Hank Smith:                      00:00:00             Coming up in this episode on followHIM.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:00:04             And so they looked at a bunch of old people. They used cognitive tests to see how they were doing over time. They hypothesized that a major factor in those who actually improve cognitively in their older years, and there are people who will actually get better, our cognitive abilities will improve. Even after age, say, 65. They hypothesize that there’s got to be a factor there that could predict who’s going to do better and who won’t. What they settled down on in their data was …

Hank Smith:                      00:00:38             Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name is Hank Smith. I’m your host. I’m here with a giant among men. My co-host, John Bytheway. Now, John, physically, you’re not a giant, but spiritually, you’re a giant among men.

John Bytheway:               00:00:57             Probably not a giant there either, but thanks.

Hank Smith:                      00:00:59             Yes, I think you are. In fact, spiritually, I think you’d be Goliath. You would tower. Me, on the other hand, would be more like a grasshopper. Now, that might sound like a weird comparison, John, but it actually is a comparison made in the Book of Numbers. Numbers 13:33, Giants versus Grasshoppers. John, we are excited today. We are joined by Dr. Dave Thomson. We call him Dr. Dave. He deserves the full title. Dr. Dave Thomson is here. Welcome to followHIM.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:01:28             Thank you. I am thrilled to be here. This’ll be fun.

Hank Smith:                      00:01:32             Yeah. I’m excited to have you. John, let’s start with you. Some people out there, including me at one time, have said, I have never read the Book of Numbers, but you have, John, so what comes to mind?

John Bytheway:               00:01:44             If I had to put it in one sentence, we find out that this huge, massive people in the Exodus were numbered. They were numbered by the Lord. Even though there were so many of them, he numbered them and they had to be led through a spiritual as well as a temporal wilderness to get where they needed to be physically and spiritually.

Hank Smith:                      00:02:05             Yeah. The Lord’s census is different than a government census. I like how you said that. It’s a one by one numbering. Dave, as you’ve been looking at the Book of Numbers, when you and I talked earlier, you thought, the book of Numbers, really? That’s what you’re going to have me do? And I said, that’s what we’re going to have you do. What have you been thinking about?

Dr. David Thomson:        00:02:27             Before you said it was going to be Numbers, you asked what my favorite book in the Bible was in an email. Then you just tacked right on. How do you feel about the book of Numbers? I was… Numbers? And I think what I told you, the only thing that came to mind was the talking donkey a little later on, right? And I was like, yeah, that was a fun story right there. As I started really digging in and doing the work to see what was really in there, man, it’s incredible. There is so much in Numbers that is directly applicable to us in our daily lives. There’s some weird stories, for sure. Man, it’s awesome. I loved it. All of it, in my mind, comes back to keeping your eyes on the Savior, looking at the Savior and not letting your attention get placed on something less.

                                           00:03:21             Everything from facing the giants and feeling like a grasshopper and what you should do if you’re scared, to what should you think about dying? There’s just a little bit in there that just really grabbed me. All of it in my mind comes back to where are you looking? Where is your focus? Where is your attention? The bronze or brass serpent. Are your eyes on the Savior?

Hank Smith:                      00:03:43             Beautiful. Already, I’m excited. I remember when I was a kid, the book of Numbers was the phone book. I had no idea there was one in the Bible. Now, John, I’m guessing there’s some listeners out there who are loving Dave so far, but don’t know who he is. John, what do you know? Do you know anything about Dr. Dave?

John Bytheway:               00:04:02             This is hot off the printer.

Hank Smith:                      00:04:05             Okay.

John Bytheway:               00:04:06             I have a little bio. Let me introduce him. He grew up in Orem, Utah. He served a mission in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Came home, married his wife, Kendra. I think he told us they met at an Institute dance. They have five daughters. He studied athletic training and exercise physiology at BYU before earning his PhD in bioenergetics from East Carolina University, Go Pirates. He’s now an associate professor of cell biology and physiology at BYU where he teaches Physiology and studies why muscles break down in old age, speaking of me. He served in many church callings. His favorite was teaching primary with Kendra. He likes reading, learning new things. Currently, he’s reading Python coding for dummies. He loves hanging out with his family, including his dog, Chappy, and traveling usually to a beach somewhere. That sounds really nice today. Welcome, Dr. Dave, to followHIM.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:05:04             Thank you, John.

Hank Smith:                      00:05:05             That’s exciting. Now, all the parents out there listening, Dave has already helped me. Before we even hit record, so if you’re a parent and you’re out there listening, I want to have a quick 30-second conversation with Dr. Dave. He said something that I immediately wrote down, and I’m going to share it with my wife. He said in high school I loved learning. I didn’t like school. I hurried and wrote that down because I’m raising boys. And I have a couple of them who I think, what’s going on? You like learning, right? Don’t you like learning? He just articulated something I don’t think my boys can articulate. Dave, what did you mean by that?

Dr. David Thomson:        00:05:43             My mom and dad was always reading books growing up. They really emphasized that. And when I hit my teenage years, you know what happens in your teenage years, your brain just shuts off for a little bit, or at least parts of it. But I still loved learning. And like I told you, I would go and I would spend hours in the city library pulling out books and reading stuff, random things. You set me down in a classroom and have someone up there in front who’s telling me what to learn?

Hank Smith:                      00:06:09             It just didn’t happen.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:06:10             No, not doing that. I loved learning, but didn’t have a real great GPA, so to speak. But I did have a love of learning things.

Hank Smith:                      00:06:21             I have a couple of boys in which I think I understand them a little bit more. They don’t lack a love of learning. Sometimes when we tell people what to do, they resist. I do that same thing, oftentimes. Well, I hope that was helpful for any parents out there. Let’s start with the Come, Follow Me manual, and Dr. Dave, John and I are ready to learn. The lesson is in multiple chapters in the book of Numbers. The title, Rebel Not Ye against the Lord, Neither Fear. Even on foot, it wouldn’t take 40 years to travel from the wilderness of Sinai to the promised land in Canaan, but that’s how long the children of Israel needed, not to cover the geographical distance, but to cover the spiritual distance. The distance between who they were and who they could become as God’s people. The book of Numbers described some of what happened during those 40 years, including lessons the children of Israel needed to learn before entering the promised land.

                                           00:07:19             They learned about being faithful to the Lord’s servants. They learned about trusting the Lord’s power even when the future seems hopeless, and they learned that being faithless brings spiritual harm, but they could repent and look to the Savior for healing. That’s what Dr. Dave said earlier. We’re all like the Israelites in some ways. We know what it’s like to be in a spiritual wilderness and the lessons they learned can help us prepare to enter our promised land, eternal life with our Heavenly Father. Beautiful. All right, with that, Dave, how do you want to start this?

