For the Beauty of the Earth--Spoken Word Given by Lloyd D. Newell

For the Beauty of the Earth

Delivered By: Lloyd D. Newell

Nature is often a theater for some of our most meaningful experiences. Many of us can tell of a time when we have been comforted, inspired, or awed while basking in the majesty of the beauties of the earth. The settings vary—from sunrise to sunset, from sea to desert, from valley to lofty mountain peaks—but the feelings are universal. Communion with nature does something to our souls. One who had such an experience chose to record what he felt, and his words have been recited and sung for nearly 150 years. The story is told of Folliott S. Pierpoint, who took a walk one day in late spring in the beautiful countryside near his home in Bath, England. Awestruck and inspired by what he saw, he sat down and wrote “For the Beauty of the Earth,”1 which captured for all time a heartfelt expression of gratitude and praise: For the beauty of the earth, For the beauty of the skies, For the love which from our birth Over and around us lies, Lord of all, to thee we raise This our hymn of grateful praise.2 Not only did he thank God for His magnificent creations, but other verses express thanks for family, friends, and many other cherished blessings. Indeed, if we open our hearts, we will see that our lives are filled with nature’s heavenly gifts. As men and women have done since time began, contemplate the wonders of life and the universe. When you feel discouraged or worried, take a moment’s pause, look outside, and breathe deeply the beauty and glory that surround us. 1. See Armin Haeussler, The Story of Our Hymns: The Handbook to the Hymnal of the Evangelical and Reformed Church (1952), 66. 2. Hymns, no. 92. Program #4162

Turning Points --Spoken Word Given by Lloyd D. Newell

Turning Points

Delivered By: Lloyd D. Newell

Life is a series of turning points. Some are gradual and almost imperceptible, except in hindsight. Others are abrupt and jarring. But either way, the longer we live, the more we realize that life is not a straight line—it’s full of pivotal moments that redirect and refocus our lives. Graduating from school, starting a new job, or moving to a different community are changes that we prepare for and even look forward to. Major life events, like getting married and starting a family, can invite growth and learning in a way that nothing else can. Even unexpected turning points, disappointments and heartaches, can—in time—enlarge our joys and deepen our affections. A man battling a grave medical diagnosis learned that such turning points can also be filled with tender mercies. In his turmoil, he was reminded of the love of family and friends; in his agony, he felt more profoundly the need for heaven’s help and the presence of divinity in his life; in his worry, he found and felt a deep reservoir of hope and an inner core of strength. His battle is far from over, but he has already learned some personal lessons that, he says, will forever stay with him. Yes, his health took a turn for the worse, but his illness has also served as a turning point in his life and in the lives of his loved ones. Chances are that many of us, right now, feel the hinges of life pointing us in a new direction. Some of those turns may be wonderful and welcome; some may be moments for which we have long prepared; others may be unforeseen blessings or even heart-wrenching difficulties that demand more from us than we ever thought we could give. If we open our hearts to the positive changes they invite, life’s turning points can help us find purpose and bring us closer to the people and things that matter most. Program #4161

Satan's Subtle Attack Upon Our Identity

M E R I D I A N M A G A Z I N E

Satan's Subtle Attack Upon Our Identity
By Maurine Proctor

Satan has been using the same old bag of tricks to discourage and dim us since before the world began, and the Lord, knowing we would have to defend ourselves against these wiles, has shown us what's in that black bag and how we can overcome.

In a war, a mighty military seeks intelligence information on its enemies to outwit and out-maneuver them. In politics, parties do opposition research. The scriptures reveal the psychology of temptation, the wormy ways that Satan attempts to break our hearts and our spirits.

He employed one of his most devious tricks to tempt the Savior himself.

We know that as Christ's ministry began, he went into the bleak and barren Judean wilderness to fast and seek his Father. Satan was certainly always at the heels of Christ, nipping and growling, dogging him, hoping to destroy the Father's plan, not just in these forty days. At the end the Savior told his apostles that, “ Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations.” ¹

Who would Satan have levelled more attention toward than the pure Son of God on whose choices the plan completely hinged? All of us were hanging in the balance, every day, every moment of Jesus' life. Our eternity was dependent on his perfect choices.

