Fear of Trying

I am back from my hiatus after finishing finals and taking a break. Finals went well for me. There was a lot of stress, but it turned out to be good. Now, most of my friends are gone for the holidays and I am still here in Provo. I am with family, so do not worry. My family lives here and I have lived here my whole life. I know, I know, it is kind of boring, but hey, it is life as I know it.

I have been having interesting conversations with a lot of different people lately. Everybody is at different stages in their life and they see things differently than me. The other day I was talking to a dear girlfriend of mine and she brought up the subject of the fear of trying. Then another time I was talking to my best friend, Brady, and the topic came up. It keeps coming up with people I talk to, so I thought it would be a good topic to write about and share my thoughts with you.

I have noticed with others and myself that we are afraid to try to do something new. We are afraid to try something that is going to be hard and difficult It is interesting how it is a cake walk to not be afraid to try something that easy.

It makes me wonder what heaven was like then. Were we utterly without fear? We knew what our lives would entail, the trials that we would go through, and the difficulties we would face, but we still decided to come here on earth and face them. We had to have full faith in God and be utterly trusting of Him to come here to earth or else, we would have gone with Satan.

Where has this full faith and great trust gone? Have we lost it by the wayside? Has Satan gotten a hold of our minds and cause us to doubt God? I believe that a lot of us have lost our faith and trust in God. We think that we know what is right for us. In reality, God only knows what is best for us and I believe that He wants us to try to overcome the natural or "gay" man inside of all of us. I believe that SSA is another trial that is hard, but something that God wants us to overcome and that it is something that we can overcome.

Why are we afraid to try? I hear excuses that we do not want to hurt the woman you are dating. That is a bunch of bull crap! Women get hurt everyday by straight guys. Believe me, I know. I am a go to guy with a lot of my girlfriends when they are hurt, lonely, and sad. Then I hear other excuses that it is not natural. Well, the church teaches going against the natural man and getting rid of the natural, evil tendencies that we have. Then I hear other excuses that it is not worth it. It makes me wonder how it could not be worth it. God is preparing mansions for us and wanting us to become Gods. They only way that we can become Gods is by following His teachings and doctrines. There is no other way.

These excuses that come from fear to try. My bishop told me a story. I cannot remember who it was about (this really did happen, I promise), but this man lived his life everyday with the motto of "Just Do It!" He would say this motto every time he left his house, work, and whenever he needed a reminder. This motto meant to him that he would follow the Spirit and the church's teachings. If things got hard, he would tell himself to "just do it!"

I think that we should all take this motto upon us. We need to do it. We need to take the chances and risks that a lot of us are so afraid to do. We need to do what the church tells us and overcome the natural man inside of us. We need to stop being afraid of what is hard and put our trust in the Lord, like we did before we came here. We need to keep fighting the good fight and work on bettering ourselves. We need to unite ourselves to fight Satan and help others who are struggling because we cannot do it alone. Too many people get hurt and go off the deep end when they try to do it alone. We did not do it alone in the premortal life.

And they [this is all of the spirits on God's side, so us] overcame him [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. -Revelation 12:11

Have faith and trust the Lord. We were once willing to die for our testimonies and I believe that we should be willing to sacrifice our "gay" part of ourselves to our beloved Savior and Redeemer and to our most gracious God.