The growing process

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Stake Conference
General Session – Sept 9, 2007 - Miracle of The Growing Process

Welcome:
I'd love to know how many of you grow gardens. But I don't want to embarrass anybody. Aren't they amazing?
I mean, you prep a little soil, put in some fertilizer, drop in some seeds, do a little watering and 3 months later you're pulling off of vines, digging from the soil, and plucking from free standing plants all sorts of food. And it's good food, tasting better than anything you can buy (with the possible exception of Brock's fresh corn stand)
I have really been enjoying the fruits of our gardening efforts this summer. Not only have I enjoyed the fresh taste of garden products, but for some reason, I have felt the miracle of the growing process this year more than usual.

As I have prepared my remarks this morning, I have considered on the growth process that each of us are literally engaged in. Each of us are growing and changing with each new day. We are like the fruit growing in my backyard. And without knowing all that the lord has in store, we are becoming, slowly, sometimes painfully, but nonetheless, we are becoming what he would have us be I would like to share with you 5 principles associated with gardening that we can apply to our own growth process.

Gardening Principle #1 - Remember that the harvest is the Lord's. The Miracle of Growth comes from the Lord

I'll let you in on a little secret – something my wife has known since we were young marrieds…I'm 'construction-challenged'. I'm one of the reasons why plumbers have 2 prices. One price if you call them before the husband butchers the existing plumbing and can't finish the job, and one if you call them after. If I had to build a house from scratch, the bad news is that if someone ever moved in, it would probably kill them. The good news is that it would take me so long to build it, and meet all the codes, that no one would ever be able to move in and get hurt.

And therein lies the miracle of our garden. Wendy and I are growing perfect food right in our own backyard, and yet we don't know the first thing about how to make a fruit or vegetable. This perfect food didn't go through some corporate design and development process, nor any manufacturing, distribution, or retail process. The Chinese didn't make it for us. We didn't employ any food scientist, or farmer, or specialist of any kind. We just cut up an old seed potato and dropped it in the soil, added some water occasionally, and boom - here we are pulling out full grown potatoes.

So I ask myself, Who grew those fruits? Who is making this happen? Is it me? No! I can't even paint a picture of a fruit that looks realistic - let alone make a real fruit that has the color, texture, flavor, and nutrients of the real thing.

Is it Wendy? No... at least I don't see her out in the garden giving growing lessons.

No, I’ve gained a testimony, that the Lord is the author of this miracle. He gives us everything we need, and then as wise stewards, we just have to be smart enough to use it. He gives us the sun, we just have to be smart enough to plant our seeds in a location where they will see the sun. He gives us the water, we just have to be smart enough to give some to the plants every so often.

Wendy and I could take credit for our great harvest. But we'd be fools. It would be like the story of the scientist who told "God" that He wasn't needed anymore. And when asked "Why?" the scientist responded that science NOW knew how to create life without his help. The Lord laughed a little and then said,"Show me" So the scientist pulled out a big ball of clay, and started forming a human shape with it. The Lord stopped him, and said, "that' nice, but use your own clay." Carl Sagan used to say, "If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you first have to create the universe."

The same is true for us.

God has given us life. He has given us these bodies. We may want to take credit for this life we have...But we'd be fools. God is the author of the miracle of our life, and for all the plant and animal growth that happens all around us.
He is also the author of our spiritual growth…of what we become inside. We are participants; taking his direction and watching the miracle unfold around us. ..but he is the Master who makes it possible. If we will trust him, we will become what we are ordained to become.

This principle is perfectly demonstrated by a family reunion we had this summer.

At the reunion my nephew who is a professional magician put on a wonderful show for us.
The fun thing was that for many of the tricks he would say “I need some help, will you little kids stand up and wiggle your fingers and say ‘abracadabra’?
They did, and wha-la, the magic happened.
One of my nieces children who is about 5 years old, suddenly believed he was doing the magic. And why not? Every time he would wiggle his fingers the magic would happen.
All of us adults knew exactly the source of magic. But the young boy, didn’t know any better, and he believe that the power was coming from him. And so he kept doing the magic, and each time my nephew would follow along and make it happen.
I felt bad for him, and for his parents for someday, this little boy would realize that he wasn’t the one performing the magic. He had a big disappointment in store.
It's like us…so many times we believe it is us who are in charge, we believe that we are the authors of the magic or of the harvest, when in reality it is the goodness and guidance of God that makes daily miracles happen on our behalf.