Dr. David Thomson:        00:07:52             I love the King James version of the Bible. Four years ago, I picked up a NRSV version, new revised standard version. That’s close to the King James, just in a little modern language, and that was great. I actually loved that one. This year with the announcement from the church, I was like, oh, let’s go try a different one. So I got the NLT, New Living Translation. So let’s see what that’s like. I was kind of surprised at how well it connected with me spiritually and emotionally. I’ve enjoyed exploring both worlds, both the King James and the NLT. When I read, I’ll jump between them. Sometimes one’s good and sometimes the other is better.

Hank Smith:                      00:08:33             Let’s do that. And our friend, John Hilton III, just smiled really big in his car as he is driving to work. I call him JH3. JH3, you’ll have to text me and let me know how big you smiled when you heard Dave say that about other translations of the Bible. He’s an advocate. Dave, with all those different versions of the Bible, what did you find? Where are we going to start?

Dr. David Thomson:        00:08:57             Looking over all of these, the biggest message is to keep our eyes on Christ. In Numbers 21, many people are familiar with this account. The people are whining and complaining. We’ll see, they’re doing this pretty much throughout these chapters. They’ve been wandering forever. The manna that they’ve been eating is getting really old. They’re tired of it. They are not happy. God sees the need to make a correction here. John, I love your storytelling in the past. Can you maybe just give us a quick synopsis of what God does to correct the Israelites?

John Bytheway:               00:09:39             I remember hearing David Christensen years ago teach this. He said, how many of you like serpents? Would you like them more if they were on fire? I think fiery means poisonous or full of venom. So then, Moses has a way to deliver them from this. Verse eight says, the Lord said unto Moses, make thee a fiery serpent. Set it upon a pole and it shall come to pass everyone that is bitten, when he look upon it shall live and Moses made a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole. And it came to pass if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:10:19             It seems a little inconsistent with how faith in the Spirit and blessings that come from faith work. You just got to glance over there at the serpent and you’ll be healed. In my mind, really, you just got to look so if I contemptuously look over at the serpent because Moses is telling me if I do that, I’m going to live and I don’t believe you, Moses, and I glance over there. Is that going to really heal me? Is that how it works in our relationship with Christ? I don’t think it is. Let’s read that one more time.

John Bytheway:               00:10:52             Okay. Numbers 21:9, Moses made a serpent of brass, put it upon a pole, and it came to pass if a serpent had bitten any man when he beheld the serpent of brass he lived.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:11:04             Ah, good. Beheld. What does that word behold mean? Here’s my one crack at Hebrew. I don’t have any idea how to pronounce this, but it’s something like vehibit. The meaning in that word is not just to glance at, but it means or implies to look with intense focus or intent. That gives you an entirely different feel than just glancing at this brass serpent and being healed, that you’re focusing on it, that you are really paying attention. They focus on the serpent, they live, and in the Book of Mormon and New Testament, we learn more about that. In John 3:14-15, Christ himself taught, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” There’s other references to this event in the Book of Mormon, taking it all together, healing when we’ve been bitten or when we’re going through something hard isn’t going to come just by going through the motions of glancing at the Savior once in a while.

                                           00:12:16             We want to focus on him with intent. We want our attention on him. Some days when I got a lot going on, I get up in the morning and I’m just craving, kneeling down and praying to Heavenly Father. And I just can’t wait to get in that conversation. You just savor it. That’s all you’re thinking about and all those problems are somewhere else you’re just focused on God, on your Savior.

Hank Smith:                      00:12:39             I wonder if the sacrament prayer, if that could be an alternate word, that they will always focus on him, that they may have his spirit to be with them.

John Bytheway:               00:12:50             I like that insight. When I was a kid and I was having trouble paying attention and mom would say, “Think about Jesus.” I thought about the picture, a picture of Jesus, but as you go through life and as you go through trials, an intense focus is required. I like what you said there. Always have an intense focus on him.

Hank Smith:                      00:13:10             I think that offers a moment of pause and said, yeah, maybe I have lost my focus. I mean, in my mind it went automatically to President Nelson’s quote, John, you know it better than I do.

John Bytheway:               00:13:21             Yeah. The joy we feel has less to do with the circumstances of our life and everything to do with the focus of our lives.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:13:28             Well, when I first started studying and digging into Numbers, again, with that idea that I don’t know what I’m going to find here, the very first verse right off the bat really connected with me because, man, I’m a whiner. I think as academics, I think we’re trained to just whine about things. We find little things that’s not just right, the way it ought to be that we can argue about. That’s totally how I am. This very first verse, chapter 11, verse one, this totally connected with me. King James version. It says, we’re back to the people, they’re complaining about their situation. “And when the people complained, it displeased the Lord and the Lord heard it, and his anger was kindled, and then the fire of the Lord consumed the people in the outskirts of the camp.”

                                           00:14:20             First verse, and I’m just like, oh, no, the Lord’s speaking to me right now. The NLTs worded a little differently. I like it. It says, “Soon the people began to complain about their hardship, and the Lord heard everything they said. Then the Lord’s anger blazed against them.” I’m thinking, oh boy, I’m in trouble. I complain way too much. Is the Lord’s anger blazing up there against me? I see what’s happening here, but sometimes I find when I’m complaining to the Lord, especially in my prayers, when I’m trying to unload with whatever’s going on, I feel like sometimes those prayers, I feel so blessed and, you know, that peace comes over you and you figure it out and I’m like, man, that was really good to complain to the Lord about whatever it is that’s going on in my life. So what’s the difference? We have the children of Israel complaining and it really upsets the Lord. Whereas I’m saying that sometimes I go whine to the Lord and it’s a huge blessing to me.

Hank Smith:                      00:15:18             That’s a great thought. I’ve never put this together. Perhaps it’s not complaining to him that is so irksome, rather complaining to each other. When we complain to each other, that can really tear down faith. I’ve noticed that. When I’m around someone who complains a lot, I think it does take away from my own optimism.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:15:43             That’s exactly the conclusion I came to as I sat and pondered on that. I imagine the children of Israel hanging out around the water cooler or the well. Just, man, I hate this wandering around. I wish I was back in Egypt and blah, blah, blah, blah, and they’re just complaining to each other. And yeah, that’s not helpful. That tears us down. You go to the Lord with your problems, even if it’s whining and complaining, again, I do it a lot. It’s, again, it comes back to where your attention is. Is your attention on your trials, the difficulties, or is your attention on the Lord as you counsel with him about those trials and difficulties? Huge difference.

Hank Smith:                      00:16:25             John, you’re a Dr. John Lund fan. He said something once, just listen to this, you guys. Often we take our problems to our family and take our love to the Lord. He said, “Don’t you think the Lord could handle more of our problems and our family needs more of our love?” And I thought, I think I do that. I think I tell the Lord in prayer how much I love him, and then I tell my family how many problems I have. Maybe ought to reverse my strategy and tell the Lord how many problems I feel like I have and tell my family how much I love them.

