Road to Damascus

A young attorney in my law firm in Salt Lake City, who was also a good friend, had an experience that caused him to want to find answers to questions, that before were not high on his list of important things to know. He, like most of us when our lives are good, did not feel an urgency to learn and search out answers or mysteries or treasures. That changed very quickly, however, when his active wife was diagnosed with MS and began having anxiety attacks and other emotional and physical reactions. One of the reactions was to turn against her husband, and make it clear that she did not want to be married to him any longer and insisted that he leave.  Up until that point their marriage had been good. They had young children and concentrated much of their love and energy not only on each other, but on their family. What was one day a love story, turned into a nightmare almost overnight. 

I was close to him and he confided in me and told me what was happening. The one thing he was always doing each time I walked into his office was looking for some answers in his scriptures. He focused on one that he shared with me found in 2 Nephi 32:3, specifically the admonition to "feast upon His words, for His words will tell you all things that you must do."  He wanted to know what he was supposed to do and was having a hard time finding answers, or at least the answers he was looking for.  And that is what he did, everyday for hours--feast upon the words of Christ so he would know what to do.  

During this ordeal which lasted for more than a year, he found answers to questions he was not even asking and discovered the good news of the Gospel. He discovered Christ and His plan of redemption, and he began 'listening' to His voice in His words. He found what he was looking for and it was to "hear ye him."

HIs wife was able to find help and her mental issues were being treated, and they were able to love even more and deeper, notwithstanding her MS, and what he found, even without a successful outcome with his wife and his marriage, would have been much more valuable, because it was eternal. It was his Road to Damascus experience, and like Paul what my friend initially set out to do was not what the Lord wanted him to do. Can we even imagine what the Lord means by "the words of Christ will tell you all things ye should do?" We can't come close until we have done as he tells us: "feast upon the words of Christ." Note that He does not say that the words of Christ will tell you all things ye must learn, but "all things ye should do."  

Without an experience like Paul's road to Damascus, or Alma's visitation by an angel, or my friend's harrowing experience, can we even be led to want to feast upon his words? What are the obstacles that stand in our way of our receiving that which is most valuable to us? I maintain that we do need a road to Damascus experience, but it does not necessarily need to be an angel, or even a life shattering or life threatening experience.

How will we ever have a desire or, like my friend, a compulsion to feast upon His words? What will it take?

Let me ask you a question. If during the pandemic you were told that at least one of your immediate family members would get Covid 19 and die, unless you did two very specific things, would you do them if you knew for sure that by doing them you would save a family member? What if you did not know for sure and were only told that it was  a 50% chance that one would die, or 10% or even 1%? Would you still do them? Now, what if you were told that it was an extended family member, a good friend or a neighbor? Would it make a difference in how you responded? What would you want to know about this threat? What data would you look to as validation that the threat was real? Would it make a difference if you did not trust the source of the information?

Of those I have asked this question the response has always been to ask what are the two things I would need to do? Let's just say they are 1) wear a mask, and 2) social distance, and by doing these you would save a family member, friend or neighbor. I don't know many who would not do them. What if one of the two things was rather than social distance, was to get vaccinated? Does that change the scenario for you? Can you put aside your beliefs to save someone else?

Since this paper is not about the pandemic, let me give you another scenario. If you were told that if you did not repent you would be destroyed, would you repent? What if you were told that all who failed to repent would be destroyed, even your immediate and extended family members?  What, if anything, would you do? Would you warn them? What if it was just a friend or neighbor?

In both scenarios, you would want to know the source, whether the source could be trusted, and the data upon which the warning was based. You would also want to know exactly what it is you are supposed to do and when you are to do it to avoid the calamity. You would not want to risk the outcome by not knowing exactly what to do, or by basing your response on faulty information. Or would you? Who would be a trusted source for you? What would it take for you to believe your source and do as instructed? 

Is the promised result in either scenario enough to motivate you to action? Perhaps the first scenario is more compelling because we can see and understand the immediate result if we fail to take the required action. The second scenario may not seem so immediate and is therefore easier to dismiss or more likely to put off, even though the source for the second scenario may prove to be the ultimate source, and just because the source said it will happen it will! If it does prove to be the ultimate source, will you recognize it, even if if comes from another person?

Hear Him say it:

"I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish" (Luke 13:3;5).

The source is the key or is it? I believe that the biggest obstacle will be you! If you can't get yourself, your heart's desires and your preconceived ideas and beliefs out of the way, the source will not matter!  You may even acknowledge, which is another way of saying, give lip service, that the source can be trusted, but is that enough to get you to act? 

