and ignores His plea

Ruin comes and we’ll receive the deserts we deserve

For the decree of God is everlasting and firm

Upon those who possess this land of inheritance

Choice above others, as those who come and live affirm

A land of freedom and peace in a world of turbulence

The record of kingdoms and nations makes it clear

That God keeps His promises and His eternal decrees

Destruction will come when the people will not adhere

To His laws and obey Him in ever-decreasing degrees

No longer “one nation, under God” we spiral downward in decline

Led by those who seemly care little for Him or in His sacred decrees

Who promote not His principles or values, nor seek to know His mind

Who now tempt the American Decree, as we ripen in sin and iniquities

Seemingly gone, are statesmen of virtue, truth and liberty

Rejected by the crowd - discarding principle for popularity

As by degree, we usher in the dark-side of the American Decree

When that which we hold dear and revered, is no longer a verity

Would that this epitaph were less onerous or at least little more kind

And perhaps there will be a day when true principles are again revered

When people restore a nation under God and morality is again enshrined

And the American Decree is cheered - its warnings less dreaded and feared

I write this caption to my children and theirs, and theirs

That they may know of my love for them and this nation

That they may stand up for God’s promises and be His heirs

Children of the Covenant, destined for a celestial destination

Larry Doyle Crenshaw

Probation’s End

By Larry Doyle Crenshaw

MeditationsInLight.Blogspot.com

There’s inescapable moment in my existence

When there’ll be no more time to repent of sin

The Book of Life will close despite my insistence

And time will cease at my Probation’s End

In the hustle and bustle of our daily life and strife, it often becomes easy, even necessary, to put off the things of today for a more promising tomorrow.   Indeed, the art of knowing how to prioritize and position our tasks into hours, days and weeks is a worthy skill.  But as Benjamin Franklin said, “You may delay, but time will not.”

Our own circadian rhythms tell us when to go to bed and when to rise while the cycle of life goes on in between.   Unfortunately, we don’t appear to have a similar biological clock to tell us when it is time to change certain behaviors – to put off unproductive, damning, even sinful behaviors that are unbecoming as children of God.  Notwithstanding, the light of Christ permeates both body and spirit to enlighten, to inspire, to motivate, to help us evolve spiritually as we repent.

Hence, the cycle of our spiritual life goes on and on.  There will come a time however, when time, as we know it – is no longer.  That day will come without fanfare, or notice, or appointment.  That moment is not death – though most religions would teach otherwise.  The moment will come when all the work – all the instruction – all the covenants and ordinances allocated to this earth and the world of spirits are adjudged complete.

Such a moment goes by many names (some misleading), “End of Time,”  “Judgement Day,” “The Tribunal of Penance,” “The Last Judgment,” and the rather negative term, “Doomsday.”

To this list we add our own term in the form of a meditative verse, along with a plea that we prepare ourselves for “Probation’s End.”

Oh! May I flee from my errant inclinations

And not procrastinate repentance from my sin

But readily account for my deeds and deviations

When I stand before my Maker at Probation’s End

Probation’s End

O that we had repented in the day that the word of the Lord came unto us; for behold the land is cursed, and all things are become slippery, and we cannot hold them. Behold, we are surrounded by demons, yea, we are encircled about by the angels of him who hath sought to destroy our souls. Behold, our iniquities are great. O Lord, canst thou not turn away thine anger from us? And this shall be your language in those days.  But behold, your days of probation are past; ye have procrastinated the day of your salvation until it is everlastingly too late, and your destruction is made sure; yea, for ye have sought all the days of your lives for that which ye could not obtain; and ye have sought for happiness in doing iniquity, which thing is contrary to the nature of that righteousness which is in our great and Eternal Head.

Book of Mormon   Helaman 13:36-38

There’s inescapable moment in my existence

When there’ll be no more time to repent of sin

The Book of Life will close despite my insistence

And time will cease at my Probation’s End

O that I had listened to God’s word when it came

But footholds were slippery and I was surrounded

By nether demons who sought to stake their claim

Whose wanton desires for my soul were unbounded

“God, canst Thou not turn away Thy anger?”

