Love and Law

My thoughts on Elder Oaks' talk "Love and Law"

I love how in the Ensign (or online) this follows Pres. Uchtdorf's talk on love. (That is if you skip the sustaining and business messages.) I can also hear his lawyer voice in this talk. When he gave it I swore I was in a court room or school room being given one of the best lectures around. I love this talk as well (is there one I don't love?). I'm going to remember this one. In the family I live in this helps me live and love them more fully and if I ever get the chance someday I will show this to them and maybe they will at least understand why.

"My message is that God’s universal and perfect love is shown in all the blessings of His gospel plan, including the fact that His choicest blessings are reserved for those who obey His laws. These are eternal principles that should guide parents in their love and teaching of their children."

His choicest blessings! I will obey to get those blessings. I now just need to use them as my guide to teaching my children.

I love how he spells it out--no holding anything back (that must be the lawyer in him).

(paraphrase) Parental love should not override the commandments of divine law and the teachings of parents.
WOW! I'm so glad I can put that in my vocabulary.

"The love of God does not supersede His laws and His commands, and the effect of God's laws and commandments does not diminish the purpose and effect of His love."
Chew on that for a while. Then he adds, "The same should be true of parental love and rules."

Now that my head is swimming.

More to chew on and throw your brain in the deeper end of this pool.
"God’s love for His children is an eternal reality, but why does He love us so much, and why do we desire that love? The answer is found in the relationship between God’s love and His laws.

"Some seem to value God’s love because of their hope that His love is so great and so unconditional that it will mercifully excuse them from obeying His laws. In contrast, those who understand God’s plan for His children know that God’s laws are invariable, which is another great evidence of His love for His children. Mercy cannot rob justice, and those who obtain mercy are “they who have kept the covenant and observed the commandment”.


"God’s love is so perfect that He lovingly requires us to obey His commandments because He knows that only through obedience to His laws can we become perfect, as He is. For this reason, God’s anger and His wrath are not a contradiction of His love but an evidence of His love. Every parent knows that you can love a child totally and completely while still being creatively angry and disappointed at that child’s self-defeating behavior."

(How do I get a hard hearted child to read this? And/or how do I tell him this?)

Now that we are in the deep end, let's go deeper with Elder Oaks.
Gifts:
Mortality--gift one.
Resurrection--gift two.
And these two gifts EVERYONE gets. No matter what. Just because he loves us and we are is children.
But the rest are tied to our personal obedience. (D&C 130:20-21) This is true for most of our parental laws as well.
"God’s choicest blessings are clearly contingent upon obedience to God’s laws and commandments."

Now here is the one principle that I want to have but revoke from my children ~grin~
AGENCY!
"Agency—our power to choose—is fundamental to the gospel plan that brings us to earth. God does not intervene to forestall the consequences of some persons’ choices in order to protect the well-being of other persons—even when they kill, injure, or oppress one another—for this would destroy His plan for our eternal progress.8 He will bless us to endure the consequences of others’ choices, but He will not prevent those choices."

In my last post I talked about this as our one and only true thing we can give Him in return for everything He has given us. Because he doesn't choose for us, we must choose Him.

Can this next quote be spoken in every town, city, village, country side, home, and heart? Please?
"The effect of God’s commandments and laws is not changed to accommodate popular behavior or desires. If anyone thinks that godly or parental love for an individual grants the loved one license to disobey the law, he or she does not understand either love or law. The Lord declared: “That which breaketh a law, and abideth not by law, but seeketh to become a law unto itself, and willeth to abide in sin, and altogether abideth in sin, cannot be sanctified by law, neither by mercy, justice, nor judgment. Therefore, they must remain filthy still”.

(Part IV of this talk was one huge highlighted mess in my Ensign. ~smile~ I should just copy and paste the whole thing.)
"In teaching and reacting to their children, parents have many opportunities to apply these principles. One such opportunity has to do with the gifts parents bestow on their children. Just as God has bestowed some gifts on all of His mortal children without requiring their personal obedience to His laws, parents provide many benefits like housing and food even if their children are not in total harmony with all parental requirements. But, following the example of an all-wise and loving Heavenly Father who has given laws and commandments for the benefit of His children, wise parents condition some parental gifts on obedience."

(I'm glad I got to reread this just after an argument with my child. I just might be a better parent next time around.)

"Where does a parent draw the line?"
I love his answer. "That is a matter for parental wisdom, guided by the inspiration of the Lord."

"As parents grapple with these problems, they should remember the Lord’s teaching that we leave the ninety and nine and go out into the wilderness to rescue the lost sheep."

Now I have a serious question here. When do you say, "I love that one who has walked away, but the 99 I left behind need me"? Seriously I need to know because I feel like I'm leaving the 99 to wonder and become lost themselves.

"Parents should also remember the Lord’s frequent teaching that “whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth” (Hebrews 12:6). In his conference talk on tolerance and love, Elder Russell M. Nelson taught that “real love for the sinner may compel courageous confrontation—not acquiescence! Real love does not support self-destructing behavior.”"

I have felt His chastening. I hope never to feel it so severely again. I just hope that those in my family who have felt it will move towards correcting the behavior.

And here is the biggest reminder of them all:
"In the midst of such stress, we must endure the reality that the straying of our loved ones will detract from our happiness, but it should not detract from our love for one another or our patient efforts to be united in understanding God’s love and God’s laws."

I will not let a wondering child--no matter who it be--distract me from my path to happiness. I will not let them mix up the love and law in my mind. We have laws so that we can love--love as Christ did. I will love the sinner, not the sin, even if that sinner is me.


As an aside: I stumble every time I say his name. He was President Oaks while I was at BYU and it is so hard not to call him President Oaks. I even worked in the administration building and got to meet him once.