Proud vs. Pleased

A few weeks back my brother and I were driving around and he said, “Aren’t you proud of your older brother?”  I immediately said that I was not.  Needless to say he was a little taken aback.  I told him I had a blog post coming that would explain more and so here it is. 

          President Benson, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite prophets ever, had an amazing talk on pride that kinda blew me away and I’d highly recommend it for anyone who thinks they’re doing pretty good spiritually lol, cause it’ll be a wake up call to you like it has been for me.  We covered a portion on his talk in Sunday School a few weeks back and I wanted to bring his points to the forefront and add some of my own legit sound doctrine to it.     

I had heard a while back, and I can’t remember now where I learned it, but Heavenly Father isn’t proud of anyone!  Ever!  Never!  See following.

Matthew 3:17 And lo a ^avoice from heaven, saying, This is my ^bbeloved ^cSon, in whom I am well pleased.

Mark1:11 And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

Luke3:22 And the ^aHoly Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a ^bdove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.

3 Nephi 11:7 Behold my ^aBeloved Son, ^bin whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name—hear ye him.

          So…why pleased and not…proud?  Enter President Benson (my comments/musing are in italics):

Most of us think of pride as self-centeredness, conceit, boastfulness, arrogance, or haughtiness. All of these are elements of the sin, but the heart, or core, is still missing.

The central feature of pride is enmity—enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen. Enmity means “hatred toward, hostility to, or a state of opposition.” It is the power by which Satan wishes to reign over us.

So this is why I told my brother I wasn’t proud of him.  If I was then essentially I’d hate everyone else or be hostile to them.  I’d “guard” if you will the fact that my brother did this or that.  When people say they’re proud of their kids, deep down…really…what are they feeling/thinking about their kids in comparison to others?  Are they getting some long since denied/missing self-fulfillment that they’re now getting by vicariously living through their kids?  If you haven’t thought about this ever and then you hear me say this now it sounds like I’m heartless. 

When we were talking about this in Sunday School I got a little emotional and probably felt the Spirit confirm to me that Heavenly Father is so careful to watch his words on multiple occasions so as to not misconstrue His feelings towards His Son, but to me as well.  Of alllllll the people to be “proud” of Jesus would top the list.  Even with Him though Heavenly Father made sure to say He was pleased with Him and not proud.  He did this to show me He still loves me and His Son.  Had He said He was proud of Jesus at any point than that would’ve destroyed any prior belief I had that Heavenly Father truly loves all His children the same and that I was/am worth as much to Him as anybody else.

The proud make every man their adversary by pitting their intellects, opinions, works, wealth, talents, or any other worldly measuring device against others. In the words of C. S. Lewis: “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. … It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.” (Mere Christianity, New York: Macmillan, 1952, pp. 109–10.)  This reminds me of the current global class warfare we’re currently seeing!  It is interesting to note that we are taught to look to the Godhead in all things, even our validation, hence the repetition of focusing on being a son or daughter of God.  I think/wonder, perhaps, if the “final” leap for me and any son or daughter is for us to make the leap of not needing anybody’s validation, even the Godhead’s.  Their teaching of “Do things of your own free will and choice” I believe is Them prodding us to the truth to come to the realization that in so doing is where real progress and happiness comes from.  Not from putting down another person and making yourself more important than them, but from being comfortable and content with who you are (once you’re perfect of course) and then helping others to do the same as that is the most mutually beneficial mindset to have for everyone and results in the greatest prosperity and happiness despite what others may say…if that makes sense.

 

Benson continues…”pride from the bottom looking up. It is manifest in so many ways, such as faultfinding (BINGO THIS IS ME!), gossiping (BINGO THIS IS ME!  I heard a quote or something saying that if someone will listen to you gossip you better believe they’ll gossip about you no problem.  I’m currently trying to stop this completely even if it is harmless.  I try and look at people more Christlike.  It has been interesting.  Instead of agreeing with people I find myself finding the good in the person being talked about and in some cases that has completely changed the mentality of the gossiper about the gossipee), backbiting, murmuring, living beyond our means (I feel this is me a little bit), envying (BINGO THIS IS ME!), coveting, withholding

gratitude

 and praise that might lift another(BINGO THIS IS ME!…at work), and being unforgiving and jealous.

