John Bytheway:               00:00:01             Welcome to part two with Dr. Lili Anderson in 1 Kings.

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:00:06             You know, I’d like to think that she would have continued faithful, that even in that moment of crisis, she would have gone on because she had already faced one crisis where she was going to make her last meal for herself and her son and she gave it to the prophet. That’s a pretty good response to a breaking point. So I’d like to think she would have gotten past this one too, but it made me think of other breaking points like Job who is described as a perfect man, but loses so much that he does go into a pretty serious depression. And then his friends turn against him and then even his wife gets on his case. Abraham was past that because he gets this command to take his son of promise. He had to send the other son away. And this is in his old years.

                                           00:00:51             He has this son of promise who believes and will carry on the priesthood and God says, take him up on the mountain and do to him what your father did to you. Your pagan father who took you to be a human sacrifice to idols, but don’t worry because I’m the living God so it’ll be okay. He gets up early the next morning. That’s what he does with his breaking point. I’m stunned and so grateful for these examples, Joseph Smith. I’m sure there was more than one moment in the prophet’s life. It felt like a breaking point, but one of them is very visible in Liberty Jail where he feels abandoned and expresses that in heartrending language. But what does he do? He takes it to God. He doesn’t turn away. He takes his heartbreak to God. I don’t know why we would think that that beautiful response in Section 121 came the first day he was in Liberty Jail.

                                           00:01:53             I mean, he was there four and a half months. He persisted and he kept reaching for Christ. He didn’t get the answer immediately, but he was ready for it when it came and willing to receive it. I will say that in that year after I lost Chris, I felt like the heavens were his brass and the earth was his iron. I couldn’t believe it. I had had all these impressions that had come to me early on that were very generous and comforting and then silence. Silence. I’ve never felt that spiritually alone. It was horrible. I knew God loved me but I couldn’t feel it and I couldn’t hear it. I didn’t stop praying, but they were weird prayers. I mean, they were just sort of on the all the time, just I was in touch with him. I didn’t turn away, but it was hard.

                                           00:02:44             I know that happens. We read these stories, oh, Elijah prayed and the boy comes back to life. Or, this happened and fire of the Lord fell. I mean, sometimes it’s a long time before that still small voice comes. A long time and it doesn’t mean God doesn’t love us. It’s kind of seeing what we’ll do with our breaking points. Like Peter, I hope we always respond with, to whom shall I go? Where else am I going to go? I don’t want anything else. What I’m going to start drinking? Start going for the dopamine hits? Worship a pagan God? No, I don’t want that. I don’t want that. Even if I feel abandoned, I know I’m not abandoned. That’s part of the breaking point. God’s given me a chance to say, okay, now what? Like, will you still hold firm? Well, let me tie it in to the Mount Carmel events, which in chapter 18, of course, this is the story we all remember about Elijah because it’s spectacular.

                                           00:03:42             It’s not the whole story of Elijah. This is just one moment. And by the way, it doesn’t convert anybody. So it’s not like it really was a roaring success. It was a really impressive moment. I remember my dad telling this story when we would be in the car. I mean, we talked about the gospel in our family. It was really conversational and I’m so grateful for that and I tried to do the same thing with my children and hope that they’re doing the same with my grandchildren. Hopefully these things that we, like in Deuteronomy, it says that we talk of these things when we rise up and when we lie down and when we walk by the way with our family. We drove a lot of times across the country in the summers. My dad would sometimes tell us favorite stories from scripture and one of them was always Elijah.

                                           00:04:19             Of course, he had this beautiful Spanish accent, perfect English, but beautiful Spanish accent and great voice. And I can remember, it’s like I can hear it still. My dad talking about how these sacrifices are built. It starts with this amazing question. How long halt ye between two opinions? And then, of course, if Baal be God, worship him, and if Jehovah be God worship him. And it reminded me these three statements have stood out to me. At first, I wanted to call them ultimatums. They’re really not. They’re more like, where do you stand questions. Hopefully this ties in with the breaking points. It’s the where do you stand question. Think about the three that came to me. I remember thinking this when I read the first one this time through, which is Moses. Moses who comes down from Sinai and they’re worshiping a pagan God, the golden calf in the sensous depraved ways.

                                           00:05:14             What is his question? Who’s on the Lord’s side? That’s a where do you stand question. Some of you have gone to the pagan gods this quickly. Is that where you stand or do you stand with me? It’s a where do you stand question. The other one that came to mind was Joshua. Choose you this day, whom he shall serve. That’s a where do you stand question. This is at the end of his ministry. He’s telling him, put away your images because he knows Israel is already hanging on to the corrupt gods. But he’s just like, choose. Where do you stand today? You’ve seen all these miracles. Crossing the Jordan, Jericho, all these other tribes that have fallen before us, they were so afraid because of what they had heard that God had done for us and taking us out of Egypt. Where do you stand? Then this great question, how long halt thee between two opinions? That’s a where do you stand question. As my dad would tell this story, he enjoyed it so much. I think we do enjoy it. It is such a powerful show of priesthood strength and power and goodness in such a righteous way against terrific odds. And the 450 priests of Baal and then another 400 that have been institutionalized as public figures in the kingdom. I talk about being in the minority. He is alone with God. He has a little bit of fun, let’s face it.

John Bytheway:               00:06:40             Yeah. He knocks them a little bit, doesn’t he? He gets some licks in.

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:06:46             He gets a few licks in. He’s been in such travail, frankly. Living a lonely life and ravens feed him and then this faithful widow and then her son dies and the Lord restores him. Here he is now like, all right, yeah, pray a little louder. Maybe he’s on a vacation, maybe he’s sleeping, maybe he’s-

Hank Smith:                      00:07:08             He’s on a vacation. That’s funny.

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:07:10             Yeah. Doesn’t it say he’s on a journey, he’s traveling or something?

Hank Smith:                      00:07:14             It does. He’s on a journey. Maybe he’s taking a nap.

