The Book of Mormon—Keystone of a Happy Marriage
The topic of marriage seems to have nothing to do with the Book of Mormon. Somebody recently said to me, “You know, there’s not a single scripture in the Book of Mormon about marriage.” And I said, “You’re right.” Not specifically about marriage, that is.
I had an interesting experience some years ago. I’d spoken at a Know Your Religion seminar in southern California, and Sunday morning when I got back on the plane, I found I was sitting next to Brent Barlow, a professor at Brigham Young University who has studied the LDS family and has written a great deal about family relationships, including a column for the Deseret News and several books. Brent and I have been friends for quite a while. He was coming back from having spoken at another program, and as we visited he said he was going to work on the Book of Mormon as a handbook for marriage. At that, I guess I looked a little perplexed, so he opened his briefcase and said, “Get out your Book of Mormon. I’m going to show you something.” And he had me turn to the introduction, which is right behind the title page. He read me something we have all known, heard, and read.
97In the introduction is a paragraph that we read together: “Concerning this record the Prophet Joseph said, ‘I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth and the keystone of our religion and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts than by any other book.'”
97 – 98 Brent reminded me of President Ezra Taft Benson’s plea that we recommit ourselves to the Book of Mormon and make it a new covenant in the Church. Then he said, “I decided that if I was really going take that seriously, it would apply to the Book of Mormon and marriage.” I saw him a short time later, mentioned the project, and asked him how it was going.
98“You would not believe it,” he said. “I’m reading the Book of Mormon with a whole new set of eyes.” That was such an intriguing comment to me that I started reading the Book of Mormon with the same goal in mind—and I had an incredible experience.
98I went through every page of the Book of Mormon, looking at the things I had marked over the years and seeing which ones apply to marriage. I ended up with five single-spaced handwritten pages. I think there is a reason for that long list of applicable scriptures, even in a book of scripture that doesn’t seem to talk specifically about marriage. If you think about it, the gospel itself is a blueprint for a happy marriage.
98Let me share with you three statements by presidents of the Church that support this idea. John Taylor said: “It is impossible to produce a true and correct union without the spirit of the Living God, and that spirit can only be imparted through the ordinances of the gospel.” 1
98President David O. McKay: “I regard it as an incontrovertible fact that in no marriage circle can true peace, love, purity, chastity and happiness be found in which is not present the spirit of Christ.” 2
98And Joseph Fielding Smith: “If a man and his wife are earnestly and faithfully observing all the ordinances and principles of the gospel there could not arise any cause for divorce.” 3
98That’s an interesting chain of reasoning. The Book of Mormon contains the fulness of the gospel. The gospel is the blueprint for a happy marriage, and therefore the Book of Mormon, which contains the gospel, is a handbook for happy marriage. And if I understand our theology correctly, it doesn’t matter where we are now; if we’re going to be gods, if we’re going to achieve exaltation, some day we’re going to have to build an eternal relationship with a person of the opposite sex.
98Some rare couples discourage us by saying things like, “In thirty-two years of marriage, my wife and I have never once quarreled.” I want you to know I consider my marriage with my wife, Lynn, to be a remarkable marriage and a very happy one, but we have had our problems. All of us who are married would have to admit that we have some problems or adjustments in our marriages. It is a rare marriage where there are not some remaining pockets of discord, areas of conflict, places where you have challenges to work through, things that could be improved.
99 “It Was Not Good That the Man Should Be Alone”
99I’m really struck with a statement in the book of Moses: “And I the Lord, God, formed man from the dust of the ground” (Moses 3:7). In verse 7 we read that “he was “the first flesh.” Then we read in verse 18: “And I, the Lord God, said unto mine Only Begotten, that it was not good that the man should be alone.” I have a testimony of that. It is not good for man to be alone. So, the Lord says, “I will make an help meet for him [Adam]” (v. 18). Then what happens next? The creation of Eve, right? No, not immediately. “And out of the ground I, the Lord God, formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and commanded that they should come unto Adam, to see what he would call them” (v. 19). In Hebrew in the Genesis account, the word when he names the animals implies much more than simply naming them. It’s a verb that implies that he watched them, studied their characteristics, and then gave them a name that fit. He didn’t just go out on the veranda and watch out on the plains and say, “Oh, yeah, a zebra, yeah, I like that, zebra. Hippopotamus, oh, I love the ring of hippopotamus.” I don’t think he did that. I say that because how long would it take to study the animals and name them all. A while, right? Weeks, at least. Possibly months, maybe even years. So then comes this interesting thing that I’d never really noticed before, in verse 20: “And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but as for Adam, there was not found an help meet for him” (emphasis added).
99That’s an interesting sequence of events: the Lord says it’s not good for man to be alone. He suggests, “Let’s make him an helpmeet.” He asks Adam to go out and name the animals. When he’s through with the task, Adam says, “I didn’t find any helpmeet out there.”
99“And I, the Lord God, caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam; and he slept, and I took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh . . . ; And the rib which I, the Lord God, had taken from man, made I a woman, and brought her unto the man” (vv. 21-22).
99Adam then said, “This I know now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman.” What is he doing? He’s naming the last of God’s creations, the crowning creation, and what does he call her? Woman, “because she was taken out of man” (v. 23). In Hebrew, the meaning is “female man.” Adam seems to be saying, “It’s a female me, literally.”