Such shall be the pleading at Probation’s End

When the wicked are consigned to languor

With those who deferred repentance from sin

For then will my destruction be sure

As I receive recompense for my labors

Empty wages for acceding to Lucifer’s allure

Sinful, damning employment that God abhors

Oh! May I flee from my errant inclinations

And not procrastinate repentance from my sin

But readily account for my deeds and deviations

When I stand before my Maker at Probation’s End

Larry Doyle Crenshaw

Sealing

By Larry Doyle Crenshaw

MeditationsInLight.Blogspot.com

Endless is the duration of a divine seal

For Godly bonds extend beyond mortality

Unchanged, eternal, and beyond appeal

But unsealed deeds yield to a finite fatality

 “Nothing lasts forever.”  A statement oft repeated as we experience the demise of things once held dear.  Indeed, everything around us bears witness of things temporary, fleeting, and momentary.  Our very lives seemingly have a beginning and an end.  Shakespeare’s Macbeth, upon hearing the news of his wife’s death mourns, “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.”  Our material possessions, our work, - all that we have seem to have a beginning and an end.

However, we are reminded that there are dimensions beyond what our natural eyes can see.  There is a world that exists whose laws operate on a plane different from our finite earthly dimensions.  The Apostle Paul revealed, “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18) Hence, if we come to understand and abide the laws of that usually unseen world, we can engage things that are eternal.

This gives rise to the question, “Is there a bridge, a way to be connected to this place where things are eternal?”  We affirm that there is.

The spirit within each of us is separated from Our Heavenly Father at birth as we inhabit a very temporal and imperfect body in a temporal and imperfect world. It is His plan that we do so that we might learn, grow by overcoming obstacles, and take mastery of our soul before returning to Him. Because we are fallen from a divine status to an earthly existence for a finite number of years, there must be a bridge that exists that will allow us to return to Father’s presence.  Believers in Christ attest that His Atonement built that bridge wherein we will all come forth from the finite grave to an infinite existence with an immortal body and spirit.

For many, this glorious doctrine, as wonderful as it is, seems a bit empty, rather incomplete, if we are left eternally without the companionship and relationship of our spouse and our children.  There must be a bridge, a way to eternally connect us to these loved ones beyond the earthly contract of “till death do we part.”  After all, we spend a lifetime learning how to be a better husband or wife, a better son or daughter.  Are we to spend nearly a 100 years learning how to be knit together as a family only to have this divine familial tapestry unravel with death?

We testify that there is a bridge, a divinely ordained connector between earth and heaven.  From ancient times such connectors or bridges were called ordinances and were conveyed by divine covenants. The writer of Ecclesiastes writes, “I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever:…” (Ecclesiastes 3:14).  Elsewhere we hear affirmed that, “…neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 11:11)  Yet, the marital ceremony done by man with worldly authority is only for the period of this life.  Is there not a person on earth today with priestly power to say to a man and woman, “You are now married and sealed together for time AND all eternity.”?  No government can do this and only one religious body claims such power and authority.

With authority to seal or bind families together forever, marriage and family relationships can continue into the eternities.  However, it must be done by those who have been given the power to do so.   “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.  (Matthew 16:19)  Therefore, we see that the binding together of husband and wife and children to parents is a divine priesthood authorized ordinance given to properly ordained Apostles and Prophets.  Not only are such sealings conducted by proper keys of authority, but must be done in a place designed to connect what happens on earth with what is recognized and certified in heaven. 

The opportunities for such sealings must be done on earth.  Therefore, those who pass on without such ordinances but later accept them with all their hearts, will need to have them done by others by proxy.  If they choose not to do so until “earth is no longer,” then they will remain undone or unclaimed.  Such is the power and the effect of moral agency.