John Bytheway:               00:17:04             Yeah, that’s exactly what he said. And I’m thinking too that if they’re complaining among each other, what is that doing to the credibility of Moses, the prophet in their midst? That maybe he’s not really a prophet. He led us out here. Look at all this stuff that’s happening. Moses and God might be complaining about Moses and the Lord there. The spirit of complaining doesn’t do much for anybody.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:17:28             Yeah, I agree and we should try to not complain. 2 Corinthians chapter nine says that we should give not grudgingly or of necessity for God loveth a cheerful giver. We should obey the Sabbath in Doctrine and Covenants. We should do this with a cheerful countenance. I think that’s something we can all look at. How much am I complaining? Can I do this more cheerfully?

John Bytheway:               00:17:50             In 1 Nephi 17, in like one sentence, it’s… This is 1 Nephi chapter 17:1, we did travel and wade through much affliction in the wilderness. They’re hip deep in affliction. Our women did bear children in the wilderness. In the very next sentence, and so great were the blessings of the Lord upon us, that while we did live upon raw meat in the wilderness, which doesn’t sound very good. They see that we’re wading through affliction and we’re being so blessed. I think another place at the conclusion of the war chapters, it says some were hardened by the great length of the war and some were softened. It’s same exact circumstances, different personal reaction to it, which is kind of an exercise of agency, I guess, how we’re going to react to things.

Hank Smith:                      00:18:43             With my family this week, because of what Dave has pointed out here, I might have us all watch The Tongue of Angels. Do you remember that talk from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland? It’s been almost 20 years. It automatically came to my mind. I could read the whole thing here. I won’t. I’ll just give you a couple of clips so you can go hear it yourself. He says, “Speak hopefully. Speak encouragingly, including about yourself. Try not to complain and moan incessantly. As someone once said, even in the golden age of civilization, someone undoubtedly grumbled that everything looked too yellow. I have often thought that Nephi’s being bound with cords and beaten by rods must have been more tolerable to him than listening to Laman and Lemuel’s constant murmuring. Surely he must have said at least once, ‘Hit me one more time. I can still hear you.’ Yes, life has its problems and yes, there are negative things to face, but please accept one of Elder Holland’s maxims for living. No misfortune is so bad that whining about it won’t make it worse.” He quotes James. He says, “Big ships are turned around by a very small helm.” Then James makes his point, “The tongue is a little member, but behold, how great a forest a little fire can burn.” Thanks for showing us that, Dave.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:20:05             It was right off the bat, something for me. We go further on into chapter 11, verses four through six in the King James version, and the mixed multitude that was among them fell a lusting. Is that a great descriptor of our world today? They fell a lusting. The children of Israel also wept again and said, who shall give us flesh to eat? And in the King James version, that word mixed multitude, it’s kind of what does that mean anyway? NLT clarifies that up. The way it puts it is, then the foreign rabble who were traveling with the Israelites began to crave the good things of Egypt. So what were they lusting after? They were lusting after the good things of Egypt that they had left. And the people of Israel also began to complain, oh, for some meat, they exclaimed. They’re getting tired of what the Lord’s provided them with.

                                           00:21:05             It says foreign rabble instead of mixed multitude. What’s rabble? Dictionary says it’s a disorganized or disorderly crowd. We have the term rabble rouser. You don’t hear that very often anymore. What’s a rabble rouser? It’s someone who whips the rabble into a frenzy of complaint. I didn’t realize that when the children of Israel left Egypt in the Exodus, they left with some foreigners, some non-Israelites. This was apparently what’s being referred to here, the rabble, the mixed multitude. That’s kind of interesting to me, but us, we have so much information, so many opinions, so many complaints just flying at us through social media as disciples of Christ, as members of the church. I think we tend to let a lot of information coming in from the mixed multitude, which isn’t always a bad thing. There’s great stuff out there, good, valuable gems to learn from everybody around us. But if we’re not careful, are we letting the rabble start to infect our thinking with this complaining and this whining and this doubting? The Lord’s not happy with this complaining and it turns into a pretty serious consequence for many of these people.

Hank Smith:                      00:22:27             I can read John Bytheway’s thoughts by this point in our time together. John, did you think something like there’s people out there who get up in the morning and say, okay, what are we going to be angry at today?

John Bytheway:               00:22:43             I can’t remember who I heard said it, but something about that’s what social media does. It tells us, what are we outraged about today? What can we be mad about today and what can we comment on today that makes us so mad? I mean, I guess you can live that way if you want, but it doesn’t sound like a very happy way to live.

Hank Smith:                      00:23:01             I think we’ve discovered in the last, I don’t know, however many years, Dave, that the term sex sells is still prevalent, but rage sells.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:23:13             Hmm.

Hank Smith:                      00:23:14             It will create traffic which creates income for the person’s account. It’s very surprising that maybe people don’t know that people who have enough followers on Instagram and TikTok and YouTube and Facebook, if you have enough followers, those platforms will pay you for certain posts. And what you find is that posts that generate a lot of back and forth anger between people generate a lot of revenue.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:23:43             A lot of clicks, a lot of engagement.

Hank Smith:                      00:23:46             My rage is income for someone else.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:23:48             I have an aging physiology class where we talk about what goes wrong in our bodies as we get older. One of my students was doing a report. One of the things I have them do is they go to kind of a popular press book. They’ll pull out some claim out of that book and then they’re going to assess it scientifically, go and see if there’s actually evidence for what that person said about what you ought to do to live forever. The student said something really interesting. She said she’d read this book that she’d picked a while ago and accepted it at face value, didn’t question it, didn’t think about it, just to say, okay, that must be true. But when she went to do this and went through this exercise of actually looking at whether those claims held up, she realized that they were pretty flimsy, that there really wasn’t a lot of evidence for what was being said. We can do that not just in our bodies, but when people come with claims or complaints about The Church or about its leaders or about Christ in general, religion.

Hank Smith:                      00:24:55             The Lord says, I gave you a brain. I didn’t want you to suspend its use.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:25:00             That’s right. And maybe we’ll talk about that in a little bit more.

Hank Smith:                      00:25:04             That’s interesting. Dave, let me ask you about aging. One of the reasons I was excited about you coming on is your expertise. We haven’t really had a chance to tell our listeners about your expertise. Is it interesting to study aging? I think for a lot of us, we’d say, I kind of want to avoid that topic.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:25:24             I love, and I’ve been interested in it since my PhD years. So I started off looking at aging, old muscles. When you’re looking at kind of the cellular level, and it depends a little bit on what part of your body you’re looking at, but we start going downhill at about age 25 to 30, somewhere in that range. When I’m teaching these students at BYU and they’re all young and feel invincible, you would think, why should they be worried about aging that’s so far off? It’s not. The changes that are going to become really apparent in your body really begin happening when you’re 25, 26, 27, 30. So we should be thinking about that if we want to have a long, healthy life. I’m not so concerned with how long life is, but I do want to be healthy. Everyone should be interested in it. Hopefully, we all get old. The alternative isn’t great. Because if you don’t get old, then you’re dead. In the gospel context, I think it’s really important because the healthier we are, the better we can serve. When we’re unhealthy, it limits what we can do. There’s a motivation. We should be thinking about how we age.

