Episode #120 - Developing a Deepening Relationship with Christ

A relationship with the Savior and the Father is one of the most important aspects of conversion and mental illness feels like the perfect imperfection when it comes to the development of this relationship.  There are however things we can do even when we suffer to better define and develop this relationship.

Transcript

Welcome to episode #120 – Developing a Deepening Relationship with Christ.  I am your host Damon Socha.  Have you ever asked yourself, why is this so difficult?  Why do I feel that I’m not gaining any ground?  Why doesn’t the Lord make it easier to develop a solid relationship with him?  I will admit that I have struggled deeply wondering why mortality needs to be so difficult, especially when it comes to communicating with our Father and Savior.  Certainly there have been times when I have felt a strong presence but I will admit that those bright light moments tend to dim significantly when mortal frailties come to bear upon us.  I often think of Peter who in one moment declared his vowed loyalty to the Savior and not before the night had ended had denied that same Savior multiple times.  That is one story that each of the writers of the gospel included, and that is noteworthy. It is important that Peter allowed for it to be recorded.  As I have pondered what Peter might have been thinking in that moment, I often wonder about my own life and how easy it has been while suffering with mental illness to do just what Peter did. Or at least feel that way.

Each of us came to this earth with really a simple mission, find Christ and follow him or as the scriptures state to come unto Christ.  Now we had already accomplished this to a certain extent before we came to this earth.  Christ led the way in pre-mortality as he does in mortality.   He was called the WORD, simply meaning that he possessed not only the truth but was authorized to preach it and to bind his preaching through covenants.  Obviously if we are born into mortality, then we chose in some manner to be aligned with Christ.  Our beliefs, faith, and loyalty were of varying degrees in premortal life.  Some were entirely loyal and developed a deep and abiding love of the Savior and others at a minimum did not rebel.  We were not alike in our spiritual development and loyalty to the Lord as we entered mortality.  We differed in significant ways and that is really not difficult to see given the various propensities of the people of the earth to commit serious sin and turn from the Father and Savior.  It makes sense given the differences of loyalty, that some individuals would turn from Christ in mortality and others would turn to him.  To the level that they listen to him there, they would seek him here.  We are by our nature, spiritual beings who possessed great knowledge before this mortal final examination.  I am most certain that many of us like Peter thought, there is no way I will deny the Christ or have any difficulty finding him.  And yet we have Peter.  He was called before this earth to be the chief apostle of the Lord.  To walk with him, talk with him and to be near him throughout his ministry.  No doubt Peter was one of the most noble and valiant servants of the Lord.  So it is in some ways comforting to see one of the more valiant servants, stumble in his testimony in one weak moment.

I have found hope in Peter’s story and in his subsequence devotion to Christ.  Even after the death of Christ and his resurrection, Peter still needed to be reminded of his responsibilities as the chief apostle.  Thus we have the “Feed my Sheep” story that recounts how lovingly the resurrected Savior reminded Peter of what it means to be loyal to the Lord.  I am grateful to Peter for allowing us to see his moments of mortal weakness because I personally find great solace in the idea that even one of the most loyal premortal spirits struggled given mortalities difficulties and weaknesses.

Development of a relationship and dutiful loyalty to the Lord was never intended to be an easy accomplishment during our mortal sojourn.  Our agency had to be entirely ours during this life.  And that means simply we would be placed in a state of mortality where both sides of the truth equation would be open to our view.  Lucifer would be able to spread his lies before our eyes and the Lord his truth and we would be able to learn by our own experience good and evil.  The one thing that we would bring with us to this fight is our premortal testimony and devotion to the Savior.  But as we see in Peter’s case, sometimes, mortality and Lucifer find their way into our life.  We possess yearnings within our own spirit that lead us to develop our relationship with the Lord and we possess mortal chemistry and yearnings in our mortal bodies for the things of the world.  We know well the scripture well that teaches us that “Men are free according to the flesh and all things are given which are expedient unto man.  And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil.”

What has concerned me throughout my life, especially considering my experiences with mental illness is just how difficult it has been for me to develop a deep and abiding relationship with the Savior.  It feels at times that mental illness is the perfect imperfection.  That may come as a shock to many of my friends and family, who have often considered me spiritual in nature.  Mental illness feels as though the Lord is allowing for every method of relationship development to be altered to the point that it can feel impossible to build a deep and abiding relationship with the Father and the Savior.  I have struggled profoundly at times to feel any form of loving relationship including that of the Savior.  I have discussed throughout my podcasts the many ways that mental illness interferes with our ability to feel loved, to feel the spirit of the Lord, to feel valued, or to even feel truth, to feel, hear and spiritually see the Savior in our lives.  Today I am going to talk about 5 ways that I have found to be helpful in maintaining my relationship with the Savior, while battling the forces of chemistry that so easily interrupt our communication with divinity.  