99 – 100 “Therefore,” continues the scriptural account, with Adam speaking, “shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife” (v. 24). I think that verb cleave is a very interesting one. Compare it with a meat cleaver, which separates the meat. I wonder if it has anything to do with the symbolism of the rib. We know the account of Eve’s being made from a rib is probably not a literal description of how it was done. But Adam has been separated from part of himself, and only when that cleavage is overcome does he become whole again. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.”
100Now, that provides some interesting challenges. I really believe that this challenge to become one flesh is one of the great laboratories of godhood. In marriage we really learn something about what it means to be a god.
100Differences between Men and Women
100There’s more to that challenge than simply the intensity of the relationship. I think it would not come as a tremendous revelation if I told you that men and women are different, but the differences are more profound than we usually think, in so many ways. It only begins with the physical differences.
100We really do see things differently. Men tend to be task oriented. Women tend to be people oriented. I once read an interesting study in which a psychologist reported on a series of tests he had done on the brain patterns of men and women. He took a group of men and women, hooked them up to the electroencephalogram, and then gave them a complex task like working on a Rubik’s Cube or something else that took real concentration and watched their brain wave patterns. He discovered that men (and this varied depending on the man) tended to use either the left brain or the right brain, whereas a woman tended to use both sides of her brain simultaneously. And then he said something like this, as I remember: “In my opinion that explains why women tend to be so much more perceptive to the subtle cues that typically go on in a relationship.”
100I’ve seen that in my own marriage. We’ll go to a party and come home and my wife, Lynn, will say, “That’s sure too bad George and Sally are having problems.”
100I’ll answer, “George and Sally are having problems? How do you know that?”
100“Well, didn’t you watch them?”
100“Yeah, I watched them. What?”
100“Well, you could just tell.”
100I couldn’t tell. We tend to see things differently. We tend to perceive things differently.
101 I grew up in a family of boys. I have only one sister, and she’s five years younger than me. Shopping was a whole new experience for me. I can still remember the first time I went through a mall with my wife. We were headed for a movie and she said, “Oh, let’s go in there.” So we went into a department store, but she didn’t seem to be interested in buying anything. She just moved from place to place. Finally I said, “Honey, what is it you need?” “Well, I don’t need anything. I just want to look.” My idea of shopping is that you know exactly what you want, approximately what you are willing to pay for it, and where to go to get it. You get in. You get out. And you’re done. “Just looking” baffled me.
101We tend to perceive relationships differently. Here’s an interesting experiment. Some time when you’re visiting friends for dinner, and they serve you pork chops, take the man aside and say, “Thanks, we really appreciate it. That was a great dinner. Where did you get those pork chops?” And the most common answer the man will give you is, “I don’t know. Albertson’s, Safeway.” Then take the woman aside and say, “That was a great dinner. Oh, by the way, where did you get those pork chops?” A common response is, “Why? Was there something the matter with them?” That’s an interesting difference.
101If a man’s birthday comes along and his wife forgets it, which is really unusual, almost unthinkable—as far as the man is concerned, the wife has forgotten his birthday. But if a man forgets his wife’s birthday, as far as she’s concerned, he has forgotten her. Another important difference.
101I read the other day of a couple who set as their wedding date the 23rd of February. The man said, “Oh, that’s a great idea. That’s the day after Washington’s birthday. I’ll never forget our anniversary because it’s the day after Washington’s birthday.” And the woman said, “You know, I’ll never forget Washington’s birthday because it’s the day before our anniversary.” Two different ways of looking at things.
101Some time ago, my wife shared with me an article she had read on communication in marriage, which illustrates this principle. The article was about Nan Kline, a clinical psychologist. The lead paragraph of the article asks, “How does a clinical psychologist describe the way men and women communicate? ‘Same language, different planets.'”
101 – 102 “If you are getting married and you think you are marrying your best friend, ” Nan Kline says, “you’re wrong. You’re actually marrying someone from an alien culture.” And that’s because, as she says, “men and women communicate differently.” Then she illustrates: “Let’s go back to childhood and notice the patterns. Little girls, for example, have best friends. The basis of that deep, deep friendship is communication, especially the sharing of secrets.” And then she says something very significant: “For girls, the process of communication is important, more so than the content.”
102“Female play groups tend to be difficult to join,” says Kline, who has done research on the subject. But she adds, “Once you’re in, you’re in. You are equal to the other girls. Adult women also typically suppress any notion that anyone in the group is better than anyone else. They tend to diminish competition, and their communication often to a man seems to have nonsignificant content.” Why? Because it’s not the content of the communication that matters.
102“Little boys, on the other hand, don’t spend much time whispering. They are out on the playground doing stuff. . . . Researchers have found that boys’ play groups are easy to join, but once you are in . . . , you earn a place by competition.” Therefore, the conversation and communication patterns are these: “Boys swap stories. Their stories are all about prowess. . . . They don’t communicate to be closer to each other. They communicate to compete, to withstand challenges and define their identity.”