Thus our meditation testifies:

Binding keys were given anciently and now

Divine welds between mortality and life eternal         

Everlasting links that empower and endow

With blessings sanctified, sacred, supernal

And we prayerfully petition:

May we be sealed both body and soul

Called up and anointed by the Lord

Heirs of celestial salvation within His fold

Crowned with life eternal as our reward

Sealing

Behold, I give unto you power, that whatsoever ye shall seal on earth shall be sealed in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven; and thus shall ye have power among this people.

Book of Mormon, Helaman 10:7  & New Testament, Matthew 16:19

Endless is the duration of a divine seal

For Godly bonds extend beyond mortality

Unchanged, eternal, and beyond appeal

But unsealed deeds yield to a finite fatality

For mortal deeds that remain unsealed

By the Spirit of Promise will be broken

When our earthly probation is repealed

And our final mortal words are spoken

Binding keys were given anciently and now

Divine welds between mortality and life eternal        

Everlasting links that empower and endow

With blessings sanctified, sacred, supernal

For sealing ordinances bind God and man

With covenant bonds that cannot be broken

Faithfully obeying God’s every command

Striving to be worthy of the sealing token

May we be sealed both body and soul

Called up and anointed by the Lord

Heirs of celestial salvation within His fold

Crowned with life eternal as our reward

Larry Doyle Crenshaw

Reflections

By Larry Doyle Crenshaw

MeditationsInLight.Blogspot.com

The science of reflection teaches us of bended light

Refracted upon a surface that diffuses its prism rays

As to give a distorted and skewed signal to our sight

And twist our vision and bias our constricted gaze

You remember the “good ole’ days,” right?  You know the ones - the days long ago when life was sweeter, more relaxed, and more easy-going.  Not like today’s hustle and bustle, deadlines, so many tasks to accomplish, and errands to run.  Certainly, the published events of those days were not like the headlines of today - so full of tragedy and horror.  At least that’s often the way some of us remember the past.  Often, as we look back, those days appear to have been more peaceful, less threatening, and less burdensome than perhaps they really were.

There is an inherent human tendency to apply what may be called “selective memory” to our past.  We retain the good and “sweep under the rug” that which we would rather not recall.  This tendency to deny remembrance of not-so-good past things can be a reasonable thing in some cases, where were we to dwell on past miseries would bring them to life again – only to mire us down in things that cannot be changed. 

However, to look upon the past and only reflect on the good denies the truth and can distort our present thinking, feeling, and doing.  In many cases these seemingly purposeful lapses of memory disavow us the opportunity to learn from past mistakes, to waste time and energy taking paths already taken and that previously led to nowhere significant.  To deny the truth of such memories is an exercise in self-deception at best.  At worse, it is an exercise in denying the truth of things as they really were.  Anytime we deny the truth, we are held in bondage by the lie. 

Hence, our meditation suggests:

May we look upon the past with the lamp of truth and light

Less contaminated, less blemished by our reflections

And with careful judgment, improve our historical sight

Of past days with purer perceptions and fewer deceptions

  

Reflections

Oh, that I could have had my days in the days when my father Nephi first came out of the land of Jerusalem, that I could have joyed with him in the promised land; then were his people easy to be entreated, firm to keep the commandments of God, and slow to be led to do iniquity; and they were quick to hearken unto the words of the Lord— Yea, if my days could have been in those days, then would my soul have had joy in the righteousness of my brethren.  But behold, I am consigned that these are my days, and that my soul shall be filled with sorrow because of this the wickedness of my brethren.

