From Checklists to Checkpoints: Avoiding the Spiritual Rut

 From Checklists to Checkpoints: Avoiding the Spiritual Rut

By: Jacob Sok

I recently saw a television add promoting a new innovative breakfast food, taking center stage away from the typical morning meal. The commercial depicted a man standing it a large ditch in the middle of the floor eating his breakfast. A female coworker approaches the large trench and whilst looking down at him inquires how he got himself into- what she calls a rut. He comically retorts that he thought that he was in a groove not a rut. The add then portrays a humors debate between these coworkers only to arrive at the consensus that he was not in any groove but indeed his normal breakfast was truly a rut, and the only way out would be trying the new breakfast food.

Life tends to be game of ruts and groves, full of dynamic turns and stages of plateauing consistency. I often feel that my life has been like the waves of a sandy shore; an almost constant repetition of oncoming good times and other phases with distant waves or blessings, yet to surface. It happens to be in those moments, with the waves yet to touch my shore line, when I feel I have been entangled in a rut- the cause of which many times remains unbeknownst to me. After much pondering and thought I was reminded this week of lesson I have been coming to understand in recent years, precept by precept.

We can very easily find ourselves in spiritual ruts. Times when the gospel becomes more general than personal and the wonder of it seems to, for a moment's time, fade from view. Might I suggest that this occurrence,  can be avoided as we strive to rethink or re-strategize our devotion to the Lord. I wish today to offer some insight on one common cause of such ruts- that being; when our discipleship is fueled by a checklist mentality, void of active engagement or vision.

The checklist mentality phenomenon often presents itself when the fundamentals of Christ's teachings become daily mundane components of a spiritual to do list. Please do not misinterpret, I feel the idea behind a checklist is very important and an essential start to any task. The list provides a series of necessary components needed to achieve a goal. The danger of this is found when we take power or find completion in checking off the items from the list and not the items themselves.

This tends to be frequent with such commonalities as reading scripture, prayer, or church attendance, to name a few. Be it because of their frequency in our lives or our own rudimentary view of the purpose of what are supposed to be special blessings- tend to become more like spiritual chores rather than spiritual opportunities.

Recently Elder Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles illustrated a comparison, asking if our reading of the Book of Mormon or any scripture- is more like a daily dose of unfavorable medicine we forcibly gulp down, for daily sustaining. With this analogy it is easy to see how easily we can lose sight of the worth of these principles; as we use daily gospel living to check off spiritual parameters of the day, and not as a fulfilling mean to a fulfilling end.

Now the Lord appreciates any and all effort- I however have come to see that we can receive much more out of the gospel by rethinking little by little how we choose to execute daily discipleship.  

When we treat the gospel more like a 9 to 5 job; clocking in to appease a daily requirement, and plow through the day so as we can get back to our world- we may fulfill the task but we have definitely missed the goal. And, this may happen innocently- the Lord understands the fact we run busy lives full of hard work, financial escapades and family drama. It's reasonable that one would become tired and it would make sense that a rest would come to those who finished all their objectives for the day. That rest at the end of the day as desirable as it may be, might also be found, if we so choose, not after we finished the spiritual priorities of the day but actually within them. 

As I learn more and better yet come to experience the wonders of the gospel in new ways, I am left humbled and grateful for an attentive God who is not done working with me yet. This truth can, if we let it, serve as a motivation to avoid the ruts of complacency or even a level of boredom in our check-listed habits and put faith and lustrous gospel light back into our practices.

In the Book of Second Nephi- chapter 28, the Prophet Nephi begins to prophesy of many believers who become enclosed in false traditions and doctrines; of such is found a group of mislead people who taught, "If they shall say there is a miracle wrought by the hand of the Lord, believe it not; for this day he is not a God of miracles; he hath done his work." When I read that last statement, he hath done his work, I immediately thought how sad, if that were true.

Imagine God, done with His work. We know as stated in the Book of Moses (1:39) "For behold, this is my work and my glory- to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." We are indeed His work. If His work be done, then that would mean He would be done with us. Despite my lack of knowledge on many things and experiences yet to be had; this I do promise to any who may read this- God is not done with us. We are not some common universal chore on His omniscient checklist, lost in the midst of His celestial proceedings. We are the very heart of His focus and recipients of His detailed crafting.

That will not change, even if we ourselves treat our relationship with God as part of our mortal checklist. 2 Nephi 28 verse 32 states, "...For notwithstanding I shall lengthen out my arm unto to them from day to day, and they will deny me; nevertheless, I will be merciful unto them, saith the Lord God, if they will repent and come unto me; for mine arm is lengthened out all day long..." That to me clearly teaches God is not looking at the ticking of His watch- looking past the immediate tasks to a time when He will be off the clock and freed from His workload. No- He is ever vigilant, ever hopeful that we will take His loving offer. When you pray, the Lord will not listen because He needs to check it off of His daily routine, no He listens because He is invested in you; right down to your very center.

So how might we fight this tendency and avoid such a rut? When pondering this myself I felt impressed as I began to see that the principles and commandments of the gospel are not so much as mortality's checklist to qualify for eligibility into our heavenly home- rather they are checkpoints that help us implant and embed the very spirit of heaven in our souls, prior to our return home.

 

As the gospel principles convert from checklists into checkpoints- we avoid the entanglements of spiritual ruts. A checkpoint in any aspect of life be it in mathematics, long distance travels, mountain exploration what have you; offers perspective and serves as a mean to measure progress and locate one's position. I am not perfect at this yet but I can testify power has entered my heart- a love for gospel principles, as I strive to enter those divine habits with an intent to progress and meet the Lord there for help.

