: . .
have no interest in assigning blame, but when we take responsibility for our
actions, we gain the freedom to do something different. For me, there is no
passage more freeing than Heaven and Hell 302:
If we believed the way things really are, that everything good comes from God and
everything evil from hell, then we would not take credit for the good within us or
blame for the evil. Whenever we
thought or did anything good,
we would focus on the Lord, and
any evil that flowed in we would
throw back into the hell it came
from. But since we do not believe
in any inflow from heaven or from
hell and therefore believe that
everything we think and intend is
in us and from us, we make the evil
our own and defile the good with
our feeling that we deserve it.
My ministry isn’t to
make people feel bad
about the things they’ve
done, but just to take
responsibility for their
future actions and accept
the consequences that
the Lord promises.
My ministry isn’t to make people
feel bad about the things they’ve
done, but just to take responsibility
for their future actions and accept
the consequences that the Lord promises. It really is a wonderful teaching.
Every now and again I can see a person light up when he realizes that he
doesn’t have to carry guilt over his past, or worry about who did or did not
do something. But buying into this kind of thinking, and implementing that
change into life is much more difficult than getting somebody to give me a
credit card for a parts order. It’s a challenge to overcome a person’s lifetime of
beliefs about “the way things really are.”
When that connection is made though, there’s nothing more satisfying. As
a minister I get to be there for people at the most important occasions of their
lives. Without a doubt, performing a wedding is the most fun, baptisms are
wonderful as I get to take part in a sacrament that brings the family together,
and doing a memorial service is a tremendous honor and privilege.
When I’m not doing the Lord’s work, it won’t surprise you to hear that I
still have fun tinkering with cars, and because of the weather in Australia, it is
a great place to have a cool set of wheels. I have a ‘63 Beetle for messing around
in and a go-kart I take to the track on occasion. While my life has changed a
great deal over the course of my journey from salesperson to minister, I still
find that my love for things that go vrooom is still with me. It’s just not as strong
as it used to be.
Funny thing is, and I do believe most people know this to be true, our
fears of being inferior or our love of being the greatest often get in the way of
our better selves taking over. Sometimes we let our circumstances or other
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