102And then she said—and this is why I found the article to be so interesting—”A woman [who understands only the way women communicate] feels the relationship is deteriorating when her husband doesn’t share his innermost thoughts. She . . . is being rejected.” And the man, when he senses that, is baffled because those are not his feelings at all. 4
102Now let me describe something that has happened in the home of most married couples. The newspaper comes and you sit down together to read the paper. Generally the wife is through it very quickly, unless she’s spending time on the advertisements. But typically the man moves through more slowly, reading the editorials and going through the sports page and so on.
102When the wife is finished, she watches him for a minute and says something, and he mutters, “Um, hm.” Then she’ll say, “Honey, I want to talk to you.”
102“Okay.” Then he waits. When nothing happens, what does he do? He starts reading the paper again.
102“Honey, I want to talk to you. Now, put down the paper. I don’t want you reading the paper while I’m talking. Just talk to me.”
102So he says, “Okay.” He folds up the paper and puts it away. “What do you want to talk about?”
102“Well, I don’t know. I just want to talk.”
102He’s task oriented, so he pursues his own line of reasoning: “What have you got on your mind? Let’s talk about it and then I can get back to reading the paper.” But what is she after?
103 A man often sees communication as communication. A woman hopes to get communion out of communication. That difference presents some interesting challenges. So how do you deal with those challenges? I submit that if the gospel is a blueprint to a happy marriage, the Book of Mormon contains the fulness of the gospel, so it will contain the principles that teach you how to have a happy marriage.
103There are hundreds of examples, but we’re going to discuss only a few.
103Here’s a simple one: The concept that you are free to choose. There are many places where this is taught in the Book of Mormon, but we’ll discuss 2 Nephi, chapter 2, where Father Lehi is speaking to his son Jacob. He speaks about the Messiah coming and bears testimony that he will redeem the children of men; then comes this statement: “And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon” (2 Ne. 2:26).
103What has that got to do with marriage? In marriage, each of us, because we have been redeemed from the fall of Adam, have become free forever. We are first of all given the knowledge of good and evil. How many of us have ever done something in our marriages that we knew was a little destructive, and we knew it was wrong at the very moment we were doing it? Probably every one of us. We know good from evil, and we are free to act for ourselves and not to be acted upon. Let me give you some examples of this principle.
103I was a sociology major in both my bachelor’s and master’s programs; one of the reasons I studied sociology is that I wanted to better understand people. I remember one professor who talked about the causes of behavior. They call it the “simple SR theory”: namely, a given stimulus will trigger a response. Let me give you an actual example that applies to marriage. I’m going to use a lot of examples from various marriages, and to protect the guilty I’m going to name them all George and Sally.
103 – 104 George and Sally are newlyweds. One day George gets up and goes to work. Sally is picking up clutter around the house when all of a sudden she remembers that today is their third-month anniversary. It has been three months to the very day that they were married. Sally becomes so excited about that significant day that she decides she is going to do something really special. She goes through the house and gives it a thorough cleaning, even though it’s already in pretty good shape. She then decides that they need a candlelight dinner. So she rushes out to the store and buys the candles. She gets out the silver and her best china, buys fresh flowers, and then proceeds to cook a marvelous dinner. By the time she’s through with the roast and potatoes and gravy and vegetables, she’s got pans stacked up in the sink, gravy oozing down the burners and over the front of the stove. (She’s still learning.) But by five o’clock she is so excited she just quietly shuts the door to the kitchen, goes to the front room, sits down, and waits for George.
104She hears the car drive up, but as George gets out he notices something in the backyard, so he goes directly around back to fix it—and then comes through the back door. Suddenly we hear, “Sally, what in the world have you been doing? Look at this mess. I can’t believe this!” Okay, now that’s the stimulus.
104Would you like to predict the response? My college professor said that actually the SR model of behavior is too simple. We’ve learned that it’s really more than simply stimulus-response. It would be more accurate to say that stimulus creates feelings, and feelings then trigger a response.
104We can predict what Sally’s feelings are going to be. Hurt, rejected, angry. She may run into the bedroom to cry, and George will say, “What did I do? What did I do?” At first when our class discussed that, I thought, “Mm, that makes sense. That’s a really good model.”
104Then one day I was in a religion class and a professor opened my eyes with a new concept. He said, “There is a different model. You have to add one more thing. In the gospel, you have to add agency. There is a stimulus, but you are free to choose how you will respond to that stimulus. You are free to act and not to be acted upon. The stimulus does not force you into a particular response. That is your choice and your freedom.”
104Suppose I could go into the bedroom where Sally is crying and just whisper in her ear: “Sally, let me tell you something. Did you remember that today George went up for that promotion he has been after for the last six months? Did you remember that? He worked on it all month long. He lost it. One of the guys in the meeting even snickered when he made the presentation.” Would that change Sally’s feelings at all? It would. Why? We haven’t changed the situation where she is feeling hurt. But she would respond differently, we hope, because she chooses to feel a different way.
104 – 105 You are free to choose. A wife is free to choose whether to be angry or hurt or patient when her husband says something dumb (and he will). You’re free to choose whether to retaliate when you are wronged (and you will be) or whether to forgive. You’re free to choose whether to put your spouse’s happiness as a number-one priority or whether to put other things first. You have choices every day of your marriage, and the Book of Mormon says you are free to choose whether to act or to be acted upon. This is a solid keystone to a happy marriage. It is a way to become one.
