CC #17 (Seeing w/ Overview Lens)

The transcription is about a podcast called Conference Chronicles, where they review and discuss conference talks. The current episode is about a talk titled "Seeing God's Family Through the Overview Lens" by Sister Tamara W. Runia. The talk emphasizes the importance of zooming out and viewing our loved ones and ourselves through an eternal lens. The host also shares stories about paradigm shifts that change our perspective and understanding of others. The goal is to have hope and show compassion for others as we strive to become better. Surely, the Lord God will do nothing, but He revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets. How blessed we are to have a living prophet today. Brothers and sisters, the Savior declared, whether by my own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same. Welcome to Conference Chronicles, where we systematically take one conference talk per week from the previous conference and dissect it and learn from it. I'm your host, Taylor Lithgow, and I firmly believe that as we listen to and apply the Lord's teachings through His living prophets, we will fulfill the full measure of our creation and we will be prepared for the Lord at His second coming. So please join with me each week as we take this quest called Conference Chronicles. Hello everybody. Welcome on in to another episode of Conference Chronicles. It was a terrific talk to review and go over this week. I look forward to diving in. Just a reminder to check out the Wednesday episodes, Discuss with Friends, and please don't hesitate to give feedback if you have any. Any questions that you want incorporated into the episodes or just any comments, any feedback in any way, so you can leave the feedback on the podcasting platforms or on social media platforms or via email. All of those links are listed in the show notes below. So just to kind of get into the talk for this week, it's entitled Seeing God's Family Through the Overview Lens by Sister Tamara W. Runia. She starts by telling a story. She says, when our youngest daughter Berkeley was little, I started using reading glasses, the kind that zoom in and magnify everything. One day as we sat together reading a book, I looked at her with love but also with sadness because suddenly she seemed more grown up. I thought, where has the time gone? She is so big. As I lifted my reading glasses to wipe away a tear, I realized, oh wait, she's not bigger, it's just these glasses, never mind. She goes on to say, sometimes all we can see is that up-close, magnified view of those we love. Tonight, I invite you to zoom out and look through a different lens, an eternal lens that focuses on the big picture, your bigger story. So just to pause there, how often do we see this happening in our lives? How often do you find yourself zooming in on yourself or the ones that you love and being hypercritical and hyperobsessive over small details or small weaknesses or small imperfections that you see in those you love or in yourself? Does this happen daily or weekly or monthly or hourly? I also wanted to ask you, when do you notice this happening the most and with who do you notice it happening with the most? If your answer is the same as mine, it's typically for me with my immediate family members, the people that I spend the most time with, my spouse, my siblings, my parents, and myself. I have spent the most time with myself compared to anybody else by far. So how can we combat these clearly unhelpful thoughts and perspectives? Well Sister Runia does explain what she means by the overview lens. The name of her talk is Seeing God's Family Through the Overview Lens. So let's start there and then maybe we can discuss further. She says, during humankind's early push into space, the unmanned rockets had no windows. But by the Apollo 8 mission to the moon, the astronauts had one. While floating in space, they were struck by the power of seeing our Earth and took this spectacular image. She then shares an image of the Earth being viewed from space. She goes on to say, those astronauts experienced a sensation so powerful it has been given its own name, the overview effect. Seeing from a new vantage point changes everything. One space traveler said it reduces things to a size you think everything is manageable. We can do this. Peace on Earth? No problem. It gives people that type of energy, that type of power. She says, as humans, we have an Earth-bound point of view, but God sees the grand overview of the universe. He sees all creation, all of us, and is filled with hope. Just on a quick side note, I think it's amazing that God sees everything, all of us, and is still filled with hope. I saw a quote somewhere one time that said something like, the Savior knows you perfectly, he knows everything about you, and he loves you still. You could also flip that on its head and say that that is the reason why he has hope, because he sees everything perfectly, or because the Savior knows us perfectly, that's why he loves us perfectly. I just think that that truth provides a lot of comfort, that because God sees all his creation and all