Righteous Warrior

Today, I had the chance to listen to and participate in the "War Scriptures" in Alma (Lesson 31).  Read them.  They are a great reminder.  In fact, let me show you a bit from the Study Guide I found:

"How can you apply [principles of the gospel learned in Alma] in dealing with conflict...

a. Fight only for righteous reasons

b. Have no hate toward your enemies; seek their best interest as well as your own

c. Live righteously and trust in God

d. Follow righteous and wise leaders"

Okay, on the ... it said "in your personal life" but I thought it was good advice for ALL conflict.  Now, I am sure you can all come to your own conclusions and I had a few of my own.  But the list here is the part I really felt impressed to remind all of us about.  So I will go in order:

a. We chose and were directed to this career.  Our reasons are to protect our community, our families, and our rights.  You can insert a myriad of other reasons here, just make sure you have those on the ready and on your mind.  I carry a 3"x5" card with my list.

b. This is hard.  The world constantly tells us lots of hypocritical information on this matter.  But the Lord is clear: Love thy neighbor as thyself.  Thankfully there is some clarification that we can still seek our own best interest.  It is hard to love dirtbags in the heat of the moment.  Heck, it his hard to love good people in the heat of bad moments too.  It doesn't mean justice shouldn't be sought.  It just means that mercy, understanding, counseling, and other worthy interests should also be applied.

c. Living a life centered in the gospel should take a lifetime.  The problem is that we don't know when that timer is up so basically we need to be worthy constantly.  Or at the bare minimum, working full-hearted toward that point.  No "sandbagging" like some of those really salty beat partners.  And trust in God is really easy to say.  I mean, we even print it on all kinds of government and monetary items.  But trust is earned through trying.  Sometimes I think people get bent out of shape about Heavenly Father because they put their trust in an outcome, not His will.  And trust in God often takes more time than the time it takes to trust that the sun will come up.  So we need to use our faith in His plan to build that trust.

d. Everyone has an opinion about today's leadership inside and outside the church.  We do it with every use of force video.  We do it with every new brass promotion.  We do it with every new recruit and trainee.  The Monday Morning Quarterbacking rules the secular world.  Everyone has an opinion about why someone performed a task.  My encouragement is to do exactly as it simply states: follow righteous and wise leaders.  These leaders show us ways we can improve ourselves.  These leaders help us lead righteously and wisely.  And since we are on this topic specifically...

GENERAL CONFERENCE IS IN LESS THAN A MONTH

Loud enough?  Good.  I know most of us will likely have to miss some or all of the actual broadcast.  But that should never be an excuse not to prepare.  And we should all take on this commitment:
Read or listen to prior conferences every day until conference.  Take that commitment and know that you will be blessed with that one thing you have been stuck on.  I know it works and I am taking the commitment too.  Seriously, no slacking.  Follow your righteous and wise leaders. 

Godspeed LEOs.

-LDS Sheepdog