Overcoming the Natural Man

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The key ingredient in our holding on to the natural man or woman in us is selfishness.

Read the following comment made by Elder Neal A. Maxwell in his October 1990 conference talk, Put Off the Natural Man and Come Off Conqueror:

"Stubborn selfishness leads otherwise good people to fight over herds, patches of sand, and strippings of milk. All this results from what the Lord calls coveting “the drop,” while neglecting the “more weighty matters.” (D&C 117:8.) Myopic selfishness magnifies a mess of pottage and makes thirty pieces of silver look like a treasure trove. In our intense acquisitiveness, we forget Him who once said, “What is property unto me?” (D&C 117:4.)

"Such is the scope of putting off the burdensome natural man who is naturally selfish. (See Mosiah 3:19.) So much of our fatigue, brothers and sisters, in fact, comes from carrying that needless load. This heaviness of the natural man prevents us from doing our Christian calisthenics; so we end up too swollen with selfishness to pass through the narrow needle’s eye.

"Unchecked selfishness thus stubbornly blocks the way for developing all of the divine qualities: love, mercy, patience, long-suffering, kindness, graciousness, goodness, and gentleness.

"Restoration scriptures tell us much more about how we can really be forgiven through the atonement of Christ by means of which, finally, “mercy … overpowereth justice.” (Alma 34:15.) We can have real and justified hope for the future—enough hope to develop the faith necessary to both put off the natural man and to strive to become more saintly.

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Personal Touch

Welcome to the Neighborhood News

Hello everybody! I hope you have a great and peaceful Memorial Day.

In today’s Personal Touch interview with Rebecca Cressman, she has a one-on-one talk with Chaplain Mark Allison. Chaplain Mark Allison has spent many years beside people dealing with grief, loss, and the challenges of life. He is a Board Certified Chaplain and the supervisor for Clinical Chaplain Training, at the George E. Wahlen VA Medical Center in Salt Lake City, where he trains both civilian and military chaplains in inter-faith pastoral care and counseling. Mark holds a Masters of Arts Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy and has been a Military Chaplain since 1986 serving tours of duty in the Persian Gulf War as well as in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. From 1999- 2007 he pioneered and established the first Chaplain Service at the University of Utah Hospital, School of Medicine, and Huntsman Cancer Hospital.

Our dear friend Marie Ricks, from House of Order, has contributed the article “As Light and Hope Dim: Dealing with Terminal Illness.” Since she has some experience dealing with situations that sometimes are unexpected, she decided to share them with us, so we can all be edified. She observes: “When you converse with someone that has a terminal illness or is the caretaker of someone with a terminal illness, inquire about the long term prognosis only occasionally. Then, focus on the current feelings, health, and needs of today, tomorrow, and this week. Most people with a terminal illness are long past feeling sorry for themselves.” Isn’t it great that we can go to people that have these kind of experiences and know that we’ll get good counsel?

Our next installment comes from the Church magazines. The author is Clifford J. Stratton, and he writes his article “Dealing with Death and Dying: Providing Emotional Support for the Bereaved or Terminally Ill.” He starts with a personal experience and then he delves in the topic of bereavement. He tells us: “It is important to remember that we feel a loss at every death. We long for the touch, the sight, the presence of the one we lost, and even a secure knowledge of the plan of salvation doesn’t take away the longing.”

Our last entry presents to us different resources to help us cope with terminal illnesses. It comes from the “Changing Nature of the American Family” blog. One of their assertions is as follows: “For families dealing with all types of illness, individual and group/family therapy can be an extremely useful tool for strengthening the family unit by encouraging effective communication.”

To view a copy of the Neighborhood News for Monday, 31 May’s, please click here.