Episode #280 Strange Roads & Spacious Buildings

Sometimes we find ourselves on strange roads with a yoke to heavy to bear.

Transcript

It has been some time since I last recorded an episode.  I’ve been through one of those rough spots that seem to come around all too often for those of us who have been called to work through mental illness.  Can’t say that it is over but I am well enough to continue my crusade for the benefit of those members who like me still hang onto whatever hope they can.  Today, I am going to talk openly about the pressures of leaving such a demanding religious organization.  When you are afflicted the pressure is real and consistent to leave the stress of religious life behind.  Social gatherings, required service, required attendance, consistent vigilance, the happiness that should come but never seems to arrive, the exhaustion, the fear, that feeling of not really belonging, that nagging feeling that you should always be doing more but really can’t handle what you are doing; all of that and more provides for an immense battlefield where the wounds are many, the darkness is felt, the cold rain is consistent and the happiness appears more ghostlike than real.

The reality of living the gospel is not easy when you don’t battle depression, anxiety and mania.  When you combine those emotional illnesses with the surrounding environment, social religious pressures, the consistent need to evaluate one’s life for repentance issues, attendance at religious services and the lack of rewards that would normally constitute happiness spiritually, and the need to communicate through personal revelation that generally comes by emotional, spiritual promptings, you find yourself in a minefield and battle that never seems to relent.  These pressures and many others that I have not mentioned here, cause deep distress simply due to the stress of trying to live the gospel.  And stress religious or otherwise all too often causes deepening distress and unmanageable symptoms to occur.  Yes, I am saying it and saying it out loud, the church causes stress to occur.  Perfection is a high standard and when you struggle to hear that calming, peaceful voice that gives you confidence in your direction, the stress can drive you to find easier roads.

These roads are what I want to discuss today.  In the vision of the Tree of Life we learn about a path that leads to the Tree of Life.  This path is flanked by a muddy river and curated by a rod of iron and covered by a mist of darkness.  We learn that the Tree holds the fruit of the atonement of Jesus Christ.  Upon partaking of this fruit, we also learn that it gives great joy to the one who partakes.  Later we see more of the vision.  A large and spacious building with all kinds of people appears, along with many strange roads.  The intent of the vision is to demonstrate that following the path, holding to the rod leads to the Tree of Life, and that continuously partaking of this tree brings peace and happiness throughout one’s life. I believe that the intent is true and that partaking of the tree does bring happiness and joy.  I am not here to discount a vision I believe to be true.  However, it is rare that anyone with mental health issues fits neatly into the vision.  More often we see ourselves as resting in the muddy water, shouting from the building or wandering in strange roads.  So often we do not see ourselves as fitting into the mold as a rod holder who is finding peace and happiness along the path or at the tree.  It seems our mists are darker, our river is muddier and the strange roads seem no different that the path with the rod.  The people in the building do not seem as strange and different as suggested and we even find similarities between their plight and our own.  

When your emotions do not function normally or even close to those around you, you begin to question why you are walking along with them. And then you question the path they are on and then your reason for walking the path.  When you arrive at that point in your path, strange roads don’t seem so strange, and building people don’t seem so mocking.  You question why you are eating the fruit or walking the path when the darkness of depression, anxiety and even mania overcome you.  You come to that point of decision.  Do I continue to walk the path or do I attempt to find something that better suits me?

This brings us to the strange roads and muddy rivers.  It is rare that someone with true mental health issues finds themselves alongside the mocking masses.  It is far more common that they wander in strange roads and rest by a muddy river.  They tend to be individuals who feel they don’t belong anywhere and they struggle to feel anything that resembles acceptance.  In some cases, many cases, for a time the strange roads feel no different that the rodded path.  

That is the problem.  Strange paths do not feel strange when we start out.  Lucifer has always intended it that way.  We can feel free and unburdened.  We might even feel what we term to be happiness and even joy.  Lucifer wants it that way.  If the strange roads were suddenly dark and foreboding as we stepped foot on them, we would immediately turn back.  But they don’t.  So often they feel comfortable and accepting and even as though we always belonged to this road.  It feels personal and inviting.  As we walk away from the tree and the mocking, we can feel as though our mental illness is abating and the pressures are relenting.  We may even wonder why we walked that straight path to the tree.

What is so important to understand about strange roads and even the building people is that they will always be inviting, comforting, accepting and as though a burden has been lifted. That feeling of the lifting burden is real.  You are removing the Lord’s yoke and physically and emotionally removing that burden can feel freeing.  Our body is wired to feel that lifting burden as a type of happiness and freedom.  And Lucifer wants it that way.  Otherwise we would never remove the Lord’s yoke.  Lucifer wants us to feel that living the gospel and working to include it principles in our lives is a burden to hard to bear and that his yoke is much lighter and easier to bear over time.  This is especially true when we have the dueling burdens of emotional illness and living the gospel.  Lucifer desires that we associate the symptoms of mental illness as part of living the gospel.  That all the darkness, distress, dystopia, and feelings of hopelessness come from forced rodded pathways and yoked burdens of living the gospel.