105Here is a second example of how the Book of Mormon can guide us in marriage. I would like to create a scripture chain to set up this second principle, starting with 1 Ne. 22:2: “And I, Nephi, said unto them: Behold they were manifest unto the prophet by the voice of the Spirit; for by the Spirit are all things made known unto the prophets, which shall come upon the children of men according to the flesh.”
105What are married couples trying to become? One flesh. How do you learn how to deal in things of the flesh? You listen to the prophets. That’s an important insight.
105The second scripture in the chain comes from 3 Ne. 10. As I went through and started picking out principles that would apply to marriage, I was amazed to see where they came from. Here’s one in the midst of the description of the destruction that preceded the coming of the Savior. The voice has catalogued all that’s happened, and the people are mourning and weeping, and then in verse 12 it says, “And it was the more righteous part of the people who were saved.”
105Have you ever thought about what that means? These people had experienced a selective earthquake, a selective lightning storm, and a selective windstorm, all of which took only the more wicked part of the people. And what is it that determined their righteousness or wickedness? “And it was they who received the prophets and stoned them not” (v. 12). It is apparent that the Lord feels strongly about how people respond to his prophets.
105Another scripture for our chain is found in Mosiah 8, which talks of the Ammon who went in search of the colony that disappeared. Ammon found King Limhi, whose people had discovered twenty-four gold plates that they were anxious to get translated. So Limhi asked Ammon if he could do the translation, and Ammon answered, “No, but King Mosiah can. He’s a seer.” Then in verse 15, we read, “The king said that a seer is greater than a prophet.” And Ammon said, “A seer is a revelator and a prophet also; and a gift which is greater can no man have, except he possesses the power of God.”
105 – 106 The next two verses give us a valuable truth about marriage: “But a seer can know of things which are past, and also of things which are to come, and by them shall all things be revealed, or, rather, shall secret things be made manifest, and hidden things shall come to light, and things which are not known shall be made known by them, and also things shall be made known by them which otherwise could not be known.
106“Thus God has provided a means that man, through faith, might work mighty miracles; therefore he becometh a great benefit to his fellow beings” (Mosiah 8:17-18).
106For example, why does the prophet say to young people, “Don’t date until you’re sixteen”? What does he “see” that we may not? I heard of a mother who said, “If my daughter is not going steady by the time she’s fourteen—how will she ever get a date for the school dances?” I could just weep, because I know a bishop is very likely to see that girl down the road, as she comes to him to confess serious transgressions. If she’s going steady at fourteen, there will usually be problems later. Why? Because youth are not yet mature enough to understand the powers of sexual attraction and how easily young couples can get into moral trouble. But the prophet understands. The prophet can see things that other people cannot see, and he has counseled the youth not to date until the age of sixteen. If a prophet and seer can foresee how to help our youth avoid moral tragedy, can he not also see things that will help husbands and wives build stronger marriages?
106Now let’s add to our scripture chain the final one, from Hel. 13. Samuel the Lamanite, a prophet, has come to teach the people and is not well received. In verses 26 and 27 of Hel. 13, he notes how differently true prophets (who testify of the people’s iniquity) and false prophets (who say the people are doing wonderfully) are treated. The true prophets get killed. The false prophets get rich. In verse 29 he laments: “O ye wicked and ye perverse generation; ye hardened and ye stiff-necked people, how long will ye suppose that the Lord will suffer you?” And then he asks, “Yea, how long will ye suffer yourselves to be led by foolish and blind guides?” Samuel is contrasting a seer, one who sees, with one who is blind. How often we listen to those that are blind!
106Again, we might ask, “What has that got to do with marriage?” President Ezra Taft Benson, in the October 1987 general priesthood session, said, “In latter-day revelation the Lord . . . said, ‘Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shall cleave unto her and none else’ (D&C 42:22). To my knowledge there is only one other thing in all of scripture that we are told to love with all of our hearts, and that is God himself. Think what that means!
106 – 107 “This kind of love can be shown for your wives in so many ways. First and foremost, nothing except God Himself takes priority over your wife in your life—not work, not recreation, not hobbies. Your wife is your precious, eternal helpmate—your companion.” 5 A prophet and seer is saying, in effect, “Brethren, here are your top priorities. You’d better pay attention.”
107We frequently see evidence of the problem of misplaced priorities. Let me show you a typical pattern in marriage that’s related to failing to put your spouse as the number-one priority.
107George and Sally are these two separate, totally independent individual entities. One day they meet. Their eyes catch each other. They start to date, and they are drawn toward each other by a powerful attraction. They start surrendering their personal wants in order to please each other. The craziest kinds of things happen. George actually buys flowers for Sally. I don’t think he even knew what flowers were before he met her. Finally they say, “Let’s get married,” and they supposedly become one—legally, emotionally, spiritually, economically.
