The Enlivening Power of Jesus, The Highest Aspirations of Your Nature, The Lens of Your Mind
The Disciple-Leader Newsletter #23 // July 1, 2023.
Discipleship // Leadership // Mental Performance. The best from this week.
DISCIPLESHIP
"Whatever Jesus lays his hands upon lives. If Jesus lays his hands upon a marriage, it lives. If he is allowed to lay his hands on the family, it lives."
Howard W. Hunter
If Jesus lays his hands upon your heart, it lives.
If Jesus lays his hands upon your mind, it lives.
If Jesus lays his hands upon your gift/talent, it lives.
If Jesus lays his hands upon your leadership, it lives.
If Jesus lays his hands upon your faith, it lives.
The enlivening power of Jesus Christ is unleashed in as many aspects of your life as you allow Him to touch. For those who've entered into covenants with God, He has promised access to the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. Can the Holy Ghost really enliven every aspect of your life?
"The Gift of the Holy Ghost adapts itself to all ... attributes. It quickens all the intellectual faculties, increases, enlarges, expands, and purifies all the natural passions and affections and adapts them by the gift of wisdom, to their lawful use. It inspires virtue, kindness, goodness, tenderness, gentleness and charity. It develops beauty of person, form and features. It tends to give health, vigor, animation and social feeling. It invigorates all the faculties of the physical and intellectual man. It strengthens and gives tone to the nerves. In short, it is, as it were, marrow to the bone, joy to the heart, light to the eyes, music to the ears, and life to the whole being." - Parley P. Pratt
God eagerly awaits to bless you in every aspect of your life. Christ's enlivening power is available. Blessings like these are yours to secure but are made conditional on your asking for them.
LEADERSHIP
“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be."
Abraham Maslow
You need certain things to lead and serve others at your highest possible capacity. What that specific thing is is as individual as the need for personal replenishment is universal. Jeffrey R. Holland has said, "You have to have fuel in the tank before you can give it to others.”
Along with fueling up your tank to serve others, you need to be at peace with yourself. You need to be happy. Maslow wrote, "If you plan on being anything less than who you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life."
What is it in your life that you must do?
A writer must write.
A painter must paint.
A musician must make music.
A performer must perform.
A designer must design.
"To every man is given a gift by the Spirit of God." You have gifts. They don't all have to be expressed creatively as the above examples show. But your happiness in life is in large measure determined by your expression or suppression of your gifts.
If you aren't fully aware of your gift(s), use all the God-given resources you have to discover them.
If you are aware of your gift(s), how seriously are you treating them? Do you treat your gift like you know it's from God? Do you develop and nurture it? Do you serve others with it? Do you see your expression of it as part of your life's calling?
How you develop your gift and how you use it to serve others affects 1) the fuel you have in your tank, and 2) your happiness and satisfaction in life.
One philosopher, commenting on Maslow's ideas, wrote: "At the end of your life, you are going to ask, 'Have I done what I was fitted for? Have I become what I could be? Have I lived in accordance with the highest aspirations of my nature?”
Are you becoming what you could be? Are you living in accordance with the highest aspirations of your nature? Are you doing what God put you here to do?
MENTAL PERFORMANCE
“Define what mentally tough is. What does it mean? A lot of (people) say stuff like ‘Push through it even if it hurts’ and all this other stuff. Yeah, that sounds good but that’s not how I actually view mental toughness. Mental toughness means when you’re going through a really tough time … and you can’t get through this particular thing, to me being mentally tough means you can take your mind someplace else. You can concentrate on that other thing to the point where the thing that was bothering you is no longer a focus and you don’t feel it anymore.”
Kobe Bryant
The ability to take your mind someplace else is the gold standard of mental performance. People who accomplish truly great things have mastered this art.
The key is to practice adding psychological distance between yourself and the hard thing you're experiencing. Or in other words, zooming out.
Picture this: Your mind is a lens and your inner voice (how you speak to yourself) is a button that zooms the lens either in or out. When we are mentally weak, we talk to ourselves in a way that zooms our lens in close on our hard situation. This narrowed view magnifies adversity, stress, and anxiety. It also hampers performance.
Zooming in and focusing on what is bothering us comes naturally. We can train our minds to zoom out, however. Zooming out is the process of seeing yourself from afar, seeing your problems from afar, and obtaining perspective. Zooming out and taking your mind someplace else includes the following:
Zooming out on what's bothering you. Zooming in on your larger purpose.
Zooming out on your weakness. Zooming in on your strengths (include here zooming in on Christ's strengths).
Zooming out on the negative. Zooming in on the positive.
Zooming out on how others are mistreating you. Zooming in on how you can bless others.
There are many more applications of taking your mind someplace else. There are many examples as well.
My personal favorite is Jesus.
Jesus, going through the hardest mental, physical, and emotional challenge in the history of the world, (The Atonement) struggled. Even Jesus asked for it to stop.
"Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me."
"Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink."
He wanted to shrink. He wanted it to stop. It was so hard. So challenging. So excruciating. How could He possibly have overcome the urge to quit?
Consider where He took His mind.
Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men." - (D&C 19)
One reading of Isaiah suggests that Christ may have envisioned each of us as the atoning sacrifice took its toll—"when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed" (Isaiah 53:10). - Tad R. Callister
"Jesus Christ ... 'who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross' (Hebrews 12:2). Think of that! In order for Him to endure the most excruciating experience ever endured on earth, our Savior focused on joy!" - Russell M. Nelson
These 3 quotes can be summarized as Jesus focusing on:
His ultimate purpose (The Father).
The people who are the beneficiaries of His Atonement (us).
Joy.
How do you take your mind someplace else? In every hard situation you encounter, train your mind to visualize 1) Your purpose, 2) The people you will bless, 3) Joy.
Disciple-Leadership: Jesus-led. Lead like Jesus.