Let Peace
Begin with Me
by Darla
Isackson
Strange, that
it took fiction to get me in touch with the reality of war. War
has always been so repugnant to me, even at a distance, that I
avoided thinking about it, reading about it or watching movies
about it. Close up I have always suspected it is the nearest thing
to hell on earth. I’ve never reconciled myself to its realities
or figured out why, after thousands of years of history, people
haven’t found more humane methods to resolve problems. I have
been thinking about the war in Iraq, however. How can I not
think about it? Ironically, the challenges our servicemen and
women are facing there are vividly real to me because of fiction
I’ve read in the last couple of years. In the recovery period
after my car wreck, I read Dean Hughes Children of the Promise
series. By enmeshing me in the life of the Thomas family
in the days of WW II, the author tricked me into reading about
the realities of war. Before I knew it, I had walked with Wally,
a prisoner of war, on the Bataan death march and in forced labor
camps, seeing too vividly the horror all around him. I had experienced
with Gene the terror of combat, the reality of death; I had heard
the thoughts and felt the feelings of Alex, a returned missionary
assigned to return to Germany as an enemy of the people he had
taught and loved. I lived Alex’s conflicts and trials of the soul
when he was honor bound to kill. When I watch the war news now,
I cannot stay detached. A man in uniform is not some robot, he
is somebody’s son, sweetheart, father--a Wally or an Alex or a
Gene or a Ron Young--and my heart aches for him. I grieve with
the families who lose loved ones, for the families who wait and
watch and agonize when their loved ones are taken as POW’s. I
am haunted by the faces of Iraqi women and children in the news--people
who have had few times of peace in their won land. I grieve for
the disunity in our country and the world, for all the “taking
sides.” It is so easy to forget that it is not who is right
that counts, but what is right--and that sometimes only
God himself knows for certain what that is. Perhaps this is a
time of great testing--whether we will keep or break the commandment
“Judge not that ye be not judged.” (Matthew 7:1, 3 Nephi 14:1)
How can we sit and judge this situation when the best informed
among us knows so little?
Battlegrounds
of the Soul
I’m convinced
that the desert of Iraq is not the battleground where the Lord
would have me focus my energies and my concerns. There is absolutely
nothing I can do to bring a peaceful end to the fighting in Iraq.
I can pray my heart out, and I will, but the Lord allows mankind
the consequences of their choices, and we are witnessing some
of those consequences.
I’ve always
loved the song “Let There Be Peace On Earth, and Let it Begin
with Me.” While I have no control over the fighting in Iraq, I
do have control over the level of peace in my own life and heart.
When I experience inner turmoil, do I contribute to the general
level of turmoil on this planet? Will any peace I create on my
internal landscape contribute to peace on earth? I know peace
can only come one heart at a time.
The enemies
I must fight and subdue in order to have inner peace are the ones
that reside in my thoughts, in my heart, in my soul.
Enemies
I have
been spared, so far in my life
From fighting
external enemies.
No foreign
troops have marched on the soil of my state,
No bombs
have been dropped on my city,
No flesh
and blood enemy has done me physical harm
Or jailed
me for my beliefs.
I am free
to turn my strength
Toward
deadly enemies of spirit--
fear, resentment, anger, bitterness, pride, envy
Spiritual
termites that eat away sanity and serenity
and sap my spiritual strength.
Each of those
enemies will be examined in Part Two.
The Example
of the Anti-Nephi Lehies
Because of my
aversion to war, I confess that I used to skip the “war chapters”
in the Book of Mormon and question their value in my life. Now
I’ve come to believe that the Lord expects me to apply the principles
found there (the “Thus we see’s”), to the battles of my mind and
heart and soul. These lessons are universal because every person
breathing on this planet engages daily in battles between truth
and error, light and darkness.
Another piece
of fiction, Anne Perry’s Tathea offered me thought provoking
words on war that have application to my internal battles:
“Do you want to fight for what is true so the wisdom and
the light can belong to anyone who wants it? He said with sharp
urgency. “Remember, there is no middle ground. We are either for
God or we are for Asmodeus. We are for the light, the beauty,
the good, or we are for darkness, pain, and bondage. There is
no place between, only the illusion of it, and that too is a creation
of the enemy, the eternal lie, that you can win without battle,
reap without cost, triumph without courage or pain.” ( p. 268)
I know “we are
all enlisted till the conflict is o’re” (Hymn # 250). I know
the battle between good and evil is real and that I cannot shirk
from my own battles; I want the courage to stand up and be counted.