You see these roads are meant to be enticing and to possess rewards for those who follow the outlined pathway.  So for a time, Lucifer will use imposter rewards as a method of enticement.  He will give you a sense of freedom, happiness and release as you enter one of these strange roads.  And for someone who is lacking in those positive feelings that road can feel very good.  Lucifer knows that he must provide the counterfeit feelings of happiness and joy or you would never walk away from your current burdens.  He needs you to feel as though you have chosen wisely and have entered a road that better suits your needs.  He needs to get you far enough from the Lord’s burdens and rewards that you can’t remember them.  And so for a time he supports you in your travels providing rewards along the way.  The rewards he provides are always short-term so you must continue to seek them out as you travel.  So often these short-term rewards last only for minor travels before one must seek them again and again.  Not only must you seek out the rewards but as you become accustomed to them, you must seek more or new rewards to elevate yourself to the same level of happiness.  Lucifer knows that his rewards are temporary.  He has two direct desires.  One to get you addicted to the rewards and second to cause you to wander ever further from the path you once walked. He wants you to feel that you have come so far that there exists no way back and far enough that you can’t remember how the Lord’s yoke feels.

Now one might assume that rewards are things such as drugs and addictive behaviors such as pornography.  But rewards are individual to the person and can be such things as material goods, class distinctions, power, prestige, and all those short-term physical emotions that make us feel good in our lives.  The roads are strange because they are individual to the person and it is unlikely another person would find your particular road as alluring as you do.  And so Lucifer lays out a path of personal rewards suited to our personal desires and nature.  However as we travel this road, Lucifer slowly puts his yoke upon us.  At first it is just a fragile rope no different than a wet noodle, easily broken and removed.  He then allows that road to harden but we don’t notice because it can still be broken and the weight doesn’t change.  Eventually we accept his yoke because it fits us more comfortably.  After all everyone else seems to be wearing the same yoke and it doesn’t seem to bother them.  His yoke becomes part of being accepted into the society of yokes.  Now everyone wears a different yoke but all look similar.  However, what is peculiar to these yokes is that they eventually become so much a part of us that they are impossible to remove.  Because of the rewards for wearing the yoke we can’t remove it without feeling empty.  We soon wear the yoke not because everyone else is doing so but because we would lose everything we have gained and earned by removing it.

So we wear it not because it is comfortable, light or easy to use.  We use it because we are addicted to it.  We can’t live without it as our identity, rewards and life now revolves around it.  Even if we take it off for a moment we are punished and the rewards quickly evaporate.  Eventually Lucifer can get us to do exactly what he wants but just a small push or pull on the yoke.  Your burden is horrible but you have nowhere else to go.  Or at least that is what Lucifer wants you to think and makes every effort to teach.

Yet that isn’t the truth.  Yes you have wandered.  Yet you have chosen the yoke of Lucifer.  Your life might be in good shape as far as the world goes but in shambles otherwise.  You feel lost.  You feel empty. 

However, the truth is exactly what the Savior said “for my yoke is easy and my burden light.”  Why is it so light?  Because the Savior does not work in temporary rewards and he supports those who wear his yoke.  The Savior is not looking to burden you life but to lift those burden brought about by the yoke of Lucifer.  He doesn’t yoke you because he wants to burden you.  He yokes you with his yoke.  The one he wore to learn the lessons of salvation.  And he knows exactly how to lead you to green pastures and beautiful days if you will allow it.  The Savior never burdens us with more than we can bear.  However, Lucifer’s whole purpose is to overburden you slowly until you are as miserable as he is.

If you have wandered in strange paths and felt the burden of the unknown road.  Know this.  That there is always a way back and you don’t have to travel that road of uncertainty all the way back to the tree.  Yes some walking will be required but the Savior tailor’s our road back so that even the pathway back to him is a burden that is light and easy to carry.

My hope is today that you will see yourself where you are in this journey.  Yes the Savior’s yoke may require some tough love but only in the sense of your betterment not in the sense of misery.  My hope is that you will find joy in the yoke of the Savior and that you will see the burden that it is to wear the yoke of Lucifer.  Nothing good comes of that yoke in the end even if it temporarily feels good.  May the Lord bless you in your trials and help you to see just how light his burden really is.  Until next week do your part so that the Lord can do his.