Hank Smith: 00:00:01 Welcome to followHIM, a weekly podcast dedicated to helping individuals and families with their Come, Follow Me study. I’m Hank Smith.

John Bytheway: 00:00:09 I’m John Bytheway.

Hank Smith: 00:00:11 We love to learn.

John Bytheway: 00:00:11 We love to laugh.

Hank Smith: 00:00:13 We want to learn and laugh with you.

John Bytheway: 00:00:15 As together, we followHIM.

Hank Smith: 00:00:17 We follow him. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name is Hank Smith. I’m your host, and I am here with my patriarch-like co-host, John Bytheway. John, we’re talking about the patriarchs today, Adam, and Noah, and Enoch, and I thought, that’s John. You would fit right in with those awesome patriarchs.

John Bytheway: 00:00:42 Oh, thank you, I think.

Hank Smith: 00:00:44 Think. Yes, no you would. You would. I’m not saying you’re old because you’re not old.

John Bytheway: 00:00:52 Oh, no-

Hank Smith: 00:00:52 I’m just saying that you would-

John Bytheway: 00:00:53 That didn’t come across like that at all.

Hank Smith: 00:00:55 You’re very patriarch-like. Now John, when I looked at the Come, Follow Me manual and saw that this lesson was very focused on teaching these things to your children, I was thinking, hey, I know an expert in parenting and teaching children who’s with us today.

John Bytheway: 00:01:16 Yes, and she’s back, Jenet Erickson, we’re really glad to have her back and she talked about when we had the “Proclamation to the World on the Family,” isn’t that right, Hank? Was a wonderful, wonderful time. So we’re glad to have her back. Jenet is an associate professor in the Department of Church History and Doctrine in BYU Religious Education. She teaches the Eternal Family course as well as Introduction to Family Processes for the School of Family Life. Her research is focused on material and child wellbeing in the context of work and family life, as well as the distinct contributions of mothers and fathers in children’s development.

John Bytheway: 00:01:57 You chose well today, Hank, for these particular chapters. She’s a Research Fellow of both the Wheatley Institution and the Institute for Family Studies, and has been a columnist on family issues for the Deseret News since 2013. I’ve seen a lot of those articles and I’m just excited to have her back, because I always feel like Hank, these are really practical things. All of us are trying to figure out how to be the kind of family the Lord wants us to be. So I’m so glad we have Jenet back with us today, because get your notes ready, because we can maybe get some things that can help us be better moms and dads, and children, and aunts and uncles, and grandparents, and patriarchs even.

Hank Smith: 00:02:38 Hey welcome, Jenet. We’re excited to have you here.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:02:40 So good to be here. Thank you, John. Thank you Hank.

Hank Smith: 00:02:43 It’s just a treat to have you, and I feel like if anyone listening hasn’t gone and listened to our episode with Jenet, go back. Just hit pause on this episode, go back and listen to the two we did with her on the Proclamation on the Family. Go back and listen to those because this will give us probably a really good setup for what we’re going to do today. I’m guessing that a lot of that could help set you up in a good way to maybe understand these episodes better. So Jenet, we’re in Genesis and Moses today, Genesis 5, Moses 6.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:03:27 It’s so interesting that Genesis 5, I think what it illustrates for us is we needed the Prophet Joseph to receive more, to help us know the true history of that great prophet Enoch in terms of patterns of families. So I’m going to just focus on my intent, let’s focus on Moses 6. We can start right at the beginning of Moses 6 with recognizing that Genesis 5 provides historical genealogy for us to follow, but Moses 6 really gives us the story, the history.

Hank Smith: 00:03:56 I was noticing that as well that you look at Genesis 5 and you’re like, “Oh, okay, I get the ancestry, and then I go to Moses6 and I get an explosion of information.” Insight to these that I didn’t have before.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:04:12 The title for Come, Follow Me, Hank, as you noted already, “Teach These Things Freely Unto Your Children.” I think just having that title tells us how significant this chapter is. What is it? The Lord is telling us to teach something to our children, to create a home that is centered around certain things, and what are those things? If you picked one chapter out of all of scripture, this is the chapter that delineates the core truths that parents would care to teach to their children. It starts with verse 1, “And Adam hearkened unto the voice of God, and called upon his sons to repent.” And I just had to stop there because that word repent is such a challenging word. Yet it’s what Adam is told by the Lord to do. What does it mean, “To call upon children to repent?”

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:05:08 I think repentance is so difficult because of all the things Satan would want to distort, it would be sin, and repentance, and atonement, and salvation. All those things bound together, that is what he would care most deeply about distorting. So repentance is so often something we fear, we avoid, right? Our idea is to avoid repentance, do everything you can to avoid needing to repent, and prove your righteousness by not needing to repent, and fear and shame around that word. Then we have President Nelson kind of break open that distortion and help us understand what repentance is, and when we understand it, then we can see why the Lord would say, “Call upon your children to repent.” What does that mean? It’s interesting. I’ve loved the Givens, their All Things New, Fiona and Terryl Givens book. One of the things that they do is tackle the historical understanding of repentance, especially from the Reformation, and that it is different than what the original Greek truths about repentance were.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:06:12 So for example, we have this feudalistic period where to sin is to offend God, to offend his honor. That’s how we’ve come to understand sin, and then you go to legalism a little later where the idea is God demands a payment for violation of the law. So you have Calvin saying, “Jesus, by his sacrifice, appeased divine anger,” and Luther saying, “God hath laid upon our sins, not upon us, but upon his son Christ.” Tyndale saying, “We need Christ to save us from the vengeance of the law. His blood, his death appeased the wrath of God.” So we developed this idea of repentance that is right, that punishment and meting out a punishment. That it’s the penalty paid to obtain pardon. So as a child, I remember when we lived in Mexico City, seeing people on their hands and knees crawling into the cathedral and trying to understand what was happening, and my dad explaining to us they’re paying penance for their sins. It’s the way that they feel they will become free of sin and their understanding of Christ, and repentance, and sin and salvation was all locked up in this penance idea.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:07:26 Of course, we know the Greek word for repentance is metanoia. President Nelson recently taught us that, and what it means is this, “Change of mind, knowledge, spirit, and heart, even breath.” Thomas McConkie will say, “tt means coming out of my small mind,” and so when Jesus asks us to repent, it is all about growth. A change of mind and heart, and becoming. Not penalty, right? It isn’t about paying penance. It’s about coming out of growing beyond, learning, developing, even healing. Hank, you’ve talked about what he teaches us, how he breaks out of these falsehoods that we have. You’ll tell your  students, but you just think of the woman caught in adultery, and here she’s brought before the Savior and the accusers are intent on retributive justice, right?

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:08:25 This is their idea, and he’s going to punish her for her sins. So you have Adam Miller explaining so well what the problem of human experience is, how we relate to the law, and we see in the Pharisees this distortion in how they relate to the law. Do we use the law to treat the law as a guide and the work of love, or do we use it as a means for judging ourselves, what we do or don’t deserve, or judging what other people do or don’t deserve? That whole idea is trapped in this false notion of what repentance really means. So you’ll see, right? Even as human beings, how we’ll say, “Look, they’re the people that don’t keep the law. They’re the losers. They’re the people that do keep the law, right? I want to be one of those who does keep the laws, because that makes me a winner.” That we spend time evaluating and measuring personal righteousness. That’s all a distortion of what repentance means. It’s that idea of I’ve got to keep the black marks, I wipe them off. Right? That’s what the whole purpose of repentance is, and I want to be as free of as many black marks as I can. When in fact, God is saying, “Come to me. Come to me and grow.” There’s this distance to grow, to become holy as they are.