of us, that is the very thing that fills him with hope. And if he is filled with hope about us and our potential, should that not engender a sense of hope in ourselves and those around us? I think it should. This experience that she described these astronauts having, the overview effect of just kind of being in awe of seeing the earth from that lens, it kind of reminded me of paradigm shift. Have you guys ever had a paradigm shift in your life where you've kind of been living your life viewing something or someone from a certain lens, and then you have something that clicks or triggers you to realize, oh my goodness, I've been wrong this whole time, or this new bit of information just totally changes my perspective on the way that I've been viewing this? I have had some of those experiences for sure, and I thought of a couple stories that I've read in books or read from conference talks. I'll start with this one. It comes from Stephen Covey's book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and he says, I remember a mini paradigm shift I experienced one Sunday morning on a subway in New York. People were sitting quietly, some reading newspapers, some lost in thought, some resting with their eyes closed. It was a calm, peaceful scene. Then suddenly a man with his children entered the subway car. The children were so loud and rambunctious that instantly the whole climate changed. The man sat down next to me and closed his eyes, apparently oblivious to the situation. The children were yelling back and forth, throwing things, even grabbing people's papers. It was very disturbing, and yet the man sitting next to me did nothing. It was difficult not to feel irritated. I could not believe that he could be so insensitive to let his children run wild like that and do nothing about it, taking no responsibility at all. It was easy to see that everyone else on the subway felt irritated, too. So finally, with what I felt was unusual patience and restraint, I turned to him and said, Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn't control them a little more. The man lifted his gaze, as if to come to a consciousness of the situation for the first time, and said softly, Oh, you're right. I guess I should do something about it. They just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don't know what to think, and I guess they don't know how to handle it either. Can you imagine what I felt at that moment? My paradigm shifted. Suddenly, I saw things differently. I felt differently. I behaved differently. My irritation vanished. I didn't have to worry about controlling my attitude or my behavior. My heart was filled with the man's pain. Feelings of sympathy and compassion flowed freely. Your wife just died? Oh, I am so sorry. Can you tell me about it? What can I do to help? Everything changed in an instant. Yeah, what a story to perfectly illustrate a shift in perspective within a matter of seconds. Here's another story. This was told by Elder Renlund in the April 2015 conference. His talk is titled, Latter-day Saints Keep on Trying, and this is what he says. Some years ago, a wonderful young man named Curtis was called to serve a mission. He was the kind of missionary every mission president prays for. He was focused and worked hard. At one point, he was assigned a missionary companion who was immature, socially awkward, and not particularly enthusiastic about getting the work done. One day, while they were riding their bicycles, Curtis looked back and saw that his companion had inexplicably gotten off his bike and was walking. Silently, Curtis expressed his frustration to God. What a chore it was to be saddled with a companion he had to drag around in order to accomplish anything. Moments later, Curtis had a profound impression as if God were saying to him, You know, Curtis, compared to me, the two of you aren't all that different. Curtis learned that he needed to be patient with an imperfect companion who nonetheless was trying in his own way. My invitation to all of us is to evaluate our lives, repent, and keep on trying. If we don't try, we are just latter-day sinners. If we don't persevere, we're just latter-day quitters. If we don't allow others to try, we're just latter-day hypocrites. As we try, persevere, and help others do the same, we are true latter-day saints. As we change, we will find that God indeed cares a lot more about who we are and about who we are becoming than about who we once were. I also think that is a beautiful story that illustrates this paradigm shift. We can all too often create this narrative in our minds of some sort of a spiritual pecking order or hierarchy. Maybe not even a spiritual pecking order or hierarchy, like a workplace pecking order or a social pecking order or hierarchy. This is a really common one. Just think about some people in your life, and I bet there is a good chance that we have put them into a bucket of some sort. Oh, they are better than me on the social ladder, or oh, they're worse than me on their career ladder, or hey, they're about as equal as me on the spiritual ladder of success. However we want to measure it, I bet we