Hank Smith:                      00:26:32             Dave, speaking of your expertise, we’ve been talking about complaining, we’ve been talking about outrage, and you know a lot about physiology. You’ve talked to me a little bit about our spiritual, emotional, physical selves are all intertwined. Does who we listen to and our complaining and our outrage, does that affect our physiology?

Dr. David Thomson:        00:26:54             Yes, it does. Let’s talk about that. One of the parts I really like in these chapters that we’re studying right now, it’s probably something that most people didn’t even think about, but because I am really interested in aging and how we prepare to die, in the end, it really stood out to me. If we jump forward to chapter 20, at this point, the Israelites are wandering around. We’ve got these people the Edomites, they don’t let them go through their land. Now the Israelites have to walk even more. Finally, they come to mount Hor. There’s a really interesting verse in chapter 20, verse 22. One of you like to read that for me?

Hank Smith:                      00:27:34             Sure. It’s my turn. Numbers 20:22, and the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, journeyed from Kadesh and came unto mount Hor. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in mount Hor by the coast of the land of Edom saying, Aaron shall be gathered unto his people, for he shall not enter into the land which I have given unto the children of Israel because ye rebelled against my word at the water of Meribah. Take Aaron and Eleazar his son and bring them up unto mount Hor and strip Aaron of his garments and put them upon Eleazar, his son, and Aaron shall be gathered unto his people and shall die there.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:28:15             I’m going to go to the NLT now and give some of the phrasing there. He says, “The time has come for Aaron to join his ancestors in death.” He reiterates there at the end, you’re going to go up on the mountain and Aaron will die there and join his ancestors. What are you thinking if you’re Aaron? We have this big fear of death. We’re like, oh, man, I’m not going on that mountain. I’m staying down here. I’m not going to do that, but that’s not what Aaron did, and it doesn’t get into a lot of detail. As we go down to verse 28, they go and, in front of the whole community, they go up, start climbing the mountain. At the summit in verse 28, Moses removed the priestly garments, like the Lord had told him to from Aaron and put them on Eleazar, Aaron’s son, then Aaron died there on top of the mountain.

                                           00:29:08             Moses and Eleazar went back down. It seems like for Aaron, this was a natural, not scary thing. He said, All right, it’s time to die. Let’s go do it. Some of the people in the field of aging are obsessed with extending lifespan, with longevity. They think if we can just tweak what’s going on in our cells a little bit and in the right ways that we could live, there are some who think a thousand year lifespan would be totally feasible. There’s one guy who, he wants to do this and he says, I want to cheat death. That’s his goal. I don’t know, in the gospel context, is that a good idea? We want to cheat death?

Hank Smith:                      00:29:52             I wouldn’t think so. It’s a natural part of the plan.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:29:55             It’s a part of the plan. That’s exactly right. President Nelson, when he gave his comments on his 100th birthday, if you remember that. One of the things he said there was really cool. He said, “My dear brothers and sisters, the length of your life is not as important as the kind of life that you live. For each of us, even for a hundred year old man, life passes quickly. My prayer is that you will let God prevail in your life. Make covenants with him. Stay on the covenant path. Prepare to return to live with him again.” And this is President Nelson who had to be feeling a lot like Aaron. He had to know that there’s not a whole lot of time left. We got to climb that mountain. I love the verbiage in the NLT. It’s time to go join my ancestors in death. That’s just beautiful to me.

                                           00:30:44             I think that’s neat. Our focus, and again, as an aging researcher, it’d be cool to live a few years longer. That’s probably fine, but we’re all going to die. That doesn’t matter so much. It’s, how do we age? Kind of gets to your question. President Nelson also said in his book, Heart of the Matter, he said, “Secular education generally ignores three major divine truths that are rarely addressed or even acknowledged. First, each of us is going to die. Second, because of Jesus Christ, each of us is going to be resurrected and become immortal. And third, each of us will have a personal interview with the Savior during which we will be judged. Those are three divine truths that need to be acknowledged. He said they are crucial to us. They are fundamental truths. Of course, that’s it. Death is part of life. I think if we can live in a way that we aren’t afraid of that, that is what will bring us peace as we get older.

                                           00:31:46             There was an interesting relatively recent study where they were looking at cognitive decline when you get older. And I used to think, oh, 40’s really old. And then when I was 40, 45, 50, that’s going to be really old. I still don’t feel that much older. 54, I’m pretty sure when I get to be like 65, I’m going to be really old. And I think in our minds, after age 65, we’re thinking, okay, it’s really going to be downhill from there. Once I’m 65, my brain’s going to slow down. I’m going to start breaking down. It’s going to be the beginning of the end. For some people, that’s definitely going to be true. But this study was super interesting because what it showed was your cognitive decline, whether you have like Alzheimer’s or not, it’s not inevitable when you get older. And so they looked at a bunch of old people.

                                           00:32:36             They used cognitive tests to see how they were doing over time. They hypothesize that a major factor in those who actually improve cognitively in their older years, and there are people who will actually get better. Our cognitive abilities will improve, even after age, say, 65. They hypothesize that there’s got to be a factor there that could predict who’s going to do better and who won’t. What they settled down on in their data was the more positive the people were in their mindset, the better their cognitive ability did over time. Getting to your point, if you’re complaining about getting older, if you’re complaining about life, if you’re putting your attention on that and not keeping your attention on the Savior, on the beauty of the gospel, on the great things in your life, even when you get older, we get older, hey, we’ve got experience. We’re wiser than we used to be.

                                           00:33:33             Our processing power may or may not be very good, but we’re smart. We’re wise. We have grandkids. We have kids doing cool things. We have a lot of good things to look at. Those people who are able to focus their attention on those things. This obviously wasn’t in the paper, but if we’re focused on our relationship with Christ and the joy we can find in the gospel, that is what predicted whether their cognitive abilities were going down or were going up. Now, this is an associative study. We can’t say that those positive thoughts caused the improved cognitive ability, but they’re associated.

Hank Smith:                      00:34:13             John, if that is true, you’re never going to die. You are the most positive guy in the world. Did you love that as much as me? I’m writing this in my scriptures just by this complaining. I want to make sure I’m clear on this, Dave. If you have a positive mindset, it’s not saying that that’s the reason that you’ll be less likely to experience cognitive decline, but those two things are associated.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:34:46             Yes. You’re in good company if you’re choosing to be positive and to create a positive mindset toward aging and life in general. Your likelihood of keeping those abilities, those cognitive abilities, there’s good evidence. Again, most of it’s associative. It’s not just your cognitive ability. I think your general health is associated as well. And you mentioned John and, you know, he’s going to live forever. I think the same thing of my mother-in-law, Sharon, my wife’s mother. Chronologically speaking, man, she’s old. 82. We can talk about aging as chronological age, time since you were born. We can talk about it in terms of biological age, what your body is doing, what your cells are doing, how healthy are your cells, right? You look at her chronological age, again, 82, that’s getting up there pretty good. Yet, if you were to meet Sharon, you would absolutely guess that she’s much younger than 82.

