I was pleased to receive a nice review of my book in The Mormon Times today.
An excerpt:
“I Need Thee Every Hour” is not only the book’s title, but it is also its thesis statement.
Written by David P. Vandagriff, the book seeks to show that Christ’s Atonement, the central belief of Mormon doctrine, is integral to every aspect of life.
“It is certainly successful in that endeavor.
“The Atonement of Jesus Christ is not only for your last breath and the last day of your life, but it is also for every day of your life, every breath of your life,” Vandagriff writes in the book’s introduction.
Read the rest at Mormon Times
One night, after a long evening of ward interviews, I was thinking about the contrast between my experiences as a bishop and my professional problem. In my church role, divine guidance often came so effortlessly. I could move from one difficult situation to another with the members of my ward and always feel the Spirit. I could clearly discern their problems. I could quickly receive revelation for struggling men and women and give counsel that was far wiser than my mortal mind could have produced. Without doubt or hesitation, I could reassure my ward members that God was mindful of their needs, that He heard their prayers, that they had a Savior and that through His Atonement, He would deliver them from their trials or help them with their decisions. I could promise them that answers would come. The Spirit was present and confirmed to my ward member and me that what I said was true.
Why did the divine inspiration that worked so well for Bishop Vandagriff not seem to be helping Brother Vandagriff?
At first, I thought that it was because the members of my BYU singles ward were such wonderful and committed sons and daughters of God with so many important future missions that He would, of course, tell me what to say and do in order to quickly help them. The amazing spiritual experiences I was sharing were not about the bishop but rather about the member.
This was true, undoubtedly true, but did it really explain why Brother Vandagriff was having so much difficulty getting his answer?
Maybe it was because I was less valiant or had less spiritual potential. As I contemplated this possibility, Heavenly Father was kind enough to reassure me that His love did not vary with the recipient. Each of His children receives all of His infinite love. He has sent His Firstborn Son to save every spirit child, regardless of their circumstances in this life. God heard every prayer, including mine.
Why was there a difference then? Why could I receive revelation so quickly as bishop but have no detailed and direct answer elsewhere?
Then I understood. When I received a quick flash of guidance in the bishop’s office, I acted on it immediately and confidently, even when I was dealing with a ward member in very serious trouble. I paid close attention to the whisperings of the Holy Ghost under those circumstances.
In my personal life, I was attempting to demand more of God. “This is an important decision for me,” I was thinking, “so I need to have more than a quick flash of guidance. I must have my answer spelled out in detail and confirmed with spiritual power that will resonate from the top of my head to the soles of my feet.”
Without fully realizing it, I was presuming to tell God how to do His job when He answered my personal prayers. Instead of taking whatever He provided me and being grateful for it, like I did in the bishop’s office, I was demanding that He give me exactly the answer I wanted at the time in my personal life. I was asking the Holy Ghost to speak with a loud large voice to me on this topic. No wonder I “wasn’t getting any answer.” I was looking for a rocket in the sky rather than a candle in the window.
How many times had I done this before with other problems?
I prayed for forgiveness more than once. I prayed for understanding of what I had done in the past and how I needed to change. I discovered that it was far easier to repent than to live with the consequences of my error—not opening my heart to his answers.
Shortly thereafter, a quick impression came into my mind about my business problem. This was an unconventional idea, something that had never occurred to me. Almost by reflex, I asked myself, “Is this real? What if it doesn’t work?” Then, I had another quick impression that can be summarized in two words, “Pay Attention!” I could imagine the Holy Ghost shaking His head, thinking, “When will this guy ever learn?”
I worked to develop the idea. The work was easy. Everything I needed to follow up on my impression quickly fell into place. Then I moved forward. The solution worked right away.
Here again, the great wisdom of King Benjamin was confirmed. I hadn’t been relying on the Atonement. I was a natural man when I was dealing with what I thought was a worldly matter, and that put me in opposition to God. I wasn’t in active rebellion against God, but I was caught up in worldly concerns, stumbling around as if I didn’t understand His gospel and what He wanted me to be. I needed to put off the natural man and become a saint through the Atonement, submissive, meek, and humble, not just on Sunday or in my church calling, but every day and in every aspect of my life. (see Mosiah 3:19)
“Inasmuch as you strip yourselves from jealousies and fears and humble yourselves before me, for ye are not sufficiently humble, the veil shall be rent, and you shall see me and know that I am—not with the carnal neither natural mind, but with the spiritual.” (D&C 67:10, emphasis added)
David P. Vandagriff
I Need Thee Every Hour – Applying the Atonement in Everyday Life
The greatest work of Christ is centered upon His Atonement. So long as there is anyone in pain, His work will continue. So long as there is anyone suffering under the burden of sin, His work will continue. So long as there is anyone who is afraid or lonely, His work will continue. So long as there is anyone who sorrows, His work will continue. So long as there is anyone who has been faithful and who needs to be lifted up and brought back to their Heavenly Father, His work will continue.