have kind of in our minds placed people in these buckets, and I will say that's a natural thing to do, but it's really not all that healthy to do for us or for them, because as Curtis came to realize, if we're comparing us and our coworker or the person in our ward or our family member to God, really we're not all that different. We all have a long way to go, and it's important to realize that it's about the direction that we're going. It's not about the speed at which we're going, but the direction that we're faced. I have a few experiences in my life that broadened my perspective and helped me to see people from a different lens. The first one that I'll share is about my brother, who is five years younger than me. There's five kids in my family. I'm the oldest. I have one sister right under me and then three more boys, so he's the third child, the second boy, and I guess I'll just say he was going through a rough time in high school where he was making some decisions that he wasn't proud of, he was getting in trouble with the law, and simply put, he was just a little disappointed in himself, and he came to me and talked to me about this. I had been home from my mission for not too long, and we're sitting there having this discussion, and I can't even remember exactly what he was sharing, but as I sat there and listened to him, I had an amazing moment where I could see him for who he was and is. I had somewhat of a vision of who he was in the pre-earth life. I knew that he was persuasive in the pre-earth life for God's cause, and it was a very powerful and impactful moment for me to realize that in a spiritual sense, he is a baby on this earth. Some of the decisions that he's making are in the very infant stages, but looking at it from a grand scheme of things, his spirit is not an infant. His worth is great, and his potential is equally as great, and that one experience has impacted almost every encounter that I've had with him ever since. Throughout the many ups and downs of his life over this last decade, I have always maintained a level of love and compassion for him because I saw him through the overview lens, as Sister Runia would say. The other experience I'll share is about my wife, Cassidy. When we first met, working together in Ketchikan, Alaska, she was not on the gospel path, and she'll be the first person to tell you this. I'm sure you could have a conversation with her about her conversion experience if you wanted to. But she was definitely in somewhat of a rebellious stage. She wasn't raised in the church. She was baptized when she was like 10, but her parents never went. She just wasn't raised going or participating in the gospel. So when we met, she was kind of in a depressed state of mind, doing things that was harming herself and her spirit. And then there I was, recently returned from my mission and probably overly happy and optimistic about everything. And I'm sure that that was annoying to her on the flip side. And so we didn't really see eye to eye at the beginning. But fast forward a few months of working together and developing a friendship, I remember there was a moment we had, we were talking in the back office room, kind of where like paperwork and like unboxing of inventory and stuff happened. And we were talking about patriarchal blessings. And as we were discussing, I had the most profound thought, Cassidy, this girl is going to get married in the temple. I just knew that she was going to. And as I sat there and listened to her speak, I was overcome with this sense that she is a good girl. She's a special person, and she has great potential. So at the time, I really wasn't even thinking that she was going to get married in the temple to me. Right? That was not my immediate thought. Now, fast forward, like five months later, we're getting married in the Salt Lake Temple together. But I guess my point is, is that all of our interactions since that moment have been different. And of course, we've had so many more in the nine years that have followed since that moment. So many more experiences that have helped me see who she is in God's eyes, of course. But that was definitely a building block for me in shifting my perspective, giving me an overview lens of what our Heavenly Father saw in her. Now I want to pause and invite you all to think about the people that are closest in your life, those that you love the most, your spouse, your children, your brothers and sisters, your parents, really good friends. And I would invite you, instead of trying to obsess over all of the areas that they can do better in, because we all know that there are so many areas we can improve in, I would invite you to ask your Heavenly Father to see them how He sees them. I would invite you to start making a list of positive attributes that you appreciate about your spouse, children, parents, friends. And I promise your eyes will be open. Your perspective will be enlarged, and you will in turn be a better spouse, a better child, a better parent, and a better friend. And you'll be a lot better equipped to help them overcome some of those weaknesses that they might struggle with. So