They Cry Unto the Lord in Their Trouble
(It's been too long since we had scripture posts; so we get two in a row--if you call the last post a scripture post)
I remember a day at a hemophilia camp where I was sitting with a young hemophiliac in pain from a bleed, while the rest of his cabin got to go run and play. I tried to console him, but also hoped to use it as a learning opportunity: "And if you had infused three hours ago when [other counselor] and I had suggested, would we be doing this right now?" He wouldn't admit it--because that was his personality--but he knew that I was right. He had waited until the crisis to do something about it, when he should have taken action at the first moment of trouble (or been smart and prevented it in the first place).
This experience came back to me as I was reading the scriptures and thinking about this concept. I was reading in Psalms 107. As you all know, the psalms are poems. Back in my IB days, I had to do a lot of poetry analysis. When I took a Creative Writing class from the community education system, the class was taught by a woman who is an IB English teacher at a nearby high school. After she learned that I was an IB diplomate, she would sometimes tease me. In our poetry unit, she would teach a concept and then ask me to give its technical name. I remember them, because, as she would say, "You can graduate the diplomate out of IB, but you can't graduate the IB out of the diplomate." So, while reading Psalms, I will sometimes hear Mr. Bliss or Mr. Curtis saying the names of these literary techniques in my mind. Psalms 107 brought back one of them repeatedly: anaphora. Anaphora is the repetition of a phrase in neighboring clauses. It's not a perfect anaphora, because they aren't neighboring clauses, but there are two phrases that David (or David's poet, I guess), use repeatedly in Psalms 107. 1) Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men. 2) Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.
The Psalm describes all kinds of scenarios of distress, and then the person cries out, and the Lord delivers them. One of the scenarios, David (or David's poet) is using the image of people in a storm at sea (we'll get to the New Testament, don't worry, I didn't miss the allusion). In Psalm 107:27-28, it reads:
They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end.
Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.
The implied question with all of these scenarios? Why do they wait until they are at their "wits' end?"
This scenario has a perfect correlation in the New Testament: Christ and the apostles are traveling on sea when Christ falls asleep. While he sleeps, a storm rages, and the disciples, eventually call to Christ saying "Lord, save us: we perish." (Matthew 8:25). Why did they wait until they were about to die to ask Christ to do something about it. In the Luke account of this scripture it makes it even clearer: "And there came down a storm of wind on the lake; and they were filled with water, and were in jeopardy." (Luke 8:23) Why did they wait until they were in jeopardy? Unrelated aside: I like the accounts of Luke best sometimes, because, as they were all after-the-fact, and Luke most likely never actually knew Christ, I feel like sometimes they are just a bit more and the moral is...
Those who watched LDS General Conference this past weekend know about a new thing that Mormons are doing called "ponderize." You choose a scripture each week and then ponderize it--80% ponder it, 20% memorize it. This week, I chose Doctrine and Covenants 29: 1-2:
"Listen to the voice of Jesus Christ, your Redeemer, the Great I Am, whose arms of mercy hath atoned for your sins; who will gather his people even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, even as many as will hearken to my voice and humble themselves before me, and call upon me in mighty prayer."
To be very Gospel of Luke about this, and the moral is, why do we do it Psalms style? Why don't we do it Doctrine and Covenants style? Call upon the Lord always, and before the crisis. Don't wait for the crisis. Because if you wait for the crisis, it's going to be much worse. Praise God and ask for his help always. Because we need his help everyday. Not just when we are staggering like drunken men on the ship's deck.
To bring it back full circle, to our young little hemophiliac: what we were trying to impress upon him is that factor is better when you use it to prevent rather than to treat, because preventing is significantly less painful than treating. Also because evidence suggest that once a hemophiliac feels the pain of a bleed, irreversible tissue damage has already taken place. These things are both true in the spiritual sense as well (though the first more than the last). It's not that you can't repent, and it's not that the atonement isn't capable of treating, and it's not that God isn't able to save us in our crisis. It's just that it's a lot less painful when you prevent it. Even though the atonement completely removes the effects of sin (unlike factor), there are sometimes still consequences (and no one knows that more deeply than David, right?). Even though Alma the Younger had fully repented of his wrongs, and was fully forgiven, he still bore the memories of his wrong-doing.
