.Not Half Way III.

Continuing from Not Half Way II, Neal A. Maxwell wrote:

From a previous post; No wonder, therefore, we are repeatedly rushed to use our time wisely by forsaking the world and “[taking] up our cross daily” (Luke 9:23; emphasis added ). I seem to remember that C.S.Lewis taught us that God is serious about joy (see Letters to Malcolm 17:17). Indeed, “Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy” (2 Nephi 2:25). Even so there is neither cheap joy nor cost-free discipleship. . . . continuing:

Given the cosmic facts and divine proposes, no wonder we must set our faces like flint against the expressions of modernity’s ethical realism—of which C.S. Lewis wrote, “What is the good of telling the ships how to steer as to avoid collisions if, in fact, they are such crazy old tubs that they cannot be steered at all”?”19

Developmentally as well as doctrinally, all other commandments hang on the two great and interactive commandments.  As Lewis counseled: “All natural affections . . . can become rivals to spiritual love; but they can also be preparatory imitations of it, training (so to speak) of the spiritual muscles which Grace may later put to a higher service; as women nurse dolls in childhood and later nurse children.” 20

Continuing, regarding such preparatory training, he wrote, “We are bidden to ‘put on Christ,’ to become like God. That is, whether we like it or not, God intends to give us need, not what we  think we want.

Discernment as to our personal shortfalls during our development is, therefore, vital, including how we face suffering, especially when it comes to those we love. Said Lewis: “Love, in its own nature, demands the perfecting of the beloved; . . . mere ‘kindness’ which tolerates anything except suffering in its object is, in that respect, at the opposite pole from Love.:22

Again, what Lewis wrote underscores the need for such spiritual submissiveness and meekness: “Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God. For what can be more unlike than fullness and need, sovereignty and humility, righteousness and penitence, limitless power and a cry for help? This paradox staggered me when I first ran into it.”23

The paradox that “staggered” underscores why the first commandment is first and the second commandment is second. Yes, the second commandment is “like unto the first,” but it is not the first! In fact, we worship the Perfect Object of the first commandment, while, though we are to love Them, we do not worship the imperfect objects of the second commandment. We gladly recognize the supremacy of the Object of the love spoken of in the first commandment.

Moreover if a person really loves God with all his or her heart, might, mind, and strength, this involves intellectual surrender to God, too. Alas, there are comparatively more knees bent in reverence to God than there are minds, a fact that often presents failure to understand the nature of God.

As modern revelation tells us, Enoch learned what Paul called “the deep things of God” (Corinthians 2:10). Enoch saw, personally, the Lord’s tears, and heard the Lord’s lamentations about mankind. God, having given us our agency, commanded us to love one another and to love and choose Him. ‘Yet the Lord’s lament is that we mortals so often choose evil instead of choosing Him and His ways, which evoked the divine tears (see Moses 7).

Keeping the first commandment leads us to acknowledge and love the Lord sufficiently to accept His timing, even when, as Nephi acknowledged, We “do not know the meaning of all things” (1 Nephi 11:17). Hence, there are in fact more people who partially keep the second commandment than truly kept the first. Thus it is the first commandment which sets the high tone and the standards. Otherwise, every man can walk in his own way and do his own thing, which will often include some useful but sidebar service to his fellow mortals (see Doctrine & Covenants 1:16). Consider, for instance, the case of Morianton’s actually dealing justly with his people but not with himself because of his whoring failure to love God’s seventh commandment (see Ether 10:11).

Clearly, some mortal choices need not necessarily be wicked in order to do harm. Some choices are diversions more than they are transgressions. Yet some sins of commission do mount up, constituting deprivations we inflict upon our fellow human beings as the helpful things we might have done and said are sadly “omitted” (see Matthew 23:23)