David P. Vandagriff
I Need Thee Every Hour – Applying the Atonement in Everyday Life
Satan tries to separate man from God. If we are alone without God and Christ, we are in the adversary’s power. Satan tries to separate men from one another. In the Book of Mormon, we see how successful he was in separating the Lamanites from the Nephites. Satan’s efforts continue in our day, separating nation from nation, race from race, class from class, men from women.
Christ’s Atonement joins us—men to God and men to one another as brothers and sisters. As we become closer and closer to God because of the influence of the Atonement in our lives, both our yearning and our ability to bring the blessings of the Atonement to others grows. Our love for others increases as we comprehend the magnitude of the love that Heavenly Father and Christ have for us and as we understand that these two infinite and eternal Beings have the same love for each of our brothers and sisters. We then desire to become the hands of God. We desire to constantly act as representatives of Christ wherever we are, be it through a smile, a kind word, a helping hand.
David P. Vandagriff
I Need Thee Every Hour – Applying the Atonement in Everyday Life
Some of the most difficult trials are initiated through the actions of others. A moment’s inattention by a driver cripples a child and begins a life-long trial for the child, his parents, his brothers, and his sisters. An abusive parent damages a child, and that child in turn passes the abuse and pain down to another generation. Wonderful parents lovingly and carefully rear a son or daughter who strays far away from the principles received in childhood and who responds to parental love with rebellion, insult, and anger. An adulterous father focused on satisfying his own lusts destroys the peace and security of an innocent wife and children. A terrorist bomb breaks the bodies of innocents and hurls their minds into a world of ceaseless fear.
The existence of such experiences leads some to doubt. “If there is a God,” they ask, “why does He allow such terrible things to happen?” Such doubt may lead to criticism of a loving Father. “A just God would have prevented this tragedy from occurring. God must be capricious, distant, and uncaring to permit the world to be so full of pain.”
This earth is first and foremost an accelerated learning environment wherein God’s children are given the opportunity to grow at a rate much faster than they can appreciate before they arrive here. For those who do not understand its true nature, a spiritual classroom seems capricious and unreasonable, particularly if they enter that classroom without understanding they will receive final examinations in a variety of subjects. They have forgotten that they signed up for the classes and the examinations as the capstone to thousands of years of prior education before they came to earth.
While each of us commits sin and must pass the part of our examination relating to repentance, these are not all of the questions on the examination. Other questions assess how well we remember the love of Christ when we suffer without fault. We may understand the Atonement in theory, but will we really apply its healing and strengthening power in practice when distracting disaster and despair enter our lives?
In a multiple-choice question, can we identify the Holy Ghost and distinguish his direction from a host of competing voices? An essay question asks us to explain the reasons that the redemptive power of Christ can overcome all obstacles and is more powerful than any sorrow we may encounter in mortality. The question asks us to provide examples from our own experience.
Without affliction, we would not have the opportunity to choose God when that choice is most difficult. We are capable of making that choice, but we have to prove that we will make such a choice under every circumstance. We are confronted with a wide variety of experiences, including some ghastly ones, and then asked, “Where is your heart, really? What name is written on it? Who do you choose?” When we choose God in the most adverse conditions, we are chosen in return.
“I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.” (Isaiah 48:10; 1 Nephi 20:10)
David P. Vandagriff
I Need Thee Every Hour – Applying the Atonement in Everyday Life
I grew up on ranches and farms in Colorado and Minnesota. In the spring, we used a number of different farm implements to prepare the ground for planting. One of those implements was the harrow.
Some harrows use sharp round disks and others have tines. One of the harrows we used consisted of a heavy rectangular metal frame with several crossbars. On each crossbar, several tines were mounted. Each of these tines was like a thick and rugged dagger with a sharp point on one end. The sharp point faced downward toward the earth.