107Then a troubling thing happens. The problem is described by a Christian minister, Rousas John Rushdoony. Speaking of Adam, he notes that Adam’s calling was to work. “Go out, dress the garden, Adam. Keep it. Conquer and subdue the earth and so on,” the Lord said to him. Rushdoony then states, “Because of the centrality of work to a man, one of the chronic problems of men is their tendency to make work a substitute religion. Instead of deriving the meaning of life from God and his law-order, men often derive their private world of meaning from their work. The consequence is a disorientation of life, family, and order.” 6
107George gets hired by a new corporation or he starts a new business or whatever he happens to do. The first thing his boss says is, “Now, George, where are your priorities?” And I’m telling you the typical boss isn’t anxious to hear this answer from his employees: “No success can compensate for failure in the home.” What he wants to hear is “Boss, you know this company comes first.”
107So George starts up the corporate ladder or he’s in his own business, and he says, “I’ve got to put in the time. You know, I’m the only one.” So he’s working Saturdays and sometimes Sundays, and Sally starts to miss the relationship they’ve built. She starts to feel the separation again. So often she will say, “Honey, spend some time with me.” But he’s too busy and so she tries again, but the defenses start to come up, and the scar tissue starts to form, and sometimes the couple ends up with what I call an emotional divorce.
107 – 108 As the years go on, some face the midlife crisis. A man realizes that he’s not going to do everything he thought he was going to do. So then what does the man start to long for? A warm, nurturing, caring relationship. But he can’t find it with Sally because there’s too much pain now. What does he do instead? He turns to this sweet, young secretary or the lady down the hall or whoever it happens to be, and she provides him all the things that Sally wanted to give him in the first place but he didn’t have time to accept.
108What a tragic commentary about the price of not putting your spouse first. A prophet has given us wise counsel on the matter, and yet some of us just don’t apply it to our marriage.
108I’ve been addressing mainly the men in their marriage relationships. But these principles also apply to women.
108Elder Boyd K. Packer has said, “My young [sisters], you have had some very choice, intimate, cherished times with your mother talking over things that are sacred and personal. Now all of these moments belong to your husband, and only rarely and on superficial things would you have to run back to Mother—maybe for an occasional recipe or a remedy, but on all of the sacred and deep and important problems, you belong to one another and you solve them between the two of you.” 7
108I’m shocked to hear what women share with each other sometimes about their marriages. When I was in a restaurant not long ago, five women came in who didn’t know I knew them, but I knew they were all Latter-day Saints. I believe they were all friends and not relatives. They began to talk loudly enough that it was impossible not to hear them. I couldn’t believe what one woman was telling her friends about her marriage relationship—the emotional problems, sexual problems, on and on. When she finished, one of the ladies next to her said, “Hey, divorce that jerk.” And I watched her face and it seemed she was thinking, Yeah, yeah, maybe I’d better. All too often a woman tends to go outside of the marriage to share and to feel that communion with others. The prophets say to be careful of that. It’s something to watch for.
108Follow the prophets. Are you going to listen to seers or are you going to listen to blind guides? One of the blindest of guides is the media. You look at what the media is telling women today, for example, about what it takes to be happy, and it’s no wonder that so many women struggle with feelings of inadequacy. But it’s a lie.
108Let’s go to another principle: having the Holy Ghost in your relationship. Paul, in Galatians, talks about the fruits of the Spirit (see Gal. 5:22-23). Wouldn’t you like those fruits in your marriage? Happiness, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness. Those are the fruits of the Spirit.
108 – 109 Again, we can turn to the Book of Mormon to learn about the Spirit. Here is one very famous example: Nephi, Laman, Lemuel, and Sam were sent from the wilderness back to Jerusalem to get the brass plates. They failed and then failed again. Laman and Lemuel grew highly frustrated. But Nephi said, “We are going do what the Lord said.” He went back into the city, “and I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do” (1 Ne. 4:6).
109How does this apply to a marriage? Remember the quotation from John Taylor that we read earlier: “It is impossible to produce a true and correct union without the spirit of the living God.” 8 That is the key. There is no way you can possibly do all that has to be done, and do it right, without the help of the Spirit.
109I really believe that in a marriage we can receive constant promptings from the Holy Ghost. I think sometimes the Holy Ghost says things like this:
109Â “Ask her how it was today for her. Ask her how her day was.”
109Â “Tell her she looks attractive in that dress.”
109Â “Don’t respond to that comment even though it hurt.”
109Â “Don’t withdraw, don’t retreat into that shell of silence; tell her what you’re thinking. Tell her what you’re feeling when she says that.”
109Â “You shouldn’t be sharing that with others.”
109Â “Tell her you love her.”
109Unfortunately, though, too often we brush those feelings aside and don’t act on them.
109Think about marriage as it relates to the plan of salvation. Most of Christianity believes that being saved means that we get to go back and live with Heavenly Father. And we believe that too, but we say we not only want to be with him, but we also want to be like him. That is the whole purpose of the gospel. That is the role of the Holy Ghost—to make us like God. Have you ever thought that the more godlike you are, the easier it is to love you? It’s when we act in non-godlike ways that people get hurt and angry and frustrated.
109A young co-worker once said to me, “You know, I’m getting wiser in my old age.” He was thirty years old. He and his wife had four little children, including twin boys, with the oldest being six years old. He said, “Sometimes I come home and Sally is so strung out, she’s just ready to explode.” He continued, “When I used to come home and see her like that, I’d put my arms around her and say, ‘Honey, I love you. Just relax. Don’t get so uptight. It’s all right.'”
