The Plan of Salvation, or similarly called in the church The Great Plan of Happiness (click on it because it is a link to an explanation) is in the most basic form God's plan for all of us. It helps us realize the answers to questions of where did we come from, where do we go after this life, and what is the purpose of life? It helps gives us direction of how we can become truly happy. Two major portions of this plan is the pre-mortal life and the creation.
Before we are born, we believe that we lived with God as His spirit children. In his presence we prepared ourselves for our time here on earth. We made choices and gained experience and knowledge but we eventually reached a point where we could no longer progress. We progressed as far as we could go without receiving a physical body and we needed that body to allow for additional happiness. Our happiness is linked to our progression. And some of us made more correct choices than others and were more prepared for what was to come here in mortality. So when it comes to relationships, we have a lot of preparation that we can do. Pre-mortality can be seen as our preparation that we need to do before we arrive at the next stage of life... meeting and recognizing a future spouse. In our religion, we also believe that the greatest degree of happiness in this life and in the eternities comes from the family and a marriage that is centered on the gospel. This kind of marriage is permanent and eternal and is based on obedience, trust, and a fullness of joy. Each blessing is tied to the other: Obedience, Trust, and Joy. The greatest compliment someone can give you is not to say that "I love you" but that "I trust you."
When we consider the creation, God's purpose was to give us the opportunity to find lasting happiness and our eternal progression. If we know that the purpose was again for us to progress in families and that we can find the greatest happiness through a marriage centered on the gospel, then we can look at courtship as the creation of a happy marriage. Courtship helps us find compatibility, is a source of fun and an expression of social skills, but the end goal ought to be marriage. With this perspective in mind, we make certain choices on how we date, who we date, and what we do when we date. Creation took a long time so our preparation could take time. There was a certain order to the creation and there was a spiritual side that took place before the physical. Talking, communication, forgiving, friendship before kissing, making out, holding hands... certain things have to be created before others in a relationship. The order that he suggested came from a talk by Bruce C. Hafen called "The Gospel and Romantic Love." This order was: Friendship...
Time... Understanding... Respect... Restraint... and Romance.
Marriage is long so
it is best to have a strong foundation of friendship. A good friend can help us grow because they
can tell us to grow since they have our backs.
We are more likely to forgive a good friend than a stranger. We are loyal to our friends. Timing is important for establishing a
relationship. There is such a thing as
too long and too short. The Spirit may
prompt us to take the next step and if we continue to ignore that prompting the
Spirit will leave us. Time is relative
but the important part is the quality of the time. Listening and understanding are inseparable.
Understanding both what your partner's needs and perspectives are along
with our own. Much of the understanding
we will receive about someone will come by the Spirit. This is why we need to apply both our hearts and our minds to understanding not only what is happening but the background of someone and their past because that also affects their decisions. The important part is that we have to care enough to understand. We
first have to understand our similarities and then work out our differences in an attitude of, "Help me understand." We can connect with others and build that understanding is through the
Atonement by our own suffering and repentance process. Respect has a delicate balance
between seeing what people struggle with and what they overcome. There are still so many more things that I learned and so much that I will continue to learn about looking at life with this kind of eternal perspective.
When we have an
eternal perspective that we make choices based on right or wrong and when we
have lost that perspective we make choice on circumstance and what we desire
now. If we choose to make
decisions under circumstance we will eventually make serious sin. People who do this have no direction or foundation that
comes from living the Gospel. Do not
look at others and their successes because many times when troubles come, their
character shows and many will crumble if they are not centered on Christ. Many times we are
asked to set aside what we desire now for a greater blessing in the future. My next post is going to continue this idea of an eternal perspective and how it can help us personally and in our relationships...
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