Hank Smith: 00:09:44 This is difficult because I know that parenting is one of the most intimate parts of our lives, right? Or the way we parent, and so we don’t want anybody to come away from this going, “I’m a bad parent or I’m a bad person.” Right? But it does seem to me that if you get this wrong, if you get a distorted view, if you pass on a distorted view to your children, in my experience, you end up with resentment instead of repentance.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:10:15 Yeah. It’s interesting Hank. I love how you’re saying that. I think, so our parenting begins with our own experience of God, our own relationship with ourselves, and we inherit distortions around repentance. I think that’s why this is so beautiful that this chapter starts with teaching us the truth about what repentance means. So that we as parents begin by healing our own relationship with that word, which is healing our relationship with ourselves and healing our relationship with God, because don’t you think we as parents, you said it, right? It is the most vulnerable thing in the world to be a parent. It is the place where we are most vulnerable to feeling judged, right? Like a good parent, and this is the product, and a bad parent. You keep the law, here we are again, right? If you’re keeping the law, this is what it will look like, and if you’re not keeping the law, this is what it will look like.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:11:12 I think this whole truth about repentance turns that totally upside down. It’s, “What is my relationship with the beautiful truths of repentance for me personally?” And “How do I live that with my children?” What’s so interesting is when we are in that mode of understanding God, and our parenting, and all of that, it’s why we can be saddled with pain, and shame, and self-doubt, and unworthiness, and fear, and judgment. The Lord is not that God, and so the Lord, Jesus Christ, turns that distortion on his head. So you see the woman coming to him. They’re looking for him to give her tribute, right? This justice, this penalty, right? He says, “Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more.” We see that he is all about change, conversion, and healing.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:12:04 He is not about discipline, right? He’s the God who in 3 Nephi says, “Oh, all ye will, ye not now return unto me and repent of your sins and be converted, that I may heal you.” His entire ministry is one of healing, and he interchangeably uses healing with forgiveness of sins. They’re used interchangeably. They’re coming and saying, “We asked you to heal this person, sick of the palsy, and you said forgiveness of sins. That’s what you have offered.” Teaching us, that is what this is, and how much we as parents need that deep assurance of the Lord’s walking beside us in this journey of parenting. Healing us, covering us, because the whole thing is about growth, development, becoming whole. That whole person, right? Perfection is completion. It’s why it’s so much more than paying a debt.

John Bytheway: 00:13:03 The Bible Dictionary entry on repentance sounds so different than what you might expect. It calls it,  “A fresh view about God, about oneself, and about the world.” That sounds so different than what you were talking about, Jenet. Some of those traditional definitions of a scolding tone, or mindset, or punishment. Retribution, you called it. I mean, I feel like sometimes in the new Testament, the apostles, hey, who did sin? This man or his parents that he was born blind? There’s got to be a reason that this guy had this affliction. Show us the cause and effect, and that was just a mindset back then. So I’m glad you said President Nelson, say it again, metanoia. I remember that talk, metanoia.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:13:53 Metanoia, yes.

John Bytheway: 00:13:56 Metanoia.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:13:56 He talks about that. It’s like he’s quoting the Bible Dictionary, “A new view.” A fresh view, a new mind, even a new way of breathing. That is what repentance really is.

John Bytheway: 00:14:06 A new way of breathing.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:14:08 A new way of breathing, right? Taking in.

John Bytheway: 00:14:10 You even breathe differently when you get it.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:14:12 Yes, yes. So I think when Brad Wilcox, he talks about, “We believe in being not saved by grace alone, but changed by grace.” That this is not being saved in our sins, but saved from our sins by having been changed by his love and grace, so that that sin is no longer part of us. What a glorious path. So the truth is, we had to leave our Heavenly Parents, and I think this is what this chapter is about. We had to leave the presence of our Heavenly Parents so that we could experience oppositional choices, so we could taste the bitter to learn to prize the sweetness of what is good and pure. That is sin. That bitter bitterness is sin, or weakness, or transgression, and we taste it so that we can know the sweetness that is Christ. So repentance is the process by which we grow. We return into that healing light. We work with Christ and he, in us, changing our mind and our hearts and way of being.

Hank Smith: 00:15:21 I think I’m hearing you say that Adam was able to teach this so well because of his relationship with God.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:15:28 Yes, yes.

Hank Smith: 00:15:30 Adam knew God really well, they were good friends, and so he was able to teach repentance effectively. So as a parent, if I want to teach repentance effectively, I need to have my own relationship with repentance and with God. Is that-

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:15:44 Yes, yes. In fact, the most transformative thing I think in parenting understanding is we have moved from an understanding of parenting as a role, to a relationship. So you have this powerful parenting pyramid, the Arbinger Institute creates this parenting pyramid that I think captures so much. If you’ll just picture it, here’s this pyramid. At the base of it, the largest section is the relationship I have with myself, with God. My way of being. My “At One Ment” in a sense with myself and with God. The next layer up is relationship with spouse. The next layer up is relationship with the child. Then it’s teaching, and the very top is discipline. As parents we tend to spend, where do we spend most of our time?

Hank Smith: 00:16:40 At the top. Discipline.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:16:41 Discipline, correction, right? I know this from myself. It’s so natural to be like, “What are you doing?” Correcting, and here that pyramid is saying the foundation is my understanding of my relationship with God, with myself, that healed relationship. That relationship that then impacts how I relate to my spouse, that then impacts how I relate to this child, and then how I’m teaching them. Then the correction is so small a portion because that foundation is built upon relationships..

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:17:18 It begins with that relationship with myself, and I think when we see Christ as our advocate, and I mean in our parenting, in our personal life, in our personal way. Not an advocate in that he takes the beating for us, but the advocate in our growth who literally that word in Luke, when he was in agony, it’s this word that captures the meaning of contest, right? It was this contest against the powers of evil and bondage on our behalf. So he literally works in us today at this moment, overcoming that. Overcoming the shame, overcoming the fear, overcoming the weakness, overcoming the predisposition that would harm us, the predisposition to sin. He heals that beautiful relationship as our advocate, and we bring that relationship into our relationship with our children.

Hank Smith: 00:18:12 I know that there are people listening right now who are towards the end of their parenting, or even they have only adult children, who are listening and feeling a sense of, “Oh no, I did it all wrong.” What would you say to someone? I would say right now, “Don’t turn this off. Don’t run and hide here. It’s okay, it’s okay.” Right? That it’s okay. Just keep listening. You’ve said before, we’re in this process as well. You weren’t supposed to know it all in the beginning. What was I, 20-something when I became a parent? Right? So the Lord I think knew I wasn’t going to do it perfectly. So, what would you say to someone who feels a little bit they’re here at the end going, “Oh, I taught repentance all wrong, great?”

