Child & Family Advocacy W1
How do I know if I am defending myself or choosing to harden my heart and go to war?
Sister Julie Beck said, Anti-Christ is antifamily. Any doctrine or principle our youth hear from the world that is antifamily is also anti-Christ. It’s that clear.
in 1978 President Spencer W. Kimball raised this voice of warning:
"The family is the basic unit of the kingdom of God on earth. The Church can be no healthier than its families. No government can long endure without strong families.
"Never before have there been so many insidious influences threatening the family as today, around the world. Many of these evil influences come right into the home—through television, radio, magazines, newspapers, and other forms of literature" (Strengthening the Family—the Basic Unit of the Church).
READ: What is Truth? AND Will You Engage in the Wrestle
Give a lesson on Seeker Wanted: How to Avoid Spiritual Deception and Confusion
The tripod of truth is pretty enlightening. A tripod cannot stand on one or two legs, you need all three. He said the fruits leg of the tripod is the most important because if we only look at feelings and thoughts but not what those feelings and thoughts are producing then we can become deceived.
The prophet Joseph Smith put it this way in Gaining Knowledge of Eternal Truths:
“A man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge, for if he does not get knowledge, he will be brought into captivity by some evil power in the other world, as evil spirits will have more knowledge, and consequently more power than many men who are on the earth” (History of the Church, 5: 588).
*I want to read Gaining Knowledge of Eternal Truths when I get the time. It looks really insightful.
Optional Material
Sacred
- The Two Great Commandments, President Dallin H. Oaks.
- Which Way Do You Face? by Elder Lynn G. Robbins.
Secular
- Bonds That Make Us Free, by C. Terry Warner, PhD.
Philosophy professor C. Terry Warner further develops this idea in his ground-breaking book, Bonds That Make Us Free:
"When we betray ourselves and shift responsibility onto others by means of our accusing thoughts and feelings...we believe it is their mistreatment of us that leads us to accuse them. This is the self-betrayer’s lie. The truth—the profound, almost world-shaking truth—is that we accuse them because of our mistreatment of them. Seldom has this profound insight been more arrestingly expressed than by King Solomon: 'A lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it' (Proverbs 26:28).
"Fable: Our accusing, self-excusing feelings such as anger, frustration, bitterness, self-pity, and so on, are signals that we are in the right.
"Fact: Such feelings are signals that we are in the wrong.
"To a person who has accusing thoughts and feelings, the things I have been saying will seem unbelievable. “What if the accusing feelings are how I really feel? I’m not just pretending to have them. How can you say they are lies?'
"...self-betrayers truly do have their accusing, self-excusing feelings. But this does not mean that the feelings themselves are truthful. We can take up a false position with our emotions and attitudes just as well as with our words.
"Fable: When we’re stuck in troubled feelings, we believe that all our feelings are true—that is to say, we believe that by our emotions at that moment we are making accurate judgments about what’s happening. If I’m angry with you, I’m certain that you are making me angry.
"Fact: Though we truly have these feelings, they are not necessarily true feelings. More likely I’m angry because I’m misusing you, not because you are misusing me." (pp. 30-31)
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