What data would you rely on? If you were shown one specific historical example of destruction or captivity which resulted in a people's failure to repent, would it make a difference in your response? What if you were shown 5, 10 or even 15 historical examples and were told that they were types of endtime events, would you then give heed? Or would it require something much more personal like your own Road to Damascus experience? 

Even though having your own unique experience may motivate you to take the necessary action, you must experience and see what others don't see, and see it clearly. I am sure that Paul came away from his experience on the Road to Damascus clearly seeing things that he had never before seen. But how does that happen to you? The solution is not found through reason or rational thinking alone, but requires a change of heart or an experience that changes our heart. Trusting the source and gathering data may give you more information and maybe even cause you to be better informed, but will it be enough to cause you to repent?

The scriptures are full of examples where experiences change the heart and therefore the desires of the heart. Without a willing heart, one that is not distracted by Babylon, all the data will not be enough, even if you trust the source. Alma beheld with great joy that the Zoramites were compelled to be humble and that they were in a preparation to hear the word of God (Alma 32:6). "...for a man sometimes, if he is compelled to be humble, seeketh repentance" (Alma 32:13). But then Alma says that they were blessed because they were compelled to be humble, but "they are more blessed who truly humble themselves because of the word" (Alma 32:14). "Therefore, blessed are they who humble themselves without being compelled to be humble; or rather, in other words, blessed is he that believeth in the word of God..." (Alma 32:16).

Two other examples involve King Lamoni and his father.  Both were taught by Ammon and Aaron in such a way that made them part of the play, not just observers (Alma 18 & 22). It wasn't just Adam's fall that they learned about, but their own and the need for the atonement, and because of the word they were humbled sufficiently to desire to believe what they were being taught by the Spirit through Ammon and Aaron. Through the word they actually experienced their own lost and fallen condition and the need to repent and come unto Christ. They didn't need to be warned of destruction before they repented. They were humbled because of the word. And they both later said that all they could do was repent. (Alma 24:11). Usually the warnings come because we have refused to repent or think we need no repentance. 

I could elaborate on this, but it requires a willing heart, and a desire to believe His words. If we haven't already learned and experienced through His words our need for Christ, He will continue to do whatever it takes to get us to see and experience the need. And He will do this through warnings, reminding us of His Justice, inviting and even commanding us to repent. For Paul it was the Road to Damascus, for Alma the elder it was Abinadi, for Alma the younger it was an angel, for my friend it was a year of uncertainty and concern, for Tom Christopherson it was being Gay, for the Zoramites it was being cast out of their synagogues, for Alma the Elder it was hearing the words of God through Abinadi, for Joseph Smith it was a question that he wanted an answer to, for some it was having their souls illuminated by the light of the everlasting word, and for Amulek, for Zeezrom, for the Sons of Mosiah, for Corianton, and for you?

If you are not repenting because of His word, then perhaps prophetic warnings may be for you. But maybe before you will repent the prophecies need a warning like the one on your car mirror--things are much larger than they appear!.

Perhaps we can see the smoke, but not the fire. And even though the fire is racing up the hill, we may have not gone far enough down the valley to see it. 

Known as the Mann Gulch fire, after an area in Montana that had burned back in 1949 is a good example.  A decade earlier the U.S. Forest Service had created an elite team of smoke jumpers who parachuted into fires. One August afternoon, fifteen young men, most between the ages of seventeen and twenty-three, parachuted into what they thought was a small and simple fire. They landed by 4:10 p.m. and began to hike down into Mann Gulch, with the heavy packs and Pulaski axes on their backs. They didn't know each other and, as they hiked, they split into smaller groups. To their right was a steep ridge, to their left a creek, or so they imagined. There weren't many trees, just tall grass, but they were unable to see much ahead of them. A mile or so down the gulch, the creek drained into the Missouri River. Their plan was to walk to the river, cross over the creek, and fight the fire with the river at their backs. The river at their backs was their escape route.

However, as they neared the river, there came a shocking sight--fire. It had jumped across the creek and now blocked them from the river. Worse, it was moving across the grass toward them. One moment the fire had been invisible, the next a terrifying wall of flames thirty feet high. It was now 5:45.

They turned to flee, but the only escape route was up and over the steep ridge. Investigators later measured the ridge's 76 percent slope. The fire had a tailwind of 3 or maybe even 4 miles an hour when the young men first spotted it. Ten minutes later, at 5:55, the fire was traveling at 7 miles per hour. One minute later, at 5:56, the hands on the wristwatch of one of the young men melted in place: that's how the investigators determined exactly when ten of the fifteen had burned to death, still carrying their heavy packs and Pulaski axes.

