My Three Sins and the Love of God

Years ago I wrote about “My Three Sins.”  The three things I have needed in the world have always been:

Comfort, or physical fulfillment
Connection, or love
Respect, or admiration

The sin is not the need, so much as the attempt to fill the need with the things of the world.  I have felt as though:

Money could fill my physical needs for comfort.
Marriage and family would fill my need for a connection and love.
My career would fill my needs for respect and admiration.

My thoughts and experience is that God strips His people of all needs.  He has always dealt with his people in this way, removing the stumbling blocks of the world that keep them from finding Him, or that take them into paths of the world.  Some are denied what they want, and others are given what they want so they can see that there is no real fulfillment in it.

In my case, He has taken away all my money and lets me see that I can do without.  My business fails.  I can’t seem to be truly successful in anything.  I really am a failure.  "Money to business is like blood to life." (Phil Knight)  My business is anemic, and always teetering on the edge of life.  I find no comfort, but only anxiety and stress.

He takes away my love.  I get married seeking a connection.  We have issues, “like anyone else...”  I’m being patient.  I pray so hard that I could love my wife, so we could bond and have a great marriage.  I pray for knowledge to show me the way to find love.  I read all the books on marriage.  I go to counseling.  I work on it every day, but instead, she asks for a divorce.  My children completely reject all that I love.  Epic failure.  Then, I marry again, and my new wife cannot live with me.  I’m lonely.  It’s cold out here all alone.  I deal with loneliness.  My heart is broken.

He removes my respectability.  I became a doctor to find respect among men.  I went further to educate myself in the principles of health, instead of just giving drugs that are toxic, and only treat the symptoms, I’m looking for the cure!  I can really help people; I can do so well!  But, the Lord had other plans.  I lost my license.  I’m shamed among men, a pariah.  Now I'm alone working part-time in the office of a nurse.  It’s not even my office.  I have another job in a nursing home where I'm not allowed to use my skills.  This is not what I wanted!

Seek the Lord with all my heart.
I suppose there are two ways to go.  I can redouble my efforts to get the things of the world.  I could be like Scarlet O'Hara and do whatever it takes to get what I want.  Or, I could turn to the Lord.  The message of the Scriptures is that I could put my trust in Him.

To do that, there are two things that must be done:

1. Let go of the things of the world.
2. Seek the Lord.

Sacrifice
The altars (sacrament table, temple) represent sacrifice.  Every altar is a sacrifice that I must make of the things of the world.  I start to give up every inkling that anything in the world could fill my needs.  I seek for nothing in the world.  The sacrifice must come first.  This is true faith.  Putting my trust in the Lord means giving up what I have for some pie-in-the-sky promise of God.

My money is given to Him -- the “first fruits of the field,” and “the firstlings of the flock.”  I don’t give him what is left over, but rather what I need to survive, the best of what I have.  I pay Him first.

My love is sacrificed.  I let go of my wife and children, turning them over to the Lord.  They aren’t mine anyway.  I let them go to fulfill whatever He has for them.  They are in His hands.

The honors of men is sacrificed.  I give up my profession.  I allow obscurity.  I don’t boast in my own strength or knowledge and power.  I give it up.  I submit to the powers that be, becoming just another doctor doing what everyone else does.  I totally give up my own knowledge and wisdom.  I sacrifice my self-promotion.

Turn to the Lord
If I turn these over to God, and truly put my trust in Him, and have Him be my supply, my guide and stay, my all in all, then I will love Him because I need Him.  I will put all my hopes on Him.  I will put my trust in Him as I let go of the idea that anything in the world could possibly fill those needs.  He will fill my needs.

I don’t need money because the Lord provides for my needs.

I don’t need a woman, or children, because the Lord fills my heart and gives me hope, and love.

I don’t need respect, or admirers because the Lord gives me confidence as I become unselfish, not seeking my needs.

Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God;
D&C 121:45

There’s more, but this is as far as I’ve come to understand.  I know what I need to do.