Me & My Purpose

My name is Michael Blake Bonham, Michael because my parents liked it, Blake from my uncle on my mom’s side and Bonham because I got stuck with it, but I have no complaints. Although I am going to school in Idaho till the summer, I currently live in Mapleton, Utah and I enjoy the location. I have lived in that area basically my whole life.

I was just like every other kid, with probably a little more rebellious tendencies than the next and except the fact that I always hated being like anybody else, till about 8th grade - at which point I got completely fed up with the public school systems and being treated like another brick in the wall because I knew I wasn’t. I ended that year of school and was never going back to a public school again, no matter what it took - the issue of public schools I will issue in a different page. That summer I looked all around for a good private school I could go to and finally found Liahona Preparatory Academy. The teachers there are the greatest people I have known and offer an education unlike any other. There, I developed my passion and fire to be free and independent; there I learned how to support freedom and stand beside it. Now, as an accumulative total of what has been created within me, my reaction to everything that has occurred without me - and the plans of everything my future will be, I am unlike anyone I have ever known.

Apparently most people don’t think the way I do - a lot, and I look at things from unusual perspectives. Most everyone that tries to figure out my thinking pattern gets a dazed and confused by it and usually ends up getting too frustrated to keep trying and probably just thinks there is something wrong with me, but I assure you, nothing is mentally wrong with me. In my mind - every action and thought or inside joke I laugh at with myself makes perfect sense. I know exactly why I do the things I do, and they seem to me to be reason enough to be the person I am, yet I am still at a loss of ability to verbally express why I am who I am; in all actuality, I hope I never am able to define exactly who I am; I believe that who we are, much like why we are, is a journey and not a destination… it’s constantly changing and getting better. Who is anybody? That is the question I would suggest answering before trying to know who I am.

I spend as little time as I can talking about, but mostly thinking about, trivial and small things. I usually try to pull conversations away from the shallow topics of who knows who, what happened to you today and our mutual associate did such and such conversations. Although those aren’t really bad in any way, I feel the time that small talk is filling in could be replaced by thoughtful silence that welcomes expression of those thoughts, and if something great happened to somebody, it will be expressed without dragging it out. Eleanor Roosevelt is accredited to have said, “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people,” to which I wholeheartedly agree, furthermore on the subject, “If we all did the things we were capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves,” so says Thomas Edison. If we were to spend a mere portion of all the man hours we waste, in essence, in a collective, organized effort to build, invent or do something amazing, we could revolutionize one aspect of society that is in desperate need of advancement - though we don’t even know it, just like with Thomas Edison.

Some people, and at an increasing rate, tend to label me as extreme, weird, crazy and all sorts of labels. All these because I have a passion; all because I care enough about something to devote my time and life to it. Apparently it is very uncommon to have very strong beliefs about something - strong enough to drive to immediate action. I’m not sure if all these people mean what they say or if they are just playing around; either way, it’s a little abasing to me, but in comfort, and to those of you like me, the Lord has said that His people will be a “Peculiar people unto Himself.” Duet. 14:2. Whenever somebody gives me some flack for doing what I know is right, I know that I am being distinguished as “peculiar” and that I am doing what the Lord wants me to do with my life and my freedom. To those that fit in everywhere and don’t get resistance for living your religion, you may want to rethink how well you live it and how much you show it. So even though some slight me, there is thanks to be given for showing me that I am unique and that I am peculiar.

The gospel and just life in general seem so clear to me in my mind, and a lot of the time I can’t but help but think that in my short 18 years how could I have gotten a grasp like that on life, then I get people telling me what life is about and assuring me that they are right and more and more I start to think that I’m wrong in my thoughts, which I have found to be dangerous; when you start to think that you are wrong about one thing you are sure about, who’s to say that you aren’t wrong about everything you are sure about? And as your confidence in everything you thought you knew becomes shot, other things begin to fail, such as your willingness to share things and be reasonable, even your logical thinking and happiness; when part of your mind is shut down, the rest of it can’t be expected to function properly. But getting back on track, I see the gospel from the beginning to help me understand it. When Christ offered His plan to the Father and to all the host of heaven, it required faith, faith that He could atone for our sins and faith in our own ability to be righteous by our own choice. It included risk, fear and failure; the risk that we may not be able to come back if we fail, and the fear that was caused by that possible failure, but again, we had faith and it was, and is, what makes us strong. It is the element that overcomes fear and causes us to act in favor of risk of failure - if it is strong enough. The key is that all this risk, fear, faith and failure can only exist if we are in an environment where we are completely free to choose it and suffer all the consequences of our choices.