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:18:57 Oh, so I just think, here I am, right? 11 years into being a mother. I don’t know. I can’t even count the number of nights that I have awakened and thought, “Why am I like this as a mother? Why do I treat them this way? Why am I in this relationship?” Whether it’s my mom, who’s way down the road with great grandchildren now, every single one of us depends on that beautiful assurance that Christ is our advocate right now. Wherever that is, and his healing is retroactive. I know that whenever I heal in my relationship with him and with myself, it blesses my children. It doesn’t matter when that happens, that healing power is felt, and to absolutely know the process, there’s no other way for us to learn this, right? Then to live it and make mistakes. That’s what the whole thing is all about. We taste the bitterness of how we relate, and we prize the sweetness of Christ. That was the whole reason we came. We have this idea of perfectionism, somehow. I-

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:20:03 … and we came. We have this idea of perfectionism somehow. I want to do the right thing for my child. I want to make the right decisions. I want to do it right. I want to have it so that they won’t have to suffer. And all the questions. Am I expecting too much? Am I expecting too little, too many rules, not enough rules? Did I teach them all wrong about repentance? Did I teach them all wrong about covenants, right? What was I doing? And perfectionism, that whole focus on behaviorism and perfectionism. I love how Jennifer Finlayson-Fife just totally teaches this so powerfully, but it interferes with intimacy, that interferes with our relationships with ourselves and our children. And the moment we can be honest about our fallibility, because that is the absolute truth, instead of hiding behind a false idea that there is some perfect way that we either should have been or should be, then we have blocked intimacy.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:20:56 And it’s that intimacy that is the core of parenting. And our children trust us. They can track our fallibility better than anybody. They see our hypocrisy better than anybody, right? Like we are unmasked to them. And the moment we are unafraid, because we know Christ is our advocate, to be fallible to them, honest about that with them, they can trust us. And we have given them the greatest gift, which is to be confident in their own fallibility with Christ as their advocate. So that is the journey. And the moment we can turn and say, I have failed you because I am a fallible person. And he is my redeemer and he is yours. Then we’ve entered into a space of that level of intimacy that is the healing part of parenting.

Hank Smith: 00:21:52 I remember thinking this about my dad before he died. He would be so great with my kids. So fun with them and they just adored him. And I’m like, that’s not my dad. That is not the same guy that raised me. And I remember saying that to him, “You’re super nice to them and I don’t know how nice you were to us.” And he said, “Yeah, I probably was too harsh. I probably was too harsh.” And he would say, “I’m sorry about that.” And that wasn’t the point. I was just saying, you just seem like you’ve really softened up.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:22:24 Yes. Grown, right? Grown in that security of the assurance of Christ’s work.

Hank Smith: 00:22:31 That’s why being a grandparent sounds so fun, is you’ve learned so much now. Now you can be the parent you wanted to be,

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:22:39 It takes so much compassion with ourselves, right? And the thing is compassion with ourselves and compassion with our children is where the power lies. It’s that compassion in our own failings, compassion with ourselves about that and compassion with them. I love this statement from William Kautz in the book Winter’s Grace. He says, “To avoid shame,” and I think this happens so much in parenting, “You better believe there’s going to be all kinds of anxiety and shame around parenting. We feel responsible for their salvation, that what they do and what they are reflects on us. If I’m righteous, you’re going to look and act a certain way. And if I do this right, and I control this outcome. And I think when we totally throw that out, when this is about us developing an intimate relationship together, this parent with child, knowing you, loving you, truly loving you.”

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:23:31 My anxiety’s not infecting that relationship, but out of that relationship and working towards that, then we come to the purpose of parenting that with repentance of the heart, it’s this love of repentance, right? It’s this gratitude for change. That’s what parenting needs so much. Right? And acceptance of that fallibility for you and for me, and a gratitude for that beautiful process of the promise of change. Anyways, he says to avoid shame, one must feign perfection, even though the entire enterprise is a joke. That is the truth about parenting, right? Authentic intimacy requires a different way of living. The masks come off and the walls fall down whenever honesty is followed by tenderness and mercy. Without such a love, we are all broken beyond repair, parents and children. We tear that mask off. I need Christ. You need Christ. I am fallible. You are fallible. You are loved. I am loved. And his work is to help us grow and become. And that’s what Adam starts with right here.

John Bytheway: 00:24:43 And you have articulated it today, but I feel like modeling repentance for our kids have been some tender moments for me when I can sit. And as we approach family prayer, whatever, and say, “You guys, I lost it today. And I’m sorry that I need help.” And those are tender moments when they can see, I haven’t got this figured out either. And more than once with my kids, I hope this is true. I’ve said, “You guys, this isn’t you against me or those who make messes against those who clean up the mess. This is all of us against the Adversary.”

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:25:25 John, I loved how you brought up this against the Adversary. I’ve been thinking there’s some beautiful insights. I think Michael Wilcox talks about this, but just being in the temple. You see Satan. The very first thing he wants to do is to shame us in our mortality, shame us in our weakness, shame us our emotions and our hormones and our traditions and our genetic predispositions, that are part of our mortality. And so he says hide and they make a covering, right? They make a covering Adam and Eve do, and it’s pathetic. And the Savior says, “Let me offer you a covering.” That’s what the whole garment represents, right? Is this covering, and it’s not a covering because he’s ashamed of our mortality. I think that word covering so beautifully is, “To fill the holes, to make strong again, to heal it, to make it whole.”

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:26:21 And he’s not ashamed of our mortality. He says, bring it to me. I will fill it. I will cover it. I will make it whole. I will purify… And when we can be that way with our children, it’s the only honest and true way to live. Right? And it allows them to have confidence in us, trust in us and trust in Christ. If my parents can rely on him, I can rely on him. If we can do that together, unafraid of the adversary’s efforts to shame us as a family, then we are on the path to the Lord’s healing power.

John Bytheway: 00:26:56 Well, it’s like you said, they’re the experts on our… My kids know-

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:27:02 Our sins and weaknesses?

John Bytheway: 00:27:02 I mean, yeah. My kids come to hear me do a fireside. They’re listening with completely different ears than every other teenager in the room. They’re like, “Yeah, right, dad!” Because they know, and that’s always humbling to have my kids hear what I say, “Don’t watch me too closely.” I think I heard Steven Covey say once. Yeah. “I’m teaching you some true things, but don’t watch me too close. I’m still trying to live up to what I believe as well.” And I’m still trying. So I like what you said. How did you put it? They’re the experts on our foibles.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:27:43 Our fallibility.

John Bytheway: 00:27:45 They’re the experts on it. And so you can’t fake it with them.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:27:49 You can’t fake it and we’re not supposed to. I think that is where the distortion around repentance comes. Right? It’s a hiding to one another as other parents. It’s hiding from our children. It’s hiding, right? And the Lord is saying, “Take the covering off. Let me cover. You do not be ashamed of this.” That’s what the whole thing is about.

John Bytheway: 00:28:07 In fact, Jenet, I’m glad you said that because this idea of garments and … and the covering, one of the things I find fascinating is out of Liberty Jail, “When we undertake to cover our sins,” instead of having the Savior cover them, that’s the problem where we think we can cover. No, we can’t do that. We need the Savior to cover. And then I think it’s Alma 34, “Without that, we are exposed.” He uses the phrase.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:28:37 Yes, Jacob too says, “We will stand before God in our nakedness.” In a sense, that’s how we are in front of our children. Right?

John Bytheway: 00:28:44 Yeah. They know our fallibilities. So I love that you brought that up. “They tried to cover themselves.” Eh, no, I’ve got something so much better. Yeah.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:28:54 Better.

John Bytheway: 00:28:55 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 00:28:57 Jenet, as you were talking about being open and honest, I read verse 2 and it seems that Adam could have a lot of shame or Adam and Eve about what happened with Cain and Abel, but he seems quiet… “He glorified the name of God; for he said: God appointed me another seed.” He’s talking about Seth, instead of Abel, whom Cain slew. He’s very open and honest about what happened. It’s not like, “Oh, we don’t talk about that. We don’t talk about that moment in our family.”

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:29:26 Oh, so true, Hank. Right there for the entire world.