                                           00:35:42             She has this bright, sunshiny attitude on life, cheerful. We joke about her because it doesn’t matter how trivial something you did was. She’s going to make you feel like you were the best person on earth because of this little thing you might’ve done. Just complimenting people and looking at the bright side of everything and so resilient and not getting drug down by the challenges of life, and she’s had some. Let me read you a quick quote from Boyd K. Packer, who I miss. I liked Boyd K. Packer a lot. He said, “In your golden years, there is so much to do and so much to be. Do not withdraw from life into retirement, into amusement. That for some would be useless, even selfish. You may have served a mission and been released and consider yourself as having completed your service in the church, but you are never released from being active in the gospel.”

                                           00:36:42             You can see that in the brethren. They’re not disengaging from life. They’re not disengaging from the gospel. They’re not deciding, oh, yeah, I’ve done my work in the gospel, now it’s time to relax. In terms of longevity, even, not even, not just the quality of life. If you look at the average age at which the brethren have died since 1990, and when I say the brethren, I’m talking about apostles, prophets and apostles in the church. Average age for them at which they died is 89.6 years. On average, they die at about 90 years of age. Let’s say you’re age 50. You look at the actuary tables, what is your life expectancy? It’s 79. This is just associative. This is just a relationship between facts, you know, facts of life and things. You look at them and they’re living 10 years longer than you would expect them to live on average. I think that comes back to what you were talking about, Hank, our attitude, our view of our role in life and our engagement in life and the gospel. That all matters.

Hank Smith:                      00:37:49             Wow. The chronological age and then biological age. I would say John chronologically is however many years old, but biologically, I think he’s a teenager. So John, talk to me.

John Bytheway:               00:38:05             I like hearing that. Sometimes I’ll tell people, well, I grew up in Salt Lake City, and then I’ll say, well, it’s debatable whether I ever grew up.

Hank Smith:                      00:38:12             Grew up. Yeah.

John Bytheway:               00:38:15             What you’re talking about is fascinating. And probably 30 years ago, there used to be a continuing education camp at BYU called, there was one called Academy for Girls. There was one called Be The Best You. And there was a faculty member who used to train young women to compete in pageants. I remember listening in on one of these talks once and I was like, wow, really? She would have these young women that she was training to compete in pageants write five thank you notes per day for the 30 days that they were with her. That’s a lot of thank you notes. Association doesn’t imply causation, but I think she believed it did because she felt like graciousness changes you internally. It actually changes your appearance to be gracious, be thankful. And I think that gratitude’s kind of a twin sister of humility because when you’re grateful and you realize where your blessings come from and you realize you didn’t create or deserve your blessings, sometimes they just came. Humility and gratitude go together. I can’t hope to live up to all of Hank’s adjectives for me, but I hope the one thing I will never be accused of is ingratitude. Dependence on and a focus on the Savior, wouldn’t that make you be grateful?

Dr. David Thomson:        00:39:41             I think that’s absolutely right. There is a lot of data on gratitude. It’s been a topic that’s been studied heavily and it’s a lot of associative stuff. I can’t think of any of those studies that don’t at least directionally say that if you have more gratitude in your life or you express gratitude more, that it won’t improve whether it’s your anxiety, your mental function, or general sense of wellbeing regardless of your stage in life. I think it’s really important being able to see your blessings, count your blessings as the hymn goes. I think it is a very practical and well established way to make your life better and to feel more peace. Absolutely.

Hank Smith:                      00:40:26             If any of my students at BYU for my New Testament classes, if they’re listening, they are going to roll their eyes because this, I hit it so often. Around Thanksgiving time, I will hear someone, usually in church, quote the story of the 10 lepers. They’ll say, “This story is about gratitude.” And I just want to scream, this story is not about gratitude, it’s about expressing gratitude. All 10 lepers feel grateful. There’s not one of them that you would ask and say, you know, you’re grateful for Jesus? No. What has Jesus ever done for me right besides heal me from leprosy? They’re all grateful. Only one takes the time to say the words or express the gratitude. So here’s what the text says. Luke 17:14, the nine, and I guess you could say all 10. As they went to the priests, they were cleansed. The one comes back and Jesus says, thy faith hath made thee whole.

                                           00:41:40             I think this is in the scriptures, Dave, what you just described, expressing gratitude, putting the words together and either saying them or writing them out like you said, John. Dave, you’re the expert here, but I would think that has to change your physiology. In fact, during class, I will stop and I will say, get out your phone. We’re going to text someone how grateful we are, and we’re going to be specific. We’re going to say these words. We’re studying expressing gratitude in my religion class today. I thought of you, and then they express gratitude for something specific. Thank you for being someone who listens, someone who is consistent, whatever they want to say. And then I’ll say, how many of you got something back? And by the end of class, most of them are raising their hand. And I say, what did they say? You should see the healing.

                                           00:42:31             You can feel it in the room, the feeling that takes place. Oh, my mom said she was having a really hard day that switched it around for. One of my students said, one of my companions said, how did you know I needed to hear from you? I’m really struggling with my faith. We could even make that challenge right now, John. We could have everybody, unless you’re driving, stop what you’re doing, press pause on us, say something like this. I’m listening to a podcast today. They’re talking about expressing gratitude. I want to say this to you. I thought about you. This is a thing you can try right now.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:43:07             There’s a lot of studies out there that look at what the effect of the people you are around is on you, what their attitudes are. When they’re excited, when they’re grateful, it rubs off on you. That’s been well established for sure. In my aging class, we talk about levers all the time. As we get older, there are levers that you can pull that will affect how you do, how your health is, how your mind’s doing, and so forth. I always say there’s four big levers. Number one, you should be exercising. You should move as often as you can and once in a while lift heavy things. Number two, you need to pay attention to what you’re putting into your body, your food. That one is clear. There are different views on what that ought to look like. Everyone is in agreement that you should not be putting highly processed foods into your body, at least regularly.

                                           00:44:10             Eat real food. Okay, so that’s lever number two. Lever number three is sleep. The food makes sense. Sleep, yeah, we all know we should get enough sleep. We should all be getting 7-8 hours of sleep or so for the most part, and make that sleep as good as we can. Huge lever that will affect how you age and how you feel. The fourth one, though, is social connection and your relationships with people. That is the fourth one that I think is well established where there’s enough evidence where we can say, yeah, that’s a big lever we can pull. The reason why I make those four big levers, I call them big levers as opposed to little levers is those are things that if you’ll go do them, you can feel the difference. You don’t have to wonder whether it’s doing anything. If there’s some supplement that someone on some podcast said you ought to take, maybe it does something for you, maybe it doesn’t, but those four big levers, you know they’re going to make a difference because you can feel it.

