JESUS CHRIST TEACHES THE WAY
Does This Help® — Finding Eternal Principles in the Stories We Already Know
There is a reason stories stay with us.
Long after we forget what day we watched a television show, what room we were sitting in, or exactly how old we were, we remember the characters. We remember the heroes. We remember who made us laugh. We remember the person who stood up when everyone else was afraid.
And sometimes, years later, we realize those stories were helping us practice recognizing something much bigger.
The difference between good and evil.
Service and selfishness.
Courage and fear.
Truth and deception.
Love and hatred.
Agency and control.
Those lessons did not originate with television.
Jesus Christ teaches the way.
“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
— John 14:6
That is the message behind this Does This Help® collection.
The Heroes Changed. The Principles Didn’t.
Think about the worlds many of us grew up visiting.
The Care Bears taught children that feelings mattered and kindness could be powerful.
The Smurfs created a little community where everybody was different, everybody had something to contribute, and the village functioned because its members helped one another.
Rainbow Brite brought color into darkness.
He-Man reminded children that having power wasn’t enough. What mattered was what you chose to do with it.
SilverHawks gave us heroes who worked together against forces that wanted power for themselves.
Transformers presented two radically different ideas about strength: strength used to protect others and strength used to dominate them.
Yu-Gi-Oh! made choices, consequences, friendship, sacrifice, strategy, and believing in something greater than yourself part of the adventure.
Ghostbusters taught us to walk toward something frightening instead of simply running away from it—and usually to bring your friends.
Get Smart reminded us that even serious battles between good and evil could leave room for humility and laughter.
Mork & Mindy asked us to look at humanity through the eyes of somebody who didn’t quite understand why humans behaved the way we did. Sometimes the outsider asking the simplest question revealed something everybody else had stopped noticing.
The Muppets may have demonstrated one of the sweetest lessons of all: an absolutely ridiculous collection of personalities can somehow create something wonderful when everybody is allowed to contribute what they uniquely bring to the stage.
And then there is Back to the Future.
You can travel backward.
You can imagine traveling forward.
You can wonder endlessly about what might have happened if one little decision had been different.
But eventually you have to return to today.
Because today is where agency lives.
Jesus Christ Didn’t Simply Tell Us the Destination
He showed us how to travel there.
Love.
Serve.
Forgive.
Teach.
Listen.
Feed the hungry.
Care for the lonely.
Stand for truth.
Protect the vulnerable.
Repent when you are wrong.
Forgive when another person is wrong.
Get up again.
Keep walking.
And recognize the worth of another human being.
King Benjamin expressed this beautifully:
“When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.”
— Mosiah 2:17
That changes the meaning of service.
Helping another person isn’t merely being “nice.”
Teaching a child matters.
Feeding somebody matters.
Repairing something for someone matters.
Listening matters.
Making somebody laugh when life has become unbearably serious can matter.
Using your talents to make another person’s life a little easier matters.
You don’t have to save the universe.
Sometimes you simply have to help the person standing beside you.
Who Is the Hero?
This may be one of the most important lessons our childhood stories can help us understand.
The hero isn’t necessarily the strongest person.
The hero isn’t necessarily the richest.
The hero isn’t the person with the biggest weapon, the fastest spaceship, the most powerful robot, or the greatest magical ability.
The question is:
What does the person do with the power they have?
Jesus Christ repeatedly turned ordinary expectations about power upside down.
Leadership became service.
Greatness required humility.
Enemies were to be loved.
Children were welcomed.
The forgotten were noticed.
The sinner could repent.
The powerful were accountable.
And every individual possessed agency.
That is a radically different definition of strength.
You Have Agency in the Story
Imagine your life as the adventure.
There will be villains.
There will be mistakes.
There will be misunderstandings.
There will be people who disappoint you.
Sometimes you will be the person who made the mistake.
There will be moments when you don’t know which road to take.
There will be moments when fear tells you to hide.
There will be moments when anger tells you to fight.
There will be moments when pride tells you that admitting you were wrong means losing.
Christ teaches another way.
Stop.
Listen.
Learn.
Choose.
Repent when necessary.
Forgive when possible.
Serve where you can.
Then move forward.
That is agency.
God doesn’t need programmed characters.
He created children capable of choosing.
Your Future Isn’t Written by Your Past
This is where Back to the Future gives us a particularly useful metaphor.
We cannot climb into a DeLorean and rewrite yesterday.
But repentance gives human beings something much more useful:
the ability to change what happens next.
Yesterday can teach you without imprisoning you.
A mistake can become wisdom.
Pain can produce compassion.
Failure can become experience.
Ignorance can become knowledge.
An enemy can sometimes become a friend.
A broken relationship can sometimes be repaired.
And when something cannot be restored exactly as it was, we can still decide what kind of person walks forward from it.
The future isn’t created someday.
It is being created by choices made today.
Christ Can Be Recognized in Service
Sometimes we experience another person’s kindness and immediately recognize something familiar in it.
Someone protects.
Someone teaches.
Someone listens.
Someone tells the truth when telling the truth costs them something.
Someone shows compassion when cruelty would have been easier.
Someone helps without asking what they will receive in return.
That person isn’t Jesus Christ.
They are another child of God exercising agency.
But something Christlike can become visible through what they choose to do.
Perhaps that is one reason Christ’s teachings survive generation after generation.
They can be read in scripture.
They can be taught in church.
They can be discussed around a dinner table.
But eventually they have to become behavior.
Love becomes loving someone.
Service becomes serving someone.
Forgiveness becomes forgiving someone.
Faith becomes moving forward when you cannot see everything ahead.
Truth becomes telling the truth.
And discipleship becomes living differently because you have learned the way.
Different Characters. Different Talents. One Human Family.
Maybe that’s why I can look at everything from Rainbow Brite to Transformers and see pieces of the same conversation.
Not because those stories are scripture.
They aren’t.
Not because fictional heroes are Jesus Christ.
They aren’t.
But stories give human beings a language for discussing principles.
We understand light and darkness.
Heroes and villains.
Transformation.
Sacrifice.
Friendship.
Courage.
Choice.
Redemption.
Coming home.
Those ideas resonate because they belong to a much older human story.
We are children of God learning how to use our agency.
Jesus Christ teaches us the way back to our Eternal Father.
And along that road, we encounter billions of other children of God who are trying to find their way too.
So perhaps the question isn’t:
“Who is going to save everybody?”
Christ has already shown us the way.
The everyday question is much smaller—and much more personal:
Who can I help today?
Because sometimes changing the world doesn’t look like defeating the villain.
Sometimes it looks like feeding someone.
Teaching someone.
Listening to someone.
Forgiving someone.
Standing beside someone.
Making someone laugh.
Opening a door.
Sharing what you know.
Or reminding another child of God that they matter.
“When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.”
Jesus Christ teaches the way.
Now comes our agency:
Will we walk it?
DOES THIS HELP®
Love • Truth • Agency • Service • Faith • Family
Different stories. Different generations. Eternal principles.