Hank Smith: 00:29:29 Right. He’s like this happened. This happened in our family.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:29:34 And he’s saying agency is real. Cain made choices. Agency is a real thing not to hide from. And it means that there’s a possibility of change is what it means. It’s a glorious truth. And that all families have real challenges, significant challenges, every family, because that was the whole point of it, to learn and grow. It’s interesting that we’ll talk about in family life structure and heart. Meaning when I ask my students, “So what are your goals for your future family?” I just read this beautiful paper. And he said, “I want the most important thing for me is to have my children develop faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ.” And they were asked how they’re going to do that. What do you think students are going to say? Scripture study every day. Family home evening, right? Family prayer. And those are structural pieces and they matter. They’re important.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:30:19 They’re why we’re taught to do them. They’re the rituals that enable connection. They’re what Bill Doherty, my professor at University of Minnesota, a powerful therapist. He would say that the intentional family and we need intentionality in family life. That’s kind of a buzzword, right? To be intentional about where you’re going and what you’re doing. The intentional family is a ritualizing family. And the gospel of Jesus Christ gives us all these beautiful rituals. That’s the word we would use in social science, right? It gives us family scripture study and family prayer and Family Home Evening and going to church together and doing family councils and family vacations and all of these beautiful rituals. Those are structural pieces. But as we all know, it’s the heart that has to come through in the structure.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:31:10 You could do the structure and not have the heart and impede the heart. And so there’s just that really important focus. I think when we get the core right, this repentance and vulnerability and honesty and the Savior’s redeeming power, and he is our advocate and there is no shame in our mortality. When we get that, you are fallible. I am fallible. You are loved. I am loved. Then when we do the structure, then that heart will come through. And that’s not to say, we’ll talk about that. It’s not to say it’s going to be any different than Elder Bender says when they’re sitting down for family devotional and the kids are like, “Quit breathing my breath.” Yes, totally. And the conflict and the contention. It’s why Elder Wilford Anderson, when he talks about learning the music, “We learn the dance steps, but we need to hear the music of the gospel.”

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:32:04 And he’ll say, that is something we practice over and over again. We’re practicing getting the heart there, this Christ centered dependence on the Lord, every single one of us together. So I love that you brought up. They’re unafraid to say, “These are the hard things in our family, right?” And so when I’m talking about repentance, that’s what I’m talking about. It’s like, if we have that core right, we get rid of the fear and shame to one another and to our children, like we see this as a beautiful experience of growth. And it’s not to be hidden, right? But I think we struggle in our culture a lot with that. And parents can feel so much shame about just mortality, which is what the adversary would want us to feel.

John Bytheway: 00:32:52 When I think of how the Book of Mormon starts and that family and how many problems that family had, I thought, “Are people noticing this? Please notice this was not a perfect family.” “And let’s kill dad.” “No, let’s kill Nephi.” “Oh, I’m sorry. Ishmael died.”” Let’s kill Nephi.” A boy like Nephi comes from the same family as a boy like Laman. I hope we’re saying, “Look, everybody has an interesting past. And if your kids all turn out great, great. Can you take all the credit? Probably not. Can you take all the blame? Probably not.”

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:33:34 Right. Nor can you measure the good that comes from some of those intense struggles, right? That seems so shameful, but that can often put us on a trajectory for growth, that we would never trade what happens because of that. How we come to know the Savior, how we come to really, really know him and experience brokenness and his healing.

John Bytheway: 00:33:54 What were we taught by this horrible event we went through?

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:33:58 Yes.

John Bytheway: 00:33:58 Would we trade what we were taught now?

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:34:01 Yes.

John Bytheway: 00:34:02 Because it pushed us into the Savior in a way we might not have.

Hank Smith: 00:34:06 And then social media doesn’t help when you’re portraying this perfect family.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:34:13 That’s a very natural thing to do for all of us to kind of hide, to kind of pretend. Here’s President Nelson, “Nothing is more liberating, more enobeling, or more crucial to our individual progression than is a regular daily focus on repentance.” And he’s talking about our personal lives and in our family lives, repentance is not an event. It is a process that is the key to happiness and peace of mind. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of repentance. That is not a self flogging punishment kind of orientation, right? He’s saying the gospel provides an invitation to keep growing, changing, becoming more pure. It is a gospel of hope, of healing, and of progress. Thus, the gospel is a message of joy. And when we can see repentance like to be taken seriously, repentance is the message of joy.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:35:08 When we can just take that so seriously, then I think we have protected the heart of parenting. This is about change, growth, not hiding. Here’s verse 3. And I’m just going to put verse 3 and verse 4 together where it talks about Seth, this son of Adam and Eve. And then it says, “And then began these men to call upon the name of the Lord and the Lord bless them.” So we’re going to learn in this chapter all about how the Lord teaches repentance to his children, like what that looks like. And the very first thing he says, first of all, is teaching us repentance is good. This is the gospel of joy, but then call upon the name of the Lord.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:35:49 So Elder Christofferson says this divine love… Most recently, “This divine love should give us abundant comfort and confidence as we pray to the Father in the name of Christ. We need not hesitate to call upon God even when we feel unworthy. We can rely on the mercy and merits of Jesus Christ to be heard. As we abide in God’s love, we depend less and less on the approval of others to guide us.” So when we’re talking about shame, that’s this need to be approved of by others, like to be affirmed, right? To feel like other people think we’re okay. And I’m okay. And here, Elder Christofferson is saying this beautiful instruction about hauling upon the Lord means we can depend less and less on the approval of others to guide us and depend on the absolute assurance of his love, abiding in his love. There’s that first key to teaching repentance. We can call upon God right now in our sins with our weaknesses and be heard. And he becomes the source of our approval in a sense.

John Bytheway: 00:36:57 I think that one of the things that the Adversary would want to do is tell us… I love the way you were just saying that you can call upon God in the midst of your problems. Not well, as soon as I solve this, then maybe I can approach God about it. Or I can’t talk to God right now. I messed up so badly, which is exactly the best time to talk to him. And so, I think about the sequence of, “Come unto Christ and be perfected in him.” It’s not be perfected, and then you’ll be able to come unto Christ.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:37:36 The other day, we had a difficult experience in my own with my children and my husband and something painful that happened. And we have these two children and I could hear in their voices, “This is shameful, right?” This question, “Do we have to be the kind of family that has these kinds of things, right?” And they’re young, they have yet to experience how pervasive these and ordinary these challenges are. But it was so beautiful to have my husband say, “We can pray right now for healing from the Lord. And we don’t have to be ashamed about this or afraid of it. He beckons us to come right this minute. So I love how these verses start with that. Thank you, John, for that beautiful insight.

John Bytheway: 00:38:19 There’s a little saying I heard when I was probably a teenager that I’ve always loved, and that is, “Satan trembles when he sees the weakest Saint on her knees or upon his knees.” That’s exactly what he does not want you to do is get on your knees. But the Lord does want… And you’re not going to surprise him. You’re not going to say I did this. You did? What? He knows.

