DEPRESSION, BIPOLAR & ANXIETY - LIVING AS A LATTER-DAY SAINT, LDS

Episode #273 - Talents & Mites

Damon Socha Season 1 Episode 273

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What is functional capacity and what does it have to do with our illness?

Welcome to Episode #273 – Talents & Mites.  I am your host Damon Socha.  As you know I produce this podcast as a free service to those who have need and my marketing is by word of mouth.  If you wouldn’t mind liking or commenting on the podcast, I would appreciate it.  

Do you ever get frustrated by your illness and its ability to completely remove your capacity?  I do all the time.  One of the ways that you know you have a mental or emotion illness is by saying that it is affecting parts of my life in significant ways.  It is removing my capacity to accomplish life the way I would like to.  For instance, depression often causes a loss of desire and energy to accomplish even the most simple tasks.  The same is true for anxiety but in different ways.  Mental and emotional illness can truly be an emotional and physical prison.  That is difficult to accept but the truth of it is hard to escape.  We are captive to our illness and its ability to alter our state of mind and emotions.  In thinking about how the difficulties we face and then the inevitable state of worthlessness that we feel make us captive to our own mind and body, I have thought much about the parable of the Talents and the story of the mites.  I am certain the you know both but for purposes of clarity and discussion I am going to quote them both.  The first, the parable of the Talents, is found in Matthew.

14 ¶ For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.

15 And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey.

16 Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents.

17 And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two.

18 But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money.

19 After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them.

20 And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more.

21 His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

22 He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them.

23 His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

24 Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed:

25 And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.

26 His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed:

27 Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury.

28 Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents.

29 For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.

30 And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Now today we are going to introduce a couple of ideas into this story and the story of the widows mites.  The first idea is capacity.  And we are going to divide capacity into two categories.  One is what we will call our one-time capacity and the other we are going to call our functional capacity.  Our one-time capacity is our ability to accomplish a set of strenuous tasks at least one time.  For instance,  How much weight can you lift one time? You can actually lift a great deal more weight one time than many times.  If I told you that you had to wear a weight belt all day.  You would most certainly not put your on-time, max weight in that belt.  You would hopefully put into the weight belt what you believe that you could reasonably accomplish without collapsing in the first hour.  The weight you could carry all day is your functional weight and it is significantly different from your one-time weight.  Just as a note, we all overestimate our functional capacity.  We tend to carry far more weight that our capacity allows.  This is part of our brains mindset and inability to accurately predict our capacity.  What we find is that our brain tends to always overestimate our capacities.  The whys are perhaps a whole different story but one of those whys is that our brain uses a composite of our history.  A history where we might just have had at one time far greater capacity.  Now what does the parable of the talents have to do with capacity?

We notice something interesting in the parable.  The first thing we notice is that the master is going to be gone and we find out later that the timeframe is significant.  The second thing we notice is that the master is not going to be there to make decisions.  We are to receive the resources of the master and then to invest them as we see fit in our wisdom to do so.  The next thing we notice is that the master gives out resources according to our capacity.  He does so wisely and with understanding and prudence based on our previous actions and abilities.  He also gives out weaknesses to those capacities.  We find this out in Ether 12:27. So when we see him doling out talents, he considers our functional capacity not our one-time capacity and those weaknesses he has given us.  It would be unjust to give someone talents and then a weakness that doesn’t allow them to invest it and then require a just recompence.  A just recompense must always include our functional capacity.  Now our functional capacity is not our true capacity.  That will come later in the eternities.  For now we must live with the mortal body we have been given and work with the weaknesses brought about for our good.

When we talk about resources in this verse which it the talent, we are talking about all our resources the Lord gives to us.  This includes the money we have, our home, our spiritual talents, our physical talents our time and really everything the Lord has given us including our trials and capacity problems.  You will notice that capacity was already known by the Lord in giving different levels of talent.  We are not told what caused this difference in the talents just that they existed for various reasons.  The final thing we notice is that this wasn’t a comparison of talents.  The Lord didn’t say. Look what they guy did with the 5 talents why can’t you be more like him.  The Lord asked each for an accounting of what he gave them based on what he gave them as far as talents and weaknesses.

The length of time is important to the story for various reasons but one of those reasons is what I refer to as functional capacity.  These three members of the church were given talents and a great deal of time to develop them.  This means that the master did not want a one-time development and then done.  He was looking for long-term capacity and development.  He knew what each could do but it is the long-term development that sticks with the person.  It is the functional capacity where we learn and grow, not in the short-term capacity where we do everything we can all at once.  The five talent member and the two talent member understood the assignment.  This would be a long term investment opportunity and they needed to consider their functional capacity more than a one-time capacity.  We find that the one-talent person did not see the opportunity but saw that he might invest wrong or lose the resources he had been given.  He was far more concerned about the one-time capacity lift rather than the daily lift.  So he hid his master’s resources so that he could return them to the master.  The master however wanted this to be a long-term project.

The master does return eventually and has his reckoning with the first two who each were given even greater resources to manage.  However, the reckoning with the one talent person ended with a harsh punishment.  Outer darkness is in the religion the worst judgment one can receive as a child of God.  It is to be shut entirely out of the kingdom of God and the light that extends from it.  For someone to receive such a punishment, that person must have sure knowledge of what was expected and simply did not put in any functional daily efforts.  The punishment of this individual gives us a far greater understanding that his reasoning that he feared.  This type of effort runs much deeper than I was afraid.  This is open rebellion.  The one talent person knew what was to be done but simply chose not to do it.  He had the covenants he needed, all he needed was effort and ultimately that is what we see from him.  No effort.  He hid the covenants, did not even minimally attempt to live them and he received that which he chose, outer darkness.  

