Three Lessons from Chocolate Milk

I love chocolate milk. I love it from a powder or from a carton or from the gas station. I like it hot or cold. I spell chocolate milk - yum.

One thing about chocolate milk, you have to keep stirring it or lots of the chocolate falls to the bottom. In chemistry I learned the stuff that falls out of a solution is called "precipitate." When powder is added to milk or water, part of the chocolate binds with the liquid. The rest of the powder remains suspended in the liquid as long as you are stirring, but soon after you stop stirring the suspended chocolate settles to the bottom.

So as I was recently stirring my chocolate milk several gospel analogies came to mind. In the scriptures, "stirring" is both a good and a bad activity. Both examples are in this one verse:

2 Nephi 28:19 - For the kingdom of the devil must shake, and they which belong to it must needs be stirred up unto repentance, or the devil will grasp them with his everlasting chains, and they be stirred up to anger, and perish;

We can be "stirred up" unto repentance or unto anger. The Lamanites were frequently stirred up unto anger.

Alma 27:12 - Get this people out of this land, that they perish not; for Satan has great hold on the hearts of the Amalekites, who do stir up the Lamanites to anger against their brethren to slay them.
Alma 35:10 - Now this did stir up the Zoramites to anger against the people of Ammon, and they began to mix with the Lamanites and to stir them up also to anger against them.

Why "stirred up" to anger? Because the Lamanites, for the most part, weren't evil or angry. When left in a calm environment, most of the Lamanites would settle to the bottom in peace and contentment. Yet they could be stirred up.

Lesson #1: Be slow to anger. The Lord is our example. Psalms 103:8 says, "The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy." I, too, should be slow to anger, slow to get whipped up into a frenzy.

Yet, it is possible to be stirred in a good way also, as these scriptures testify. Most frequently people are stirred to a remembrance of Lord, to previous feelings and experience they have had.

Alma 4:9 - And this he did that he himself might go forth among his people, or among the people of Nephi, that he might preach the word of God unto them, to stir them up in remembrance of their duty.

Alma 25:6 - For many of them, after having suffered much loss and so many afflictions, began to be stirred up in remembrance of the words which Aaron and his brethren had preached to them in their land;

2 Peter 1:13 - Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;

So there are parts of who I am, memories, ambitions, desires, goals, and feelings that can be lost. Love can be lost. Friendship can be lost. Testimony can be lost.

Stirring up, in this sense, has lots of application to me. Nancy and I have both had close friends and associates who have "fallen away" from the Church and religion in general. I think about them as I stir my chocolate milk.

The pioneers had such turbulent lives - each day was a constant struggle to survive and to defend their faith. Brigham Young worried what would happen to the pioneer saints as their environment became more calm.

The worst fear that I have about this people is that they will get rich in this country, forget God and His people, wax fat, and kick themselves out of the Church and go to hell. This people will stand mobbing, robbing, poverty, and all manner of persecution, and be true. But my greater fear for them is that they cannot stand wealth; and yet they have to be tried with riches, for they will become the richest people on this earth.’” (Pure in Heart, p. 81)

As soon as the milk stops spinning, the chocolate begins to settle. As soon as the pioneers lives' settled, Brigham feared they would forget. In some marriages, when there is no longer such a struggle for school or money, the love falls away. For some, though they travel in air conditioned SUVs over roads cut by their hungry pioneer ancestors under threat of attack and freezing cold, the fire of their testimony is cooled.

Lesson #2 is to remember -- to stir up the memories of sacrifices of those who have gone before, and remember Gods love and the tender mercies I have felt and experienced in my own life.

One other thing I have observed about chocolate milk is that store-bought chocolate milk doesn't have the chocolate at the bottom. Some how all of the chocolate has become part of the milk, so that even when it sits for a few hours on the store shelf, the chocolate doesn't fall to the bottom. How do they do that?

Joseph Smith, in his 1838 account of the first vision, describes two different kinds of conversion. First he described a type of "suspended" conversion, in which people were stirred up to conversion.

5 Some time in the second year after our removal to Manchester, there was in the place where we lived an unusual excitement on the subject of religion. It commenced with the Methodists, but soon became general among all the sects in that region of country. Indeed, the whole district of country seemed affected by it, and great multitudes united themselves to the different religious parties, which created no small stir and division amongst the people, some crying, “Lo, here!” and others, “Lo, there!” Some were contending for the Methodist faith, some for the Presbyterian, and some for the Baptist.

6 For, notwithstanding the great love which the converts to these different faiths expressed at the time of their conversion, and the great zeal manifested by the respective clergy, who were active in getting up and promoting this extraordinary scene of religious feeling, in order to have everybody converted, as they were pleased to call it, let them join what sect they pleased; yet when the converts began to file off, some to one party and some to another, it was seen that the seemingly good feelings of both the priests and the converts were more pretended than real; for a scene of great confusion and bad feeling ensued—priest contending against priest, and convert against convert; so that all their good feelings one for another, if they ever had any, were entirely lost in a strife of words and a contest about opinions.

So the ministers were active "getting up and promoting," or in other words, stirring people up the people to be converted. Yet they weren't really converted. They really didn't join themselves to Christ or a congregation. When the scene started to settle, people began to file off, and it was seen that they were merely suspended in the activity rather than being converted by it.

Joseph's experience was different. Rather than "getting up" or being stirred by external activity, the record states that he was "called up" from the inside.

8 During this time of great excitement my mind was called up to serious reflection and great uneasiness; but though my feelings were deep and often poignant, still I kept myself aloof from all these parties, though I attended their several meetings as often as occasion would permit.

Joseph, despite outside swirling opposition, remained calm and became bound to the truth.

Lesson #3: Am I bound to the truth, or am I suspended? Am I like the powdered chocolate that easily falls out, or am I bound to the milk?

To me, bond means covenants. Covenants are involved in the most important relationships in my life - with my wife, with my family, with my G0d. May I remain true to my covenants, and not fail.

So I want to remember these three lessons the next time I make chocolate milk. May I be slow to anger, may I remember the Lords tender mercies, and may I bind myself to God and my family.