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:07:17             He’s asleep. Better be louder and wake him up. Anyway, so he’s having a moment of enjoyment there because he knows it’s not going to work. He knows. He has always known. Then when it’s his turn, he told them, get four barrels of water and soak everything and then do it again and then do it again. 12 barrels of water are soaking everything and in the trench around the sacrifice and of course he prays powerfully to let the fire of the Lord fall on the sacrifice, which it does and it consumes the sacrifice and it consumes the wood and it consumes the water and it consumes the stones. Everything is consumed by the fire of God. God is the God of power. He’s the only God. Here’s a chance for you to see it clearly. Of course, we know that signs do not convert. I mean, these Israelites that cross the Red Sea on dry ground, it didn’t take them long to be wanting to go back to the flesh pots of Egypt or later, couldn’t you just let us die in the wilderness?

                                           00:08:33             They’re pretty ungrateful. It’s 1 Timothy. The Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times, but all through the history of man, because it’s happening here as well in the times of Elijah, but in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits. Honestly, these three demons that keep showing up in every generation, the pagan gods that are all about appetites and the doctrines of devils speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron. That’s what happens. When we are all about the appetites, we get cold. Like that brother that I was trying to work with, he didn’t want to change. He embraced the evil. He let himself be immersed in it. It turned him cold. It was a brutal thing to see. I warned those two teenage boys. I’ve heard lots of warnings about porn. I never heard it could make you that cold, but it can.

                                           00:09:36             And look what’s happening in our world. Again, does it take much to look around and see? We should be ashamed. When we are brazen about toying with the fountains of life or the value of life in the innocent, we should be ashamed. Anyway, some of these things are so popular. It is like consciences are seared as with the hot iron. Can you come back from that? You can. And this was a moment when some of Israel could have come back. Now, we don’t know. Maybe there were a few people that heard about this and were softened. I don’t know. It wasn’t a wholesale return to Jehovah by any means. But some people are touched by demonstrations of God’s power, his miracles, but what has to happen is the softening of the heart and the humbling of ourselves and then seeking the spirit, that still small voice because it’s not really the wind, the whirlwind or the earthquake or the fire that converts.

                                           00:10:32             It’s the Spirit. The Spirit is the only thing that can give us the witness of Jesus Christ that is more sure than the senses, that sanctifying witness that prepares us for the presence of God. We can come back from a hard conscience, but it’s not easy. The best thing is to not go that far, to pull back from all these temptations of the flesh to actually master and harness our appetites, not hate them, they’re for a purpose and when appropriately taken care of, they bless us, but they need to be kept within the bounds that God has set. He does set the bounds for all the appetites. It’s possible for us to enjoy the privileges of having a body without letting the body drive the boss, which is what happens too often.

John Bytheway:               00:11:33             I was thinking of the phrase, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” The idea that, maybe put a different way than you did, that we’re trying to see if we can get our spirit to be in charge of our body. Why else would we fast? What a crazy idea that is. Some self-mastery over the body type of a thing.

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:11:52             I talk about the fast as time in the spiritual weight room.

John Bytheway:               00:11:55             Wait, W-A-I-T?

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:11:59             Both.

John Bytheway:               00:12:01             Our friend Brad Wilcox says, “Fast Sunday, it’s the slowest Sunday in the church.”

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:12:07             It can be, but it is, and I think it’s really sad that sometimes we don’t value that exercise that God gives us every month to really practice spirit over flesh, not because the flesh is bad, but because it needs to be harnessed to the spirit so that we can invite the Holy Ghost into our lives, which is the ultimate protection these last days. How many times did President Nelson talk about that? And now they’re quoting him. I think that he was quoted in this last conference again by the prophet that, yes, we have to have the Holy Ghost to spiritually survive in these last days. And it does help us to master those appetites and keep them in their appropriate, wonderful, blessed place.

John Bytheway:               00:12:51             It’s the bridle the passions idea, right?

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:12:53             Bridle the passions, that we may be filled with love. Yeah.

John Bytheway:               00:12:56             Yeah. It’s so positive. I love that you said that. Bridle all your passions, Alma says, because that’s really bad. No, bridle all your passions that you may be filled with love. That’s the outcome that comes from a bridling of passions, which is a great outcome.

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:13:13             It gives space for the Lord to do his thing with us because otherwise we’re just focused constantly on the next appetite. And as you know, how do people get so hardened? Well, remember that Alexander Pope verse when he says, “Vice is a creature of such frightful mien,” and M-I-E-N is the word he uses meaning face. So vice is a creature of such frightful mien that to be hated needs but to be seen, but seen too oft, familiar with her face, we first endure, then pity, then embrace. That is the path of desensitization, which we see everywhere. Like, I never served a full-time mission, but some of our kids would come home from full-time missions back in the day, you’re watching some kind of, you know, show on TV maybe every week and they’re like, I can’t believe you’re watching this. And it was like not a bad show, but it, you know, it wasn’t pure.

                                           00:14:10             I guess there are some things in here that are really not uplifting. We didn’t watch garbage, but they’d come off that mission with the Spirit so strong and having removed themselves from worldly things, then they come back and it’s like, oh, you guys are all desensitized. And in fact, to some extent we do become that way. I remember one of my sons was out of college and working full-time for a while before he met his wife. He was a professional, worked in the Bay Area. On the phone once he told me that, he said, I have really cleaned up what I’m watching when I come home. He wasn’t watching R-rated stuff or whatever. It was not that at all, but he was just like, I’m just trying to be more careful because I hear foul stuff at work every day. And these are all professionals, like graduate degrees.

                                           00:15:01             There’s just so much stuff that is not going to invite the Spirit, that chases the Spirit away. He said that I decided I have to be more careful when I’m on my own. I mean, I don’t want to be desensitized. I want it to bother me. Not that I’m going to say something rude or whatever you have. We live in the world, but I thought that was a really great awareness and I think all of us can do that and our kids. Are we helping to curate their environment? because they are bombarded. If we can be aware of that, kids are not going to curate themselves. We are the ones that can help them to harness that natural man. That is honestly job one of a parent is to help them learn to harness their appetites. It’s all connected. That’s the trouble. Everything’s connected in my head. It’s all one eternal round. So the drought is broken. Jezebel publicly threatens the life of Elijah so he leaves and he goes up Mount Horeb, which is the same as Sinai. This is the mountain of God that Elijah withdraws to and he’s fed by angels. As he rises on the mountain, God sends angels to leave food for him. So he has the ministering even of these angelic beings, but he is depressed.