To have covenants and to ignore them entirely is a serious violation.  The Savior notes this when he tells the servant, all you had to do was give it to the bank and you would have at least gotten usury or interest from the bank.  So even doing the minimum was out of this persons purview.  He hid the covenant he received and for that he was given outer darkness.  Now so far this parable doesn’t really include mental and emotional illness, we are talking about everyone.  But in reality it is about individuals whose capacity has been limited.  We are not told why each individual had a different capacity.  It could be that the one-talent person had great capacity but was limited by an illness such as mental illness.  That limitation as part of the talent test is an important part of the test.  Certainly the servants understood that each received a different level of talent due to capacity issues.  But that can make one feel less than worthy if we compare.

The first truth of this parable is that comparison is not just or something the Savior even considers.  Our capacity is something he gives along with our talents.  If he limits our capacity and our talents it is for a good reason.  He desires us to work with less, which can actually be far more difficult than having five talents.  Significant resources brings people around you to help.  Limited resources doesn’t always accomplish that, in fact, in the mental illness world, the one talent person may be far more isolated than you think.

The problem we see with the one talent person is not just person rebellion but an inability to value what was given.  Smaller than the others yes but it was given.  Where more is given more is required and so the individual with limited capacity was not given the five talents.  Why.  Because the five talents was functionally more than they could handle on a daily basis.  We need to better understand the principles of functional capacity and one-time capacity.  Our mind tends to think in one-time capacities while our body and brain must deal with functional capacity.  For instance, if someone asks me if I can come help unload a truck of wood.  My mind says yes because I have done that before without any issue.  Of course, I was much younger and did not have autoimmune diseases.  But my mind continues to believe that I can do such things.  And so I say yes and then I get sick because I have stressed my body and my functional or daily capacity slips for a time.  We always pay for our one-time overcapacity through our daily functional capacity.  If I were to unload that truck, I would pay for it for about two weeks with significant time in bed.  If I don’t unload that truck, my capacity over the next two weeks will be significantly greater and I will be able to accomplish more than what I did with the service.  

The Lord does not require that we run faster than we have the strength to run.  Yes we need to run but this is a marathon not a sprint and we are not compared to one another as in a race.  Each of us has different starting and stopping points and growth we are trying to reach.  Our race is with the Lord and with ourselves not with others.  The five-talent reward did not affect the two-talent person because he was not in comparison with the five.  He was given two and functionally returned the same percentage as the five.

Now comes the parable of the mites. Mark 12:41

41 ¶ And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much.

42 And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing.

43 And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury:

44 For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.

Now at first glance you might think that the widow gave a one-time capacity given that she had thrown in all her living.  But the reality is that she cast in her mites knowing that the Lord would bless her.  However, as we look at this picture it is easy to see the 5 talent and the 2 talent person giving much because they could.  The Savior did not condemn them for giving much.  He just focused on the one talent person who had given her all based on her capacity.  The Lord could have given her 20 talents and she would have managed those just as well as her mites.  The amount was not the focus.  The focus was that she gave what she could given her limited resources.  And that was all that the Savior needed in this case.  In fact, that is all he needs from us.  Sometimes we are going to be the widow in our lives with severely limited capacity and other times we will be the 2 or the 5 talents person.  The benefit to being a one talent person is understanding the difficulties, trials and ultimately the benefits of limited capacity.

If the Lord limits your capacity then he is trying to teach you greater things in your life.  Significant resources is a difficult load to handle but significant resources also gets attention.  Like the widow casting in her mites, the Savior may have been the only one who noticed.  When we have significant resources people naturally gather around us.  When we are limited we tend to have limited relationships based on resources.  By the way, relationships based on resources quickly fade with the resources.  You can find that in the book of Job.  His friends began to abandon him the moment his resources had been lost and blamed him for committing some kind of sin.

And so we find that limited capacity is a lonely road that does attract companions.  Such is this world that finds outward talents so very important and inward commitment to covenants lacking viability.  We often wonder why members of the church pass through difficult trials in their lives.  Isn’t the Lord suppose to bless us.  I mean aren’t we supposed to go from a one talent person to five.  That would seem to be what the scriptures teach at least outwardly.  However, talents, as I stated before, represent every portion of our life.  The Lord might restrict our physical life to develop our spiritual one.  You might be a spiritual 5 but a physical 1 due to your mental and or emotional illness.  The physical one actual aids in developing your spiritual 5 but it can be difficult to see how this works.  The reality is that spiritually is where we need to develop our skills and discipline our bodies the best we can given our illness to suit our spiritual goals.  Ultimately we need not see the one-talent person in the right way.  It may be that they are a 5 spiritually but simply limited but earthly, mortal bounds that one day will be removed.  I hope today you can see yourself as a spiritual 5 rather than just a one talent person.  Not doubt the Lord has great things for you in store as deep and difficult trials lead us to higher more exalted plains of existence.  Keep up the fight.  Until next week do you part so that the Lord can do his.