I know I shared a couple paradigm shift examples earlier, and then I shared a couple examples of my own about seeing people from an eternal perspective. I'm going to share another couple powerful stories that I've read when it comes to seeing people from an eternal perspective or with an overview lens that really spoke to me. The first one was President Monson talking about a missionary who had a lot of success baptizing people on his mission. And when the missionary was approached, he was asked, I suppose that all the people whom you baptized came into the church by way of referrals. The young man answered, no, we found them all by tracting. Then the missionary was asked, what was different about his approach? Why did he have such phenomenal success when others didn't? He went on to say that he attempted to baptize every person whom he met. He said that if he knocked on the door and saw a man smoking a cigar and dressed in old clothes and seemingly uninterested in anything, particularly religion, the missionary would picture in his own mind what the man would look like under a different set of circumstances. In his mind, he would look at him as clean-shaven and wearing a white shirt and white trousers. The missionary could see himself leading that man into the waters of baptism. He said, when I look at someone that way, I have the capacity to bear my testimony to him in a way that can touch his heart. President Monson then goes on to say, we have the responsibility to look at our friends, our associates, our neighbors this way. Again, we have the responsibility to see individuals not as they are, but rather as they can become. I would plead with you to think of them in this way. How powerful. He was already visualizing these individuals in a different set of circumstances, cleaned up, wearing white clothes, holding his hand as he entered the waters of baptism. He was visualizing this, and it changed everything for him and the way that he spoke to these people. Here's another story I'll tell, and I think it maybe more illustrates the way that we think about ourselves in this particular story. And that's the reason why I'm sharing it, because I know that we can definitely be hard on those that we love, but we can also be very hard on ourselves. So this story is given by Ken Merrill, and you can find it in the Gospel Library app. The story is just called, The Visitor. Here's what he says, when I was 18, as I was preparing to serve a mission, my bishop called me to teach the sunbeams. I had never before learned to love others more than myself until I had served those children in such a simple assignment. With time and patience, I learned how to keep those seven children in their seats and listening to a simple lesson. One day, I invited Mike to come to church and sit in my class. Mike was my age, but had stopped attending church completely by the time he was 12. We had remained friends over the years, as I had served as the deacon's quorum president, the teacher's quorum president, and first assistant to the bishop in my priest quorum. He had been the topic of many fellowshipping discussions, as was often part of my prayers as the years had passed. Once in a while, Mike would accept my invitations to come to an activity. It always surprised me when he did, so I kept inviting him. At that time, Mike had long black hair and a beard. His complexion was dark and pleasant. I don't remember when I invited him to my primary class, but one day he showed up. Class, I would like to introduce you to my friend Mike, is how I began my lesson. He is visiting us today. Mike sat next to me in front. The children sat in a semicircle with their eyes fixed on him. They were much quieter than usual. I was about five or six minutes into the lesson when one little boy got up from his chair and walked across the room and stood directly in front of my friend. The boy paused for a moment and then climbed onto his lap. I continued with the lesson as I watched the two of them from the corner of my eye. The boy sat looking into Mike's face. Mike was quite uncomfortable, but did not interrupt the lesson or turn the boy away. The other children watched the two of them for a few minutes. Then one of the girls climbed off her seat and approached Mike. I was intently interested in seeing how Mike would react and did not want to instruct the two children to return to their seats. The girl stood with her hand on Mike's knee, looking into his face. Then it happened. The boy on Mike's lap reached up with both hands and turned Mike's face directly to his. I stopped my lesson to see what was about to unfold. With the innocence of a little child, he said to Mike, Are you Jesus? The look on Mike's face was total surprise. It seemed as I glanced at the children's faces, they all had the same question on their minds. Mike looked at me as if to say, Help, what do I say? I stepped in. No, this is not Jesus. This is his brother. Mike looked at me as if in shock. Then without hesitation, the boy in Mike's lap reached up. I can tell, the boy said as he hugged Mike. The rest of the children smiled and nodded in agreement as their