                                           00:16:16             Back before Mount Carmel. When Elijah shows up to do the challenge for the priest of Baal, what is it that Ahab first says to him? “Art thou he that troubleth Israel”. Which is like, okay, as a counselor, I’m going to say that is classic blaming. Some people just don’t want to look in the mirror. It’s always somebody else’s fault, you know, I have a problem but it’s your fault. I’m not saying other people can’t be difficult and create issues in our lives, but there’s always something for us to learn and all we can control is ourself, but not Ahab. Ahab is never going to look in the mirror. He’s just not a guy who’s going to look in the mirror. He’s like, you’re the one who’s causing all this trouble. And then what does Elijah say? Actually, look in the mirror. It’s you. You’re the one because of all that you’ve done.

                                           00:17:06             Anyway, just pointing out that classic blaming is so human to want to say, it’s your fault. I wouldn’t have done this if you hadn’t done that. Or the only reason I yelled was because you were… I wouldn’t be so impatient if you would guys would obey. I would be in a better mood if other people would just do their part. And it doesn’t mean that we’re wrong in our observation. Maybe those people should do better about all kinds of things. Is that going to be my excuse? If the rest of the world gets it right, then I’ll be nice. Like I don’t think that’s how salvation works, you know? Certainly not exaltation. I have talked to people. I remember hearing this more than once from like a grandfather who says, yeah, I was pretty tough on my kids, but I’m really good with my grandchildren. And I’m kind of like, does that even count? You think you’re going to get credit for that because you couldn’t be nicer to your own children when you had to live with those little natural men and women in your home, but now that they’re just people that you visit once in a while, you could be kind. Let’s not avoid the challenge wherever it comes. That’s part of the time in the spiritual weight room, right?

John Bytheway:               00:18:14             Is it Brigham Young who said, and I think maybe it’s an old saying, “The gospel is here to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:18:22             Harold B. Lee actually. It was Harold B. Lee.

John Bytheway:               00:18:25              Ok, so he’s troubling Israel by afflicting the comfortable, right? Stop trying to stop us in what we’re doing.

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:18:31             That’s right. Get out of our way. We’re driving here, right to destruction, but yeah. No stumbling blocks on our way to hell. I think the question too that God asked, there’s some interesting questions here, right? Like how long halt you between two opinions? Are you he that troubleth Israel? I mean, out of order, but here’s another one. What doest thou here, Elijah? That’s the Lord to Elijah as he’s going up Sinai. And he asks it twice before the whole wind, earthquake, fire thing and after. And it’s interesting because it could mean a lot of things, I think, but to me it meant you can do it, Elijah. Don’t just withdraw. What are you doing up here? Obviously it’s a sacred mountain and Elijah turns to God. All those things are good. I’m not trying to disrespect this amazing man that I admire so so much, but it is interesting that the Lord is saying like, what are you doing here? He says, I just want to be taken.

                                           00:19:28             I’m just so tired. Even after this big light show on Mount Carmel, they won’t really repent. And what does he say? I’m alone. End of verse 14, “I, even I only, am left and they seek my life to take it away.” And then of course, God says, you have a few more things to do before I can release you. You have to anoint so- and-so to be the king of Syria. And Syria is their enemy and will come and give them trouble. But God uses the enemies, the earthly enemies in order to prompt opportunities to repent. And he also, of course, wants him to anoint Elisha, who will be his successor, another amazing prophet in Israel. Then he tells him, in verse 18, yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal and every mouth which hath not kissed him.”

                                           00:20:28             We’re not done, Elijah. And it’s interesting in the next few chapters that remain in Kings we hear from other prophets. Even while Elijah is still the main prophet, there are other prophets who have little assignments to talk to the king here or there. There were good men and I imagine that Elijah worked with them as the chief administrator of this period of Israel’s history. He found them. He calls Elisha who comes to join him and these other little prophets say little, but lesser known prophets have some assignments too under Elijah’s administration. So I think that’s interesting. Again, we know what it feels like to be alone and to feel like maybe I’m the only one left, maybe I’m the only one in my family. I told this story on my podcast the other day. Do you remember this story that President Hinckley told once about meeting a young man in Japan who had joined the church?

                                           00:21:31             And this was a long time ago, of course. The young man had been disowned by his entire family and extended family, lost everything. And President Hinckley got a chance to speak with him and said, You have paid such a terrible price for joining the church. Has it been worth it? And the young man answered, Well, it’s true, isn’t it? And that’s a where do you stand question, isn’t it? Where do you stand? It costs you all of this. This is where I stand. Even if the heavens are as brass and the earth is as iron sometimes, those are just temporary moments of stretching. They’re where you stand moments. Is this as far as you can go? And now you’re going to turn back to what? Paganism that has no power to save, no power to stretch, no power to magnify or fulfill our potential. Elijah, in a way, is taken a little bit to task. What doest thou here? You know, he needed a break and he does hear the still small voice, which is another tender message, but we talk about that a lot, so I’m going to go on to something else.

                                           00:22:42             Elder Lawrence Corbridge gave a wonderful talk a while ago called Stand Forever. In this talk, I think we can tie this into what’s happening here and what happens throughout God’s work with us as his people. He said, “Although we may not know the answer to every question, we must know the answers to the primary questions. And if we do, the gates of hell shall not prevail against us and we will stand forever. The prophet Daniel said that in the last days, shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed and it shall stand forever. The kingdom of God is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It will stand forever. The question is, will you and I stand? Will you stand forever or will you go away?” I loved that beginning invitation. The kingdom will stand, but will you and I stand?

                                           00:23:40             Are we going to stand forever? And that’s our choice. Breaking points are going to come. Elijah on this mountain is at another breaking point. Like, I’m so tired. I’m the only one left and they want to kill me. God is like, well, there’s still a few things to do. And he goes and does them. So he had that moment. The prophet Joseph had that moment. Abraham has that moment. Job has it. I mean, everybody has that moment. How many times did that happen to Nephi? Everyone does. Moroni has to be alone and he stands. He stands forever. Elijah stands forever. This is the invitation. You know, I thought about like, how do we help our kids get to this place where they can stand? And we are seeing some wonderful young people come through. Really, really wonderful spirits, but it’s also really hard for a lot of our young kids as they’re bombarded with paganism on every side.