The other five had escaped. Three had dropped their Pulaskis and made it over the top of the ridge--though one died the next day of his burns. The fourth also died within a day. The fifth, their thirty-three-year-old leader, the beautifully named Wag Dodge, survived.

His may be the most interesting story. At 5:55 p.m., with the fire just a minute away and rushing toward him at ever greater speed, he’d lit a second fire, up the hill he needed to climb. As his fire burned the grass in front of him, he walked into it and threw himself onto the hot ashes. He’d called for his men first to abandon their packs and Pulaskis, and then to follow him into the fire he’d set. Either they didn’t hear him or thought he’d lost his mind; at any rate, they didn’t really know Wag Dodge or have any reason to trust him. Dodge alone heard and felt the main fire passing by on either side of him, leaving him unscathed. Until that moment there was no history of a firefighter having done such a thing, but it became an accepted strategy in the fighting of grass fires. “Escape fire,” was what they’d call it. The event so captivated the writer Norman Maclean, best known for his only other book, A River Runs Through It, that he wrote a book about it, called Young Men and Fire.

We are reactive and tend to only intervene when things are getting bad, but what we underestimate is the speed at what is bad moves. Or perhaps we aren’t seeing what we cannot see because we aren’t looking for it. And unless we see very clearly that the fire is a real danger, we will not feel the urgency of the situation.

That is a tragedy. Because once you have seen what is in store—once you have seen that process—you want no one to be lost, you want no soul to be lost. 

"And we have suffered 

all manner of afflictions, 

and all this, that perhaps 

we might be the means 

of saving some soul; 

and we supposed that 

our joy would be full if 

perhaps we could be 

the means of saving some."

(Alma 26:30)

And the tragedy is they will not hear. They bring that death upon themselves and that destruction upon themselves, and others and nothing that is said or done stops them. It is best to repent because of His words, before the need to be warned, because for some the warnings are not heard until it is too late.

"O that we had repented before this great and terrible day, and then would our brethren have been spared, and they would not have been burned in that great city Zarahemla" (3 Nephi 8:24).

Everyone has a story they tell themselves about themselves. Even if they don’t explicitly acknowledge it, their minds are at work retelling or editing or updating a narrative that explains or excuses why they have spent their time on earth as they have. They fall victim to their own self image. If everyone has somehow come to believe that you speak French fluently, why contradict them?

Assuming all is well denies the possibility of disease already in the heart, just hidden from sight or diagnosis because of a bit of a Catch-22. So how exactly do you find something that you refuse to look for (the Catch-22) because you believe it can’t be there? Or you believe it won't affect you or those you love? 

One could think of the interventions like a fire extinguisher. It will be effective if the fire is caught early (say only a grease fire on the top of a stove). But once the fire has spread and half the house is ablaze, you can empty the fire extinguisher, but it won’t do much.

By the time people realize that their house is on fire, they need more than a fire extinguisher. The trick is to learn how to smell the smoke and see that it is your house and not someone's down the street.

There is this arrogance, or unwillingness, even to fathom that Book of Mormon prophets might know more about this than you do. That history has nothing to teach you. But it does.

Back to the pandemic for a second as an example. If the citizens in certain zip codes still insisted on some fiction, the virus would expose the lie. The virus will always expose that we are lying about ourselves, and what we think we need to do.

You let the falsehood continue until slowly the falsehood takes over. By the time you’re done, you are no longer just filling blank spots. You have this burden of maintaining optics. It’s all optics!

Learning lessons is like someone who looked down at their phone while driving and drifted onto the shoulder but didn't hit anything. The lesson is not as strong and defined. But had that person hit a mailbox or ended up in a ditch and wrecked his car, he would have learned a harder lesson. But if he had hit and killed a pedestrian or a child in his car, he probably would not want to get into the driver's seat again for a long time. In each case, though, the lesson is the same, even though our response to it is not. And our response is different because of the outcome or what we think the outcome will be.

If you want to preserve your personal immunity to the hard problems, it’s better never to really understand those problems. There is an upside to ignorance, and a downside to knowledge. Knowledge makes life messier. It makes it a bit more difficult for a person who wishes to shrink the world to a worldview. Perhaps this is why we have been told that we are ever learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Maybe we don't want to. Why upset the good life, the comfortable life with endtime prophecies?

If you told someone that a tornado might be headed her way in a week, she’d give you a funny look and go about her business. If you pointed out to that same person the tornado bearing down on her house, she’d dive for cover. 

I am interested in figuring out when and why complacency turns into alarm, and when and why alarm turns into action.