simple question was answered. Mike blinked back the tears in response to the love he felt from this small sunbeam. The lesson went on. But that day, the teacher who taught the most was a three year old child. Mike spent more than a year getting ready to serve a mission. It thrilled me to learn that he left for the mission field a few months before I returned. I still think of the scripture in Matthew 18 5, and who so shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. Okay, let's pause there and discuss. First of all, what a cute little boy who held Mike's face in his hands and asked, Are you Jesus? And then hearing the answer that it's not Jesus, but it's Jesus' brother, he said, I can tell. That just really touches me for some reason. You know, you might think he was meaning I can tell that he's his brother because he has long, dark hair and a beard and he looks like Jesus, so he looks like he would be Jesus' brother. You can look at it that way. Or you can look at it with spiritual eyes and think the boy could tell that he was Jesus' spiritual brother. He could tell by looking in his face that he was loved by God. And then, of course, the miracle of the story is Mike himself. His perspective on who he was completely changed that day because of a three-year-old child. He saw himself with an eternal perspective. He saw himself with an overview lens that day. And that increased perspective changed his behavior. I think that's key. As we allow Heavenly Father to teach us about who we really are and as we help our loved ones see themselves as who they really are, that will change our behavior and that will change their behavior far more powerfully than just talking to them about their behavior. So let's kind of wrap it up here now. I know we've talked a lot about this topic and maybe I'm beating a dead horse now, but I wanted to pause quickly and just ask how. Okay, so we've got the point now that we ought not to be so hypercritical of ourselves or our loved ones. We got the point that seeing everyone from an eternal perspective will change the way that we think about the world. But there are still moments that we need to provide feedback, right? I mean, if there's people in our lives that we truly love and they are going astray, wouldn't it be negligence to not provide any sort of feedback for them? Wouldn't that be an indication of a lack of love on our part towards them? I think so. So with that being said, what's the best way to do it? What's the most effective way to invite without being critical or condescending? In Sister Runea's talk, and I would invite everyone to read it please, she talks about how it's very important that we don't leave the tree. And what she means is, when you think about Lehi and his vision of the tree of life, after he partook of the fruit, he did not go chase down his family members. Instead, he stood by the tree and he called them, he beckoned them to come to the tree and partake also. The same is true with those we love. We should not chase them down in a frantic way, but we should seek to peacefully partake of the fruit, fill our own lives with the love of God, and then just invite them to come and partake of it also. The other invitation that I'll have for myself and for all of us is to pray for the capacity to do so. I firmly believe that as we ask our Heavenly Father how he feels about us, and as we ask him how he feels about our loved ones, our love for them will increase and our love for ourselves will increase. And if we make that a daily habit, over time we will truly be changed. So let me go ahead and close this up and wrap up this episode. In closing, let me read a quote from President Monson from that same talk I quoted from earlier, which is from October 2012. In this particular talk, he was talking to the priesthood brethren, it was during when they had those priesthood sessions on Saturday evenings. So he says, Brethren, I know that men need to be told that we amount to something, and of course women as well. So I'll reread it. I know that men and women need to be told that we amount to something, that we are capable and worthwhile. We need to be given a chance to serve. For those members who have slipped from activity or who hold back and remain noncommittal, we need to bear in mind that people can change. They can put behind them bad habits. They can repent from transgressions. They can bear the priesthood worthily, and they can serve the Lord diligently. I close with my testimony that we can change, and we can change for the better. The potential we all have is limitless, and I believe that Heavenly Father wants to increase our perspective in how we think about ourselves and others. I know that as we ask for the help to do that, He will help us in that endeavor. And I close this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. Thanks again for tuning in, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Feel free to share it. Check out the links for this week's episode in the show notes, and also just a reminder about our Wednesday episodes discussed with friends as well. Thank you again, everyone. I'll chat with you soon.