It is recorded that when Jesus had fasted forty days, at certainly a point of physical vulnerability, being hungered, the tempter came to him and said:

“If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.”

And again,

“If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee.”

And a third time, “the devil takes Jesus to an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” ²

Though it is not recorded that Lucifer said specifically on the third temptation, “If thou be the Son of God,” the implication is surely there. Here Satan tells the very Creator of the world that it does not all belong to Him—another thrust at his identity.

These temptations follow patterns that are certainly played out in our lives. The first is a temptation to appetite, the second a temptation to recognition and self-image, and the third is a temptation to power, glory and greed.

However, even more telling is the theme that underlies all of them—which is an assault at the Savior's very identity. Satan wants the Lord to question who and what He really is, the very substance and nature of His being, mission and capacities.

Should we miss this, we see that Satan inspires those who taunted and sought to humiliate the Savior while He was in agony on the cross with the same line: “Thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.” ³

It is this dig at our very identity that Satan uses so effectively on us. If it was his best technique for assaulting Jesus, we can expect that it is a fine and devious technique to use against us because it works so well.

Truman Madsen loved the old movie Random Harvest , that tells the story of an Englishman, who after World War I, has forgotten entirely who he is. He does not know his name, his rank, his station, or his parents, and he certainly does not remember that he had been the wealthy English heir of a financial dynasty. In that confused and bewildered state he is put into an asylum. He looks hopeful and unsure at a set of parents who have come to the asylum hoping he is their son, but he isn't. His memory and his parentage seem to be entirely lost to him.

What captivated Truman about this was how it was such a metaphor for our state here on earth. We understand we have a long and glorious personal history, living in a land of light, where we had sure understanding of who we were and who were our matchless, divine Parents. Except for those inner echoes that we are something much more, those swellings of the spirit, we have forgotten, captured by amnesia. We have forgotten not only who our Father truly is, but also who we are.

Truman liked to say, “What you are is so much greater than what you have yet done, it is incredible.”

Sometimes, we know that is true. Everything in our being shouts out a grand affirmative: Yes!

But sometimes, maybe more often for some, and maybe always for others, we have been beaten down by life, and our inner swellings ebb.

The so-called post-modern world has determined for us that man is nothing. He is but a random collection of matter and the bravest thing to do existentially is to acknowledge that nothingness with boldness. Instead of letting it press in upon you with its terrible weight, you embrace your nothingness and live life fully, knowing this is all you've got.

Teaching Us that We Don't Amount to Much

Yet, even for those of us who don't embrace this philosophy and know who we are, whose children grow up lisping from earliest speech, “I am a child of God,” Satan's favorite temptation is to teach us that we are personally nothing. He likes to screw us to the wall telling us that we don't amount to much.

He reminds us of our failures. He suggests that somebody like us could never succeed. He tells us that our talents are paltry. He suggests that we are not up to much. He weighs us down with the burden of every mistake, every misjudgement we've ever made. He tells us we are ugly, or growing ugly, that we are incompetent and untalented.

I knew someone who was turned down scores of times from graduate school and joked bitterly that he could wallpaper with his letters of rejection. We don't need to physically wallpaper with our rejections, the slights that have flown our way. Satan would build inner walls—prison walls—with reminders of when our efforts weren't enough. We may collect our failures like scrapbook mementos, a mental book we pull out to remind us to act in a way that is limited because that is who we really are.

Didn't we fail at this, or that? Weren't our efforts second rate and unacknowledged? Don't we have to honestly say that our best talents are but a wisp in the wind? And don't we have plenty of evidence for all of the above? (Evidence gladly supplied by the tempter, himself.) You are not much, says Lucifer to us. You have never been much.

With the veil dropped over our minds, in our amnesiac state, we believe him. Life is tough and all of us get bruised and knocked about, and we are certain that if we had done it better, if we had been really more worthy, our dreams would not have been so fully dashed.

We hear voices in our heads:

If you were a good parent, your child would not have broken your heart and gone astray.

If you were attractive or interesting, you would not be single.

If you were only more competent, you would have gotten (fill in the blank—the promotion, the calling, the recognition).

Variation: If you were only more competent, this devastating thing wouldn't have happened to you.

