Rats in the Cellar

In his talk entitled “Be strong and of a good courage”, President Monson warned, “Decisions are constantly before us which can determine our destiny. In order for us to make the correct decisions, courage is needed—the courage to say no when we should, the courage to say yes when that is appropriate, and the courage to do the right thing because it is right.”

He goes on to discuss the strength and courage needed by each of us in standing for what is right in any situation we find ourselves.  In an interview published in a national magazine, well-known basketball player Jabari Parker, a member of the Church, was asked to share the best advice he had received from his father. Replied Jabari, “My father said, just be the same person you are in the dark that you are in the light.”

It is on this thought I would like to focus my remarks. Brothers and sisters, are we the same person in the dark as we are in the light? When the door closes and we are alone, what do our thoughts, words and actions look like? C.S. Lewis said, “Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is. Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth. If there are rats in a cellar, you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light.”

What rats in our cellar need to be addressed? And where does the strength come from to exercise the courage needed to become what we are to become? In D&C 11:28-30 we learn, “But verily, verily, I say unto you, that as many as receive me, to them will I give power to become the sons {and daughters} of God, even to them that believe on my name.”  We are here on this earth with the single objective to return and live with our Father in Heaven. But how often we are distracted from this goal! How many things take precedence over the covenants we have made with our Father in Heaven!!

In Mosiah 3:19 we read, “for the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticing of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.”

David O. McKay has taught:

This is the process being described in the scripture above. We put off the natural man and become good, and then we can begin the journey of becoming a saint through the development of the virtues and characteristics mentioned. Submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, and willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon us.

May I suggest that it is not good enough to just act in these attributes? This is a great starting point, but it cannot be our destination.  In the scripture from D&C we learned that we receive power to become. We are to actually become these things. Christ didn't just love perfectly. He was perfect love. He did not just act humble. He was humility personified. And the power we are discussing, that we are given, is through Him whose perfect Atonement redeems us from our fallen state and gives us the ability to become a saint. But brothers and sisters we need to BE courageous when no one is watching, when all that stands between us and the natural man is our desire to love and serve our Father in Heaven. There is far too much of the natural man in all of us. Any is too much, and we all have too much.  The natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam. We cannot go back into the presence of our Father in Heaven bearing the characteristics and attitudes of this world. We are to live in this world without being of this world. Now I know the process of the straight and narrow path takes time and that we must continually humble ourselves and put off the temptations and designs of the adversary.  But if we are not continually doing this in everything we do, we are wasting our precious time here on earth. 

Our Father in Heaven is hastening His work. And He needs each of us to be ready and willing to step up and accept the call to the work He has issued. But we cannot go courageously out into the world to defend His work, if the scurrying of rats in our cellars continues to draw our attention away from Him.

So how do we clean out our cellars? How do we change our desires and motives? The very foundations of who we are? As King Benjamin suggested, we put off the natural man and we yield to the enticings of the Holy Spirit. We’ve been discussing courage, how do we show courage by doing these things? Elder Holland has said, “We must be willing to place all that we have--not just our possessions (they may be the easiest things of all to give up), but also our ambition and pride and stubbornness and vanity--we must place it all on the altar of God, kneel there in silent submission, and willingly walk away.” 

We are taught that “We become what we want to be, by consistently being what we want to become each day.” So, as we talked about before, our starting place is to begin acting in those characteristics we want to emulate.  If you want to be merciful, make a conscious effort to extend mercy in the way our Savior does.  As you do this, as you act in these ways, you allow the Atonement of Christ to work in you, and the Atonement literally changes you into a “new creature” until you are not only acting merciful, but you have become merciful.

Right now in your minds, there are thoughts of “rats” you have the opportunity to catch and keep out of your cellar. The spirit is calling to mind things that need to be addressed and that each of us could do a little better with. Elder Christofferson has counseled us,

 “I would like to speak of one particular attitude and practice we need to adopt if we are to meet our Heavenly Father’s high expectations. It is this: willingly to accept and even seek correction. Correction is vital if we would conform our lives “unto a perfect man, [that is,] unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ”. Paul said of divine correction or chastening, “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth”. Though it is often difficult to endure, truly we ought to rejoice that God considers us worth the time and trouble to correct.”

I grew up with 5 brothers, so sports were a big part of my family life. My dad coached me and most of my brothers in whatever team sports we decided to try our hand at each season. Maybe it’s because of this, or maybe my slightly fanatic obsession with football that I resonate with coaching analogies. Elder Holland, in a talk entitled ‘we are all enlisted’ spoke about joining the Lord’s team. He was speaking to the Aaronic Priesthood, but I would like to apply his words to all of us, so I hope you’ll allow me to adapt his words slightly:

“This is a life-and-death contest we are in, so I am going to get in your face a little, nose to nose, with just enough fire in my voice to singe your eyebrows a little—the way coaches do when the game is close and victory means everything. And with the game on the line, what this coach is telling you is that to play in this match, some of you have to be more morally clean than you now are. In this battle between good and evil, you cannot play for the adversary whenever temptation comes along and then expect to suit up for the Savior at temple and mission time as if nothing has happened. That, my friends, you cannot do. God will not be mocked. So we need members already on the team to stay on it and stop dribbling out of bounds just when we need you to get in the game and play your hearts out! In almost all athletic contests of which I know, there are lines drawn on the floor or the field within which every participant must stay in order to compete. Well, the Lord has drawn lines of worthiness for those called to labor with Him in this work. No missionary or disciple of the Lord can be unrepentant of sexual transgression or profane language or pornographic indulgence and then expect to challenge others to repent of those very things! You can’t do that. The Spirit will not be with you, and the words will choke in your throat as you speak them. You cannot travel down what Lehi called “forbidden paths” and expect to guide others to the “strait and narrow”⁶ one—it can’t be done.”

We have spoken about courage and how the strength to become courageous in ourselves and then with others comes through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It is through the enabling power of the Atonement that we are able to be called children of God and to put off the natural man and repent of our sins and mistakes. Our Savior beckons to us with open arms to “come unto him”. As we draw closer to Him the natural man should draw further away from us. It takes courage to show this type of integrity. As Job said, “While my breath is in me…. I will not remove mine integrity from me.”  Do we hold our integrity in the same regard?

Brothers and sisters, it is time for each of us to try a little harder to be a little better. It is truly by small and simple things that great things come to pass. It will be through diligent everyday discipleship through consistent courage that you will see this transformation take place in you.

I testify to you that as we act in courage we will become courageous, we will receive strength and power through the Atonement to become what we need to become so we will recognize the voice of our Savior when He calls for us by name. May the light of our Savior shine through us even when we find ourselves in the dark, is my prayer, in His name who makes all things possible, even Jesus Christ, Amen.