Hank Smith: 00:38:47 When my relationship with the Lord is right, I’m no longer maybe hungering and thirsting after that acceptance from other people. And I remember specifically a childhood memory. I remember once the police were called to our house, I was maybe three or four years old. There was a domestic issue going on. And they sent us, the younger kids out to sit on the curb. I remember the officer said, “You guys go sit out here on the curb and I’m going to go talk to the adults inside.” And I remember sitting there and watching all the neighbors come out and they opened their front door to see what’s going on over there at the Smith’s house. And I remember that feeling of being seen, like totally exposed to our problems, were now very public. And I remember that feeling. I couldn’t have been more than three years old, but I remember that shame of this is now open to everyone. And what you’re saying, I think in verse 4  is, if you can somehow stop worrying what anybody else-

Hank Smith: 00:40:03 If you can somehow stop worrying about what anybody else, the neighbors, the ward, what anybody else thinks and go to the Lord in all honesty; when you have that connection with him, these problems become… They’re not fun by any means, but they’re not shameful.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:40:19 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 00:40:19 It’s just being human.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:40:22 And Hank, to give a child that is such a gift, right? To know you do not need to be afraid of these mortal life experiences with Christ as your advocate, always and forever. And they don’t have to hide, right? They can develop confidence in the reality of fallible, mortal experience. We can accept it together. We don’t want to, right? As a three-year-old, I think it’s so natural to resist, right, the realities of the fallibility and mortality, and to feel ashamed about it, but what a gift to give them.

John Bytheway: 00:40:58 And Jenet, just one more plug for the word you’re using. My favorite nickname of the Savior is Advocate. He’s not on the side of the law. He’s on our side and our Advocate for what we’re going through. If we get that mindset, it changes everything that our advocate is by our side. Our Advocate. So, keep using that word.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:41:28 John, I’m so glad we stopped with that word, because the Greek word, and I just learned this from a wonderful woman…

John Bytheway: 00:41:36 Parakletos or something?

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:41:38 Yes, yes. And it means consoler, as well as advocates. So you get this, and then if we think about it, and we’ll talk about this a little bit later, but the Holy Ghost is the Comforter, right? The consoler, and he is also the teacher of truth. So here, Hank, in this moment as a child, you’re being exposed to the truth and comforted at the same time, right? That’s what an advocate does. It’s not to hide from the truth, but this consoler with us, advocating for our growth and testifying of the truth, is just so powerful. That word, advocate. So thank you for stopping us there.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:42:17 Okay. Here’s Verse 5. “And the book of remembrance was kept,” and we’re going to read this book of remembrance repeatedly. We’re going to read the word repentance eight times. We’re going to read book of remembrance four or five times. “And in which was recorded in the language of Adam, for it was given unto as many as called upon God to write by the spirit of inspiration.”

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:42:41 I had a really powerful experience as a Young Single Adult. I wasn’t young enough. I yearned for children and I had a very sacred experience listening to President Eyring tell a story. I was in graduate school, yearning to be married and have children. I’m listening to his talk in my car. And he tells a story about how he taught, when he was President of Ricks College, he taught religion and he taught the Doctrine and Covenants. And he would tell the students that one of the requirements was to write.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:43:10 And he describes this girl in the class who kind of said, “Why do I need to work on these…” He could hear her questioning. “Why is it so important that I refine my writing skills?” And she said something like, “The only thing I’m going to write are letters to my children,” probably. She didn’t see herself as an academic or something like that.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:43:28 And so, “Why do I need this?” And he said, I was kind of, “I don’t know how to answer this exactly.” And this young man stood up in the back of the room and he said… He said, “This young man had said very little during the class. I’m not sure he’d ever spoken before. He was older than the other students and shy. He asked if he could speak. He told in a quiet voice of having been a soldier in Vietnam. One day, in what he thought would be a lull, he had left his rifle and walked across his compound to mail call to pick up the mail. Just as he got a letter in his hand, he heard a bugle blowing and shouts and mortar and rifle fire coming ahead of the swarming enemy. He fought his way back to his rifle, using his hands as weapons. With the men who survived, he drove the enemy out. The wounded were evacuated. Then, he sat down among the living and some of the dead and opened his letter. It was from his mother.”

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:44:28 “She wrote that she had had a spiritual experience that assured her he would live to come home if he were righteous. “In my class,” the boy said, quietly, this phrase that I cherish, “That letter was scripture to me.” I kept it.”

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:44:48 Now, when the Lord is asking us to write and telling us, here’s this example of this mother, writing revelation given to her that is scripture for her children. When I think of the most precious things I have for my parents, it’s moments… Just a month ago,  a mom had a spiritual experience in a very difficult situation, and had an answer to prayer come to her. She sent an email to us the next morning. I will ever keep that. It was an answer to her prayers that came from the Lord. Nothing is more scripture than that.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:45:24 And here, the Lord is teaching us this beautiful pattern. Parents, write your stories of repentance, right? Write your stories of repentance, of the Lord hearing your cry and answering your prayers and helping you and giving you strength, and began there with Adam and Eve writing scripture.

Hank Smith: 00:45:46 When I was younger, I wrote more because I struggled more, right? If you read my journals, you’d think I was just constantly struggling because…

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:45:55 Same with me.

Hank Smith: 00:45:57 That’s when I would write, is when I was struggling, but I’ve never thought about sharing that writing with my children. But maybe it’s time to go, go back, look at that writing and say, “Here’s something that maybe will bless my teenagers.” And that’d be very vulnerable, though. I’ll be honest. That would be a very vulnerable move.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:46:18 Yes.

Hank Smith: 00:46:19 They’re like, “Dad, what was going on?” “You don’t want to know.”

John Bytheway: 00:46:23 Yeah. President Eyring changed my life about writing in a journal because I’d figured journals… “Oh, I went on this trip.” “Oh, I won this prize.”

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:46:38 Your daily activities or whatever.

John Bytheway: 00:46:40 “And here’s the price of gasoline.” And President Eyring, I don’t remember the exact phrase, but it was kind of, “Document the hand of God in your life. That’s why you’re writing a journal, and that’s what would bless your children.” And just what you’re saying, Jenet, repentance, spiritual experiences, scripture, impressions. Document the hand of God in your life.

John Bytheway: 00:47:05 You’ve heard me talk about this before, but my dad on a yellow pad, I think, wrote what is now about 90 pages. My sister-in-law typed it up, an autobiography. His World War II experience, his conversion. A treasure, absolutely priceless. Treasure because he wrote it down, and the parts that are treasure are documenting that God was watching over my life and helped me and my family through the depression, through World War II, everything.

John Bytheway: 00:47:40 So, I love that they’re being told. I mean, I just underlined in Verse 6, “Taught to read and write.” And I’m thinking about 1 Nephi 1:1, “Therefore I was taught in the learning of my father.” Others in the book of Mormons start out, “Yeah, my father and my parents taught me to write and how important that is.”

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:48:03 Write by their scriptures, their written testimonies, right? That’s how they were taught to read and write. It’s interesting too, right, that it says, “Having a language which was pure and undefiled.” And I think as we were talking about in the beginning, it was so illustrative to me to study that history of how we stand the word repentance and the defiling of its meaning, right? And that these words that we pass around that we use, right, and assume, right, where we can pass distortion right along with them. We need that pure and undefiled truth. And I think that when the Lord teaches us through our hearts, by the power of the Holy Ghost, it is pure and undefiled. What we learn is pure and undefiled truth. And when we write that, then it is language that is pure and undefiled.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:48:52 On to Verse 7. “Now this same Priesthood,” and okay, so we’ve learned this pattern of starting with repentance, calling upon the name of the Lord, that this is scripture and that this book of remembrance that is the hand of God in our lives. And then we get this reminder. “Now this same Priesthood, which was in the beginning, shall be in the end of the world also.”

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:49:14 And you had Barb Gardner on here talking about the truth about priesthood. And here we’re brought again to this familial, patriarchal order of the priesthood, which we all enter into as we receive the ordinances of the temple. Before we’re even married, we’re initiated in that Initiatory Ordinance into this familial order of the priesthood, culminating in parents being sealed and altered together and doubted both of them with priesthood power. He’s saying, “This is this familial order of the priesthood, by which this book of remembrance, the stories of repentance, the truth about Christ, is kept.”