109I said, “Oh, how did she respond to that?”
109He smiled ruefully, “Oh, she’d blow up. She’d say, ‘Don’t tell me to relax, and don’t tell me it’s all right!'”
110 Then this wise young man taught me the lesson. He went on, “Now I’m a little wiser. Now if I see that Sally’s uptight when I come home, I do one of two things. I either get her out of the house or I get the kids out of the house. Then later, when the kids are in bed and all is quiet, I put my arms around her and say, ‘Honey, I love you.’ And she says, ‘I know.'”
110There’s a man who understands that the Spirit can make him more like God, and the more we are like God, the easier it is for our spouse to love us. The easier it is to become one flesh. When a man and a woman are both striving to be godlike, with the promptings of the Spirit, think what it does for their marriage.
110If you want another interesting scripture chain, go through the scriptures and find out what it is that brings the Spirit. As you do, you’ll feel pricks of guilt as you see those things you do in your marriage that are contrary to the Spirit. Study unrighteous dominion. Study pride. Study contention. Study all the things that grieve the Spirit and thereby lessen the power in our marriages.
110George Q. Cannon said, “How many of you . . . are seeking for these gifts that God has promised to bestow? How many of you, when you bow before your Heavenly Father in your family circle or in your secret places contend for these gifts to be bestowed upon you? How many of you ask the Father, in the name of Jesus, to manifest Himself to you through these powers and these gifts? Or do you go along day by day like a door turning on its hinges, without having any feeling on the subject, without exercising any faith whatever . . . ? If any of us are imperfect, it is our duty to pray for the gift that will make us perfect. Have I imperfections? I am full of them. What is my duty? To pray for God to give me the gifts that will correct these imperfections. If I am an angry man, it is my duty to pray for charity, which suffereth long and is kind. Am I an envious man? It is my duty to seek for charity, which envieth not.” 9
110 Nephi taught essentially the same thing when he said, “Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what you should do” (2 Ne. 32:3). When you are in conflict with your spouse, if you have the Holy Ghost you’ll speak the words of Christ. You can look to Christ and ask, “What will I do or say if I look to Him as my model?”
110I had an interesting experience with that very thing with one of my children. Our son was about twelve years old. It was nine o’clock Sunday morning and we were almost late for church, so I yelled, “Come on, we’re leaving.” He came into the room wearing tennis shoes and Bermuda shorts and no shirt. I said, “What are you doing?”
111 “I’m not going to church today. I don’t want to.”
111My initial reaction was, Oh, yeah? Don’t want to—what does that have to do with anything? Instead I just said, “Come on, now, get dressed. We’re late.”
111Then he said, “I’m not going and you can’t make me.”
111I remember thinking, I can’t make you? We’ll see about that. But at that moment, I thought, How would Christ deal with a teenage boy who is saying, “No, I’m not going to church”? With that simple question, a thought popped into my mind, and I said, “Son, I don’t know why you’re telling me that. It’s not my meeting. Why don’t you go down to your bedroom and tell the Lord why you’re not going to sacrament meeting. It’s his meeting. He’s your Father. Go tell him, and we’ll see you when we come home.”
111I didn’t make it to the door before he said, “All right, all right, I’m coming.” That’s what the Spirit can do, and that’s how it works.
111Marriage and the Gift of Charity
111Let’s go to one last way in which the Book of Mormon guides us in our marriages. I wish we had time to look at faith, hope, and charity, the three great Christian characteristics of discipleship. But let us look at the last of those because it’s so important to becoming one. In teaching his son, Moroni, Mormon speaks of faith and hope, and then says, “If we have these we must needs have charity, for if he have not charity, he is nothing.” Another way to put it is this: “And the marriage must needs have charity, for if it have not charity it is nothing. Wherefore, it must have charity.” Then Mormon listed the qualities of charity: “Charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked,” and so on. Finally he says a second time, “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing” (Moro. 7:44-46).
111Those are exactly the same qualities that the apostle Paul gives in 1 Cor. 13. Some years ago when I was working on some New Testament studies, I ran across a modern version of the New Testament called the Phillips Translation. I am very dissatisfied with most such versions, but the Phillips Translation was done by a faithful Christian man who has tried to keep to the spirit of the original and the beauty of the poetry, while at the same time trying to make the message more understandable to the modern reader. Here is how he translated 1 Cor. 13:4-8, Paul’s description of charity:
111 – 112 “This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience—it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.
112“Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. It is not touchy. It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails.
112“Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.” 10
112Let’s look at each of those qualities:
112Love is slow to lose patience. We are so quick to be impatient. One of the things we learn very quickly is all the vulnerable spots in our spouses. Within the first year we learn all of the weaknesses, we learn where the jugular is. One of Satan’s great promptings is to go for the jugular when you’ve been hurt. Strike back at the place where you know it will do the most damage. We have to fight that misguided impulse. We have to fight our irritation and our impatience. Love is slow to lose patience, or as Paul and Moroni said, “It suffereth long.”