                                           00:24:39             Dopamine hits calling night and day. I go back to my own experience. Growing up in Indiana, I remember I know these aren’t the only times, but there are times that stand out in my mind as moments where I prayed and felt an answer. Nothing that seemed all that spectacular. And I, you know, if you’ve lived in the Midwest, there are thunderstorms that like you can’t believe they’re just different from the rain we get in the West. They’re scary. In fact, the rain comes down so heavily that if you’re on the road, your windshield wipers can’t keep up with it and you have to stop because you cannot see. And then of course the blizzards in the winter are the same kind of volume. Those rainstorms with sheet lightning and I don’t know, it’s like the whole earth is shaking. And I remember my parents were away from home.

                                           00:25:30             My grandmother and sisters were probably asleep because I remember feeling afraid looking out this window, my bedroom window at this thunderstorm at night. And I just felt afraid. And I prayed and I felt comforted. There was nothing spectacular, but I felt that God heard my prayer and gave me comfort. Another thing that happened when I was young, they didn’t figure it out till I was like 19, but I used to get strep throat like four times a year and it was brutal. Like I was in bed for a week, high fevers, and I could not swallow. So I remember being in bed and I was in agony and it would last for days. Well, I prayed many times and would feel some relief, but I remember specifically one time I asked my dad to give me a blessing and he did and I felt some relief.

                                           00:26:20             I didn’t jump out of bed and wasn’t completely healed, but I felt relief. So why do those things stand out for me? Because it was like personal awareness that there was a God who heard my prayers and was mindful of me and had power to bless. That was the hook for me because then it was like as I grew, why would I want to offend a God who loves me and has power to bless? Why would I stray from that? Now that didn’t make me a perfect kid, but it was a strong hook. So I remember thinking with my own children that one of the greatest privileges of my life was teaching them how to pray, because I wanted them to have that same connection, that same hook, because it helped me stand and it has helped me even in those times where I felt spiritually alone.

                                           00:27:22             It has helped me stand. Why would I leave? This God of glory and power who loves me. When the time is right in his infinite wisdom, which is so far above mine I can’t even see of course what he sees, he will do what is best for me. I was talking to one of my daughters about some of these thoughts and this light bulb went off in my head that I had. I mean, it’s so obvious when you think about it, but I thought, you know, we have increasing numbers of attachment injuries. Now, attachment is super important. I’m talking about attachment with God. That’s what I’m talking about. It’s an attachment. There’s a hook. Like I am in. Yet we have every generation has greater percentages of attachment injuries, insecure attachment. The boomers apparently have 35%, give or take, have attachment injuries, insecure attachment. In millennials, 50%. Gen Z, 65%.

                                           00:28:32             And we’re getting past Gen Z now. Now, why is this? It’s the family. You think maybe the proclamation on family was inspired? To remind us how important it is in a world that is pulling the family apart and making it sound like motherhood is a leftover job. Like somehow it’s demeaning because like you couldn’t do anything else. I actually did on my podcast an extra podcast one time in response to some social media stuff that I called it in defense of motherhood and I was speaking specifically about full-time motherhood. I know not every woman has that privilege or option. I recognize that. God recognizes that, of course. We are talking about if it’s possible these things are important. How insulting is it to think that God who loves his daughters every bit as much as his sons would say, okay, you daughters of mine, this is going to turn your brain into mush and it’s going to bore the heck out of you and you’re going to start worrying about coloring outside the lines, but somebody’s got to change the diapers.

                                           00:29:39             Somebody’s got to cook and do the laundry. Are we really saying that motherhood can’t enlarge us? I never did anything that made me feel more in need of enlightenment and I’m a pretty smart person, but there wasn’t a day that I was a full-time mom that I didn’t wish I were smarter. Not a day and it was the most soul expanding experience of my life to be almost 20 years as a full-time mother. Best thing I ever did. You want to talk about where I learned the gospel? It was in the trenches. It was in the trenches teaching my children how to attach to God and getting further attached myself and needing revelation, having the privilege of seeing their prayers answered and helping them see how that was answered and see the love of God. I’ve talked before about how we should every day help our children feel the love of God.

                                           00:30:27             How did you feel it today? I mean, it could be at the dinner table, it could be at the nighttime prayers or scripture reading. How did you feel the love of God today? Go around the table or whatever and ask them to recognize it and have it be meaningful, not a Cheerios answer, but like something real so that they can attach. But attachment problems are serious. Very seldom that we ever get close to the ideal. But if we can, those things can really bless and God can magnify our efforts where we don’t have the ideal. Fatherlessness, another huge issue. I did find something that I thought was worth quoting. Fatherhood plays a crucial role in attachment. In the United States, approximately 17 million families are fatherless. The staggering number underscores a crisis in family structure. Fatherlessness is linked to numerous social issues including a high incidence of mass shootings with over 99% of shooters coming from fatherless homes.

                                           00:31:25             We think we can mess around with these divine structures and have no fallout? Where we are doing what we can, the Lord will magnify our efforts. Don’t get depressed if we don’t have the ideal. I mean, the ideal is an ideal for a reason, but do what we can and attaching with our children is so important. Sometimes we want to say, we had an activity or we played a game. Really, attachment’s going to come from listening, listening, not just jumping in with a solution but validating their feelings, which doesn’t mean endorsing, but validating. Like they come to say, I hate my brother. I’m not going to say like, oh, that’s a good idea. I am going to say, well, what happened? And I’m going to listen. Even though I could jump in and say like, oh, don’t say hate, that’s a bad word. Like we don’t say hate in our family or you need to love each other.

                                           00:32:15             That doesn’t really help with that secure attachment. The secure attachment is going to come from, you know, saying, well, tell me what happened. And then I can validate their pain without endorsing it. I can say like, yeah, sometimes brothers are really tough. That’s not permission to hate your brother. I’m not endorsing that. They know how I feel about that, but this is a time to say, your feelings matter. That doesn’t mean we act on feelings, but you can come here and talk about them and I care. And I can pull God into that. God cares about how you feel. He understands how hard it can be. He wants us to grow and progress. Let’s say a prayer together. Let’s see if we can get some peace. Help them attach to us and then we hand it up to God so that they are attached to him. Lots of indications that people who have a hard time attaching to their father or their father is unavailable to be attached to have a hard time connecting with God because he is the ultimate father.

