Anxiously engaged

No, I’m not engaged. :P

Earlier this morning I was feeling somewhat under the weather, but it almost seemed like it was because I was dead tired and not because of something else. “Come on, Ben,” I told myself, “you can overcome this. You’re not sick!” While I don’t necessarily subscribe fully to the mind-control-over-body theories, and I don’t expect to be levitating around anytime soon, I do think that we can affect our physical state to at least some degree. The power of the will is strong.

And as I was walking out of class, grateful I hadn’t had to slip out halfway through to empty my stomach and hoping I wouldn’t explode before I reached a safe haven, I thought more about how much power really is latent in us. Agency is amazing, indomitable, powerful beyond measure.

“But what about turning your will over to God?” I asked myself. And that’s the best part: God doesn’t want us to have weak willpower, to be bland or wishy-washy. He wants us to develop our willpower into a mighty force, and then turn it over to Him so He can do some serious good with it. It’s beautiful. Being strongheaded is wonderful if we let God direct our strongheadedness. Active is better than passive. If the only thing we can really offer to God is our will, then oughtn’t we make our will the best it can be? Something really strong and solid?

A few minutes later I came across Richard Miller’s post on As a Man Thinketh. Nice “coincidence,” and I’m looking forward to reading the Project Gutenberg etext soon. Anyway, the danger of developing a strong willpower is that we’ll get caught up in ourselves and let pride close us off to our Father. It’s a real problem. But I don’t think this means we ought to avoid developing our agency; it just means we need to be careful, to make sure we love the Lord with all our might, mind, and strength, and to stay humble.

“Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; for the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward.” (D&C 58:27-28)

Let’s bring to pass much, much, much more righteousness. :)