Lawrence C. Corbridge presented some of my favorite ideas in Stand Forever, and I found out recently that he gave a follow up to that talk with Finish the Course, Keep the Faith.
It’s the type of talk that changed how I think about a lot of simple things in life, and those are the types of media I feel like I have to share.
The TL:DR is that physics marches all atoms on a standard path to entropy, and that’s true for our spirits as well. Entropy is the default, and reversing it requires energy. To finish the course, we need to reverse the entropy of our lives.
Here’s a little diagram of notes I drew up while studying one day:
And a few of my favorite quotes:
You may wrongly think much of what you do is unimportant. After all, how much difference does it make in the world and in the grand scheme of things if you pick up your clothes, make your bed, clean your room, brush your teeth, organize a closet, do the laundry, sweep the floor, or pull the weeds in the garden? The answer is it makes a big difference. Each one of those tasks and a thousand others like them are evidence of divine instincts. They are godly acts pushing back against chaos that otherwise quickly prevails around us.
Many try to fill the void with money, titles, social status, possessions, career success, vacations, entertainment, web wandering, social media, drugs, alcohol, pornography, and promiscuity. Much of what we do is touched by a hazy, almost unconscious desire to fill the void. The best we can do on our own is with family, friends, and selfless service, but even still it is not enough. On our own, nothing is enough because the void is separation from God, and only God’s presence can fill it again.
We might say, “Focus on repentance and not perfection,” but you can’t have one without the other. Repentance has no meaning without perfection. There must be a standard to measure human conduct, see the short-fall, and then work to close the gap, which is repentance. Without a standard, repentance is mushy human relativism; it is comfortable but aimless human development and without a standard it leads to chaos. Without God, chaos prevails.
Alone, we are cut off from the presence of God, and our only and inevitable conclusion is ever-increasing chaos, darkness, and irredeemable death. That universal condition is what King Benjamin called our “awful situation.” [17] It is awful because to be cut off from the presence and power of God is both the worst and most common of all human conditions, and there is no way out on our own.
And then Jesus came, and when He came everything changed forevermore. Jesus Christ bridges the gap if we will believe and follow Him to the end. He is the way, the truth, and the life.