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:49:57 I loved the clarification of Elder Renlund about what priesthood is. For me, it was so powerful. Do you remember him talking about the rocket and the payload? And you have the rocket, its whole purpose is to deliver the payload. And so, he described the rocket as priesthood, the payload being the atonement of Jesus Christ. And so here, the purpose of the priesthood is to launch, here’s his words, “To launch and deliver the opportunity to benefit from Christ’s Atoning power.”

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:50:32 If you think of being endowed with priesthood power as parents, it’s so touching to me to think what I’m endowed with is the power to launch the blessings of the Atonement of Jesus Christ to my children’s lives. I can’t make them receive that. That’s the beautiful gift of agency, but I can create a space where I experience the truth of it in my life, his covenant atoning power in my life, and come to see it, its fruits in my life.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:51:06 And so, here that, being endowed with priesthood power, being endowed with the opportunity to launch, right, to carry that power into the lives of our families, to facilitate the delivery of the Atonement into our children’s lives. And if we understand repentance, if we try to, if we’re unafraid, if we seek that vulnerability, if we seek to be exposed in honesty and receive his power, that’s what we’re doing. We’re accessing priesthood power to help them experience the Atonement in their lives.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:51:38 I love Elder Renlund’s clarification. “Anytime we are using the priesthood, it is with that purpose in mind; deliver the Atoning power of Jesus Christ into the lives of other people.”

Hank Smith: 00:51:51 John, I remember you telling me that your mom would often tell you guys not to judge your dad, right? Because he would maybe not be the most… I don’t even know how you’d describe him. Maybe not use the best words. He used “navy words,” sometimes.

John Bytheway: 00:52:09 Yeah. I’m going to face my dad again, so I got to be careful. They were mild, but he joined the Church at age 24 and my mom was great. Because she would say, “Look, you be careful. You don’t know where he came from.” And it was kind of, these are my words now. ” He had a different starting line, and you don’t know where he came from. You be careful. Now, you can’t use that word.”

Hank Smith: 00:52:38 Yeah. “You don’t get to use that word.”

John Bytheway: 00:52:40 Yeah. But I think, Jenet, that’s another instance of all of us being in this together. And my mom is saying, “Look, dad’s in this together with us and he’s working on it too. And be careful, because he’s trying so hard.” And we saw that. To this day, I’ll find an old book of my dad’s and find a note inside to encourage himself to try harder and to be better. And it was never, “I’ve arrived.” It was, “We’re all in this together.” Sorry. So, yeah.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:53:21 So beautiful.

John Bytheway: 00:53:22 Thanks Hank, for bringing that up.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:53:25 So beautiful.

Hank Smith: 00:53:26 Oh, it just seems like that was your mom, trying to show you the access to the Atonement that everybody in this family has.

John Bytheway: 00:53:33 Yeah. And you know, Mom’s Miss Pioneer Stock, probably walked personally with a handcart but never mentioned it. I mean that’s my mom. And she’s saying, “Look, he came from a different place, so be careful. He’s trying so hard.” And he was, and it made me love both of them in moments like that, and love the Savior, to say, “He’s working with all of us.”

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:53:58 Yes, he’s working out our salvation, all of us. And isn’t it interesting as parents, you’ll think, “I’m going to work out their salvation.” And about four years in, all of a sudden, you’re like, “Wait a minute, they’re working out my salvation. This was all about me learning, right? This brought that’s what’s going on here.” So beautiful.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:54:17 Well, Verse 8 is the other core truth. So, we’ve had this repentance theme, this recording. Recording repentance in our lives for our children. And then you get to Verse 8, and the Lord is going to do that most magnificent thing of establishing his relationship with us, of saying, telling us who we are, who we are, our identity, our purpose. So here’s Verse 8, right.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:54:44 “A genealogy was kept of the children of God.” These are not just children of this parent and this parent. These are the children of God and the book of generations tying us back. That’s why genealogy is so beautiful. It takes us right back to God the Father, God the Mother as our Parents. Then in Verse 9, “In the image of his own body, male and female,” which tells us Heavenly Parents, “Created he them and blessed them, and called their name Adam.” Here they are, this direct lineage of God.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:55:21 Do you remember when President Nelson, there’s another General Authority, who spoke about being in a training session with then Elder Nelson, President of the Quorum of the Twelve. And the question was asked, “How do we help these individuals struggling with pornography?” It was recognized that this is a ubiquitous challenge. “What do we do?” And his profound answer, it was simple. It came right away. “Teach them their identity and their purpose.”

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:55:50 If you think about what is powerful, who you are, telling this person, and because this is who you are, there’s that beautiful statement of President Packer, “You are a child of God. He is the Father of your spirit. Spiritually, you are of noble birth, the offspring of the King of Heaven. Fix that truth in your mind and hold to it. However many generations in your mortal ancestry, no matter what race or people you represent, the pedigree of your spirit can be written on a single line. You are a child of God.” And here the Restoration, when Joseph sees them, “Joseph, my son.” It just turns all the blackness of the Apostasy upside down, right? That whole idea that this is a God with no feeling, with no body parts or passions. He can’t be affected by our human suffering. You were created out of nothing, and there’s such a distance between you and God that it’s unsurpassable, right? You can’t know him. And here, your nature is so totally corrupted all you can hope for is a rescue.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:56:59 This is what Christians believed. And then to be told, “You are my child.” Literally. This distance is not only surpassable, it’s the whole intent of the whole plan, is for you to come and become as I am. And how is that, just knowing parental love, right? How do we feel when children disobey? It’s not anger, it’s an anger for the hurt that they suffer because of it. It’s not an anger because of retribution of this dishonoring of us. Sometimes we have to work out of some of those feelings, right? But this divine love that is grounded in parenthood, in literal parenthood. “You are me, you are the other of me.” And hear the Lord just establishing right at the beginning. “I want you to know who you are as we talk about repentance and this plan of salvation.”

Hank Smith: 00:57:54 So Jenet, what I’m hearing verses 8 and 9, is if I have a child who’s struggling with something, don’t shame them for that problem. Ennoble them by teaching them who they are and their purpose.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:58:09 Yes, yes.

Hank Smith: 00:58:10 Lift them out instead of… The natural thing might be to say, “That’s evil stuff. You’re involved in something terrible.”

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:58:19 Yes, Hank, because when they are, we feel shame. Isn’t that the whole irony, right? We’re so caught up in how they are a reflection of us. So, working on the issue of pornography, if a parent learns that their child’s struggling with pornography, the shame that comes with that, right? So, the shame for the child, and the shame for what kind of a parent has a child who’s struggling with this, right?

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:58:45 And all the shame around shaming, our mortality and shaming our mortal experience. And instead of what you’re saying, which is, “If I cannot infect this dynamic with my own insecurity as a parent,” right? “If this isn’t about me and what’s reflecting on me, but it’s about you and my love for you and my desire to help you grow, and my care not because you’re not because in your choice not to serve a mission, it’s about me or your struggle with this, it’s about me. But it’s because of what it means for you. How can I help you?”

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:59:18 Then we’re in a place of power to really see and help them, right? Because it’s not infecting it. In Jennifer Finlayson-Fife words, “I infect my relationship all the time with my own insecurities about how their behaviors or their choices reflect on me.” And that has so much to do with, right, my own relationship with God. That’s why it comes back to that foundational part of the pyramid: me, at peace with my relationship with God and his advocacy for me.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 00:59:48 And then I relate to my children from that place. And I’m going to go back again and again to healing that, as I’m relating to them in their journey with the bitterness of sin and weakness, so that I can truly be a help and a guide to them.

