Spiritual Arson

One of the false dilemmas many of us experience in the Church is that you're either easily, cheerfully, and quickly on board with every piece of prophetic counsel or you're trying to justify your sins and are finding a way out of the fold. The reality is a little stickier than that. God always has and always will give us expectations that challenge and stretch us and, in this episode, Adam and Tanner talk about how they attempt to handle their own struggles with prophetic counsel.

"There is not a single problem that therapy solves that a proper application of the atonement does not more efficiently and effectively address."

If that statement makes you angry you need to read it again, change your understanding of therapy, or change your understanding of the Atonement.

Therapy is and can be a wonderful thing - when done correctly. But, when done wrong, it can crush your soul.

There are no virtues the adversary doesn't want to subvert or obliterate - and gratitude is certainly up for grabs. The prophet was inspired to give us the #givethanks challenge this week and the blessings were both quick and obvious. That said, there were those who outright resented the expressions of gratitude and it's important to not let them convince us that giving God our thanks is a hurtful act.

Today Adam and Tanner bring in guest Leiland Tanner, the musician who worked with Adam to create the intro music for the podcast.

Leiland is a ball of spiritual energy and someone who brings a lot to the table that most saints - including Adam and Tanner - don't even think about it.

He's an expert on godly symbolism and its power and we go deep on how it applies from something as basic as how our food is presented to what our mindset should be when we participate in the temple endowment.

Look around your home. What do you have hanging on the walls? What kind of media do you consume? What about the clothes you wear or the music you listen to? How much of this inspires you to be better - to be more Godly? Or how much of it just hits your emotional buttons and makes you feel something but doesn't lead to any action? In this episode Adam and Tanner talk about the difference between the art of Babylon and that of God and how we, as a people, should be more intentional and proactive about surrounding ourselves with Godly beauty, symbolism, and art. It should be in our music, our clothing, our architecture, our paintings, and our entertainment. And, if you can't create it yourself, you should be rewarding the artists who do by paying them for their work.

Yes it's the week after the 2020 US election but Adam and Tanner wanted to focus on other things.

In this episode they dive into miracles following the faithful, being proactive, rather than reactive when it comes to becoming more righteous, the power of taking spiritual chances, and once again reveal things about themselves that show they're fallible and struggling as much as everyone else.

This week's fire: Follow any good thing that may even feel like it's a prompting. Don't overanalyze it, just do it and see how the blessings come.

Put yourself in Mormon's position - you're all alone in a world of absolute wickedness. The atrocities you're seeing are beyond description and you no longer believe your people can be saved.

They don't even want to be.

They'd rather double down on their sins - even when doing so means the women and children are sacrificed to false gods.

Mormon's suffering must have been immense and he allowed it to transform him, bring him closer to God, and secure his salvation.

In this episode Adam and Tanner talk about our modern versions of suffering and our tendency to run away from, rather than be transformed by it.

Adam and Tanner address the idea of "ethnic Mormons," what it really meant when there were no manner of -ites after Christ's visit to the Americas, and how that concept has been abused within the 21st century to create a false unity.

In this episode Adam and Tanner talk about tragedy, heartache, and how to experience grief and allow it to transform us, rather than resisting or avoiding it.

They also take a deep dive into the importance of allowing your faith to inform your politics and philosophies, rather than having it be the other way around.

Adam starts off today's episode with a story about waking up at 3:00 AM to someone banging on his door and what happened.

From there, he and Tanner discuss physical, spiritual, and social preparation, building communities of trust and support, and how our niceness has been weaponized against us by the enemy.

Weekly Fire: Start engaging in more social risk to build up those callouses. Whatever your comfort zone is, extend a little beyond that and embrace the fact that some people will not like you for doing so.