Like the sun and water in our garden, which we take advantage of to help the growth along, he gives us everything we need to be successful growers for our spirits.
His sacrifice provides a path for us to change and repent of poor choices we've made.
His resurrection provides a path for us to become immortal and even eternal for the eternities.
We just have to be smart enough to use these things he's given us.
We just have to be smart enough to follow him and do as he would do.

I hope we all recognize our need for Christ in our own growth. We can't do it alone. We can't grow into what we are able to become with our own strength only. We NEED his atonement. We NEED his help.

Gardening Principle #2 is that you reap what you sew. Seeds grow only into what they are ordained to become.

Gardening is so miraculous to me, because the smallest seeds just grow without instructions into what they should become.
If you plant a zucchini seed, you'll get a zucchini fruit.
If you plant a cucumber seed, you'll get a cucumber fuit.
You will never get a winter squash if you plant a crookneck squash.
Of course you can do what we did this year, and plant something that the store TOLD us was crookneck squash, which in reality was some strange ufo shaped plant that we can't identify.
But we know, that whatever it is, came from a seed for that specific plant, because we know we will always get what that plant was ordained to become. You will only reap, what you sew.

It is the same for us. We are the seed, and we are growing into that which God has ordained us to be.

And what is it we are ordained to become?

Probably the best place to get an answer to that question is in the temple as it teaches us exactly what we are ordained to become.
But Paul also told us what we are ordained to become when he said that we are to grow "...in the aunity of the faith, and of the bknowledge of the Son of God, unto a cperfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ"
In other words, we are ordained to 'be perfect, even as our father in heaven and Christ are perfect.'

But our growth into perfection doesn't happen just because we decide to grow wonderful fruit…it only happens when we get connected to the Savior, and let his nourishment fill us everyday.

aAbide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the avine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without bme ye can do nothing. • • • Herein is my Father aglorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. • • •

Of course right now, we may not feel like we're destined for much greatness, or that we will bear fruit which will glorify the Father. I mean just as Buckminster Fuller said: "There's nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it is going to become a butterfly." So though we may feel that there is nothing in our lives that tells us we are going to become perfected children of a Holy Father. And yet caterpillars do turn into butterflies. And we will grow unto the stature of the fulness of Christ - if we will stay connected to the true vine.

Gardening Principle #3 - Prepare for the harvest
While the growing season for the vegetables in our garden is only 3 months from seed to final harvest, the growing season for our eternal lives is longer - much longer. It goes beyond this life and into the eternities ahead where eternal progress allows for eternal growth. We should plan for our future harvest.

I was touched by a commercial I saw years ago. It showed a young boy out running on a dirt track, alone, getting tired, but running hard. And as he ran, things began to change. He grew older…first he turned into an older teen running in his high school track uniform, and then into a young adult running for olympic glory. He got more muscle as he ran. He moved faster and with more drive. As he ran, the crowds in the stands got larger and screamed louder. And finally at the end of commercial just as the racer crossed the finish line to win the olympic gold, everything changed back to the scene of the young boy, on the dirt track, alone, running for all he's got and no one is there cheering for him. But as this young boy crossed this finish line, and you think he's alone as he pauses to catch his breath, a man comes over to comfort and encourage him. You then look up into his face, and it's his older self who then reaches out and gives him a big hug and a smile. It occurred to me then, there will never be a bigger fan of what you do today, than your older self. There will never be a bigger critic of your poor choices than your older self.

I have often thought about that older self of ours. Would he or she be happy with the choices we are making right now? Are we heading on a path that will lead us to greater happiness, or misery? Are we making decisions which will help us to be healthy longer, to endear us to our families, to have a stronger relationship with our Father in Heaven. Or are we doing things, which our older self will have to repair or deal with which will cause misery, anger, or frustration with our laziness and inability to get things done now. Will he or she be pleased with our work, or disappointed in what we have sought to do.

Some might think, I'm too old to start planning on a future. Or I am too set in my ways. Or I have too many problems heaped upon me from my childhood to start fixing things now. Or I have nothing to look forward to. Nothing to plan for. This isn't true. That is what having an eternal atonement is all about. Throughout eternity, we need to rely on the strength of the savior to help us through whatever we are going through so we can have a wonderful future.

