Paisley: Hey everybody, welcome back Paisley. Imperfect here and
today, we are going to talk about strengthening our
families. I want to start with a quote from President Nelson. He
was Elder Nelson. When he shared this quote was back in October
of 2001 he said parents and children should realize that
strong opposition will always come against the work and will
of the Lord, because the work and glory of God is to bring to
pass our immortality and eternal life as a family, it logically
follows that the work of the adversary will strike directly
at the heart of the home, the family. Satan is attacking the
family, and he has been for a very long time. He's been pretty
subtle about it. Usually he's pretty subtle about it. There
was a television network not too long ago that had the slogan a
new kind of family, which even at the time, made me cringe just
a little bit. But Satan has been very, very subtle about how he
attacks the family, and he has a very well thought out plan. And
if you look closely enough, you can see it if you have
discovery, plus, if you have the app or the subscription to
discovery. Plus, I recently watched, excuse me, it's a
series. It's a series of series made by CNN. The first one that
I noticed was called the 80s, and it had a big picture of
Ronald Reagan on the front. And I was like, Oh, I mean, I was a
kid in the 80s. Let me watch that and see what that's all
about. So I started watching it, and then, you know, it shows up
on your recommended for you, they have the little recommended
for you list, and it started showing other ones, like the
70s, the 90s, the 60s. And I was like, Oh, well, these are cool.
Let me go back and I'll start. I'm going to pause where I'm at
with the 80s, and I'm going to go back and I'm going to start
with the 60s. And so I started with the 60s. And I watched the
60s and the 70s, 80s, 90s, and then the 2000s and then the
2010s and as I was watching it, I could see the deterioration of
the family. I could see it unfolding. I was just I was kind
of dumbfounded at first. He hides some really ugly things
inside some really good things, and that's what I mean by he's
very subtle. And it kind of reminds me of this old
Berenstein Bears books that that I had when I was a kid. This one
book, and I don't remember which book it was. I don't remember
what the title of it was, but inside the book, Mother Bear has
this bushel of apples, and she's trying to teach the Cubs that
not everything that looks great on the outside is good on the
inside, and not everything that's ugly on the outside is
ugly on the inside. And so she takes these two apples out, and
one of them is kind of wrinkly and bumpy and kind of ugly, and
the other one just looks like a perfect apple. And she cuts open
the ugly, wrinkly one first, and it looks perfect on the inside,
nice and juicy, probably pretty crispy. It looks just like a
perfect apple on the inside. Then she takes the one that
looks perfect on the outside, and she cuts it open, and it's
full of worms. It's a wormy apple. And Satan does the same
thing. He gets ugly things, and he puts them inside of pretty
things to try and distract us from the ugliness that it is. So
to continue and quote Elder Nelson again, he said, because
the evil one is ever at work, our vigilance cannot be relaxed,
not even for a moment. A small and seemingly innocent
invitation can turn into a tall temptation, which can lead to
tragic transgression. He also talks about addiction in this
particular article, this talk, and so that's kind of what that
that quote is about, that we have to be increasingly vigilant
and not let our guard down ever he continues. Satan wants us to
be miserable just as He is. He would animate our carnal
appetites, entice us to live in spiritual darkness and doubt the
reality of life after death. He wants us to be miserable. Satan
delights in your misery. That's another president Nelson quote
that I still have on a sticky note up on my wall. Satan
delights in your misery and mine. But there's hope, and
there are things that we can do to strengthen our families
against the constant onslaught of garbage. That is it's coming
at us from everywhere. The talk that I've been quoting from is
called set, set in order thy house. And there's a section
within that talk that has a subtitle that says, how to set
your. House in order, and it seems pretty simple. Remember
that simple does not mean easy. Just because it's simple does
not mean it's going to be easy in execution. Keep that in mind,
but don't let it be discouraging. He says, to set
our house in an order pleasing to the Lord, we need to do it
his way. We are to employ his attributes of righteousness,
godliness, faith, love, patience and meekness, six things so far.