                                           00:33:07             So if they have a father who doesn’t care or isn’t a listener or available or all those good things, then they see God as distant and remote and uncaring. My own mother had a terrible father and she was challenged in her feeling attached to God, but she did. She made the effort and accomplished it and I was privileged to see that journey in part because she would talk about it and share that, but with firm conviction that God did love her and that she could get past her wounds. It’s not that if we have imperfect parents we can never attach to God, but what a blessing it is to our children if we can help them feel that secure attachment to mother and father. What do you think about that? Because I think attachment is what helps us stand forever.

John Bytheway:               00:33:53             When you first started talking, you said attachment injuries. Is that the phrase you used?

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:33:57             Insecure attachment, attachment injuries.

John Bytheway:               00:34:01             It’s a belonging, it’s a connection.

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:34:03             It’s feeling safe, emotionally safe with a consistent person. Frankly, a lot of times when we’re home, we’re not really with the kids. They’re doing their thing and we’re doing ours. Sometimes we really do have to turn off the devices, come together and talk, or we can follow them around until we get a chance to catch up with each of them and say, hey, talk to me for a minute. How’s it going? You know, one thing I was so grateful for when we were in Chicago, and of course this was before devices being everywhere. Chris had travel for family services to Wisconsin and Minnesota from Chicago. We didn’t realize it, but he was gone a lot and overnight on these trips and it was hard. We had four children when we moved to Chicago. We had six kids when we left three and a half years later.

                                           00:34:47             When he would come back, of course, from these trips, and we didn’t have cell phones back then so we couldn’t stay in constant touch. I tried to catch him up. Okay, this happened to this kid and this happened to this kid, just so that he could like stay in the loop. And you know what was so impressive to me. He was such a good father. He would say, oh yeah, I checked with him about that. Or, oh yeah, I talked to her and she told me that. And I was like, how wonderful that he picked up those threads. I mean, here he was making a living to support us and so I could be home and we were on a tight budget, but he would come home and pick up those threads. Of course, if he couldn’t pick them all up, it was my job as the wife and mother to help him do that and I was happy to do that, but it was so wonderful that he was doing it anyway. He didn’t forget the concerns of our children and he followed up. And these are little kids, so it felt like their stuff was all that interesting.

Hank Smith:                      00:35:50             We’ve had some long conversations about Pokemon and-

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:35:53             Yeah, well, yeah, it’s attachment. It was like he cared and they knew it because he kept those things in his mind and in his heart and then he showed that he cared by like, tell me what happened to that. It’s this safety. Honestly, if there’s a word I would really emphasize, it’s emotional safety, physical and emotional safety. Dads provide physical safety into such wonderful ways that can build empathy. This is why our kids can stand forever. Now again, even without a parent, and we have seen this, we have seen people like Abraham. He didn’t have good attachment with his dad. We don’t hear much about his mom. There are many who stand forever without having the blessings of that cultivated attachment in their early years and we can still attach to God. So it’s not like, oh, you’re out of luck if you didn’t have the ideal. That’s not true. It’s never true. God can bridge any gap if we will let him, but we can bless our children. We can give them a really wonderful leg up if we will help them feel that love, safety, that emotional safety and then they see us bringing God into it. Let’s notice God’s love every day.

John Bytheway:               00:37:14             Another attachment attaching to God too.

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:37:17             That’s right, because that is the one that will bring them in.

John Bytheway:               00:37:21             Oh, I love that. And Lili, coming from you, this is powerful. You have had your own breaking points and you are standing forever.

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:37:33             I don’t want to go anywhere else.

John Bytheway:               00:37:35             Yeah. Where would you go? You said it earlier. It’s Peter going, oh, where would we go?

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:37:41             I know. I love the Lord. I love the gospel. Well, thank you. I mean, it’s such a blessing. Let me say a few more things about the sealing powers. I thought it was Elder Cook who said this, and I, it actually was Elder Andersen, but because Elder Cook talked about sealing powers in conference. Gave a lovely speech and he did mention something that was new to me that the keys were brought to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery and the Kirtland Temple one week after the dedication on Easter Sunday. I don’t think I had realized it was an Easter Sunday. When the restoration of those keys happened, that was beautiful and he said it was one of those years where Easter coincided with Passover like it did for us this year as well. So it was really a special time when, of course, in many ways, God lines up the stars.

                                           00:38:25             I mean, the cosmos all bend to these beautiful things and show the order and engineering. One of the other things that was said by Joseph Smith that I really liked was that the spirit of Elias is first. Remember, Elias is the gospel of peace. The keys that Elias brought were basically a perfecting of the saints, gospel of Abraham. That’s really what perfects the saints and prepares us to be sanctified and then ultimately a Zion people. Elijah second and Elijah brought the sealing keys, which we have to say a little more about that, and Messiah last. That’s Joseph Smith. Elias first, Elijah second Messiah last. Of course, Christ in his glorious second coming. We want the power of Elijah. A lot of this is repetitive, but it’s still beautiful. To seal those who dwell on earth to those who dwell in heaven, this is the power of Elijah and the keys of the kingdom of Jehovah.

                                           00:39:17             Okay, where is it that I found Elder Andersen’s quote. Yes. From his speech on marriage, which by the way, we haven’t had a speech on marriage for a long time and it was great. He touched on all the right things. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody do this before, but remember he mentioned divorce being sometimes justified and then he said, “I’ll put more of that in the footnotes to the speech.” I don’t remember anybody really referring to that. What a brilliant thing to do because they have limited time, but it was like there’s more on this for people who are dealing with that to give them comfort and additional prophetic counsel. I thought that was wonderful, but if there was one thing I remembered from conference, this was it.