If you had any ability or talent, others would notice.

If you were likeable, they would have liked you.

It goes on and on with endless variations and permutations.

The Attack Upon Our Identity

What unites these thoughts that are purposely designed to diminish and thwart us is that attack upon our basic identity. Part of this mortal experience is that we don't remember who we are and what we can do. We do not remember that there was ever anything happy or noteworthy about us. We do not remember ourselves, and have only the dimmest sense about who we are here.

Just as Satan said to Christ, “If thou be the son of God,” he attacks our identity as well. He uses this attack to achieve several purposes.

He wants to paralyze us with discouragement so that we don't try. Instead of using our life's time for a greater purpose, we are trained to ask that worst question in the language, “What's the use?” We learn to see ourselves as someone who could not be of much help or could not take on a responsibility. We may even come to see ourselves as someone so small that God is not interested in us, someone whom He ignores because we are too miniscule.

Satan wants us to believe we are far less than we are so we impose limitations on ourselves. Instead of exploring our possibilities or seeking greater spiritual knowledge like Abraham, believing we are not up to much, we don't do much. It may seem the best way to live out our days is to do our duty quietly and then escape with a mindless activity.

Satan wants us to be fearful, play little games of avoidance where we can hide or be ever anxious and nervous about our performance.

Satan wants us to overcompensate for our loss of identity by ever seeking to prove that we are important, gathering transient acknowledgements that we count for something.

Christ did not fall for the ploy, “If thou be the son of God.” He was absolutely certain of who he was and what he came to do. Too often we fall for these parries against our very being. Satan tells us that we are empty, worthless or even despicable and we respond, “Oh yes, I see this is so.”

It is interesting, however, that God, our Father, who could have designed another kind of existence for us, designed this one. It is an experience where we constantly act with limited judgment and face the consequences of that. It is a condition, where, having forgotten all, we do not have much clue of our abilities, until they are called upon, and then in our ignorance we might be less than adequate. It is a training ground where we are young and green at some points when we wish we were experienced and polished.

It is a place where the beauty and strength of our youth is steadily diminished, so what we counted on one day as the very essence of ourselves is taken away over time. It is a place where we move from being so active we cannot think how to get it all done to wondering what to do with our time because the years have stolen our occupation or our little children or the need for us.

Oh what advantage Satan can take of these realities. How can we overcome his efforts to shred us to pieces, agreeing with him that we are banal, tasteless and forgotten? The world runs for more and more to fill this hole inside, this disappointment that we are so insignificant, so nothing.

Thwarting these Attacks

In only one way can we thwart these subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle attacks upon us from the tempter—and that is to draw close to God. He alone is in Reality. He alone sees us with clarity and has the long view of us that goes both backward and forward in time. I do not say here that we should give lip service to drawing close to him, but that we pay the price to have our whole souls yearn toward him.

From what environment do we want to gather information about the core of who we really are? From this world where we grow weary in the running and enervated by defeats great and small? Where people treat us curtly, ignore us, yell at us or treat us like an object?

Or do we want the understanding of our core to come from God? When we feel his stirrings, we are not only in awe of him, but we are also filled with hope for ourselves and who we really are.

We may run the whole world wide looking for mirrors to reflect back to us who we really are and come up empty, but only a few minutes with God's spirit awakens our whole soul and reaffirms our identity.

I know of no substitute to fill this internal ravine about our own identity except feeling the true love of God.

I have attended our children's patriarchal blessings and come away in awe. I thought I valued and loved them, but I was taken aback at how infinitely precious they are to him. I could feel that he adored them, counted on them, saw them as majestic eternal souls and as much more than the sometimes stumbling teenager, I then saw them to be.

The very survival of our expanded self in our own minds is dependent on our communion with God and the feelings of his love with which he will fill us. Satan and everything in the world will seek to trivialize and diminish us, to break our hearts with our smallness.

Satan may have challenged the Savior, “If thou be the Son of God,” but God in his speaking to his beloved children makes it clear whose we are and who we are.

In our scriptures, just before Christ went into the wilderness where Satan challenged his identity, He had already been told by the voice of his Father at his baptism, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” That was the voice that rang in him when the adversary tried to tempt him otherwise.