                                           00:45:10             And so again, with that social connection, going back to what we’ve been talking about, your mindset, the gratitude thing and actually expressing that gratitude to people, that’s a big deal. It is a big lever, and we know that. I’m an introvert. Even as an introvert, I know that even us just conversing right now, it feels good to talk to people. I did this once when I was Bishop, I was on the stand a while back. In my mind, I just remembered, as I was watching the young men pass the sacrament, I remembered a bishop in my youth. All the efforts he made to try to help me get on the right path. At the time, that bishop couldn’t have known that anything registered in my brain at all that he did. He couldn’t have known because I pretty much rejected, at least on the face, everything.

                                           00:45:59             I was just sitting on the stand looking at those young men, remembering myself as a young man, and I pulled out my phone. I know you’re not supposed to do that in sacrament meeting, but I just went and searched him up, found his email and shot off an email thanking him and apologizing for being a punk. It felt really good. I could feel the difference. It felt right immediately. When it’s stuff like that, when that happens, maybe it’s the Spirit, maybe it’s just your mind, doesn’t matter. You can feel it. You can feel that was right. You hear about the blue zones, probably. You might have heard of these. These are places on earth where those communities tend to live a long time where they routinely live over 100 years of age. One of the common threads through all those communities, they have different things.

                                           00:46:45             You know, all those four levers are in there. But again, coming back to that sociality, the social connection, the friendships, the strengthening of each other, those are things that are common amongst all of those societies where people tend to live a long time. One of the base commandments is to love your neighbor. That is obviously of spiritual importance. I think have a direct relationship to things that will physically bring us health. I love that idea that what we’re thinking, how we’re thinking, how we’re loving, how we’re caring for each other, that really matters in terms of how our later years in life end up looking for us.

John Bytheway:               00:47:34             The Apostle Peter, I think it was one of the great understatements of all time. When he’s on the Mount of Transfiguration and he sees Jesus and then Moses, he’s dead, right?

Hank Smith:                      00:47:48             Yeah.

John Bytheway:               00:47:49             And then Elias? I wish I could hear the tone of voice in the scriptures, maybe new modern translations have emojis with the sentences that would help me. Peter says, “It was good for us to be here.” That’s the understatement. Listen, if you have a good day in seminary, and I had so many, and I thought, wow, I learned something and I didn’t say anything, Hank. I didn’t express gratitude. I had it, but I didn’t express it. Please, walk up to your teacher, you don’t even have to smile if you’re too cool. Just say, “It was good for me to be here,” and walk out. Make their day. Try gospel doctrine. It’s so easy. This is not rocket science. It’s so easy.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:48:35             That reminds me when I was a youth of a seminary teacher who I had, and again, I was a little bit off course when I was in my teenage years and seminary wasn’t my favorite thing. I had this seminary teacher. His name was Les Campbell. I just wasn’t nice to him. I didn’t connect with him for the longest time. And as the Lord would have it, I got him two years in a row for seminary, and I’m just not excelling in life at the time. If I’m him, I’m going to be, all right, that student, he’s a lost cause. I’m just not going to pay attention to that guy I’m going to pay attention to the kids who like me. But he took me, I remember still, he sat me down, two chairs in this empty seminary room facing each other, and he talked to me for about, it was probably 10, 15 minutes or so.

                                           00:49:30             In my mind, I’m rolling my eyeballs back because this is a guy I just don’t like. He’s going to tell me to do this or that. I don’t remember everything he said, but what I do remember is him expressing confidence in me that I would be okay. He expressed his love for me, that he wanted me to succeed. I remember him acknowledging, I don’t think you like me a whole lot, but I just want you to know that you’re going to be okay. I care about you and I know the Lord cares about you. Well, of course, I’m just punk kid. I just kinda say, okay. And I get up and walk out. It’s one of those regrets in life that you don’t get to repair. You got to wait till the next life, but he doesn’t know it, but that stuck in my head. I thought about that many times since then.

                                           00:50:19             Just his example in caring for me as a punk kid. Then I didn’t think about it for a while. A year or two ago, I saw his obituary, and again, I was just like, oh, man. I am grateful for Brother Campbell. I wrote a note on the little obituary page. You can send a little message to the family and express my gratitude for him, that he didn’t know it, but he made a big impact on my life. He planted a little thought in my head, which was an important one that was a blessing to me as I got older. Coming back to the point, that gratitude, it was a burden off me. I felt so good after having just sent that little note of gratitude, even though it wasn’t to him, I figure he saw it too.

John Bytheway:               00:51:03             Wow. Even have gratitude for manna.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:51:08              Yeah.

John Bytheway:               00:51:10             Even if it’s what you get every day.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:51:11             Good.

Hank Smith:                      00:51:12             Dave, I think we could go another few hours on this topic, but we better keep going.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:51:20             I got a lot more that’s super interesting to me. Let’s talk about priesthood authority. We’re still in chapter 11. We’re going to go to verse 16. The children of Israel are complaining. Moses is at his wit’s end because they’re complaining so much. So I just got done with a stint as bishop about, which has been five months now, maybe. So I’m still pretty fresh out of that. Man, life is so good. I loved it, but man, it’s a heavy thing, and how much more so for Moses with the whole children of Israel traipsing through the desert and so forth.

Hank Smith:                      00:51:56             That’s chapter 11, verse 14. “I am not able to bear all this people alone. It is too heavy for me.”

Dr. David Thomson:        00:52:04             Too heavy. Yes, exactly.

John Bytheway:               00:52:06             Got to lift heavy things.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:52:08             Well, just start lifting weights, Moses. You’ll feel it. I got to read one verse on this. Again, this is from the NLT and the verbiage here. This made me laugh. In verse 15, after he says that, Hank, in the NLT he says, If this is how you intend to treat me, speaking to the Lord, just go ahead and kill me. Do me a favor and spare me this misery. Being bishop was great in so many ways. There’s some really heavy aspects of serving the Lord in that way. Then in verse 16 and 17, the Lord instructs Moses to delegate and tells him to call the 70 in verse 17. I liked both the King James and the NLT. Can one of you grab King James? 11:17.

John Bytheway:               00:53:03             I’ve got it. I love this verse. “I will come down and talk with thee there and I will take of the spirit which is upon thee and will put it upon them and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone.” Isn’t that nice?