All kinds of things might happen to you in life. By sheer accident only a few of them do. That tiny subset shapes your view of the world, to an alarming degree. If your whole life had been lived in a war zone, you would react to warnings of an attack to protect yourself and your loved ones. But if you have lived your whole life in peace and comfort, warnings would mostly go unheeded. 

The Lord only warns those who have not either been compelled to be humble or have not humbled themselves because of the word. Nothing is more effective at putting us in the play than His words. Even Paul's Road to Damascus experience was an invitation to hear His words.  

Perhaps the best example for how we can have our own Road to Damascus experience is found in 3 Nephi 11.

As the people of Nephi were conversing one with another about changes that had taken place in the land Bountiful and about 'this Jesus Christ, of whom the sign had been given concerning his death,' they heard a voice and cast their eyes round about, for they understood not the voice.  They heard the voice again and again did not understand it. But on the third time that they heard the voice "they did open their ears to hear it; and their eyes were toward the sound thereof; and they did look steadfastly towards heaven, from whence the sound came," and they did understand the voice, and it said unto them: "Behold my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name--hear ye him" (3 Nephi 11:1-7 emphasis added). The key to their hearing and understanding was that they finally "did look steadfastly toward heaven, from whence the sound came," and quit conversing among themselves!

Calling others to repentance comes as a result of hearing Him. Can you hear His voice in these words?

"I give unto you these words:

Behold, I have manifested unto you, 

by my Spirit in many instances, 

that the things which 

you have written are true; 

wherefore you know that they are true"

(D&C 18:1-2)

"Behold, the world is 

ripening in iniquity; 

and it must needs be 

that the children of men 

are stirred up unto repentance, 

both the Gentiles 

and also the house of Israel."

(D&C 18:6)

"...for, behold, I command 

all men everywhere to repent, 

and I speak unto you, 

even as unto Paul mine apostle, 

for you are called even 

with that same calling 

with which he was called.

Remember the worth of souls 

is great in the sight of God;

For, behold, the Lord your Redeemer 

suffered death in the flesh; 

wherefore he suffered 

the pain of all men, 

that all men might repent 

and come unto him.

And he hath risen again 

from the dead, that 

he might bring all men unto him, 

on conditions of repentance.

And how great is his joy 

in the soul that repenteth!

Wherefore, you are called 

to cry repentance unto this people."

(D&C 18:9-14)

Talk about your own Road to Damascus experience! You are called like Paul to not only to repent but to call others to repentance! Can you hear Him speaking to you?

"And I, Jesus Christ, 

your Lord and your God, 

have spoken it.

These words are not of 

men nor of man, but of me; 

wherefore, you shall testify 

they are of me and not of man;

For it is my voice which 

speaketh them unto you; 

for they are given 

by my Spirit unto you, 

and by my power 

you can read them one to another; 

and save it were by my power 

you could not have them;

Wherefore, you can testify 

that you have heard my voice, 

and know my words."

(D&C 18:33-36)

I like the phrase 'stirred up unto repentance.' What better way to stir people up than with His words! And a lot of people saying nothing but repentance will stir people up. He is the source. He has spoken and given us His words. It is now up to us to hear them and teach them to others!

But how does He define repentance? 

Being active is not repentance. 

Being a good father or mother is not repentance. 

Being nice and kind is not repentance.

Paying tithing is not repentance. 

Going to the temple is not repentance. 

Having an important calling is not repentance.

And these have nothing to do with repentance.

As evidence--

"And he spake this parable 

unto certain which trusted 

in themselves that 

they were righteous, 

and despised others:

Two men went up into 

the temple to pray; 

the one a Pharisee, 

and the other a publican.

The Pharisee stood and 

prayed thus with himself, 

God, I thank thee, 

that I am not as other men are, 

extortioners, unjust, adulterers, 

or even as this publican.

I fast twice in the week, 

I give tithes of all that I possess.

And the publican, standing afar off, 

would not lift up so much 

as his eyes unto heaven, 

but smote upon his breast, 

saying, God be merciful 

to me a sinner.

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted" (Luke 18:9-14).

And another--

"What shall we say then? 

That the Gentiles, which 

followed not after righteousness, 

have attained to righteousness, 

even the righteousness which is of faith.

But Israel, which followed 

after the law of righteousness, 

hath not attained to the law of righteousness.

Wherefore? Because 

they sought it not by faith, 

but as it were by 

the works of the law. 

For they stumbled at that stumblingstone."

(Roman's 9:30-32)

Just make sure you do what He tells you to do, and how to do it. And how do you know? 

"Wherefore, I said unto you, 

feast upon the words of Christ; 

for behold, the words of Christ 

will tell you all things 

what ye should do."

(2 Nephi 32:3)

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