The first of these methods I learned early on in my life and I will add it was probably one of those “grass roots” based coping mechanisms we tend to develop when we struggle to understand why we feel the way we do.  The main problem with mental illness is our emotions and feelings do not match reality.  We can feel very anxious, overly depressed or even with mania overly confident, when our actions, and environmental conditions would say otherwise.  We could be blessed with many wonderful opportunities, relationships and positive events in our lives and yet because of our altered emotional and mental state, where we should be at peace, happy and sustained we feel as though the world is crashing down upon us or that something evil is about to happen.  I have discussed how difficult it is for our mind and body to be in this state of mixed emotions and confusion about what is real and what is not.  For me, one of my coping mechanisms was to ignore my emotions and to move forward logically.  Meaning instead of feeling what was right or what I should do, because I couldn’t feel it, I would proceed based on what I knew to be true logically or inferred by logic.  Now this will only get someone so far who is suffering but it does provide for a method of avoiding the natural pitfalls that come with mental illness.  Even when I was in the grasp of a deep depression or paralyzed by my anxiety, I logically knew that I had been given experiences that had taught me what was true.  So while I was suffering and could not easily feel the Spirit of the Lord, I would lean on my recorded experiences and for the lack of a better word “book learning.”  I knew what I should be doing even if I didn’t have any desire to do it.  I also knew what to avoid.  Throughout my teenage and twenties even until I was later relieved of some of the more difficult parts of my illness, I leaned on the study side of my learning rather than the faith side of my knowledge.  By the way that reference of study and faith comes from D&C 109 where the Lord tells us to learn by study and by faith.  Elder Oaks commented on this scripture in one of his books called, The Lords Way.  He notes that we learn by both study, which is by reason and logical inference, and by faith, which is personal revelation, and that both are important to our development.  Because I could not always feel the necessary revelation through the Spirit, I often relied upon my study of the scriptures and other doctrinal sources to help me logically work through many decisions and my concerns.  Now this will only get you so far when it comes to a relationship with the Lord, but when you suffer it can be a valuable resource to your day-to-day life and interactions with others.

My second method of working with my mental illness was to allow others to help me receive the revelation I needed in my life.  When I needed understanding and revelation and communication with the Lord and I knew that my emotions were being influenced by my illness, I would rely on trustworthy sources of revelation to help me to know whether the revelation I had received was correct.  Yes I could still feel personal revelation even through my mental illness but it felt impossible to know if what I was feeling was correct or if it had come from the Lord.  I often turned to others to help me and that included my mother and father, my wife, my children, church members and leaders.  The Lord could help me see what he wanted through revelation given to others.  It required that I seek out more than one source and to trust that the Lord would provide help when I could not help myself.  Mental illness tends to cause strong emotions and feelings that may not always be correct.  So not only did I seek out others close to me to help with obtaining revelation but also to know if what I was feeling was correct.  Now acting on a righteous desire can be difficult without interference from mortality but having no desire to act even when I knew it was the right thing to do posed another significant difficulty in my life.  So not only did I use others to help me to see what I should be doing, I also used them to help motivate me to accomplish the task.  I don’t know of anything more difficult that moving forward and accomplishing service for the Lord when every fiber of your mortal body doesn’t care to leave the bed or the house.  It is terribly difficult to do anything without desire and motivation and so at times other individuals had to be my tough love motivation.  I cannot count how many times my family helped me to attend church, read scriptures, be motivated to interact with them, even in small part.  I have often wondered about my own motivations and faith when I had no desire to attend church, read scriptures, attend the temple and so many other important life events.  I knew by doctrine that both the action and the motivation are important to the Lord.  That doctrine is taught very clearly in Moroni 7 in the Book of Mormon.  So if my motivation was not as pure as it should have been or even that I had no desire to do what I had been asked, would I still receive the blessing?  I have concluded that because my lack of desire had to do with forces out of my control that the blessing would not be withheld if I acted according to what I knew to be true but didn’t feel at the time.  It would simply be unjust to allow for someone’s desire and motivation to be altered by physical chemistry and then to deny them the blessing because they did not possess the correct desire.  I found that the Lord would bless me even when my heart was not concerned with accomplishing the task.  So while it is true that you will know the tree by its fruit and its fruit is a composite of what we do and why we do it, the Lord in his mercy makes up the difference when our motivations are altered by our illness.

My third method of working through my mental illness while establishing my relationship with the Savior was to allow for mercy.  I didn’t come to understand this method until much later in my life.  I needed to allow for the Lord to extend to me mercy when my illness caused difficulties.  I know that it sounds strange to say, allow the Lord to extend mercy.  But often when we suffer, the illness causes us to feel worthless, and unworthy to feel and possess the Savior’s love for us.  We can interfere with the merciful hand of the Lord when we don’t allow him to extend it to us.  And when we don’t allow for the Lord’s mercy, Lucifer slowly grasps us with his chains of indifference, stating that we are not worthy or sufficiently valuable enough for the Lord to extend mercy.  He will also tell us that we are not deserving and that until we straighten out our desires and difficulties we will never be accepted by the Lord.  Of course, this is a lie.  All that the Savior requires for his mercy to be applied to our situations is for us to ask for it and allow it to flow into our lives.  I spent far too many years trying to feel a certain way so that the Savior’s mercy could be applied.  What I can tell you is that the Savior has far more mercy available than we can often imagine and that is no more true than when you speak of mental illness.  We do not need to be punished, or attain a certain level of obedience, or feel a certain way, or even feel the mercy when it is applied to our lives.  We simply must allow it to flow into our lives as the Savior see fit.  That is one lesson that I wish I had learned sooner in my life.