We attached the harrow to a tractor and dragged it back and forth over the field. The sharp point of each tine cut into the earth, digging through the surface and opening up fresh earth where new seeds would be planted. Unless the earth was broken and dug up, our crop would not grow. If seeds were dropped on the old surface, few would take root, and those that did would not thrive. We cut and broke the earth in the spring so it would produce a good harvest in the fall.
If the earth were a living being, the harrow would have felt like an instrument of torture. The earth had developed a hard surface that resisted penetration by productive crops. While that hard surface was not very fertile, the soil just beneath was capable of producing a rich harvest. Without the harrow, however, the good soil would never be exposed to light and air and seeds of growth. It would always have possessed the potential to bless us, but that potential would never be fulfilled.
The scriptures frequently use the harrow as a metaphor for the painful and difficult experiences that often seem to precede major spiritual change.
Alma the Younger was traveling through the land committing terrible sins when an angel appeared to stop him. Alma was struck down by the angel and describes the experience of confronting the true character and consequences of his actions:
“I was racked with eternal torment, for my soul was harrowed up to the greatest degree and racked with all my sins.” (Alma 36:12) (emphasis added)
This experience with a spiritual harrow is key to preparing Alma for his later repentance. He says:
“As I was thus racked with torment, while I was harrowed up by the memory of my many sins, behold, I remembered also to have heard my father prophesy unto the people concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world.” (Alma 36:17) (emphasis added)
In an echo of Alma’s earlier problems that must have been particularly painful for him, Alma has a son who also commits serious sins. Corianton is sent to the Zoramites on a mission but abandons his work and is involved in sexual sin. Alma meets with Corianton to call him to repentance. In the process of doing so, Alma bluntly confronts his son with the magnitude of his sins and their consequences. Then he explains his reason for doing so.
“I would not dwell upon your crimes, to harrow up your soul, if it were not for your good.” (Alma 39:7) (emphasis added)
Alma is providing Corianton with the same painful experience that Alma himself learned was necessary for him to make a permanent change in his earlier life.
The blessing of the harrow and its attendant pain is not restricted only to the sinful who need to repent. It often comes through unearned trials that come into our lives. When we need to grow, when we need to change, when we need to take steps up to a higher and better place, sometimes the Lord must allow the harrow to cross and re-cross our lives. As it does so, it opens up our souls and fixes our attention on our Savior.
Elder Maxwell said, “When we take Jesus’ yoke upon us, this admits us eventually to what Paul called the ‘fellowship of [Christ’s] sufferings.’ (Philippians 3:10) Whether illness or aloneness, injustice or rejection . . . our comparatively small-scale sufferings, if we are meek, will sink into the very marrow of the soul. We then better appreciate not only Jesus’ sufferings for us but also His matchless character, moving us to greater adoration and even emulation.” (Neal A. Maxwell, “‘From Whom All Blessings Flow,’” Ensign, May 1997, 11)
If we are to respond to tribulation by either growing out of it or growing strong enough to bear it more easily, we must trust in the Driver of the harrow. We are greatly tempted to doubt in times of immense pain. We doubt ourselves and our righteousness. We doubt that our God and our Savior are really paying much attention to us. Some wonder if there is a God and others feel that He has turned His back to them.
These are the times of chastening, of tutelage, of testing, of preparation of our souls for a future harvest.
David P. Vandagriff
I Need Thee Every Hour – Applying the Atonement in Everyday Life
Sometimes my world seems to be a billiards table where I am a billiard ball. When I am at rest, I can look around and view my life circumstances clearly. I can see other balls on the table, some close to me and others farther away. Because of my position on the table, there are also billiard balls I cannot see because my vision is blocked by intervening balls.
When the pool cue strikes me, I begin to move in a straight line. I can look ahead and predict where that straight line will take me and my future seems very clear. Then I hit something, a glancing strike against another billiard ball that slightly alters my path. Next, my changed course sends me into a cushion that bounces me off in an entirely different direction than I supposed I was traveling. As I keep striking balls and cushions, my journey becomes more and more confusing, less and less what I thought it would be. When I finally come to rest, I am at a location far removed from where I thought I would end up.
There is, of course, another perspective on the billiards table, one much different from mine—high above the table looking down. The difference in perspective is profound. A bank shot looks and feels much different to the billiard ball than it does to the billiards player.
Speaking to Isaiah, the Lord said, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” (Isaiah 55:7)
David P. Vandagriff
I Need Thee Every Hour – Applying the Atonement in Everyday Life
Each of us experiences a constant downward pull as we live inside mortal bodies on a mortal planet. Sometimes that pull is stronger and sometimes it is weaker, but in some way it is always present. That downward pull will turn even the best of us into natural men and natural women unless we constantly strive to offset it with an upward spiritual movement toward the Savior. The Holy Ghost will remind us of what we should be doing if we listen and will help us move upward, but the initial effort must be ours.
