Avoiding Confusion

by Autumn Dickson

The Lord continues to clarify and restore His church. This week, He helps to clarify what their meetings should look like and who gets to come. There were some Saints who started acting strangely during these meetings because they believed they were being acted upon by the Holy Ghost. The Lord taught what it truly looks like when the Spirit is working through you.

Here is part of His clarification:

Doctrine and Covenants 46:7 But ye are commanded in all things to ask of God, who giveth liberally; and that which the Spirit testifies unto you even so I would that ye should do in all holiness of heart, walking uprightly before me, considering the end of your salvation, doing all things with prayer and thanksgiving, that ye may not be seduced by evil spirits, or doctrines of devils, or the commandments of men; for some are of men, and others of devils.

I want to rearrange the order of this verse a little bit to clarify what I want to teach. The Lord wants us to avoid being seduced by evil spirits, doctrines of devils, and commandments of men. That is His goal when He is speaking to His people in this verse. What is His advice (or more accurately commandments) for how to avoid these unfortunate ends? He gives us a few pieces of wisdom.

Follow Him in holiness of heart, walking uprightly before Him, considering the end of your salvation, and doing all things with prayer and thanksgiving. These are some of the ways that we can avoid confusion in the latter days.

Confusion

Before I jump into each phrase, I want to expand the idea of “confusion” that I’m talking about today.

When I first think of the concept of “confusion” in regards to the gospel, I usually have a knee jerk reaction to believe that we’re referring to who has the truth surrounding God and His characteristics and gospel. This is definitely a portion of confusion, but Satan extends it far beyond that.

Yes, he wants to confuse us as to who has the truth, but he also wants to confuse us in any way that he possibly can. He loves to confuse us by twisting gospel principles.

For example, it is  so easy to get caught up in being right and others being wrong. Satan loves to cause discord and turn people against each other. Perhaps conflict isn’t your first thought when we’re talking about confusion, but it’s a very powerful tactic of Satan and the rest of the world. Confusing us to the extent that we see enemies all around can also be very effective for Satan.

Feeling connected to one another is a powerful part of salvation. Needing each other, taking care of each other, assuming the best of each other, and melding our different experiences into powerful progress are all necessary pieces to the salvation puzzle. Satan loves to confuse us and pull us away from those specific types of salvation.

He loves to make us believe that we’re correct and everyone else is wrong. He loves to make us believe that others have evil intentions, and we have to step up and be heroes. He loves making us believe that we need to fight against others when in actuality, a grand majority of us are trying to push mankind forward even if we have different ways of going about it. He wants us to see other people as the enemy.

By making us believe we’re enemies, Satan is taking away opportunities for us to feel the pieces of heaven that are available to us here on earth.

So that’s my expanded definition of confusion. It’s not just about who has the truth. It’s about all the ways that Satan can confuse us. What advice do we receive from the Lord about how to avoid confusion? Let’s jump into those phrases now.

Holiness of heart

The first phrase is “holiness of heart.”

Holiness is to be set apart. If I’m going to make something holy, I take it apart from its environment that is likely corrupt or even just mundane. I do this so that it can be more readily utilized by the Lord. For example, the temple is holy. It’s made from similar materials as other buildings on the earth, but it’s not like other places on earth. It was set aside from corrupt and mundane things, and we make it holy by reserving it for the Lord’s use.

Another example. The sacrament is holy. It’s just regular bread and water, but it’s not regular bread and water in the sense that we have set it apart for a higher purpose. It’s not about filling out stomachs and rehydrating. It’s more important. We separated it from other food so that it can help us to think of Christ.

How do we make our hearts holy? How do we set our hearts apart from the world? I have just a few thoughts. Our hearts are physically like other hearts in the world, but our hearts cannot look like the hearts of the rest of the world. They have to be different. Our hearts have to be separated from earthly influences so that we are in a space where the Lord can more readily speak to us and utilize us. This means purposefully drowning out the noise that comes in from any other source and tuning ourselves to just speak with Him.

Much of the process of making something holy occurs within our mind and focus. We don’t use a special type of bread for the sacrament. We make it special by giving it a different purpose within our minds. We consciously make a decision to set something apart for the Lord’s use, and we wait to see what the Lord wants to do with it. It is no different with our hearts. If we want our hearts to be holy, we consciously separate our love from corrupt and mundane influences and wait to see what the Lord wants to do with it.

Walking uprightly before Him

When I first looked at this phrase, all I could think of was keeping the commandments. I think that’s definitely part of it, and the commandments are absolutely placed there to help us avoid confusion. I want to take it a step further though.

When you do something “uprightly,” you do it in an “honest, responsible, and moral way.” Believe it or not, you can keep the commandments in a way that is not upright and oftentimes, doing it with a wrong heart can cause more problems and more confusion.

You can serve your spouse, and it can bring more resentment. You can wear your garments and be angry about it the whole time. You can pay your tithing and be annoyed.

This isn’t meant to shame anyone because shame brings its own share of problems, and heaven knows I have been guilty of following the commandments with a bitter heart. I don’t bring this up so that we can harangue ourselves. Rather, I bring it up because if we can consciously change how we approach the commandments (i.e. following the commandments in an uprightly manner), we can find very specific blessings.

One of those blessings is what we’ve been talking about: avoiding being seduced by evil spirits and the commandments of men.

Let’s look at that first example more closely. Before I share this example, I think it’s really important to note that Conner is a good husband who works really hard to take care of our family. He’s loyal and playful and responsible, and his deepest happiness comes from being with us.