Book of Mormon   Helaman 7:7-9

The science of reflection teaches us of bended light

Refracted upon a surface that diffuses its prism rays

As to give a distorted and skewed signal to our sight

And twist our vision and bias our constricted gaze

Such is the glimpse into past days of grandeur and glory

When the world appears more perfect than really existed

For the passage of time oft shades the actual story

By obscuring the narrative as it originally consisted

When we are tempted to reflect on apparent better days

When our battles, it seems, were easily won and fought

Memory is oft vetted thru a flawed and filtered haze

Where the glorified past is revered more than it ought

Like many who engage this error-prone passion

Past light glows softer from an earlier time and season

For each era is filled with tribulations after a fashion

That later betray and accuse the memory of treason

May we look upon the past with the lamp of truth and light

Less contaminated, less blemished by our reflections

And with careful judgment, improve our historical sight

Of past days with purer perceptions and fewer deceptions

Larry Doyle Crenshaw

Secret Oaths and Combinations

By Larry Doyle Crenshaw

MeditationsInLight.Blogspot.com

There are secret oaths and evil combinations

Of such we are reluctant to write or offer exposition

But think it wise to warn against such vile associations

That we be not blind to their evil design and disposition

To speak or write of dark things is not something one should do casually.   But from time to time, it is important to turn a spotlight on such things – to raise a warning voice.  Such was the case when an ancient prophet looked at our day and said, "The Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this secret combination which shall be among you.... For it cometh to pass that whoso buildeth it up seeketh to overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries." (Book of Mormon, Ether 8:14-26.)

Many of us are beginning to feel a sense of being in an “awful situation” as we look for principled people to take key leadership roles in our countries around the world.   Regardless of country or nationality, we look about us today and watch as the apparent majorities seem to love assertive, even abusive power more than principle, and the promise of not just something for nothing, but nearly everything for nothing.  Once value-based societies are voting, legislating, and by judicial decree creating valueless societies.

In some countries dishonest, deceitful, power-hungry and narcissistic personalities seem to be “the people’s choice” for ministerial, parliamentary, and democratic legislative and executive positions.  Reasonable public discourse is descending into political pundancy and weightier matters go wanting.  

According to the ancient philosopher Aristotle, “Nature abhors a vacuum.”  In the space where legislative, executive, and judicial discourse, decision, and leadership should abound, we sense a void, a vacuum.  History has taught us that such a vacuum is a most dangerous situation.  When national leaders are bereft of leadership, principle, and basic goodness, then we make room for what the Apostle Paul called, “… principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness … and spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Ephesians 6:12)  When hate and fear become part of a political platform, the masses are ripe for recruitment into various forms of radicalism.

Hence, we cautiously write of dark things, but do so in the hope of alerting us to “awful things” that may come.

Whispering in gullible ears and hearts by designing men

In every generation, scheming how to control our soul

Through plots of intimidation with no limits as to sin

Covenanted combinations of evil luring us into their fold

But with these warnings we plead and pray for spiritual strength and resolve:

May our covenants be with He who reigns above

And forswear the secrets of him who reigns below

Living in obedience, righteousness, and Godly love

Secure through Him from whom all blessings flow

Secret Oaths and Combinations

But behold, Satan did stir up the hearts …, insomuch that they did unite with those bands of robbers, and did enter into their covenants and their oaths, that they would protect and preserve one another in whatsoever difficult circumstances they should be placed, ….  And it came to pass that they did have their signs, yea, their secret signs, and their secret words; ….And behold, it is he who is the author of all sin. And behold, he doth carry on his works of darkness … and doth hand down their plots, and their oaths, and their covenants, and their plans of awful wickedness, from generation to generation according as he can get hold upon the hearts of the children of men.

Book of Mormon   Helaman 6:21-22, 25-26, 30

There are secret oaths and evil combinations

Of such we are reluctant to write or offer exposition

But think it wise to warn against such vile associations

That we be not blind to their evil design and disposition

Founded by the author of sin and wicked abomination

Promoted by him who seeks our ultimate destruction

He seeks recruits for his band and brand of alienation

With secret oaths and signs, and other evil instruction

Whispering in gullible ears and hearts by designing men

In every generation, scheming how to control our soul

Through plots of intimidation with no limits as to sin

Covenanted combinations of evil luring us into their fold

Let us avoid such wicked combinations and turn away

Protected by the armor of light and the Spirit’s sword

Let us defend our liberties and all God’s covenants obey

Until Satan is bound and perpetual peace is restored

May our covenants be with He who reigns above

And forswear the secrets of him who reigns below

Living in obedience, righteousness, and Godly love

Secure through Him from whom all blessings flow

Larry Doyle Crenshaw