When we look at the eternities stretching before us, we're all young people running on our track trying to develop talents, virtues, and traits which will bless our future selves. If we're too old to develop talents of running or physical prowess, perhaps we should focus on developing talents of love, of kindness, of gentleness, of longsuffering, or other virtues we'll need in the eternities before us.

CS Lewis said of this - "Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live for ever, and this must be either true or false. Now there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live for ever. Perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse - so gradually that the increase in seventy years will not be very noticeable. But it might be absolute hell in a million years: in fact, If 'eternal life' is true, hell is the precisely correct technical term for what it would be."

Samuel Clemens said "If I had known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself".

Well Brothers and Sisters, we know perhaps better than others, that we are going to live a long time. In fact we will live forever. Hadn't we better do some things now that will help us grow into the happiest and best we can be a million years from now? Hadn't we better plant those seeds which will then grow and equip our future self with all the tools he/she will need to overcome their challenges?


Gardening Principle #4 - Keep the weeds away

We live in a world with weeds galore. They come at us in every form of media we choose. They come at us in the schools, in the malls, and in workplace.

If we allow them, weeds will surround us, and wrap themselves around us until they squeeze out any nourishment we may be getting, until we perish from lack of water or sunlight, or nourishment.

If we remove them from our lives, the sun, water, and soil will enable us to continue our healthy growth and we will bear fruit.

So how do we make choices which will destroy the weeds around us?

One of my favorite books is entitled "The Paradox of Choice - Why More is Less" by Barry Scwartz. The jist of his research is that we live in a complex world made more and more challenging by the growing number of choices we have to make.

He describes just a little about the choices we face...

"Scanning the shelves of my local supermarket recently, I found 85 different varieties and brands of crackers. As I read the packages, I discovered that some brands had sodium, others didn't. Some were fat-free, others weren't. They came in big boxes and small ones. They came in normal size and bite size. There were mundane saltines and exotic and expensive imports. My neighborhood supermarket is not a particularly large store, and yet next to the crackers were 285 varieties of cookies. Among chocolate chip cookies, there were 21 options….Next, in the snack aisle, there were 95 options in all — chips (taco and potato, ridged and flat, flavored and unflavored, salted and unsalted, high fat, low fat, no fat), pretzels, and the like, including a dozen varieties of Pringles. Nearby was seltzer, no doubt to wash down the snacks. Bottled water was displayed in at least 15 flavors."

Did you catch that? Not only are people paying for something that comes out of their faucett for free, but they have 15 choices!

Mr Schwartz pointed out that there were over 30,000 items to choose from. He then demonstrated that these 30,000 items are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the extreme number of choices we have. When you look at the product and service options we have just from electronics, entertainment, transportation, fashion, communications, and education, to employment, insurance, and investments we can easily be overwhelmed by the literally millions of choices we have to make. And yet choices about products and services are the EASY choices.

There are even more important and challenging choices we have to make about modesty, morality, and health. About relationships with family friends and co-workers. About how to use time, and how to use resources. About what is right and what is wrong. And with these millions of choices comes stress filled hours, days, weeks, even years of analysis, regret, worry, second guessing, reversed decisions, fear of making poor choices, etc.

So with all of these choices we have to make, how can we possibly make 'the right choices', to make choices which will remove the weeds, and enable the nourishment of the vine?

Again the Lord has prepared the way to help us. He has restored the Gospel of Jesus Christ in these latter-days.

The gospel gives us aids to help us in our decision making. It give us standards on what to wear, eat and drink, how to spend time with entertainment, and what kind of friends to make. It gives us standards to help us stay healthy and how to treat others. We receive assignments and callings to help us spend our time in service. It teaches us how to spend our Sabbath day, and how to bless others with our time, talents, and resources. It helps us understand how to feel about having a family and the importance of staying morally clean. It encourages us to get educated . And teaches us the types of music and dancing we should participate in. It teaches us the kinds of language we should and shouldn't use.

The gospel gives us moral filters. It gives us commandments to help us avoid destructive choices and make the best choices. It gives us the plan we are here to participate in. It gives us the example of Christ, and tells us to follow him so that we may attain unto the fulness of his Stature.

I love these standards and these guides which help me make good choices. However, the Lord hasn't commanded us in all things. He hasn't told us what we can/should do in every situation. He wants us to learn for ourselves how to make good decisions.

If you're like me, often when confronted with difficult choices, I long to have the Lord 'just tell me' what I should do.
Do I go to mutual, or to a night forum at school? Or just stay home to get homework done?
Do I go to a Ward or Stake Fireside, when I've also been invited over to mother's home for dinner?
Do I participate in the Sod laying party at the church, or do I get a round of golf in with my brothers?