However, the one battle I want to be forever out of is fighting
against God or His truth. Since I am such a peace-loving soul,
the Book of Mormon people who inspire me the most are those who
chose not to fight God anymore. In the book of Alma we read of
Lamanites in seven lands and cities being converted to Christ
and calling themselves the Anti-Nephi-Lehies. They rejoiced in
Christ, were visited by angels, and“They did lay down the weapons
of their rebellion, that they did not fight against God anymore.”
(Alma 23:7) I’ve pondered that wording: “they did not fight against
God anymore.” Technically, their wars were waged against each
other, not God. But perhaps they had learned that “Inasmuch
as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren,
ye have done it unto me.” (Matthew 25:40)
Some of our
young men today may be called to be stripling warriors in the
fight against evil, but I’m grateful that I can choose to follow
the example of the Anti-Nephi Lehies. Alma 24:19 continues their
story.“And thus we see that, when these Lamanites were brought
to believe and to know the truth, they were firm, and would suffer
even unto death rather than commit sin; and thus we see that they
. . . buried their weapons of war, for peace.”
Do I Have
Weapons I Should Bury?
What are the
internal “weapons of war” that I can and should bury? What “weapons”
do I use when I create contention instead of peace in my relationships?
In what ways do I fight against God (in opposition to my true
desires to love and serve Him)? Any “weapon” I use against myself
or my fellowmen I also use against God. (I can never forget that
“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my
brethren, ye have done it unto me.”) Here I will attempt only
to identify possible weapons. Part two will discuss ways to bury
them in order to find peace with God, in our relationships, and
with ourselves.
I learned to
liken this scripture about the Anti-Nephi-Lehies unto myself when
perusing the manual He Did Deliver Me from Bondage (hereafter
referred to as HDDM.) The author Colleen Harrison said, “The weapons
of our rebellion against God are our weaknesses or character defects.
When we become willing to lay them down before the Lord, then
we cease fighting against His will for us. “ (HDDM p. 51, fifth
edition.)
“Anything that
takes me away from God is a weapon against Him. Anything that
hardens my heart takes me away from God. In 1 Nephi 15:3 we read
‘and they being hard in their hearts, therefore they did not look
unto the Lord as they ought.’ When we turn away from the Lord
we are easy prey to resentment, fear and anger--the things that
harden our hearts. As they increase, our heart is hardened even
more, we turn away from God even more, and a spiritually deadly
cycle is set up. “ (Colleen Harrison HDDM p. 50)
I had to think
long and hard about these ideas. If resentment, fear, and anger
are the things that harden my heart, and take me away from the
Lord, are they not the enemies of my soul? Are they not the “weapons”
I use against Him--the weapons I need to bury?
Am I fighting
against God if I
The Pride
Element
President Benson
labeled pride “enmity toward God.” The dictionary defines enmity
as “a state or feeling of hatred or hostility.” Since pride is
the universal sin, I am not in any way exempt. I must carefully
examine any thought or action motivated by pride. Is there an
element of pride in every idea in the list above? Is pride the
weapon I must bury first and foremost? How can I recognize pride
and why does pride cause me to “fight against God” when my only
desire is to love Him?
Of all God’s
creations, only mankind is capable of pride because only mankind
is given the agency to set himself at cross purposes with God.
Only a person formed in the express image of God can choose to
obey or not obey, and only such a person is capable of the preposterous
position of thinking him or herself wiser than God. Does a bird
programmed with the God-given instinct to fly South in the winter
to preserve its life ever ponder the matter and determine of its
own will and choice that it simply doesn’t want to fly
South? When the very dust of the earth is commanded of God does
it ever say, “Oh, let me think about this for awhile. That may
not be what I want to do?” Yet haven’t I engaged in just such
thinking?
It is not just
in abject rebellion that people fight against God. Rebellion is
not a natural part of my nature, but I have determined that any
time I fear or doubt or worry, I am distancing myself from God,
not trusting Him, and so in a way fighting against Him. When I
get into anger or resentment, am I not saying, “God, my will is
not being done, and I don’t like it!”
In the end,
it will not matter what I know about the gospel, but what I do
with what I know. Even gospel knowledge can be used either as
a weapon against other people or as a healing balm to heal their
wounds. I can abuse my children with my knowledge--beating up
on them for every imperfection, or I can exemplify the Savior’s
love in their life. It doesn’t matter what I know, but who I am.
And even more important--whose I am. Unless I bury all
my weapons of internal war and give my life over to the Savior,
in the end it will not matter what else I have given it to.
Watch for
Part Two
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