We need the constant help of God--to protect us, and to help us through life. Because life is fudging hard sometimes! And that's why you don't wait until the crisis.
I remember a day at a hemophilia camp where I was sitting with a young hemophiliac in pain from a bleed, while the rest of his cabin got to go run and play. I tried to console him, but also hoped to use it as a learning opportunity: "And if you had infused three hours ago when [other counselor] and I had suggested, would we be doing this right now?" He wouldn't admit it--because that was his personality--but he knew that I was right. He had waited until the crisis to do something about it, when he should have taken action at the first moment of trouble (or been smart and prevented it in the first place).
This experience came back to me as I was reading the scriptures and thinking about this concept. I was reading in Psalms 107. As you all know, the psalms are poems. Back in my IB days, I had to do a lot of poetry analysis. When I took a Creative Writing class from the community education system, the class was taught by a woman who is an IB English teacher at a nearby high school. After she learned that I was an IB diplomate, she would sometimes tease me. In our poetry unit, she would teach a concept and then ask me to give its technical name. I remember them, because, as she would say, "You can graduate the diplomate out of IB, but you can't graduate the IB out of the diplomate." So, while reading Psalms, I will sometimes hear Mr. Bliss or Mr. Curtis saying the names of these literary techniques in my mind. Psalms 107 brought back one of them repeatedly: anaphora. Anaphora is the repetition of a phrase in neighboring clauses. It's not a perfect anaphora, because they aren't neighboring clauses, but there are two phrases that David (or David's poet, I guess), use repeatedly in Psalms 107. 1) Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men. 2) Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.
The Psalm describes all kinds of scenarios of distress, and then the person cries out, and the Lord delivers them. One of the scenarios, David (or David's poet) is using the image of people in a storm at sea (we'll get to the New Testament, don't worry, I didn't miss the allusion). In Psalm 107:27-28, it reads:
They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end.
Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.
The implied question with all of these scenarios? Why do they wait until they are at their "wits' end?"
This scenario has a perfect correlation in the New Testament: Christ and the apostles are traveling on sea when Christ falls asleep. While he sleeps, a storm rages, and the disciples, eventually call to Christ saying "Lord, save us: we perish." (Matthew 8:25). Why did they wait until they were about to die to ask Christ to do something about it. In the Luke account of this scripture it makes it even clearer: "And there came down a storm of wind on the lake; and they were filled with water, and were in jeopardy." (Luke 8:23) Why did they wait until they were in jeopardy? Unrelated aside: I like the accounts of Luke best sometimes, because, as they were all after-the-fact, and Luke most likely never actually knew Christ, I feel like sometimes they are just a bit more and the moral is...
Those who watched LDS General Conference this past weekend know about a new thing that Mormons are doing called "ponderize." You choose a scripture each week and then ponderize it--80% ponder it, 20% memorize it. This week, I chose Doctrine and Covenants 29: 1-2:
"Listen to the voice of Jesus Christ, your Redeemer, the Great I Am, whose arms of mercy hath atoned for your sins; who will gather his people even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, even as many as will hearken to my voice and humble themselves before me, and call upon me in mighty prayer."
To be very Gospel of Luke about this, and the moral is, why do we do it Psalms style? Why don't we do it Doctrine and Covenants style? Call upon the Lord always, and before the crisis. Don't wait for the crisis. Because if you wait for the crisis, it's going to be much worse. Praise God and ask for his help always. Because we need his help everyday. Not just when we are staggering like drunken men on the ship's deck.
To bring it back full circle, to our young little hemophiliac: what we were trying to impress upon him is that factor is better when you use it to prevent rather than to treat, because preventing is significantly less painful than treating. Also because evidence suggest that once a hemophiliac feels the pain of a bleed, irreversible tissue damage has already taken place. These things are both true in the spiritual sense as well (though the first more than the last). It's not that you can't repent, and it's not that the atonement isn't capable of treating, and it's not that God isn't able to save us in our crisis. It's just that it's a lot less painful when you prevent it. Even though the atonement completely removes the effects of sin (unlike factor), there are sometimes still consequences (and no one knows that more deeply than David, right?). Even though Alma the Younger had fully repented of his wrongs, and was fully forgiven, he still bore the memories of his wrong-doing.
We need the constant help of God--to protect us, and to help us through life. Because life is fudging hard sometimes! And that's why you don't wait until the crisis.
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