Dr. David Thomson:        00:53:20             That is so good. That was a great thought when I was bishop, but let me tell you, I get released as bishop. The new bishop was my first counselor before. I’ll tell you what, I told him I knew he was going to be bishop, so I made it really clear where I expected to end up after I was released. That is back in primary, teaching the kids. I thought he got the message, he did not. I got released. We were entertaining the idea and joking mostly about it that on the day we were going to be released before the stake presidency member got up to do the business of the stake that is releasing us. We were just going to go ahead and call ourselves to a primary calling or whatever calling we wanted before they did that and then get what we want. I don’t think that’s allowed.

                                           00:54:10             Anyway, we didn’t do that. I went a couple months without being called and then he calls me into the office and I got a calling and he sits me down and he extends the call for me to serve as the ward activity chair. Again, I’m an introvert. I told him, ward activity chair? I was just shaking my head, but here’s where that ties into this. It was maybe a month and a half ago that I went in and one of the bishop’s counselor put his hands upon my head. He set me apart as the ward activity chair. These verses just so connected with me. When he put his hands upon my head, he took some of that spirit that was upon the bishop and put it upon me. Well, he had that authority from the bishop to put it upon me. He took some of that spirit.

                                           00:55:04             And where did the bishop get that spirit? He got it put upon him from the stake president, probably. Where’d the stake president get it? He got some of that spirit probably from a 70 or maybe an apostle, most likely a 70. You can keep on going up that chain. Where did that spirit come from? That came ultimately from our Lord, Jesus Christ. That counselor puts some of that spirit upon my head specifically to go and help my bishop so he didn’t have to carry it alone, so he didn’t have to go plan some activities. Yeah, I would have picked a different calling if I were picking. But this is what my bishop asked me to do. This is where he’s asked me to help carry the load. I’m excited for what we’re planning to do with our ward activities. I want to do it the way Christ wants me to do it.

Hank Smith:                      00:55:56             What a beautiful idea. I remember when Dr. Wilcox was here years ago, one of the times Brad was here, he said, all of us are in the bishop’s storehouse. All of us. And the bishop can call upon us, our talents, to help our ward. This almost brings me to tears. Please take a portion of this. I need your help. It is too heavy for me to bear alone. But for all of us put together, we can do this. Many hands make light work. Maybe we could combine a couple of challenges here. Everyone, get out your phone, all our listeners and text your bishop. And this time it’s not bishop I need. It’s bishop, how can I help? Thank you for what you do. How can I help? How can I help you bear this burden? It is too heavy for him to bear alone and his family, his wife.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:56:54             One more quote from Gene R. Cook. You remembered Elder Cook? He’s actually my stake president’s father and good friend’s father. One thing he said, well, first he was speaking actually to priesthood holders who placed their hands on people’s heads. He said, “Your hands are very literally representing the hands of the Lord.” As priesthood holders, do you think about it when you go place your hands on someone’s head? As a bishop, and as a counselor in a bishop, it can become such a rote, routine thing to go set somebody apart or to give a blessing. And it becomes like, oh yeah, I’ll go do that, and you don’t think about it a lot. Like Moses putting his hands on the 70, that is a really significant thing you’re doing right there. It should have some weight. When someone’s hands are on our heads, let’s remember that in essence, those are the hands of Christ.

                                           00:57:53             That changes things. He says, he taught that we should take the fifth article of faith literally. We believe that a man must be called of God by prophecy and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority to preach the gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof. Do I believe that when my bishop asked me to do a job I don’t want to do like lead the ward activities, do I think about that that wasn’t the bishop? It is extremely likely that he prayed with his counselors and with the input of the ward council and he thought about this and he did his best to determine where the Lord wants me to be. Elder Cook went on and further taught that when we understand that role of the bishop or the stake president or the elders quorum president or the relief society president, when we understand that they are acting for the Lord, then as Elder Cook said, we begin to respond very differently to our bishops than we may have before. My bishop’s awesome. He was like a deer in front of the headlights when he got called. Oh, he is amazing.

Hank Smith:                      00:59:06             I love it.

John Bytheway:               00:59:08             Moses’ alternatives. If this is my calling, would you please kill me? It’s like verse 14 and 15. This is too heavy for me, so if this is how it’s going to go, would you just kill me instead? Wow. That’s a big ward for Moses, so no wonder.

Hank Smith:                      00:59:26             Common theme through this is keep your focus on the Lord. And I can see that now. Complaining. No, don’t do that. Keep your focus on the Lord. Get caught up in outrage. Don’t do that. Keep your focus on the Lord. Go help your bishop. Why? Because your focus is on the Lord and the Lord is saying he needs your help, his family, his wife, they need your help. Let’s keep going. I’m guessing there’s a few more.

Dr. David Thomson:        00:59:52             Let’s move into Numbers chapter 12. We have Miriam and Aaron who we’d consider these to be phenomenal disciples in our day, saints, great people. But they are upset with Moses because of who he chose to marry. They’ve taken their focus off of important things. Now they’re zeroing in on something that just isn’t important.

Hank Smith:                      01:00:21             It’s a good thing this never happens in families. That there are some hard feelings about who chose to marry who. It’s not like this could be applicable.

Dr. David Thomson:        01:00:31             That’s exactly right. They lost focus on what’s important and chose to focus on something little. And I think we tend to do that. It’s something I know as a leader multiple times. Somebody didn’t like something about how I was running the show or what I was doing or what breakfast I chose to eat in the morning. It seems like there’s always some sort of complaint. Again, these are good people, Aaron and Miriam. When you go down that thought where you start thinking about your leaders and criticizing and looking at what they’re doing and focusing on the wrong things, it ended up with them that they started to wonder why he’s the prophet and they’re not. In verse two, they say, hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? Hath he not spoken also by us? I know just as well what is right and wrong.

                                           01:01:21             I don’t need to listen to my bishop or my stake president or the prophet and apostles. I can figure this out. I have the Spirit. I can do this. Why do I need them? Why do I even need to go to church? I can be spiritual. We see this all the time. This is very common. NLT wording makes me giggle a little bit because sounds just like a parent dealing with their arguing kids. The record says, so immediately, the Lord called to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam and said, go out to the tabernacle, all three of you. So the three of them went to the tabernacle. I’m imagining three little kids, hanging their heads, shuffling out to the tabernacle.

Hank Smith:                      01:02:03             That does sound like a parent. You three, out here, now.

Dr. David Thomson:        01:02:09             Then the Lord descended in the pillar of the cloud and stood at the entrance of the tabernacle. Aaron and Miriam, again, I’m just seeing a parent just David Morley Thomson. And they stepped forward and the Lord said to them, now listen to what I say. Listen up, get in line. If there were prophets among you, I, the Lord, would reveal myself in visions. I would speak to them in dreams, but not with my servant Moses. Of all my house, he is the one I trust. I speak to him face to face clearly, and not in riddles. He sees the Lord as he is. So why were you not afraid to criticize my servant Moses? I feel like I can feel the Spirit. I know I feel the Spirit all the time. I feel like I’m guided by the Spirit a lot. But when the prophet speaks, when those that we sustain as prophet seers and revelators speak, that’s different.