Spoiler alert, there's 11 total. Then he calls out the fathers
and their use of the priesthood in their home. It's almost a
rebuke. He quotes from Doctrine and Covenants, 121, verse, 41
and he says each father should remember that no power or
influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the
priesthood, only by persuasion long suffering, by gentleness
and meekness and by love unfeigned. There's the other
five. Now I want to add here, though, that as mothers, as
women, we have been learning a lot more in more recent years
about our role within the priesthood and our ability to
call upon its power and use the power of the priesthood in our
own lives. So I would argue that that quote also applies to us,
which he kind of alludes to in his next sentence. He says
parents are to be living examples of kindness and pure
knowledge, which greatly enlarge the soul. Each mother and father
should lay aside selfish interests and avoid any thought
of hypocrisy, physical force or evil speaking so. That was the
number one thing that we're supposed to do, employ
attributes of righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience
and meekness, while becoming living examples of kindness and
pure knowledge. We need to be selfless and honest and not use
physical force, no pressure and hardly anything to do, right?
That's a lot. But there's one other thing that he said. He
said, Not only are parents to cling to the word of the Lord,
but they have a divine mandate to teach it to their children.
And he somewhat paraphrases Doctrine and Covenants. Section
68 verse 25 he says, inasmuch as parents have children in Zion
that teach them not to understand the doctrine of
repentance faith in Christ, the Son of the living God, and of
baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands
when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents.
We are responsible for teaching our children, and if we don't,
it will be on us. We will be held accountable for it. Okay?
Again, no pressure and nothing to do. It's all fine and good,
but how do these things strengthen our families? That's
a lot to try and figure out and weed through and take upon
yourself all at the same time. How is that going to strengthen
my family? He said, an understanding of God's great
plan of happiness fortifies our faith in the future. His plan
provides answers to ageless questions, and he gives two
questions, which I'll get to in a second. Fortifies our faith in
the future. That's how it strengthens our families. It
gives us faith in the future. It helps us have an eternal
perspective. It helps us to think celestial, to see beyond
this life and be able to see into the eternities. And what
doing all of these things are trying our very best to do all
of those things. What that can help us accomplish? Okay, the
two questions, number one, are all our sympathies and love for
each other only temporary to be lost in death? No. Number two,
can family life endure beyond this period of mortal probation?
Yes. The answers to those two questions that nothing is
temporary. We there is an eternity. There is an eternal
and celestial plan of happiness. That's what helps strengthen our
families. Now I've said this before, and I'll say it again. I
am not here to judge you or your family. I'm not here to judge
your parenting style. I'm not here to tell you that you're
doing it wrong. I don't know if gentle parenting is the right
way to go, or if the baby boomers had, I don't know. I
don't know. What I do know is that our heavenly Father knows
the right way, and He will help us as we turn to Him and we seek
knowledge, and we try to humble ourselves, and we try to become
closer to our Heavenly Father and to our Savior, Jesus Christ.
I am not a perfect mom, and 10 of those 11 things that I listed
off, I have a lot of work to do on. At least 10 of those 11
things. Don't let this long list of things be discouraging.
It's not meant to be discouraging. We. Are not meant
to become perfect in this life. We are meant to learn everything
that we can so that we can have the opportunity to become
perfect in the next life. And I'm telling you all of this
stuff because we are going to work hard and we are going to
try hard, and our kids are still going to do dumb things and make
dumb choices. We are still going to do dumb things and make dumb
choices. That is what this life is for. It's for us to try our
best, make mistakes, make some course corrections, fail again,
make some more course corrections, maybe even fail
again, maybe succeed. All of those little course corrections,
those are all helping us become closer and closer and more like
our Savior, Jesus Christ, President Nelson, said, Elder
Nelson, our family is the focus of our greatest work and joy in
this life. Our family is our focus as we focus on the family,
that is how we strengthen our family. Having an eternal
perspective and being able to think celestial that's what will
help us the most when all of these other crazy things are
happening all over the place, we just have to keep trying. We
have to keep trying. We have to keep doing our best. On that
note, keep learning, keep growing, keep pushing and be of
good cheer until next time you.