When God spoke face to face with Moses we learn: “And he saw God face to face, and he talked with him, and the glory of God was upon Moses; therefore Moses could endure his presence. And God spake unto Moses, saying: Behold, I am the Lord God Almighty and Endless is my name; for I am without beginning of days or end of years; and is not this endless?

“And behold, thou art my son.” ⁴

Think of it. Without God's glory being upon him, Moses could not have endured the very presence of this magnificent being. He is Almighty, Endless, without beginning of days or end of years, and behold we are his sons and daughters.

He knows we need a constant reminder of that. He knows we need a river of his light flowing through us so we are not dried up by the blasts of this life. If we ask, he will remind us:

You are of infinite worth whose future is beyond your imaginings.

You have not yet begun to discover who and what you are and can do.

The biggest part of you is still hidden and gradually unfolding.

Your setbacks in this life are transient and momentary.

Or as our friend, Truman Madsen always taught, “What you are is so much greater than what you have yet done, it is incredible.”

Take heart.

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Notes

1 Luke 22:28

2 Matt. 4: 1-11

3 Matt: 27: 40

4 Moses 1: 2-4

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The Bridge Builder--Spoken Word Given by Lloyd. D. Newell

The Bridge Builder

Delivered By: Lloyd D. Newell

Striving to be of service is the best way to lead a truly meaningful life. None of us walks alone—we follow trails blazed by those who went before, and countless others will come after us. When we take the time to make the journey a little easier for future travelers, we build bridges that span generations. Tennessee writer Will Allen Dromgoole understood this timeless truth. Will Allen was born in 1860, had a hard life, but became well-known for her numerous poems, essays, and books—many about the mountains and valleys of her beloved Tennessee. Perhaps she’s remembered best today for her poem “The Bridge Builder,” which speaks of the responsibilities we owe to our descendants yet to come. An old man, going a lone highway, Came, at the evening, cold and gray, To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide, Through which was flowing a sullen tide. The old man crossed in the twilight dim; The sullen stream had no fears for him; But he turned, when safe on the other side, And built a bridge to span the tide. “Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim, near, “You are wasting strength with building here; Your journey will end with the ending day; You never again must pass this way; You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide,— Why build you the bridge at the eventide?” The builder lifted his old gray head: “Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said, “There followeth after me to-day A youth, whose feet must pass this way. This chasm, that has been naught to me, To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be. He, too, must cross in the twilight dim; Good friend, I am building the bridge for him.”1 1 Rare Old Chums (1898), 83. Program #4160

Where Flowers Bloom, So Does Hope--Spoken Word Given by Lloyd D. Newell

Where Flowers Bloom, So Does Hope

Delivered By: Lloyd D. Newell

Flowers speak to our souls. Instinctively, children pick them; sweethearts give and receive them; poets write about them; and with much anticipation, everyone waits for them to bloom. Somehow they tell of love, of beauty, and of hope in a way that nothing else does. In every culture, in every corner of the world, flowers are the most beautiful of plants. They are symbols alive with meaning. In some settings they are peace offerings; in others, they are tokens of love; at various times in various places, they serve as souvenirs, memorials, and tributes. They tell stories, convey feelings, and bring people together. Every year in early summer, residents of a small city wait for wild poppies to bloom on the nearby foothills. For as long as the old-timers can remember, the poppies have decorated their hillside with radiant splashes of red and orange. Children go with parents and grandparents—who remember going with their parents—to see the poppies. They tell their young ones about war-torn times when poppies became symbols of remembrance and peace. Somehow the poppies are more than pretty flowers; they are emblems of continuity, evidence of life’s goodness and promise. Lady Bird Johnson, wife of former U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, is often remembered for her love of flowers. Roadsides across the country are beautiful today because of her efforts to plant wildflowers along highways. Mrs. Johnson liked to say, “Where flowers bloom, so does hope.” If something as delicate and beautiful as a flower can grow out of the hard, cold soil, then what else might be possible? We all need the hope that flowers embody. Flowers help us remember the unseen potential in ourselves, in those we love, and in the world around us. Indeed, where flowers bloom, so does hope. Program #4159