Putting off the natural man is not something we do once or twice in our lives. It requires a daily, sometimes hourly, sometimes minute-by-minute effort. We can’t become saints in a single giant leap and then sit back and relax. We must constantly be working at that saintly becoming, sometimes moving forward, at other times working our way back from a downward slide. Becoming, changing, moving to be a better person is the core activity of our mortal lives, and we cannot make those vital and constant changes without the strength the Atonement provides.
David P. Vandagriff
I Need Thee Every Hour – Applying the Atonement in Everyday Life
If we need to feel the Atonement working in our lives, the most reliable way to do so is to serve others. When I have counseled someone who is in the process of repenting from a serious sin, I often recommend that he or she make an effort to serve others. This isn’t a strategy for them to “earn their way” out of the sin. Christ will forgive their sin not because they have earned forgiveness, but as an act of pure love, pure grace. By conscientiously serving another, a repenting sinner can feel the Holy Ghost helping him in that service, and the Holy Ghost carries Christ’s approval and love to the one who serves under such circumstances. For someone without any serious repentance to complete, the process works the same way—serve another, and feel the Atonement working in your life.
Satan tries to separate man from God. If we are alone without God and Christ, we are in the adversary’s power. Satan tries to separate men from one another. In the Book of Mormon, we see how successful he was in separating the Lamanites from the Nephites. Satan’s efforts continue in our day, separating nation from nation, race from race, class from class, men from women.
Christ’s Atonement joins us—man to God, men to one another as brothers and sisters. As we become closer and closer to God along the vertical axis of the Atonement, both our yearning and our ability to bring the blessings of the Atonement to others grows along the horizontal axis. Our love for others increases as we comprehend the magnitude of the love that Heavenly Father and Christ have for us and understand that they have the same love for each of our brothers and sisters.
We desire to become the hands of God. We desire to constantly act as representatives of Christ wherever we are through a smile, a kind word, a helping hand.
David P. Vandagriff
Need Thee Every Hour – Applying the Atonement in Everyday Life
We all want to be able to exercise careful control over our lives. When we are experiencing great pain, we want to believe that we have it within our power to diminish or remove that pain. It is very difficult for some to believe that faithfully living the gospel will not always protect them from serious trials. On an intellectual level, they may concede that this is a possibility, but emotionally they deny it. Good things happen to good people. Bad things happen to bad people.
The answer to this conflict is that we can always control our lives on a macro level. We do have control over our eternal destiny. Because of the Atonement, if we seek to enter the celestial kingdom and take the steps necessary to achieve that goal, we can look forward to our miraculous reward with perfect confidence. If we do our part, the Savior will always do His part, and we can return to our heavenly home. He is perfectly reliable. The steps we must take are not easy, but they are achievable and the outcome is certain. This level of cause and effect is a Newtonian level of spiritual truth—understandable, predictable, and dependable.
On a micro level, however, in our day-to-day and week-to-week and even year-to-year lives, we have less power. It seems that the more entangled with mortality an issue is, the less we are able to manage it. We may have precise control over the location of our future eternal home while we cannot pay the mortgage on our earthly home. We may be confident of enjoying an eternal marriage without knowing who we will marry or even if we will marry in this life. We may have perfect faith that a baby daughter will be with us forever without knowing whether she will survive the night. In these shorter, mortal timeframes, our world feels governed by quantum forces, full of surprises and unpredictability, where cause and effect aren’t clearly correlated.
Why must this be so?
Because the Lord loves us. Because, unless we turn to Him with all our hearts and put all trust in Him without reservation, He cannot save us. We must give everything we have, draw as close as possible to Him in order for His Atonement to change us enough so we can return to our Heavenly Father. If we had complete control over all aspects of our earthly lives, we would be unlikely to turn to our Savior with sufficient intensity. In fact, we would be in danger of living out mortality as contented natural men and women, forgetting Him and foregoing our opportunity for eternal salvation.
We cannot save ourselves. No matter how hard we try or how long we work, we just can’t do it. Whether we wish to be saved through all eternity or we wish to be saved during a dark and terrible hour, our only salvation is in Christ.
David P. Vandagriff
I Need Thee Every Hour – Applying the Atonement in Everyday Life, page 100