I don’t play the piano. I kinda used to. I took a class in
high school and then a semester of it at BYU my sophomore year, but haven’t played
anything at all in years and don’t even remember fingering. Now I wish I would have
kept it up. My favorite thing I remember about playing is how I would start to
play a new song and play it slowly at first, reading the notes and playing one
by one, listening to the music, concentrating on each movement of my fingers
and stare at that page to get the next note. Then as I play that same song over
and over and over, preparing to play it for the test, I am able to play faster
and more smoothly until it is like my hands can actually do all the work
without me even looking at the music or thinking about what key I’ll push down
next. My hands just remember and play. I loved that.
How does that happen? We know that when we learn a new
skill, it creates new neural pathways. It’s like we go off into the mountains
where there is no trail, but we are making a new one. Each time we walk on that
path again, the trail becomes more worn and easier to see and follow. As I
learned a new song, the signals to and from my brain would follow the same
path. As I practiced more, it made it easier for the signals to travel that
path. It actually changes the nature in our body. How amazing is that?!
It reminds me of when I need to change my spiritual nature. We know
that the natural man is an enemy to God.
Mosiah 3: 19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and
ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the
Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive , meek, humble, patient, full of
love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon
him, even as a child doth submit to his father.
So how do we change our nature and become a new person and
even a saint? As it says, through the atonement of Christ, we are given the power
and blessing to change. But we can’t just pray to be different and it is given
to us without any effort on our part. We have to actively put off the natural
man by our righteous choices over and over, along with a true desire. We have to be willing to completely leave behind that other person and not look back.
Is that easy? Do any of us find a commandment or principle
that doesn’t come naturally to us or that we may even not want to follow? Of course! What
do we do then? If we are to be meek and willing to submit to all things, we
will get up and go and do, even if we don’t have that natural inclination to do
it at first. As we practice that principle, like reading our scriptures every
day or doing our visiting teaching, it does actually change our neural
pathways, making it easier to do those things, but it also, more importantly,
changes our spiritual pathways. That path brings us closer to the Spirit and
closer to our Father. It is easier for us to do those things automatically,
like my hands playing a song without even concentrating. It can become easy and
“second nature” until we no longer feel like we are yielding because that has
become a part of us. We have changed. And we can find true joy in those things that we thought
we might not ever be able to do.
“That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed, but our power to do so is increased.”
Heber J. Grant (I've seen that Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was born around 50 years before President Grant, said the same thing, almost word for word. Great thought, whoever said it first.)
But it takes practice and time. It takes commitment, without an escape plan. We can’t
just give a half-hearted try and expect our nature to be changed. We have to be
willing to follow through, no matter how difficult at first, giving our will to
the Father. He will pick us up and help so that making those new paths is easier
than if we tried ourselves.
Alma
5:26 And now
behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to
sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?
Just as I stopped practicing piano and my fingers can no
longer play those songs at all, let alone almost without me thinking about them,
it is possible for us to change the natural man and then to regress back to it.
We may get out of the habit of communicating with our Father through daily prayers
or stop going to church or whatever. Because we have stopped doing those things, it is no
longer as easy to do them with just an occasional attempt. We have to re-commit
and recreate those pathways. Of course, we can do it, but it all depends on our
choices and our own personal commitment to changing our nature…again.
“I can’t stress too strongly that decisions determine destiny. You can’t
make eternal decisions without eternal consequences.
May I provide a simple formula by which you can measure the choices which confront
you. It’s easy to remember, sometimes difficult to apply: You can’t be right by
doing wrong; you can’t be wrong by doing right.”
President
Thomas S. Monson, "Decisions Determine Destiny", CES Fireside at BYU, November 6,
2005
We can give any excuse we want for keeping part of the natural man and not
giving our hearts fully to the Lord. Ultimately, those pathways that we make
with our repeated actions will lead us to our eternal home, whether that be in
the Celestial Kingdom with our Father and our Savior or to a different kingdom.
We must make those daily decisions that change our nature and determine our
eternity and we can.