Hank Smith: 01:00:03 That’s a lot of weight…

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:00:03 … so that I can truly be a help and a guide to them.

Hank Smith: 01:00:03 That’s a lot of weight to put on a child, if they not only have to live their life, they’re trying to live yours now as well, because you’re putting… you’re reflecting me to the rest of the world. So, there’s a lot of pressure.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:00:15 I think every single parent is experiencing, you are a reflection of me. And so working on overcoming that so that we can really truly see them and help them sort out the path of truth for their life, that’s the foundation, them sorting out. Not choosing it because of pleasing me, not choosing it out of defiance against me. Right? Like, I’m going to set my own path. But choosing out of truth to the best that is in them.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:00:45 I think there’s quite a bit of family data that would say, there’s power in an identity. Right? Like, I belong to this family and I live up to that. So you’ll hear parents, “Remember who you are when you leave the house. Remember you’re this.”

Hank Smith: 01:00:56 Right.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:00:57 Right?

Hank Smith: 01:00:57 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:00:57 And I think at some point, every single one of us knows that identity is not enough. Right? It is an identity bound in God. I, a child of God, as the mother, you, a child of God as the child. And that identity is the only absolutely secure and true identity. Right? And so, that’s what the Lord does that right here. It’s so beautiful.

Hank Smith: 01:01:21 We say, “Remember who you are.” And, “Don’t let that get you down.” Right? That’s what we say.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:01:26 Hank, I love it. I love it.

John Bytheway: 01:01:29 My wife tells a story about one of her friends, I guess, growing up, because they always heard their parents say to the other siblings, “Remember who you are.”, when they left. But they didn’t know the meaning. They didn’t know what their parents meant by that.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:01:42 What does that mean?

John Bytheway: 01:01:43 So one time when my wife’s friend’s siblings were leaving, the other younger kids yelled, “Don’t forget your name.” Because that’s what they thought it meant.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:01:53 What mom and dad mean is, don’t forget your name.

John Bytheway: 01:01:55 Don’t forget your name.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:01:55 I love it.

John Bytheway: 01:01:55 Because kids are always going out there forgetting their names. So…

Hank Smith: 01:01:58 They’re nervous about it. 

John Bytheway: 01:01:59 Remember who you are. Don’t forget your name.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:02:03 Now, we’re going to get in these next verses. In verse 10, 11, 12, 13, we’re getting this beautiful genealogy. And then we get at the end of 13, another phrase we’re going to get repeatedly. So it’s not unlike this book of remembrance. It’s not unlike this identity grounded in God. Here’s this next one, “Taught his son Enos in the ways of God.” What that means to be taught.

Hank Smith: 01:02:29 That’s going to come up a couple more times, right?

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:02:30 Yes. It’s going to happen repeatedly. What does it mean to be taught in the ways of God? And I think that gets back to that whole idea of structure and heart. And it is really powerful, the research on family life and the power of what we would call, routines and rituals. So routines are the things you do to keep the family functioning well. You eat dinner and you brush your teeth and kids get their homework done. And you wake up, and for some families, that’s making your bed and keeping a house of order. Those kinds of things are important. Those structural pieces.

Hank Smith: 01:03:02 If my kids-

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:03:02 But then-

Hank Smith: 01:03:02 … are listening, can we repeat that list one more time?

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:03:05 Remember all these things. Do your homework, make your bed.

Hank Smith: 01:03:09 Do your homework, make your bed.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:03:10 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 01:03:11 Yes.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:03:12 Pick up your clothes.

Hank Smith: 01:03:12 Brush your teeth. Yeah, okay.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:03:14 Brush your teeth.

Hank Smith: 01:03:15 Yeah. You heard it from an expert, guys. This is important.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:03:18 And those routines are very important. But then the other side is what we call, rituals. And rituals are very fascinating. Rituals are those things that are… So I’ll say to students, “How do you say goodbye when you tell your parents goodbye on the phone?” And many of them have phrases that they repeat. Right? They say. “Are there any birthday traditions that are just your family’s?” And the goofy things that families do. Right? Or movie quote patterns or dancing around doing dishes together or… All the things, these rituals, that establish identity that are so important in a healthy, emotional climate.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:03:55 So you need these, what we call, rituals of connection. And I think what we talk about is family prayer, that’s a ritual of connection. It can be routine, right? We know the difference. Or it can serve that purpose of being a ritual of connection. Family prayer and family devotional and Family Home Evening. And they…

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:04:13 Even sitting down and having dinner. Dinner is one of those that comes up just ubiquitously in research as having a powerful benefit to children. I could go on for four hours about the research on family dinner. There’s something powerful about sitting together. You’re kind of in a place of commonality because everyone has to eat. And so, there’s a reduction of hierarchy that way. There are different kinds of conversations. Even linguistically it’s very powerful, because you’ll have narrative talk where children are telling a story about what happened. And dad and mom are bringing in news or talking about professional and they’re bringing in a different kind of vocabulary.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:04:51 You have that… In the CASA research of the Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse, there is one predictor that comes up every single year, when they collect that data, as the thing that predicts less likelihood of substance abuse for adolescents. And it’s the number of family meals in a week. So, it’s the number of times they have eaten dinner in that week as a family.

John Bytheway: 01:05:13 You’re sitting down together, even if it is you’re breaking open the bags of Wendy’s. Who got the single, who got the… But you’re sitting down together. I’m fascinated by that.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:05:24 The family sacrament is what one researcher will call it. And so it’s a sitting down, looking at one another, hearing one another, talking to one another. And we all know it’s not always a fun occasion, right? I think my mom with five little children, peas all over the place, people throwing things, right? You spilled 95 times at that meal. But there is so much power in the consistency of that ritual.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:05:49 And it has ritual elements. Where you sit. Many of my students have a ritual where they share their high, their low, their rain cloud, their sun. Right? The meal, who they served or what they learned or… And these are all ritual elements that if they don’t happen… It’s like when you try to put that young child to bed and you don’t tell them the story that night and they cannot go to bed because that ritual has been so core to their emotional wellbeing. You can’t mix it up. If you don’t… If you leave out the birthday tradition This one year, that child feels like, “I’m alienated. I don’t belong.” These rituals are very powerful.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:06:27 And so when we talk about this whole idea of, in the ways of God, rituals that orient us to God are so important in family life. And again, can the structure get in the way of the heart? Yes. It’s why that focus on what is the heart, but God and Christ and this centerpiece of our lives. They redeem us. That retaining that even as you’re like, “Get in here for family prayer and sit down and please be quiet. And quit interrupting and…” Right? And we’re practicing. We’re practicing over and over again, that process.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:07:03 But I love that family research that helps us understand what it means to be growing up in the ways of God and the power that rituals can have. And that even when they fail… Right? Even if it feels like there was 15 years of failure of this family devotional ritual or this Family Home Evening. Right? We tried. We were consistent. We wanted them to know we cared about them hearing about God and that we were together in that.

John Bytheway: 01:07:27 Somebody described a Family Home Evening as, an argument that ends and begins with a prayer or something.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:07:34 Yes.

Hank Smith: 01:07:35 I don’t know when it was, there was sometime along in my parenting, I think it was my wife who taught me, “Look, we’re not just after getting the room clean. We’re not just after getting a prayer set. We’re not just after eating a meal. We’re after building relationships.” So make sure that your goals, when you go into these rituals, would you say, you got to have the right goal in mind? Goal is not to just get the room clean, the goal is to build the relationship and get the room clean. You could get the room clean and destroy the relationship. I’ve-

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:08:08 Yes.