                                           00:39:57             And he was quoting President Gordon B. Hinckley, this is Elder Andersen. “If nothing else came out of all the sorrow and travail and pain of the restoration…” No, think of that. The sorrow, travail, and pain of the restoration. We’re talking getting chased out of every place. New York, Kirtland, Missouri, terrible things in Missouri. Then they go build this beautiful city Nauvoo that they have to pull back from a swamp and they get chased out of there too. We lost the best blood of the 19th century. That was part of the cost of the restoration. So we’re talking lives of Joseph and Hyrum and many others who paid terrible prices, leaving family and friends, leaving England. “If nothing else came out of the sorrow and travail and pain of the restoration than the sealing power of the holy priesthood to bind together families forever, it would have been worth all that it has cost.” That was the crowning gem. That’s why Joseph Smith sounds so celebratory in Section 128. Glad tidings from Cumorah. Glad tidings for the living and for the dead. Shall we not go on in so great a cause? Stand forever. It’s all the same thing.

John Bytheway:               00:41:18             Sealing power? Sounds like attachment.

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:41:21             It’s attachments.

John Bytheway:               00:41:22             Going to attach our families to God every day.

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:41:25             Unbreakable bond that will stand forever. That bond will endure forever. What a blessing to live in this time where temples are all over the place. I do actually love that President Oaks said, let’s regroup.

Hank Smith:                      00:41:42             Yeah. He’s like, we got quite a few out there.

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:41:45             He’s a detail man. I love it. He’s like practical. You could just see how thrilled President Nelson was every time he was like, more temples, more temples. And of course it’s thrilling. We all celebrated, but I love that President Oaks has said like, okay, let’s get some of these finished.

Hank Smith:                      00:42:00             Let’s catch a breath.

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:42:01             I just love the practicality of that. Boyd K. Packer said, and I don’t remember where when I actually looked it up and I couldn’t find it, but I know I heard him say this. “The temple is the only place on earth where we can organize eternal families.” I want to say some things about sealings because people get hurt by this doctrine sometimes if they don’t maybe have a more complete understanding. I used to talk about this every semester in my seminary classes. Well, every year when I taught seminary and then every semester at BYU, I would bring it up because we know that there are a lot of broken families. Divorce happens a lot or a father is missing or something has happened to disturb the family and then remarriages happen. Some of these kids will sit there and adults too that will get like really some heartaches about how does this work and who am I sealed to?

                                           00:42:51             What if I’m not sealed to the people I want to be sealed to? I had a friend called me when we were on our way to a conference in Santa Fe and I think we got there a day ahead so we spent Sunday in Santa Fe and went to church there. This friend called and she goes, I hate to bother you, but could you do me a favor and call a friend of mine who is going through incredible heartbreak because she was divorced and she and her husband, her previous husband had never been sealed. They had children. Then he remarried and got active and was being sealed to his second wife and had invited their children to be sealed to him and his second wife. So her children would be sealed to another woman and her ex-husband and she’s like dying. My friend calls and says, could you please talk to her? I called this lady that I didn’t know.

                                           00:43:46             First, I asked her to tell me her story so she could be validated. And then I said, honey, it’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay. Sealings do not separate people. They bring them together. This is bringing us into the family of Adam and Eve in whatever glory we choose to receive and qualify for by learning to live that law. I said, if you continue on your path to the kingdom of God and the celestial kingdom, you will not be separated from your children. You will be united with them forever. The bonds of your connection will forever be there if you keep your covenants. It’s all about keeping your covenants. And God is so generous, but these sealings never divide. And that’s what people are so afraid of. Like a lot of people, you know the church stopped telling unwed mothers to place their children for adoption because nobody wanted to do it.

                                           00:44:47             Chris worked for family services back in the day when they were doing adoptions and then it dried up. The prophets had said family services can place them in a family where they can be sealed. Because with a single mother, they’re not sealed. Then all these people were like, no, then the child will be sealed to somebody else. And it freaked them out, or maybe their parents got freaked out and said, no, they will lose the child. Like God would take them away. God does not take things away. He gives them. He restores them. The prophets tell us things for a reason and it is not to take your children away. When they encourage people to go to the temple and be sealed, even if it is a second marriage, it is not so that they can take away children from the first marriage. God doesn’t do that.

                                           00:45:34             Can we trust him? In the early days of the church, because we talked about how it’s line upon line, precept upon precept. There’s no way we get everything when it first comes. It takes us a while to absorb it and understand it. So when the restoration happened, then temples started to be built and of course Kirtland wasn’t really about ordinance work. Nauvoo was. You know, it’s coming little by little. The endowment comes shortly before the prophets martyrdom. All this stuff is happening while they were doing sealings. Now think about that early generation of the restoration saints. Their parents were not married in temples. This was first generation. So they’re coming into the church new. Nobody’s work is done for their families. Most of their parents were not members. Nobody’s sealed to their mom and dad. What did they do? They went and they got sealed to a prophet.

                                           00:46:24             It was not fully understood. For instance, we have people like Heber J. Grant, who was one of our Latter-day prophets, whose father was an apostle, Jedediah M. Grant. A righteous man. Heber is sealed to Joseph Smith. Do we think that means he won’t be with his righteous father? Of course that’s not true. God is not going to separate that man from his son and that son from his father. We want to be sealed into the family of Adam and Eve. It wasn’t until Wilford Woodruff, it was like late 1800s, that Wilford Woodruff was praying because he was about to go to the temple and again, it wasn’t like temples were all around. You know, if you weren’t right there in St. George or Logan or Salt Lake or Manti and members started to be different places, most people weren’t married in the temple. They got married and then when they had the chance and the money and the opportunity to travel, they went and got sealed.

                                           00:47:27             So their children weren’t born in the covenant. Then their children grew up and they went to be sealed later. It’s much easier now for the majority of church members if they want to, they can begin their marriage with a temple sealing and then their children are born in the covenant. But back in that day, Wilford Woodruff was as an adult praying about to whom he should be sealed. And they talked a lot about the doctrine of adoption because they were like being adopted into somebody’s family when they would go and be sealed to a prophet. He’s praying and the voice of the Lord came to him. He shared this with the saints in a conference when he was the prophet and it changed the culture because he said, as I was praying, the Spirit came to me and said, you have a father, haven’t you? You have a mother, haven’t you? And it was like a brand new thought. Like, huh, I guess I could be sealed to them. So he was, but it was a change. That’s late 1800s. And he teaches it now as a new doctrine. You can be sealed to your own mom and dad. But so now look at how much pain there is in our century or decades when people are like, oh no, I’m not sealed to my dad or I’m not sealed to all my children. Don’t worry about it.

