Finding Myself in the Plan

Posted by Emily M. | September 6, 2007 | 9 Comments

When I taught Sunday School to the twelve and thirteen year olds, every week I would write this outline on the blackboard:

The Great Plan of Happiness
Pre-Earth Life
Spiritual Creation
Agency
Council /War in Heaven
Earth Life
Creation
Fall
Atonement
Life After Death
Spirit World
Judgment
Resurrection

The manual only said to write it out the first few lessons, but I wanted to do it every week. Once my class had memorized it, I made a poster (I am not a poster-making teacher, so you can tell I felt strongly about it) and brought it with me each Sunday. And every week, as I taught the lesson, my students and I would look at the outline of the Plan and try to figure out how that week’s doctrine fit into it. How does repentance fit into the Plan, I would ask them, and we’d talk about how we were fallen and therefore needed the Atonement to repent. Or what about adversity”“it’s part of earth life, part of being fallen. The patriarchal blessing lesson was my favorite. I realized for the first time that my patriarchal blessing is like my own personal Plan of Happiness outline: it tells me about my pre-earth life, explains my challenges here in mortality, and then helps me see where I need to go.

I can’t take credit for the idea of locating doctrine within the Plan’s framework, though; that comes from President Boyd K. Packer’s talk “The Great Plan of Happiness,” given in 1993 to the CES Educators. He says, “You will not be with your students or your own children at the time of their temptations. At those dangerous moments they must depend on their own resources. If they can locate themselves within the framework of the gospel plan, they will be immensely strengthened.”

I discovered, as I read the Book of Mormon with this talk in mind, that the prophets located themselves and their audience in the Plan: Lehi, in 2 Nephi 2, locates his son Jacob in the Plan by explaining the Fall and the reasons for all the adversity Jacob has suffered. Alma, beginning in Alma 39, locates his son Corianton in the Plan by explaining the consequences of sin.

The great strength I found as I analyzed the Plan in my own life surprised me. When my mother-in-law died, and I needed comfort, I pondered Alma’s talk to Corianton on life after death. I had lost my mother-in-law, but I found her again in the Plan, just at a different place than me. When I went to the temple following her death, I brought with me in my mind this outline that I’d repeated over and over to my class, and began to understand how the endowment teaches me the Plan. And now, as I’m trying to figure out how to balance my kids and my house and my writing and my husband, I’m thinking again about that Plan, and wondering where I am.

Here’s what I came up with: I am in that part of the Plan where it is my job, like Lehi and Alma, to teach my children the Plan, to help them locate themselves, so that they have a source of vision and strength when they are faced with adversity, like Jacob, and temptation, like Corianton. Every time I learn something from the Plan that strengthens me, I need to share it with them. We are all in his Plan together.

Every time I think the Plan is too easy, that I’ve heard it since Primary, I step back and find more depth there. So I wonder: where are you located in the Plan? What aspects of the Plan give you the most strength?

Category: Daily Special

Comments

9 Responses to “Finding Myself in the Plan”

Melissa
September 6th, 2007 @ 6:10 pm

Emily, I really like this. I think I might make a poster (and I am not a poster-making person either) and use it regularly in our FHE. It seems that too often we teach about gospel subjects separately and forget how they are all connected.

And where am I in the plan? I am at the point where I continually need to be reminded of it–to know that there is something bigger than my daily life, and that my small choices really do contribute to this bigger picture.

Thanks for the great post!
Michelle
September 6th, 2007 @ 6:34 pm

I, too, am going to make a poster for my family. I love visuals like this, because they stick, and they are ever-present reminders to ‘always remember’ important things.

I find myself finding a place in the plan, and then having to re-find that place. This is one reason why I will never tire of learning and studying the gospel over and over again…because it’s too easy to lose perspective, to forget, to be faced with something that feels new and different and hard but really just needs the context that the Plan provides.

The part of the plan that I have to keep revisiting is the role of adversity and trust in God’s big-picture view. As important as this mortal space is, it’s only a speck, and it will be different for all of us. Life’s stuff and to-dos are really so secondary to our real purpose — to become.

This was wonderful. Thank you.
Wendy
September 6th, 2007 @ 7:33 pm

Wow, Emily. That was really beautiful and thought provoking. I am going to have to ponder it more. I think I got lost in the plan for a while; specifically, struggling to see how the atonement applies to (and helps) fertility issues. I think I’m just finding myself in the plan again, and remembering the big picture seems to be the key right now.

I love that notion of finding ourselves in the plan.

Thank you for this.
Heather O.
September 6th, 2007 @ 7:58 pm

Wow from me too. What a great post.
mami
September 6th, 2007 @ 10:33 pm

This would be a great FHE lesson! Thanks for such a great and insightful post.
Justine
September 7th, 2007 @ 2:06 pm

Emily, you are just so wonderful. This was wonderful. You have started a new thread of scripture study for me.

Thank you for these wonderful words.
Carrie
September 7th, 2007 @ 3:06 pm

Emily, thank you so much. Your post (in conjunction with an article by Bonnie D. Parkin in the newest issue of the BYU magazine)has reminded me to take care of my own “personal ministry.” Your poster is on it’s way to our family’s FHE’s too.

Also, I wish I would have had the poster as a teacher in Young Women.

Thanks for the post.
Emily M.
September 7th, 2007 @ 4:17 pm

Thanks, everyone, for your kind words. I really appreciate them. I love the Plan, and I love returning to it in my study and as I teach my kids.

Justine, President Packer’s talk has influenced my scripture study so much. I never realized before how widely the Plan is taught in the Book of Mormon. I think that’s partly because I used to focus more on the degrees of glory when I taught the plan, and those are only in the Doctrine and Covenants (and a little in the NT). They do make for an interesting lesson, and I’m not saying we shouldn’t teach them. It’s important to know who gets to go to heaven and how to avoid being telestial material. You can put “to a degree of glory” after “resurrection” if you want… But this outline focuses more on the rest of the plan, and it is ALL OVER the Book of Mormon, especially the Fall and the Atonement.

One great resource for teaching the Plan is _Preach My Gospel_, the missionary guide. It has a section on the Plan, with a slightly more detailed outline than this one, and lots of scriptures.

Thanks again, all!
Justine
September 7th, 2007 @ 4:54 pm

Carrie, I loved that Parkin article about Personal Ministry. I’ve been using that vernacular for three weeks now, rolling it around in my mouth, figuring out if I’ve got a life-long over-arching mission for my life.

I’m going to find that Packer article right now!