                                           01:03:14             And it reminds me of my mission down in Brazil when I was coming out of my teenage years where I hadn’t really gained a testimony of much. I was down there and on my mission, I was getting so many cool experiences and gaining testimony of all those gospel basics. Christ himself, the scriptures. I remember the very moment when I gained a testimony of living prophets and apostles. That was when Richard G. Scott visited our mission. At the time I was a zone leader, and so we got to sit right on the front row in the chapel where he was instructing us missionaries. He’s there at the podium and I feel bad for people who don’t know Elder Scott and don’t remember him or were too young. He was so unique in his preaching of the gospel. As I sat there in front of him, it was so powerful when he came to the point in his talk where he expressed his testimony of Jesus Christ.

                                           01:04:13             He talked to us about how he knew and loved his Savior. What the Spirit told me when he bore his testimony was that this is an apostle. This is different. I felt that testimony to my core and I knew through the Spirit that his relationship with Christ was a little bit different than my budding relationship with my Savior. At that point on my mission, I had a strong testimony of the Savior. I felt something in his words that told me this is different. This is indeed a special witness of Jesus Christ. I walked out of that meeting. I know that that’s an apostle. It was incredible. I love that interaction between the Lord and Miriam and Aaron instructing them in that same principle.

Hank Smith:                      01:05:12             Yeah. That’s beautiful. Probably everybody listening has moments similar.

Dr. David Thomson:        01:05:17             Should we carry on with what happens? Heavenly Father puts them in their place, helps them understand what their role is and what Moses’ role. The Lord’s not very happy with them. We need to keep in mind that Miriam and Aaron are great people. The Lord was very angry with them, and this is from the NLT again, and he departed. As the cloud moved from above the tabernacle, there stood Miriam, her skin as white as snow from leprosy. People sometimes struggle with this. The God of the Old Testament seems like he’s so harsh. You know, he curses someone with leprosy because they made a little judgment error. Is this the same God we worship today? That can cause a little bit of angst in people.

Hank Smith:                      01:06:06             Josh Sears was here our very first episode of the year, and he said, “This is Jehovah. I trust him and his abilities.” I imagine the Lord saying, I know how to teach these people.

Dr. David Thomson:        01:06:19             I think that’s right. You know, it was a different time. The culture was different. The way you connect with the way you can teach people, we shouldn’t assume that based on what our ideas, that that’s necessarily the right way. I remember when I was a kid, parents need to make decisions and parenting on how they’re going to discipline their kids. And some of the techniques that might have been used in the 70s and 80s maybe would feel a little uncomfortable for people right now, and that’s totally fine. I don’t think there’s a right way and a wrong. But what I can say is, I remember I must’ve been five or six years old, and I was sitting in my bedroom with my window open, and I’d taken the screen out, and I had a box of matches. And I was just lighting these matches and chucking them out the window.

                                           01:07:02             Just I thought, that’s cool. Ooh, fire flying through the sky. This is fun. Just chucking them out there into the bushes or whatever. Anyway, well, I can’t remember if it was my mom who saw me doing this or my next oldest sister who saw me doing this and went and tattled on me. Regardless, I was called in to my parents. As a young kid, I was really good. Super obedient. I didn’t get in trouble very often. Obviously, this is a very concerning behavior. This is something you want to stop. I go in there and I don’t remember what my mom said, but she slapped my hand. This was something new to me. Again, I was a good kid. This was slapped my hand. I’m like, this is terrible. It just shocked me. I’ll tell you what, I didn’t throw any more matches out windows.

                                           01:07:49             I don’t know if it completely cured my pyromania, you know? As a teenager, I might’ve made a few bombs here and there and blew ’em up and things. But man, I thought before I started throwing fire away, it corrected me for sure. You know, I think the big thing was I knew she loved me. We can see that as we continue on with Miriam. As you make mistakes, sometimes you make a mistake that you need to go talk to a bishop about, and that can be pretty scary. Well, we kind of see that here. Miriam has leprosy. Aaron appeals to Moses begging for mercy. He says, please don’t punish us for this sin we’ve so foolishly committed. Again, that’s the NLT version. Moses cried out to the Lord, Oh God, I beg you. Please heal her. The Lord then, using terminology of the day, said she’d remain defiled for seven days and then would rejoin the others.

                                           01:08:49             In other words, even in the Lord’s mercy in healing her, he kept consequences in place for the sin that she had committed. This is like us. When we make a serious mistake, sometimes we go to the bishop. I know from my experience as bishop, when you do that, your bishop’s going to go to the Lord and plead for you, as Moses did for Miriam. I joked earlier about not liking people. Soon as those hands came off of my head, it was weird because I really cared about what people were going through. It just impacted me. It, I wasn’t used to that. Man, you go talk to your bishop, they are going to care. They are going to plead with the Lord for you. That discipline from the Lord wasn’t designed to hurt Miriam. The point wasn’t to destroy her for her mistake. It was to help her learn a lesson. So I imagine Miriam, as she’s spending that seven days separated from everybody, kind of as we talked about, doesn’t feel good to be isolated. I’m sure she was thinking about her mistake and forging a stronger, better relationship with her Savior.

Hank Smith:                      01:10:03             I really love verse 15 that while she is out of the camp for seven days, we don’t journey without you. We won’t move on without you.

Dr. David Thomson:        01:10:15             Not leaving. That is awesome.

Hank Smith:                      01:10:17             We will wait for you. There’s something beautiful about that as well.

Dr. David Thomson:        01:10:23             From this experience, the big take home message we can get from Miriam is don’t speak evil of the Lord’s anointed. Your bishop isn’t perfect. The prophet isn’t perfect. There may be some things in their conduct that you don’t particularly agree with. Give them grace. Just as we hope for grace from God, give them grace. They’ve got a heavy load.

Hank Smith:                      01:10:46             The Lord takes criticism of prophets, he takes that pretty seriously.

Dr. David Thomson:        01:10:52             Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      01:10:53             That’s not a small issue for him. If you’re going to publicly criticize a prophet now, if you want to complain to him, I bet he’ll say, I can work with you. But if you’re going to publicly complain or tear down faith of prophets, I don’t know. Chapter 12 tells me he doesn’t see that as a light thing.

Dr. David Thomson:        01:11:10             When I was a counselor in a bishopric, I’m kind of an opinionated guy and sometimes I say my opinions more than I should. My bishop, I told him, look, when we’re in counsel, I’m going to tell you what I think. And if I disagree with you, I think you’re doing the wrong thing, I’m going to tell you. I think he appreciated that. But I also told him once we walk out of bishop office doors, I am 100% behind you.

Hank Smith:                      01:11:34             Who the Lord loveth He chasteneth. Miriam just got a lot of extra love in that chapter.

Dr. David Thomson:        01:11:40             She got a bunch of love right there.