112Love looks for a way to be constructive. We use the word edification all the time in the Church. Edification is closely related to the word edifice. Both words come from the same Latin root, aedes, which is the Latin word for a temple. That gives me a whole new insight into edification. What you do when you edify is to build a spiritual structure, a spiritual temple, in the life of someone you love. Sometimes you build brick by brick, and sometimes you throw up a whole wall together. But that’s what love is. It is constructive. It is edifying. It is not destructive.
112Let me give you an example. I see this sort of thing all the time in good marriages. Lynn and I had some good friends years ago, and I’m ashamed to admit I was a little critical of the wife. She had eight children and still weighed only 118 pounds. After every child, she went onto a crash starvation diet. She tried every fad diet ever invented. I worried about her health; and I just kept saying, This is foolish. She doesn’t need to be so worried about keeping her weight down. I don’t think the Lord is going to have a set of bathroom scales at the Judgment. I find it very hard to picture the Lord saying, “Well, I’ve reviewed your case, and you’re celestial in every way, but you’re twenty pounds overweight and so I can’t let you in.” Yet to hear some people talk about weight, you’d think it was that significant.
112 – 113 One night we were going out to dinner with these friends, and when we arrived she wasn’t quite ready. We waited in the living room, visiting with her husband. Then she came down the hall from the bedroom. Remember, she weighs only 118 pounds after eight children. Her husband looked up at her and said, “Oh, honey, you really look heavy in that dress.” And I thought, Now I understand why she is so sensitive about her weight. That’s hardly what you would call constructive. That’s destructive.
113Love has good manners. We used to go to the temple with other couples when we lived in California, and then we would go to dinner afterward. One night we were at a restaurant, and the waiter brought us our salads without asking us what dressing we’d like. They just brought the house dressing, which was vinegar and oil. Well, olives, vinegar and oil, and dirty bath water are not high on my list of edible foods, so, I said, “Vinegar and oil doesn’t do a thing for me. Would anybody like my salad?”
113George, who was sitting next to me, said, “Oh, I love vinegar and oil. I’ll have your salad.”
113Then Sally said, loud enough for the whole restaurant to hear, “As fat as you are, you’re going to have a second salad?” You could see her comment hit him right in the face. Surprise. He didn’t take my salad.
113But on the way home I got to thinking about that. George was not the heaviest person at the table. Alan was. (That’s not his real name, either.) I thought to myself, Suppose Alan had said to me, “Oh, yeah, Jerry, I love vinegar and oil. I’ll take your salad.” Do you think Sally would have said to Alan, “As fat as you are, you’re going to have a second salad?” She may have thought it, but she would never have said it to him. With George, though, it was open season. Love has good manners, and it seemed to me that good manners were forgotten that night.
113Love is not anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance. Do you remember Corianton’s problem on his mission? Alma’s youngest son fell into immorality. But what got him into the problem? Alma said, “You went about boasting in your own strength.” Love does not, as Moroni said it, vaunt itself. It does not hold a cherished idea of its own importance. Love does not pursue selfish advantage. How often we see this violated. A spouse is not a servant. A spouse is not a helper. A spouse is not an assistant. A spouse is a partner.
113We were good friends with a man who mortgaged his home and put everything into a new business venture. He had high expectations for it. Three months later everything crashed. He lost it all. Some time after that Sally was in our home and I could tell she was extremely upset. Afterwards I asked my wife what was going on. She said, “Sally’s going crazy. She says she has no idea where they stand. She goes to George and says, ‘Honey, the kids need shoes. Can I write a check or can’t I?’ And he’ll say, ‘Honey, don’t worry about it. Money is my problem. Don’t worry about it.’ Sally said, ‘I don’t know whether to buy food. I don’t know what to do about anything.'”
113A few days later I happened to be with George privately and I said, “How’s it going, George?”
114 “Oh,” he said, “I don’t know if we’re going to be able to keep the house. I don’t know what I’m going do.”
114I said, “Have you ever talked to Sally about this?”
114“No,” he said, “I don’t want to worry her.” I thought to myself, It’s lucky that Sally’s not your business partner or you’d have a lawsuit on your hands. Can you imagine saying to your business partner, “Don’t worry about the money. Let me handle it.” Iknow that in this case George’s intentions were good. He didn’t want to worry his wife. But that is a selfish decision and suggests he doesn’t trust her enough to share financial things with her. He felt his judgment was more important, more trustworthy.
114Here is another example of seeking selfish advantage. One night George and Sally (a different set) were in our home. They had just had a new baby, and somehow the conversation turned to diaper changing. It was obvious George was not wild about that activity. My wife, who has strong feelings about that, jumped on that one, and she said, “Oh, you don’t change diapers?”
114“Well, yeah,” George admitted, “I do a few.”
114“Yeah,” he said, “I don’t mind changing a wet one now and then, but oh, those messy ones. I can’t stand that.”
114Curious, I jumped in. I said, “Oh, really, why not?”
114“Oh,” he said, “I can’t stand the smell.”
114I couldn’t resist. I said, “You know, you’re really fortunate to have a wife who loves it.”
114George apparently considered his discomfort more important than Sally’s discomfort. He can’t stand the smell of messy diapers, but he assumes—I guess he assumes—that she loves it. In other words, his first priority was himself.