Nephi offers a solution in chapter 31 of his words- "Ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope and a love God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye press forward feasting upon the word of Christ and endure to the end, behold thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life." I know this to be true because the perfect brightness of hope accompanies effort over the course of our daily striving to come unto Him. This hope is not always instantaneous and often requires patience as we come unto Him little by little, but it does come!

 I wish to share a personal experience from my time as a missionary in South America. With a rigorous work schedule and daily consistency of objectives and goals- the routine of missionary work often like many parts of life becomes tedious and very repetitive. It is very easy if one is not careful to slip into memorized lesson plans and an almost minimal effort to meeting daily quotas. I noticed how often my checklist mentally would suck the joy and vision right out of my personal mandate to help others. I remember slowly coming to this realization when I began to feel that I was there not to fill my schedule with appointments or see how many people (numbers wise) I could contact in a day- I was there to help people, not numbers, feel and know there is a living God  who is invested in their lives and loves them perfectly. As this lesson was instilled drop by drop into my heart I recognized a love of the work that was beyond contagious and filled me with such purpose and direction that I looked forward to the once common daily activities. And again I was never perfect at it, and would still find myself from time to time blinded by a checklist- but I do recall one such occasion that not only changed from a day of checklists to checkpoints but even more turned from a checkpoint to a turning point.

            I had been serving for about 9 months and knew the routine fairly well. Woke up the same time each day, studied at the same hour, walked up and down the same streets, yelled at by the same local intoxicated individuals ; same smells, same foods, same lack of understanding the language- day in and day out. Don't get me wrong I had experienced several special moments in those 9 months that are very sacred to me, and even in little ruts where I felt exhausted and lost I still tried my best to work hard everyday. But I came to a point where I began to see the Lord could help do more if I tried new things. Prior to that insight, I felt dry in my abilities and saw no yielding fruits. That same month we were attending the General Conference of the church and as I sat and listened to the Prophet and Apostles speak- small embers began to glow in my heart. As that particular session broke my companion and I remained in the church building seeing as going home to eat would make it difficult to return back for the last session that evening. We took time to reflect and study, sitting to ourselves. I sat in the back of the chapel still within eye-shot of my companion and sank in my chair pleading with God for what I called spiritual fuel, for help. As I expressed my concerns I turned to the scriptures and was directed to passages that began to fill my soul with a familiar love and voice. As I did I felt the glow of my testimony in a small and simple way fill me with a vision of giving myself to the Lord. 

           That night as we left the conference before heading home we had some extra time to kill and filled with a new spirit I felt as if I was waking up slowly and we decided to go contact a few people on the street. After a few uninterested people, we stopped at a home and greeted a young man and his family just outside their door. Our positioning had it so that I ended up cut-off from my companion who proceeded to talk with the rest of the family leaving me with this young man in our own conversation. Know that I had never carried a conversation nor even initiated one by myself prior to that evening. Nervous and with out linguistic support from my native speaking companion I reverted back to my memorized introduction, checking off bit by bit what I could say. Once brought to that terrifying fork in conversation where I had no where else to turn with nothing more to say- those small glowing embers from my experience at church stirred in my heart and I began asking questions I did not have memorized. As the questions came the conversation picked up spirit and so did I, as suddenly the world as I knew it disappeared from my view; my fears, inadequacies, tired feelings of routine work, all of it gone. We took a seat on the curb of the road just Him and I (my companion still conversing with the others) as we sat I felt completely dedicated to my task at hand- and started share our message of God's love and a restored gospel with out the aid of a my companion- definitely with the aid of a heavenly one. 

         This young man in an instant became the most important thing to me and the only thing I wanted to do was tell him how much this gospel had blessed my life. The conversation climaxed with him want wing to know more and us uniting with the others in group, the family invited us all back for later that week.  I left that warn-out street curb on wings, I was reminded of why I went on a mission, and filled with a love and excitement  so satisfying that it pacified every desire to quit or complain. It was a sacred experience of literally walking hand in hand with the Lord. It was so real to me- everything I had been taught from God's plan to Joseph Smith's prayer to my very own love of the Savior. There that night with that special person- the miracle of Gods work burned bright.

-That moment became a checkpoint for future times whenever I was tempted to feel tired of the day to day duties and remind myself of what can happen when we invest beyond the checklist.

I pray that story can serve as a witness that we can experience something much more real, the very changing of our hearts! This is not to say ruts and checklist disappear overnight or don't come back. Nor would dare preach that dramatic experiences happen every time we perform each principle, the Lord will ask us to show faith in His timing. But I emphatically suggest that this idea of converting daily gospel living- striving to invest a little more day by day, is the very path we should walk in mortality, for it leads right to the Savior. Much like a good workout we do the daily steps so we can use those strengths in time of need. Our progress is gradual but yields result over time. Sure their will be days where we probably will not be able to differentiate today's workout from yesterday's but we are always getting closer to that perfect brightness of hope- new light, new strength and fresh starts. 

So let's try and use the components of the gospel as our life's checkpoints. We can search the scriptures for answers we need, converse openly in prayer, attend the temple for new light, and especially the sacrament to help us prepare and improve from week to to week. We need not compare ourselves to others by entertaining rigorous amounts of detailed to our lists of accomplishments. Rather if we humbly help each other live the gospel and use it as daily checkpoints through scripture and prayer a renewal of covenants and hope--- pressing forward I know the joy of gospel living in all its wonder will unfold piece by piece. For I truly "Stand all amazed"- by the Lord and His work, "Oh it is wonderful, wonderful to me"!

For further study on this topic please consider the following-

-Mosiah Chapter 5 (Book of Mormon)

- I Stand all Amazed (LDS Hymnal)

- "Are you sleeping through the Restoration" By President Dieter F Uchtdorf. 

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