Selfishness is one of the more common faces of pride. “How ffects me” is the center of all that matters—self-conceit, self-pity (addiction…duh!  I never really thought of self-pity as prideful, but it makes sense as often addictive behaviors require putting oneself above another), worldly self-fulfillment, self-gratification, and self-seeking.

I found the following very interesting…Pride results in secret combinations which are built up to get power, gain, and glory of the world.

This fruit of the sin of pride, namely secret combinations, brought down both the Jaredite and the Nephite civilizations and has been and will yet be the cause of the fall of many nations….woooow.  Watch out USA and other developed countries!

The scriptures testify that the proud are easily offended and hold grudges. 

I feel bad about reading this one and thinking back to Sunday School just yesterday.  One brother was called upon to answer a question and he went on quite the tangent and the teacher then re-directed him to answer the question and he essentially pouted that he was going to get to that and then…he grabbed his stuff and left the room.  Sad.   They withhold forgiveness to keep another in their debt and to justify their injured feelings.  Oops…I’ve done this a time or two to people I know.

The proud do not receive counsel or correction easily. Defensiveness is used by them to justify and rationalize their frailties and failures. (See

They won’t change their minds to accept truths, because to do so implies they have been wrong…sounds like me a few years ago and even a few people I talk to now about addiction issues and even our current political, social, and economic issues.

Pride is the universal sin, the great vice. Yes, pride is the universal sin, the great vice.  (I actually did not italicize the “is” in this last sentence)

The antidote for pride is humility—meekness, submissiveness. It is the broken heart and contrite spirit.

God will have a humble people.  This definitely stood out to me lol.  It seems that either we accept being humble and the true way of living and benefit immensely from so doing or…the other option is probably being cast away into hell for eternity cause Heavenly Father is not going to waste His time.  Either we can choose to be humble or we can be compelled to be humble.

Let us choose to be humble.

Pride is the great stumbling block to Zion. (Again, didn’t italicize his “is” this time either…I think he is trying to tell me something…)

We must cleanse the inner vessel by conquering pride.

 

Ok regular writing is back now.  I’m not sure if I “got out” everything I wanted/needed to, but this is a good start and I can always come back to it if I want I guess.  Hope you enjoyed it.

Where is it safe?

         After hearing about and reading about Cyprus banks doing a “bail-in”, i.e. they use their customer deposits to make the bank whole for the bad bets they took, people started freaking out there and elsewhere.  My wife and I are expecting our first kid and had some of our dough in our account set aside to help pay for it and we figured we’d take a little bit out just in case something like that happened between now and when the baby is due so that we’d for sure have enough money to pay some of the upcoming bills.  Funny enough I asked my teller if people were freaking out cause of what was going on in Cyprus and she responded saying, “What is going on in Cyprus?”  To her defense she may have been told to act that way should a customer ask so as to not initiate panic.  That or she just plain ‘ole doesn’t know, which is ironic considering her job and is also very sad/scary.

            So lately I’ve read a few interesting things about Cyprus and heard other things about other countries and what they’re doing.  By the way it is interesting all these things/countries I’m going to mention are already cocked and loaded and ready to go just two seconds after this whole Cyprus thing came about.  Makes me think…well this is a huge deal and people at the top in these institutions and countries knew about it…what else do they know that is a big deal that we don’t know about yet?

So back to things I’ve been hearing.  New Zealand mentioned maybe doing something similar.  People of course in Spain, Italy, and Greece were thinking, “If it could happen in Cyprus then it could happen here” and hence why global markets really were shaken by the Cyprus news and its potential domino effect of collapsing a fractional reserve banking system.  Then a Dutch EU guy said that the Cyprus “bail-in” would be a template going forward for other countries.  Then this morning I read that the government of Canada, and I quote from page 145 of their Economic Action Plan 2013, “proposes to implement a “bail-in” regime for systemically important banks.”  And finally, if that wasn’t enough of course, the other day I read that the FDIC, which is the insurance company you see on all the plaques at your local bank in the U.S. insuring deposits up to 250k against loss, and the Bank of England (why the two are working together I don’t know other than they’re puppets of the central bankers who own them both really) also proposed that a “bail-in” would look like funds getting seized in customer accounts and in exchange for those funds bank depositors would get shares of stock in the bank instead and could have some say in what the bank does at that point.  What is funny about the FDIC saying this is that by co-writing the article that this nugget came out in they’re openly admitting they are NOT going to be insuring bank deposits, but instead are opting for this plan instead.  Not sure how many of you know, but the FDIC, they private company that is supposed to bail out others when they lose their money…got a bail out in the 2008 collapse.  One thought I had was, “Oh cool the guys who are supposed to insure my money, won’t, and when they do on the small amount that they do, they don’t have enough and get a bail out, which is in the form of printed money, which slightly kills my purchasing power.  In the meantime I’m sure there are some execs there who get paid very well.  Cool.”