Hank Smith:                      00:48:39             Yeah, because it’s an eternal prison cell or something or else.

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:48:42             Yes, like it’s handcuffs that you’re like stuck with these and marriage too. I’ve said that forever because I’ve had a lot of people come to me and said like, I don’t want to be sealed to this person forever. Then you won’t be.

Hank Smith:                      00:48:52             That’s not a selling point for some.

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:48:54             No. That’s right. Again, it’s not handcuffs. No, God is more generous than that. Can we trust him? Can we trust that like he knows our heartaches and he has a solution for all of them. And you know what the solution is? Stand forever. Keep your covenants. Trust in this marvelous light and truth of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Keep coming. Keep turning to the Lord. Bring your heartache to him. Even if you don’t feel his love, it’s there. Abandonment is a misperception because of our pain and our grief. Can I share one more thing?

Hank Smith:                      00:49:40             Please.

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:49:41             Here’s my last thought about this wonderful prophet and this incredible story. I think one of the reasons, as I said, that we love this story is because it is such a clear manifestation of the power of Jehovah that can be manifest through a righteous prophet, through righteous priesthood and through righteousness, because again, we know women also have access to the powers of heaven. It’s impressive and it’s comforting that such magnificent awesome power is available from a loving God. But look at our world. We are now in a season where power is often demonized. Look at what God promised to the children of Israel. This is from Deuteronomy chapter 15. Really hit me this time through. Verse five, “Only if thou carefully hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all these commandments.” Verse six, “For the Lord thy God blesseth thee as he promised thee, and thou shall lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow, and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee.” That is a superpower.

John Bytheway:               00:51:04             Interesting.

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:51:05             He was telling Israel, you will be a superpower if you obey. Now, is that because he wanted them to oppress? No. Because through them, light and truth and goodness and even loans or whatever could come to other countries. It was because they were powerful and what has to happen for a country to be powerful? They have to be prosperous. Money talks. You can’t have power if you don’t have resources. We’re told again and again was given that blessing of prosperity if they would worship Jehovah so that they could lend to other nations and influence other nations as long as they were worshiping Christ. But now we are suspicious of power. Now let’s put it right out there. Power corrupts often. And absolute power, as we have heard, corrupts absolutely. So we have reason to be cautious about power because it is so easily abused and so often abused.

                                           00:52:07             That doesn’t make power wrong. We can so easily swing that pendulum all the way to the other side and miss center and think that all power is bad and should be suspect or should be attacked or undercut. Look how we’ve taken this down to the micro level. Masculinity is powerful, but now it’s so often seen as toxic. It’s bad. I’ve probably said this before, but in this second hour of church, primary, young men’s, young women’s, relief society, elders quorum. The group that is most vulnerable to suicide is the elder’s quorum at a rate that is like four to one over women. We’ve been attacking men. Adult men have been in the crosshairs. Satan, he’s going after women too, like he’s an equal opportunity adversary, but he has really targeted men because they are powerful, because they protect, because they defend. They do things for women that we cannot do for ourselves and for children.

                                           00:53:15             Look at that attack. It’s because there’s power there. And he makes women say stupid stuff like, we don’t need men. And then somebody says like, well, who built the building that you’re sitting in? Did you get here in a vehicle? Who built that vehicle? Was it women? It’s so obvious when you look at it, but it’s subtle and it has crept in to where these things really are an attack against power, how we have even tried to eviscerate God’s power. And don’t get me wrong. Christ is gentle and kind and merciful and he is also omnipotent.

Hank Smith:                      00:53:50             And all powerful.

Dr. Lili Anderson:            00:53:52             He is a God of power. And sometimes you’ll hear people talk about Christ now in a way that when his second coming is here, it will be a day of sort of sing kumbaya and universal affirmation. It’s like, well, that’s not how it’s described. I think one of the reasons people are uncomfortable with the Old Testament these days is because there are manifestations of God’s power that are powers used in judgment. Some people don’t want God to judge. They don’t want there to be consequences for sin. It’s too uncomfortable to think that power could be used in judgment. Weakness can never be godliness. There has to be power in godliness and power is never evil when governed by righteousness. Much of mortality is about figuring out how to use power. In workplace, in any place, you know, with our friends, with our community, certainly in our most important family relationships, how do we manifest power?

                                           00:55:07             Certainly our church callings as well, but really the big crucible is the family. Do husbands abuse their power? Maybe because they provide income or because they are stronger or do women abuse their power because they can influence the children or they can withhold affection? Like, what are we doing with our power? How do we use it? Are we letting it corrupt us or are we using it to create holiness, to be a vehicle to help people come to Christ? Now, Elijah is a great example of power because he both displays it in this amazing event on Mount Carmel and he also restrains it.

                                           00:55:55             He’s fed by ravens. He’s living in a cave. He’s on Mount Sinai alone. He’s living in obscurity with a widow and her son. He had the same power every day of his ministry that he had on Mount Carmel, every single day. The other two times that he calls fire down from heaven are in 2 Kings in the first chapter, which is apparently not in the reading for next week, but it is when armies come to try to take him and he calls down fire and he kills a group of 50 or whatever, that happens twice. He had power every day of his ministry. The same access to that fire from heaven or to the angelic ministration or to raising the dead son of the widow, but he restrained it until it was time and it was time at that moment for a witness and a warning not to convert Israel, but to give them an opportunity if they would choose it.

                                           00:56:55             Elijah was meek, which is not weakness. In fact, I have used this connection. Many of us are familiar with C.S. Lewis’s the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Aslan, an archetype of Christ is meek. He rises in power, but he is constrained and can walk with children. The Savior is meek like Aslan, which is restrained but not tame. And I like that thought too. He’s not tame. He’s dangerous. He’s perfectly restrained. The meek man is one who has a sword that is perfectly sharp, ready to be used and he knows how to wield it, but he doesn’t bring it out unless it is necessary and mandated by God, directed by God to bless, to protect, to serve, to save, to judge according to God’s judgment at the right time. That’s what Elijah does with the priests of Baal. It is a judgment under the direction of God and it requires power, a dangerous quality, a dangerous quality that ultimately is never dangerous to the righteous that blesses and protects.