My fourth method for developing my relationship with the Savior has to do with direct communication and prayer.  Prayer is by its very nature personal communication with the Father and the Savior and deals directly with feelings of personal revelation, but anyone who has ever dealt with mental illness realizes that prayer during episodes can feel impossible.  It is difficult to even imagine a loving God much less talk with him.  I will admit that learning to pray and listen and simultaneously dealing with the symptoms of mental illness can be at times counterproductive to the process.  I have struggled through more prayers than I can count, without any feeling that the words are leaving the room much less finding heaven.  I have always desired a deep two-way communication with the Lord on a regular basis, where I would be able to talk to him in very connected and moving ways.  And yet, I have struggled much of my life to attain to such a high level of communication.  There are two things that have helped with my emotional disconnect and prayer.  The first is to be honest.  I have found that the more honest I am without being disrespectful the better the communication becomes.  There have been times when most of my prayers were about my symptoms and how little desire I felt to pray and when I prayed.  There is nothing wrong with telling the Lord of your difficulties with the illness.  In fact, this is one of the things that has helped me the most when I pray, to acknowledge what I currently lack or feel.  Yes the Lord knows exactly how you feel but prayer is more about aligning ourselves with the Lord, not aligning the Lord with where we stand.  So discussing what, how, when and the difficulties we are experiencing helps us to view our illness with the Lord by our side.  Yes it is still going to feel as though the words don’t get through the ceiling but as we acknowledge the struggle the Lord sends help in various ways, even when we don’t see it or can’t feel it.  I was talking to my wife the other day about my experiences, especially when we were younger and how I could see just how much the Lord protected me during my years with severe mental illness.  There were so many opportunities for my life to fall of the rails, but it didn’t and I honestly cannot tell you why I didn’t.  The only thing I can say definitely is that the Lord must have been more involved in my life than I could have ever imagined.  The second thing I learned about prayer is that my answers to questions rarely came during my prayer.  Because of the illness, the Lord often used various methods to demonstrate what he wanted me to do and that meant that most of the answers I sought came outside of my daily prayers.  In addition to my answers coming outside of kneeling, I asked that the Lord would show me his hand in my life.  When I did this, I realize just how involved he had been and was in my life and just how often my prayers were being answered.  I am not sure if it is the same for people who do not have mental illness but for me, I would pray, ask for what I felt I needed and then I would wait for the Lord.  What I do know is that the Lord can work with and sometimes around our illnesses to help us to see his hand in our lives and develop that trusting relationship.

The fifth and final method that helped me to develop a closer relationship was to better define what that relationship would be in my life.  Too many times, I wanted to define my relationship with the Lord in a certain way.  I wanted him to come to me and speak with me as I saw fit.  I wanted answers sent in a certain way.  I defined the relationship between us.  When I began to allow the Lord to define what the relationship would be, I found a much closer alignment and trust.  I had to simply let go of my preconceived notions about what I thought prayer should be and how I thought that the Lord should answer.  I had to see my relationship as a spiritual one, not defined by mortal definitions of trust, love, devotion and loyalty.  When I allowed for the Savior to define these ideals and our relationship, I progressed much more quickly and learned a great deal more about how the Savior desires to interact with us personally in our own lives.  One of the more important things I learned was to keep my spiritual eyes and ears open and to allow the Lord to answer me in his way not in my way.  For me, our relationship became far more personal when I allowed for the Lord to help me see what our relationship should and could be.  I know that I make it sound like it happened overnight but the reality is that once I allowed for the Lord to define the relationship, it took several years for that relationship to develop one small experience and event at a time.  One of the main things that I learned about establishing a deep and abiding relationship with the Lord is that it takes time and effort to understand the Lord’s method of relationship development and that our relationship with him can be and is very personal.

The final thing that I truly desire to express about developing this relationship is to keep working.  There are going to be times when it doesn’t feel personal or even as though any relationship exists.  Because of mortality and your illness, there will be times when you will even doubt God exists or if he does that he even cares for you.  You will feel as though the lines of communication have been severed so deeply that there is no way you could ever believe.  Strangely we must pass through moments of this nature as part of that relationship development.  Our relationship is going to be tested and tried just like every other part of mortality.  What I can tell you though is that if you will press through those moments, that sometimes feel terribly long, you will be rewarded with a deeper relationship and trust in the Savior and a deeper understanding of mortality and the reasons we have come to this earth.  May the Lord bless you to develop a deeper relationship with him and the Father.  And of course, may you do your part so that the Lord can do his.