In some cases you'll be able to do both - like the brothers who got up early for their golf game so they could come to help us lay sod at 8:30am a couple of Saturdays ago. But sometimes you won't be able to do all the good things you want to do. And so we are forced to make a choice…between good, and better.

When you run into this situation, the Lord has given us the Holy Ghost to lead us, and to literally guide us. Also he has given us the Standard for making clear choices. .

15 For behold, it is given unto you to ajudge, that ye may know good from evil; and the way to judge is as plain, that ye may know with a perfect knowledge, as the daylight is from the dark night. wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God. But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do aevil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil;

Gardening Principle #5 - There is only one true vine.

Amidst all the other choices we have to make, we need to remember, there is only one true vine, one true savior to pick from. If we don't like his hours, if we don't think he is particularly convenient, if we don't agree with his views, or if he doesn't give us all that we think we deserve… my suggestion is that you not cut yourself off of the vine, and go in search of another vine. There isn't one with the True Savior. If we don't like our true vine, then we must humble ourselves and change ourselves. Because he's the only one we have. We must adjust ourselves to be more like him, rather than to have him adjust himself to be like us.

With regard to salvation, we have only one choice and that is to choose to follow him, or to not follow him. In reality we only have one decision to make in this life. And that choice is this: Either thy will be done, or my will be done. We choose.


Let me conclude , if I may a personal story from my youth to illustrate.

When I was a boy scout - I lived in Texas. And everytime I came home from a hike, or a camp. I would come home with poison Ivy on my arms, or fingers, or legs. It caused a terrible itch with runny pus, and bubbling blisters which started small but continued to spread until I could put calomine lotion on them and stop scratching them. My mom got tired of hearing me complain, so she suggested…'why not have your scout master show you what poison ivy looks like so you'll learn to stay out of it. Good idea right? So the next hike we went on I asked our scout leader - Jack Skye - to show me poison ivy. As we hiked along a fence line Bro. Skye's son Mike said, "Hey, here's some poison Ivy" So we all stopped and went over to have a look. Sure enough - it had leave's of three, so we knew to 'let them be'. But when his Dad came over, he said, "Nope, that's not Poison Ivy" Mike and his Dad proceeded to argue for the next few minutes about whether or not the plant was poison ivy or not. I immediately decided that I wasn't going to touch it, regardless of whether it was poisonous or not. But their argument escalated, until Brother Skye decided to prove his point, and he grabbed a handful of the leaves and began rubbing them on his arms. "See," he said, "there's nothing poisonous about these leaves ". And we continued our hike. A week later I went to visit Bro Skye in the hospital. He had almost died from Blood Poisoning caused by the deep penetration of poison syrum throughout his body.

I learned a valuable lesson that day. Never listen to adults when a teenage knows the answer.

No wait, that's not it.

I learned - that there is truth regardless of what people may say and that you will suffer the consequences of being misinformed if you put your trust in things which are not true. The truth on that hike was the plant was poisonous. And even though a leader, or the media, or friends or books, or anyone told me differently, the truth was that the plant was poisonous.
The Prophet teaches us truth. . And if the prophet warns us something is bad, even if the whole world were to say, as they rub leaves on their arms - "See that's not dangerous…See there's nothing poisonous in these leaves." yet it would still be poisonous. And once the poison is inside, they, and all who believe them will suffer for it. So be cautious... we live in a world that argues with the Prophet about whether some things are really bad or not…immodesty, tattoos, r-rated movies or pornography, alcohol, smoking, profanity etc. May we be wise enough to follow the Christ Standard, may we seek truth from a Prophet of God.

It's been so wonderful to enjoy this conference with you, and to share my feelings with you this morning.

May each of us seek to be firmly planted, so that we may enjoy the miracles of the growth process in our own lives.

I know God Lives. I have felt his spirit guide me in my life. I know that he is the true vine, the light and living water which gives us thr truth to bear fruit. I have felt his love within me which gives me strength to do hard things. I have felt his love for you.

I know God has given us a prophet to teach us the truth. To help us find out way through the maze of choices that surround us.

I testify that Christ is the only name under heaven whereby we may seek a remission of sins, and a resurrection from the dead.

I pray I may have the strength each day to say and live "Thy will, not my will be done." That I may be able to bear fruit to him.