Now to Satan’s plan in the beginning, it was just the opposite of Christ’s plan, even though both plans were purposed to fulfill the exact same purpose set out by the Father; there was only one plan, but two ways to go about it. Satan gave no room for faith, no faith in ourselves and none in him; he only wanted glory because we would have known that it was because of him that we got back to heaven, there was no faith, and without faith, there would not exist it’s opposition - fear; we would have no need to fear because there would be no way to fail, we would make it back to heaven whether we wanted or not, the choice was not ours. Those who chose his plan did not have faith in themselves and their decisions, so they needed somebody else to make choices for them. They let fear take hold and did not hold to faith, and instead of overcoming fear with faith they were overcome by fear - just like darkness rushes into places where there is no light. Satan offered a safety net for every choice we’d make and for every road we’d take so nothing could go wrong, and by getting rid of the consequences of choice, he got rid of the essence of the power to choose for ourselves.

The key difference between what they presented to us then and what they present to us every day in every temptation and every blessing is the faith and the freedom. Faith gives us the courage to choose for ourselves and be free. Fear scares us into becoming somebody’s slave because you think they can protect you. As it says in Matthew 25:29, “For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.” I think this is what it is talking about. Who has faith and courage to take risks will increase his freedom and faith, and the one living in fear will lose everything to it. It is my prayer that we will all have the faith to cause us to act, faith that Christ lives and never lies and faith in our ability to follow Him; may we never give in to fear and security over faith and freedom.

I once read a little saying that goes like this, “What is life if, so full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?” I really took it to heart; I had always believed that; I always try to take the time to smell the roses, literally, and soak in the colors and beauty of sunsets and sunrises. Recently I have simplified the phrase and I ask myself every day, “What is life?” I think everyone should ask themselves this question; we all may get different answers, but at least we have answered it for ourselves. I believe it’s necessary to examine our lives, our purpose and make sure it’s what we want it to be. Socrates put it well when he said, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” because life isn’t worth living unless you know why you are living. I feel so sorry for those atheists and agnostics who believe that they are merely a product from millions of years of random mutations. What a depressing outlook on life, that all you learn and feel will just come to an end and become nothing and you will cease to exist. That makes no sense to me and personally would take my will to live right from me. I think all of us long so much to have a purpose and to be a part of something big, and I am grateful that I know that will not die when I leave this earth and that I am part of something great. With this often on my mind mixed with all the time I take to just ’stand and stare’ and examine life, I’ve drawn a lot of conclusions on what life is for myself.

I find that in the middle of life, it helps me get a grip on things when I look to the beginning or mostly the end of life. As our stay on mortal earth comes to a stop, what will be going through our minds and what, I wonder, will we wish we would have done different? This much I do know, that we are spiritual beings; the main reason we have bodies is so we can know what it’s like to have influence over others and if we are “faithful over [these] few things [God] will make [us] ruler over many things.” (Matthew 25:21)The extent of how much we use our influence to increase freedom for others will determine not only how much freedom we have, but how much glory we will receive when we inherit an immortal body. With this in mind, the fact that we are spirit beings, it changes the way we look at things. As I draw closer to this truth I find that more and more I lose interest in the things of this world, things like money and food, “vain ambitions” (D&C 121:37) such as a certain degree of academic achievement or certain licenses and permits to “aspire to the honors of men” (Ibid:35) as I see it in most cases.

Looking for support for this thinking I turned to the scriptures to test it against the word of God and was vindicated, and every now and then I almost get through the day without thinking about this scripture, it rides my thoughts a lot. In Matthew 6:25-26 it says, “Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?” The word goes on to say in 28, 30-34, “And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin… Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, what shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?… for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

Well consider the lilies I have, and in this I found what to do with life, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God,” and everything else will take care of itself. We don’t need to worry about the jobs to get the money that gets the food, all these things will come about in God’s way so long as we are serving Him. In the end it’s all that will matter - how well we served Him, and how best do we serve God? We serve His children and lead them back to Him through Jesus Christ. Not much else matters than this. We use our influence to make people free by coming to God, and, “No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile.” (D&C 121:41-42) Serving God will give you everything you need.

Being “In the world and not of the world.” This has been on my mind lately and I find that it’s a very good thing to heed - all of it. We cannot be of the world, that will make us miserable, for we would be gratifying our pleasures in an unhealthy way because that’s all life is if you only live for this world, but we cannot just completely disassociate ourselves from the world. We need to be actively engaged in serving all those around us, and I think this is the answer to the age old search for happiness. How many of us have tried so hard to be happy and find what makes us happy while all the time we are just miserable? How many things make you happy when you are searching for happiness and how often are you just happy for any random reason? It’s such a weird thing - happiness. In our search for happiness we can just stop and be happy without knowing anything about it except that it feels good and sometimes it’s not there when it should be and vise versa. Though it appears for reasons that are individual to each person, it will always be there when we are learning and growing or making other people happy. Whenever there is productive, healthy progress there is happiness - sooner or later - because it just feels good to know that you have done something worthwhile, constructive and useful with your time.