***NERD TRIGGER WARNING*** this post is super-geeky. More so than my usual posts, but I'm very much a science fiction, and fantasy geek, so....
God teaches us through The Holy Ghost in ways customized to perfectly fit our understanding. With me, He often points out spiritual parallels in fictional books, stories, and even video games.
I love Star Trek Deep Space Nine and watched it religiously (heh, see what I did there?) when it was on the air. During a particularly difficult time in my young adult life, when I was struggling to overcome some addictive behaviors, The Lord used this scene from DS9 to help me better understand what he expected of me - (starts at 1:17):
"I WILL NOT YIELD!" I love the conviction in Worf's voice. He is bloody, beaten, and if he continues to fight, he is certain to die, but, he just won't give up! At seeing this, the Jem'hadar champion yields because he knows he can't break Worf's spirit. Likewise, one day (be it sooner or later) when The Lord "finds that [we] are determined to serve Him at all hazards," we will be given the victory.
To take the metaphor a little further, General Martok could be like our well-meaning but mistaken friends, family, or even therapists who preach Korihor's destructive doctrine:
"Ye look forward and say that ye see a remission of your sins. But behold, it is the effect of a frenzied mind; and this derangement of your minds comes because of the traditions of your fathers, which lead you away into a belief of things which are not so.
- Book of Mormon, Alma 30:16
The bottom line is, and I know this to be true experientially, our part in this Earth life is to do the very best we can and never stop repenting. Even if we fall a 1000 times, we win if we get up 1,001, all because of what Christ's Atonement does for us. And that's what gives me the hope that even someone like me can make it. Because I have a witness from The Holy Spirit that The Restored Gospel is true, Christ lives, and His Grace is sufficient for me,
I will not yield.