So…where is your money safe?  Well if you consider worthless shares in a failed bank safe then you’ll be ok to stow your money away at any bank.  Otherwise…if you don’t hold it/own it, its not yours.  

Oh I also heard that last week there were thousands of people who logged into their online banking account and their account was set to $0.  Lesson I learned…I need to reinitiate my paper statements sent to my house each month so I have proof of exactly how much I had in my account should that happen to me.

Moroni 7:4

It is interesting to see and think about things after they happen with one of them being the recent US election.  I had many people, on both sides of the republican/democratic/independent line, tell me why their party was better or their guy was better than the other in this last election, which may or may not be surprising considering I live in practically 100% republican territory, Utah. 

One thing they talked to me about and me to them was foreign policy.  These conversations also happened with many LDS members.  What is interesting about Mormons and foreign policy is that they can tell you almost unequivocally why people in the Book of Mormon would lose battles or wars against the other people…aggressive warfare that wasn’t sanctioned by God (through his prophet).  However while they hold this knowledge to be true and when exercised would ensure self-destruction or the destruction of God they simultaneously believe that the wars the western powers that be, including the USA, are righteous and good.  How is this possible?  Cognitive Dissonance.

Stick with your gut and walk the way the Lord would have you and don’t listen to Robert Frost.  Moroni 7:4 states to the remant of the Lamanite people AND the gentiles (USA), “Know ye that ye must lay down your weapons of war, and delight no more in the shedding of blood, and take them not again, save it be that God shall ^acommand you.”  If you’re wondering what a country’s foreign policy should be, just listen to the Lord’s mouthpiece.  Can you go wrong with that?

On a side note, can my LDS readers tell me the last time the Lord told us officially through his mouthpiece that He sanctioned a certain war, civil or otherwise, in another country at any time???  I will buy them a king sized candy bar if they can.  If not…were those wars that we as a country/society should’ve fought in?  I think you know the answer to that.  People, Mormons included, would probably say that the Civil War was needed to free the slaves.  Really?  Where were the Mormons when that happened?  The question could be asked, “Did the Lord sanction anyone’s involvement through his prophet…WW1?  WW2?  Korea?  Vietnam?  Iraq/Afghanistan?”

If you wonder what a good litmus test would be for a political party you should support or not is whether or not that party supported a war that wasn’t sanctioned by God.  If not sanctioned, but one party or another went to war, probably not the best idea to vote for and support that party.  Just a thought.

By the way you can buy anything in this world with money.  Perhaps my LDS readers know the threat made by Satan in the temple.  If so is it possible that Satan can buy armies and navies today?  If so, what would be the best way to do so?  Perhaps a private central bank?  If you wanted control and power would that be the way to go?  The following quotes will answer that for us.

"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws."
- (Mayer Amschel Rothschild, (23 February 1744 – 19 September 1812) was a German banker and the founder of the Rothschild family international banking dynasty that became the most successful business family in history. In 2005, he was ranked seventh on the Forbes magazine list of "The Twenty Most Influential Businessmen of all Time". The magazine referred to him as a "founding father of international finance”)

“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson.”

–        Franklin D. Roosevelt

 

So here I’ve got a past president and super/mega/uber rich international banker who both say the real powers that be are those who control the money supply.  How do you then stop unsanctioned wars and bloodshed if it takes money supply to do so, or perhaps the lack thereof, both of which you can’t ultimately control?  You don’t.  We do.  As…INDIVIDUALS!  We stop electing with our votes and our dollars and self-imposed debt that we really do want in the form of student loans, mortgages, and consumer debt for crap we don’t need.  Then you vote with competing currencies that aren’t controlled by those “financial element(s) in the large centers”.  Those “currencies” may be food, water, guns, ammo, precious metals, and just good commodities in general.

            Good luck!