Prayers Are Encouraged

Commotion (noun): a state of confused and noisy disturbance; chaos, disorder, mayhem, unrest, uproar, tumult.

For those not keeping current with world events but who watch for signs of the last days, you can put a checkmark next to these two:

“The whole earth shall be in commotion” (D&C 45:26).

“The love of many shall wax cold” (Matthew 24:12).

Studies have shown there's actually a connection between those two scriptures -- that the “commotion” in the world is causing one form of love to “wax cold.” It is the feeling stemming from a moral obligation that prompts us to reach out and help when we see the suffering of others. But the greater and more widespread that suffering, the less people respond.

Every day we see reports of human suffering—victims of wars, genocide, terror attacks, torture, deadly epidemics, epic storms and earthquakes, and refugees leaving their homelands by the millions.

A 2011 study published by New York University School of Law showed that after being repeatedly exposed to scenes of mass suffering, the average person’s love and concern for the victims really does wax cold. But they don’t use those words. They use a term associated with a common reaction seen during the Holocaust: “psychic numbing.” The study showed that people are much more likely to feel indignation and act with compassion upon seeing a close-up image of just one person’s awful suffering. But when those same people see or hear reports that millions of people are suffering from that same dilemma, their feelings of concern go numb.

Writer Annie Dillard calls this “compassion fatigue.” She struggles to think straight about the great losses that the world ignores, saying: “More than two million children die a year from diarrhea and eight hundred thousand from measles. Do we blink? Stalin starved seven million Ukrainians in one year, Pol Pot killed two million Cambodians . . . At what number do other individuals blur for me?” (Dillard, “Head Spinning Numbers Cause Mind to Go Slack,” quoted in “Psychic Numbing and Mass Atrocity,” Paul Slovic, David Zionts, Andrew K. Woods, Ryan Goodman and Derek Jinks, August 2011, New York University School of Law, Public Law & Legal Theory Research Paper Series Working Paper No. 11-56).

This morning, the psychic numbness I may have shown toward the suffering of others stopped—at least temporarily—after I viewed a video showing the suffering of children in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. They are victims of their own government’s horrible ethnic cleansing campaign. The stories and images truly haunt me. And even though they will haunt you too, I encourage you to watch the video http://nyti.ms/1fDhi2k

What goes through our minds when we see scenes like these? Do we just count our blessings and move right on, letting life and its many demands blot out those heart-wrenching images? Understandably, we’re not about to abandon everything and head a rescue mission to Sudan. But why not—at the very least—reach out and pray for the millions who suffer in so many very real ways—day after day. For many of them, this is life. For them there is no hope—no light at the end of the tunnel. Pausing to pray for them allows us to understand what Anne Morrow Lindbergh meant when she wrote, "My life cannot implement in action the demands of all the people to whom my heart responds." But at the very least, we can let our hearts respond in prayers for them.

Boyd K Packer

Prior to being called as a General Authority, Boyd K. Packer was once seated on a plane next to a professed atheist. Elder Packer said the man "professed his disbelief in God so urgently that I bore my testimony to him. 'You are wrong,' I said, 'there is a God. I know He lives!'

"He protested, 'You don't know. Nobody knows that! You can't know it.' When I would not yield, the atheist, who was an attorney, asked perhaps the ultimate question on the subject of testimony. 'All right,' he said in a sneering, condescending way, 'you say you know. Tell me how you know.'"

Elder Packer tried to communicate how he knew, using words like "Spirit" and "witness." But the atheist responded, "I don't know what you're talking about." Elder Packer said that the words prayer, discernment, and faith, were equally meaningless to the man.

If you want to find out how this conversation ended, read Elder Packer's talk, "The Candle of the Lord." I mention this incident for another reason.

Boyd K. Packer passed away this afternoon. The "breaking news" headline on Deseret News calls him a "champion of families, resolute defender of LDS doctrine." While many Latter-day Saints will also remember him as a master teacher and a powerful witness of the Savior, what many do not know is that he was the most hated and villified apostle of this generation -- hated by enemies of the Church, and especially by former members. In my lifetime, no other Church leader has been the target of such mean-spirited attacks.

In this setting I will not go into detail describing the reasons for their violent disagreements with and hatred of this man. I will only say this: I have a personal witness that the principles and doctrines taught by Elder Boyd K. Packer are absolutely true. And I know this in the same way he knew it. Others can say, like the atheist on that plane, "There's no way you can know those things!" But that is only because those critics are unwilling to pay the same price Elder Packer and I, and untold numbers of Latter-day Saints, have paid to know these things are true.

In mathematics and science, if you follow the right formulas you get the correct answers. You cannot, thinking you know better, create your own preferred formulas and still expect correct results. But isn't that what people do who take issue with the doctrines Elder Packer taught? Instead of demonstrating humility and a willingness to ask God, (1) "Are these doctrines true?" and (2) "If they are, what should I do about it?" their spiritual hearts are hardened by pride. They trust in their own intellectual abilities. Instead of prayer, they rely on their own feelings, changing societal trends, and the winds of public opinion. As a result, they end up joining the ever-growing ranks of those who think they're smarter than God.

I don't argue with their right to choose, but I would have them know this: Just because they don't believe the doctrines God has revealed through His prophets and apostles doesn't automatically mean they're untrue. I testify that God is alive and well, and Boyd K. Packer was one of His noble prophets. His teachings and testimony of the Savior's doctrines changed my life. I will never be the same. Not because I put it to a vote among my intellectual friends or asked what the Supreme Court has to say, but because the Spirit of the Lord has revealed the truthfulness of these doctrines to my mind.

I know these things are true. I cannot deny it. And I know that those who are willing to pay that same price will receive that same witness. If they "customize" the formula for seeking truth by asking anyone but God, they will not.