Hank Smith: 01:08:08 … done it.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:08:09 I’m an expert at those kinds of things, actually, Hank.

Hank Smith: 01:08:11 Yeah.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:08:12 And I know all this data and it is… That’s why I think it takes compassion for ourselves in this journey. Because you… And that the purpose of life really is to taste the bitter, to prize the sweet. So, Hank, you and I, who are trying to get that room cleaned… And I have this experience where I’m over and over again, ” Pick that up.” Right? And ruining the relationship in the process. But I’m learning from that experience of bitterness, “You know what? I’m going to change that.”

Hank Smith: 01:08:36 Yeah. I don’t want to do that anymore.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:08:37 I want to do that differently.

Hank Smith: 01:08:38 No.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:08:39 And I might do it 400 times wrong. Right? But God is good, and gives us this mortal experience to learn through bitterness, to prize the sweet. And sometimes the bitterness can cloud our view of God’s love for us. But all around us, we see, here is hope again. We’re going again. We’re going to work on this being about the relationship, this about intimacy and connection, and knowing you and loving you in a better way.

Hank Smith: 01:09:09 So, let the milk spill.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:09:11 Yes.

Hank Smith: 01:09:11 Right? And-

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:09:11 That’s why my mom took on the motto, “Have a laugh.” That was our family motto. When the milk spilled it was like, “Have a laugh. Just say it right out before we get upset.” Right? We’re just going to have a laugh.

Hank Smith: 01:09:21 There it goes. Look at that.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:09:22 Here it comes. Yep. Here we go, again. Here’s 14 and 15. And we see this shift and hear the Lord. Right? He’s going to teach us about what had happened. Here, he told these children, “Thou art my children, the direct descendants of Heavenly Parents.” And then it says, “And the children of men were numerous. And in those days, Satan had great dominion … and raged in their hearts … and every man’s hand was against his own brother … and seeking for power.”

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:09:54 Here, they lost their identity. They had rejected that identity of being from God. And they’re seeking for power, not God’s power, not priesthood power. He’d promised that, priesthood power, his power. But seeking another way and how deeply painful. It’s why in Moses 7, we’ll him weeping. “Why is he weeping? And it’s not your sins against me. He’s weeping for their sins against one another.” And how deeply painful that is, to hate their own flesh.

Hank Smith: 01:10:31 In verse 15, Jenet, this idea of, here’s the ideal and here’s the poison. Right? The poison comes in. It’s anger, right? Dominion… He raged in their hearts and came wars and bloodshed.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:10:50 Yes. Ah.

Hank Smith: 01:10:51 Man’s hands up against his own brother.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:10:52 And this seeking of power.

Hank Smith: 01:10:53 Right. And power.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:10:54 Mankind… Yeah. I… Yeah, that’s so beautiful, to think about this ideal and then this… what happens in real mortal life. Right? And as you said, John, within one’s own family, in Lehi’s case. Right? There was this raging. And the Lord never gives up. He doesn’t say, “Well, goodness.” Right? Like that’s… “What can I do with these people who’ve been rejected. And now they’re fallen. And the pain that it causes me, so I just pull out.” No way. He keeps coming back. Repent, turn. And if it’s not in this generation, in Lehi’s case, he’s bringing them back generations later. Right. Bringing them back, fulfilling that covenant relationship. Never quitting in seeking his children to follow in his path.

Hank Smith: 01:11:40 It’s hard enough to be a parent. And then adding an adversary who is deliberately trying to poison your family. Oh. Right?

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:11:48 Yes.

Hank Smith: 01:11:48 I think the Lord gets it. This is tough.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:11:50 Yes. I love that. And there was no other way, right? We have to experience that bitterness, to know the sweet. To choose as they give and say, “To choose Christ with eyes wide open.” I love that. When we experience bitterness in family life, when we experience bitterness in our own lives, and we all do, it’s part of the plan so we can choose Christ with our eyes wide open. We know the pain and we will choose differently.

Hank Smith: 01:12:20 Hmm. I’ve noticed, maybe I’m being a little too vulnerable here, but I’ve noticed when my relationships with my older children get tense, it’s usually an idea of power. Right?

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:12:38 So much. Yes.

Hank Smith: 01:12:39 And honor. And-

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:12:41 Yes,

Hank Smith: 01:12:42 … you’re insulting my ego. Right?

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:12:45 Yes.

Hank Smith: 01:12:45 My pride.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:12:47 Ah.

Hank Smith: 01:12:47 And I’m going to set you in your place. Right? “You can’t talk to me that way. I’m your parent, I’m your…” That feels like verse 15, Satan rage is in the hearts of people they’re seeking for power over their own family.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:13:03 I will never forget the first time our daughter said, “No” to me really strongly. And she kind of said, “No”, just a wonderful gift to me because she has an independent personality, not a pleaser. And that’s been very helpful for my growth. But I will never forget that first time when I was like, “I can’t believe you just said that.” Right? And that feeling has happened over and over again. And it is. If I’m honest with myself, I’m not thinking about what she’s communicating about her own feelings. I’m thinking about what that means for me. Right? My own ego or my own insecurity being right. Kind of infecting my understanding of her. And I can’t be.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:13:46 And that’s why that beautiful healing has to happen over and over again with parents, because that is absolutely natural to feel that way. And if we’re coming back to the base, that pyramid, am I being truthful about what’s really happening here? And that this is really about me instead of about what she’s trying to communicate about her needs and herself and her growth. And just how we… It’s just a growing process, to not get in the way of that experience of parenting. Right? Our own selves.

Hank Smith: 01:14:13 Do you guys remember getting hit by your own [children] for the first time, when they’re maybe two or three? And they’re mad at you and you’re holding them and they just sock you upside the head. And you’re like-

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:14:22 You’re like-

Hank Smith: 01:14:23 … “You!”

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:14:26 Yes. Yes. And I can get those feelings. Right? As a mother who’s giving a lot, and trying to serve a lot, you can get into that, you owe me something. And I think it is a power dynamic there.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:14:40 Okay, here’s 21 again. “And Jared taught Enoch in all the ways of God.” There’s that phrase coming up again? What does that mean to teach the ways of God? And it is that path of repentance. Then 22 and 23, I love this. And John, you actually brought this up a little bit before, but here’s, here’s that “Genealogy of the sons of Adam who was the son of God.” It just wants over and over again, “This is who you are. You are a child directly of God.” That is so core. And then that next verse, “And they were preachers of righteousness, and spake and prophesied, and called upon all men everywhere.” And what are we going to hear? Again, that calling upon to repent.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:15:29 And it’s the opposite of that shame world. It’s, come and grow with Christ. Come and be honest about yourself. Come and speak the truth. Remove the shame. Come and be changed. And then it says, “And faith was taught unto the children of men.” You can never teach repentance, without the very first truth booth being faith.

Dr. Jenet Erickson: 01:15:55 I loved hearing Kerry Muhlestein. You had him on that very first podcast of this year. And that absolute assurance, “I can do my work. This is my work and my glory. I can do my work. I can do that work in your life, I can do that work in your children’s lives.” And you both just shared so powerfully, that reliance on God. And so whenever we teach repentance, the foundation is faith in his belief in us. Faith in our belief in him and what he can do in us.

John Bytheway: 01:16:38 Please join us for Part II of this podcast.