                                           00:58:18             Easter and Christmas, I talked about, on my podcast, I talked about the names of Christ. And I return to this theme every once in a while because there’s much to be learned from reviewing the names of Christ. They’re so plentiful and they all have dimension that they bring to our worship and help us to emulate. As I was thinking about the names of Christ, and I invited my listeners to consider reviewing one of the names of Christ every day from Christmas to Easter because as I used to tell my children, Christmas, if we do it right, is just a warmup to Easter. Easter is the pinnacle Christian celebration of the resurrection of Christ that gives meaning to everything. What if we took one of the names of Christ and just every day of that advent would review one? I invited my listeners to do that. Well, some of them actually created a 101 holy names social media thing on Instagram and Twitter or whatever because there were 101 days between Christmas and Easter this year.

                                           00:59:15             They posted a name of Christ every day and that was really kind of a sweet thing and I had some people that did videos for it and whatever was really nice. I want to mention one, and then I’ll mention my own message for Easter. One of them was this wonderful young man, Russ Wood, who posted it on his own social media and then the 101 Holy Names people, they were watching and they saw that he had posted a name of Christ on his own social media in response to the invitation and he chose the name I Am. The reason I’m going to share this, even though it’s kind of pushing back to addiction is that he said he had been through an addiction recovery process. He said, the one thing I don’t like about the addiction recovery program is that it starts out with like, I am an alcoholic, or I am a porn addict, or I am a whatever.

                                           01:00:01             He said, “but God invites us to identify differently. He identifies himself as I am, and ultimately we are his children.” I loved his saying that we really need to identify not as losers, not as weak, not as failures, even though, yes, we lose and we fail and we’re weak and we stumble and we’re imperfect, but that’s not how we should identify. God identifies himself as our father and we are his children. And as our prophet President Nelson said, what were the three? Child of God, child of the covenant, disciple of Christ. Those are our identifiers. Those should be our I ams. As we do that, we are following in God himself who says, I am. I am yours. I am God’s and I am yours. And he is our Redeemer. I was thinking of all those fun things and there were some really beautiful choices that people made to celebrate his names.

                                           01:00:59             It came to me that my Easter message was going to be on his name, Lord God Omnipotent from the book of Revelation. Because we should not demonize power. We should celebrate it and we should invite it into our lives. In our various stewardships, God wants us empowered. He is telling us that not only does he have all power, but he wants to share it with us, but we have to obtain it by covenant, which is a harnessing of the natural man. Every covenant gives us parameters for our appetites. And if we follow the covenant, we are harnessing our natural man and we are learning to handle the flesh in God’s prescribed way within the bounds that the Lord himself has established so that we can be endowed with power because then we’re not dangerous. We can bless. We can share. We can lift. We can participate in the work of salvation and exaltation. But there are parameters that are set and Section 121 gives us really great parameters for priesthood power but all power that should always be handled by gentleness, meekness, meekness, restrained power, love unfeigned, kindness and all that good stuff. If we do that, God can give us his power to exercise in our stewardships for his purposes.

                                           01:02:31             This is the opposite of Satan’s plan. Satan wants to use power to force obedience. That was always his and he still tries to do that. He tells us this big lie that sin will make you free. In fact, I think sometimes about Cain, who after he kills his brother Abel at Satan’s behest, what does he say? I am free. Which is the biggest lie of all times, because in that moment, he was enslaved. Satan offers, oh, if you let your natural man run amok, if you’re all about appetites and dopamine hits and paganism, you’ll be free. And the truth is all those things enslave and that what really makes us free is yielding to the yoke of Christ, taking his yoke upon us, following him and he will make us free to become what he is, which it still blows my mind that we can be joint heirs with him in the kingdom. He never compels. His power is in truth and light and love and persuasion. It is an antidote to the powers of the destroyer.

                                           01:03:40             As I talked about the Lord God omnipotent on Easter, I said, “Isn’t it a comfort in a world where power can so easily corrupt and injure that the one who holds all power is also the one who is perfectly good. He is not corruptible. He never fails. And because he is all powerful, all his other names, his other divine roles become real. He’s the Creator because he has power to create. He’s the Deliverer because he has power to deliver. He is the Healer because he has power to heal, our Redeemer and Savior because he has power to redeem and to save. So think about his power when we think of some of his other names, the Atoning One. The power in that. Our Advocate with the Father, the Captain of Salvation, the Light of the World, Living Water, the High Priest of good things to come, the Hope of Israel, Master, the Help of the helpless, the Keeper of the gate, the Messiah.

                                           01:05:06             We could go on forever with his powerful names and roles. His power will never be used for chaos or oppression or cruelty. The greatest power in the universe is held in the perfect hands of Jesus. When I’m weak and wounded, broken, I can trust in Christ’s power to fulfill his promises, to seal me into his eternal family, to bind me with my loved ones, to bind the generations, to bring us in, to stand and be bound in love together because of these incredible sealing powers we talked about today that can make our calling and election sure. I want to say how much I love my Savior Jesus Christ and my Heavenly Father and I do see their love even when I can’t feel it. I know it’s there and I do feel it. I do.

Hank Smith:                      01:06:16             Amen. Lili, I have written things in my scriptures today I think I will teach for the rest of my life. I know I’ve had a really good day when I think, oh, I’m never going to think of that the same again. Sealings are not meant to separate.

John Bytheway:               01:06:32             Beautiful. And aren’t we glad he’s powerful because of those titles? Because that means he can help me, means he can help you, means he can forgive all of us, aren’t we glad he’s powerful.

Hank Smith:                      01:06:46             Lili, your strength through difficult things is inspiring to me and to John, I know, and you are … How would I describe you? You are wise, you are driven, and you are deeply faithful. Standing forever. With that, we want to thank Dr. Lili Anderson for being with us today. We want to thank our executive producer, Shannon Sorensen, who also loves Dr. Lili Anderson. Our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen, in every episode we remember our founder, along with Lili’s husband, Chris. We remember our founder, Steve Sorensen. We hope you’ll join us next week. We’ve got more of the Old Testament to look at on followHIM.