And yet, despite being married to a very good man, sometimes I get resentful towards Conner. When I want him to do something I think he should be doing or when I want him to stop doing something, I can take it personally and turn it into a bigger problem. And then, when I continue to serve him in the ways that I normally do, it can make the resentment build and build.

During one of my resentful moments, I came across a very Christlike piece of advice on instagram. A lady shared her experience of learning to love her husband even when she didn’t feel loved. Her example reminded me that I wasn’t serving my husband in an upright manner. I was serving him but not in the way that the Lord would have me serve, and so it wasn’t bringing any joy into my life. In fact, it was doing the opposite.

I had been so caught up in my resentment (despite following the commandment to serve) that I felt justified. I was convinced that I couldn’t be vulnerable or forgive or allow myself to be happy until my perceived wrongs were made up. I had gotten confused.

Unsurprisingly, I was also miserable.

As I came across this advice to love more freely (and as I chose to do my best to act on that advice), I felt that confusion melt away. Satan had been lying to me. The world was wrong in its assumption that there is power in bitterness.

That is just one example, but I’ve found it to be true over and over and over. When I give my heart right alongside my service (when I walk uprightly before the Lord), Satan and the commandments of men have less power over me and I find more joy.

Considering the end of your salvation

There are two ways I’m interpreting this phrase in my head. When we consider the “end” of our salvation, it could be referring to the means by which we receive salvation (Christ) or what the “end” of salvation looks like. Both are really great ways to help us avoid confusion and hold on, but I want to focus on the first interpretation I mentioned. If we want to avoid confusion, we should take time to consciously consider how Christ brought about that salvation.

I want to bring up another form of confusion that causes a lot of problems. Perhaps this is just my personal experience, but I feel like people (myself included) have gotten so incredibly caught up in wanting to be seen and heard. We want our sacrifices to be noted. We want to be recognized and validated. We are desperate to make sure that we’ve gotten as much as the next person.

But that’s not how Christ lived His life. He didn’t seek recognition and validation. He gave up everything, and He did it alone. He wasn’t angry when the disciples fell asleep during that ultimate sacrifice. He didn’t resent them.

Even now, when He commands us to remember Him, it’s not about Him. He wants us to remember Him and worship Him because He knows what it will do for us, not because He has some ego that needs to be fed.

Satan likes to confuse us. He loves to whisper that we deserve better, and honestly, maybe we do. But if we turn our minds towards Christ and how He lived His life, we can find a better way.

When we choose to focus outward in the same way that He performed His sacrifice, we will find joy regardless of whether the world is fair or unfair. And then, when we get to the other side, it will all be as it should be. Satan would love for you to focus on what you don’t have and what you think the others are doing wrong rather than adopting the focus that Christ had.

All things with prayer and thanksgiving

One of my daughters is particularly stubborn. Being stubborn comes with its own gifts and trials that she’s going to have to learn how to balance.

There have been many times that she has approached me, already mad and ready to pick a fight, over something she feels was mishandled. This can range anywhere from my choice of disciplining her brother to enforcing a rule that she’s unimpressed with. Picking a fight is putting it kindly. There are times when she feels quite fiercely about what she’s approaching me with.

When she approaches me, opinions set in stone and frustration mounting, it can be very difficult to explain myself to her. I don’t always mind explaining my parenting choices, but it’s very hard for her to understand my explanations when she has preconceived notions and anger. That anger often arises out of her opinion that I’m shortchanging her rather than her remembrance of how I’ve centered my life around her in so many ways.

It becomes nearly impossible for her to hear me, and when I don’t have the opportunity to get my point across, she stays confused about why I chose my specific route.

The phrase we’re talking about right now is to do all things with prayer and thanksgiving. This may be one phrase, but prayer and thanksgiving function slightly differently in their ability to help us avoid confusion.

First, there is prayer. True prayer means that we’re communing with the Lord. We are seeking to align our will with His. We are open to His responses. I don’t think I have to delve too far into this in order to highlight why this might be helpful when we’re trying to avoid confusion.

Second, there is thanksgiving. Having your eyes opened to all the ways that the Lord has already shown up for you enables you to trust His answer. When you approach Him in thanksgiving for everything He has done for you, oftentimes, you will find the answer you’re looking for in the midst of what He’s already given. As my daughter grows and comes to trust my intentions more and more, it will become easier and easier for her to understand my parenting choices. She will see that I’m giving her opportunities to become her best self rather than trying to undermine her or unfairly push back against her. Having a thankful heart for all the Lord has done for us helps us approach Him in a manner where we’re ready to see the truth and shed our confusion.

The Lord wants to help us understand. He wants to guide us along His path. He wants us to avoid confusion. It can be very easy to get caught up in Satan’s lies or the commandments of men when we’re trying to take the infinite decisions of God and fit them into tiny boxes where they don’t belong. Fortunately, the Lord has also given us specific ways of how to avoid this confusion.

I testify of a Lord who is worth listening to. His words aren’t arbitrary or minced. His wisdom far surpasses Satan or those on the earth who are limited in their understanding. He cares, and He wants to teach us so that we can rise above what anyone else can offer.

 

 

Autumn Dickson was born and raised in a small town in Texas. She served a mission in the Indianapolis Indiana mission. She studied elementary education but has found a particular passion in teaching the gospel. Her desire for her content is to inspire people to feel confident, peaceful, and joyful about their relationship with Jesus Christ and to allow that relationship to touch every aspect of their lives. Autumn was the recipient of FAIR’s 2024 John Taylor Defender of the Faith Award.

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