114Love is not touchy. Have you ever brushed by somebody who is badly sunburned? Have you ever touched a fully inflated balloon with a pin? Sometimes people are like that. The tiniest little thing, and pow!—they just explode. You are free to choose not to be touchy. Think how that would bless a marriage.
114Love does not keep account of evil or gloat over wickedness. How many times do we have a fight with our spouse and bring up all the unrelated things he or she has done? It is like we carefully watch for things we can hang on to to bring up when tension rises, and we think, Oh, that’s a good one. I’m going to save that for the next time. And so we keep a running tally of the bad things our spouse does so we can use it as ammunition later. But the scriptures say that love does not keep account of evil. Instead—
115 Love is glad when truth prevails. We rejoice in our hearts when something good happens, when the truth prevails. Sometimes that truth proves us wrong. But we’re still glad if we truly have charity. How wonderful that can be in marriage.
115I love the way Phillips concludes this section of his translation: There is “no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope.” 11 What would happen if every time we did something wrong God went into a pout or struck back in anger? What if he became furious when people did their own thing? Some day your husband is going to get fat and bald and old and sick, maybe even having Alzheimer’s, and some day your wife is not going to be as wonderfully slender and maybe not quite as energetic and all the things that you wish. What does that matter? Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope.
115When I think of the endurance of love, I think of one of my favorite stories. This story was told by Elder Robert D. Hales a few years ago. It’s about a poet named Thomas Moore. Thomas Moore came home from a business trip after being gone for several weeks and found his wife locked in her bedroom. She was a beautiful woman with a wonderfully white, smooth complexion. But while he was gone she had contracted smallpox, which had terribly scarred her face. She had locked herself in the room, pulled all the shutters down, and was sitting there in the dark. He pleaded with her to let him in. She refused. She said, “Thomas, don’t press me on this one, please, just go away and leave me alone.”
115Here is how Elder Hales tells the story: “Moore did go. He went downstairs and spent the rest of the night in prayerful writing. He’d never written a song before, but that night he wrote not only words but he composed the music. As daylight broke Moore returned to his wife’s darkened room. ‘Are you awake?’ he said. ‘Yes, but please do not come in.’ ‘I’ll sing to you then,’ he said. Then Thomas Moore sang to his wife the song that still lives today. You know it. ‘Believe me, if all those endearing young charms / Which I gaze on so fondly today, / Were to change by tomorrow, and fleet in my arms, / Like fairy gifts fading away, / Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art, / Let thy loveliness fade as it will, / And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart / Would entwine itself verdantly still.'”
115Then Brother Hales said, “The song ended. As his voice faded, Moore heard his bride arise. She crossed the room to the window, reached up and slowly drew the shutters and let him in.” 12
115Love knows no end to its endurance, no end of its hope, no fading of its trust. It is the thing which brings us to oneness.
116 “Do Not Procrastinate the Day of Your Repentance”
116I would like to close with a prayer that comes out of Alma. Consider it in terms of the eternal marriage you are trying to build. In Alma 13:27 we read: “And now, my brethren, I wish from the inmost part of my heart, yea, with great anxiety even unto pain, that ye would hearken unto my words, and cast off your sins, and not procrastinate the day of your repentance.”
116Do you have problems in your marriage? Stop procrastinating. Get them out. Cleanse the inner vessel.
116The prayer continues: “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and call on his holy name, and watch and pray continually, that ye may not be tempted above that which ye can bear, and thus be led by the Holy Spirit, becoming humble, meek, submissive, patient, full of love and all long-suffering;
116“Having faith on the Lord; having a hope that ye shall receive eternal life [which includes being one flesh]; having the love of God always in your hearts, that ye may be lifted up at the last day and enter into his rest.
116“And may the Lord grant unto you repentance, that ye may not bring down his wrath upon you [or your marriage], that ye may not be bound down by the chains of hell, that ye may not suffer [the death of a good marriage]” (Alma 13:28-30).
116I leave that with you as the testimony that the Book of Mormon is a key to becoming one. It is a keystone to a happy marriage.
116From an address given at a Church Educational System symposium on the Book of Mormon, Salt Lake City, Utah, 15-17 August 1990.
1161. John Taylor, in Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (London: Latter-day Saints’ Book Depot, 1854-86), 18:137.
1162. David O. McKay, in Conference Report, April 1952, 87.
1163. Joseph Fielding Smith, “The Divine Family,” Improvement Era, June 1965, 495.
1164. Susan Lyman-Whitney, “Men and women communicate as if on different planets,” Deseret News, 4 February 1980, 8G.
1165. Ezra Taft Benson, in Conference Report, October 1987, 61.
1166. Rousas John Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (n.p.: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1973), 346.
1167. Boyd K. Packer, “Family Togetherness—the Core of the Church,” Education Week devotional address, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, 13 June 1963, 3.
1168. John Taylor, in Journal of Discourses, 18:137.
1169. George Q. Cannon, as quoted in The Doctrine and Covenants Student Manual (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1981), 101-2.
11610. Phillips Modern English Translation, as cited in The New Testament in Four Versions (Washington, D.C.: Christianity Today, Inc., 1965), 533.
11611. Ibid.
11612. Robert D. Hales, “We Can’t Do It Alone,” New Era, January 1977, 37.return to top
Gospel Doctrine Daybreak 10th Ward 