Editor's note: Today's column give's Richard's top three personal reasons why we should make the effort to convert from the Three Deceivers to the Three Alternatives. Starting next week, there will be a  month's worth of columns on each of the Three Alternatives (four on each one) to more completely discuss and explain their implementation in our everyday lives. He continues to welcome your feedback and suggestions.  Write to him at Richard@meridianmagazine.com . If you missed any of the earlier columns in this series, you can go to the Deceivers Archive (see right sidebar) and catch up.

Today I want to really get personal, and tell you my top three reasons why the Three Alternatives are so much better than the Three Deceivers.

I want to do this for several reasons, one of which is that it is hard to break away from the Three Deceivers.  Most of us have spent our whole lives pursuing and trying to achieve Control, Ownership, and Independence. To turn loose of them and move in different directions is extremely difficult, even when we are convinced that the Three Alternatives of Serendipity, Stewardship, and Synergicity are both better and more true.

I'm hoping that the three reasons I give you today — the three reasons for striving to make the change — will resonate with you and will motivate you to dump the deceivers and acquire the alternatives!

Reason Number One:  The Three Alternatives are pathways to JOY, while the Three Deceivers lead off another way.

One of the most profound of all scriptures, one that actually gives us insight into the mind and will (and objectives) of God, is 2 Nephi 2:25:

The scripture is a reference to our mortality, and to why God put us here on this physical earth, clad in our mortal bodies, and able, for the first time, to have agency, to procreate, and to work out our own salvation.  Adam brought about that mortality, or triggered it at least, by his choice, so a good way to read the scripture is:

Adam fell that men might be (mortal), and men are (mortal) that they might have joy.

Of course, men (mankind — all of us) already were , before Adam made his choice, but we became mortal because if it. It is this mortality that gives us the opportunity for whole new levels of joy — the joys of physical bodies, of parenthood, of choices and consequences, of greater self-determination and greater interdependence on each other.  We understood the expanded capacity for joy that mortality would offer well enough that, when the plan was presented, we "shouted for joy."

Each of the Three Deceivers impede and reduce our joy.   Trying to control everything makes us less aware of what God has given us, and less faith-feeling in terms of what he has in store for us. Serendipity, on the other hand, heightens our awareness of everything, particularly His blessings and guidance, which are the source of deep and abiding joy.

Thinking we own things makes us selfish and prideful and robs us of the gratitude for what He entrusts, while Stewardship makes us wonderfully aware of God's goodness, but also of how important it is that we magnify what he has put in our care, and both the gratitude and the deep sense of responsibility opens us to great joy.

Trying to be independent only leads to self deception and ultimately to emotional loneliness, whereas Synergicity gives us the calm, humble joy of dependence on God, and the connected, loving joy of interdependence on others..

Reason Number Two:  The Three Alternatives draw us closer to Christ, while the Three Deceivers can distance us from Him.

It has been said that the best way to value the benefit of anything is to evaluate if it draws us closer to Christ. Indeed, a Christ-centered life (which should be our goal) is best achieved when we approach everything, every attitude, every activity, and every objective, with a perspective of whether it distances us from Christ or draws us to Him.

Control, Ownership, and Independence are all self-reliant concepts, while Serendipity, Stewardship and Synergicity are all God-and-Christ-reliant paradigms. 

The Three Alternatives recognize Christ as the center of all, the one who bought us with His blood, the one who created this earth for us, the one who "stands at the door and knocks," always willing to help us and teach us if we invite Him in.

Spiritual Serendipity is an attitude that asks for and constantly looks for His guidance, His nudges, and His tender mercies in our lives.  Spiritual Stewardship recognizes His ownership of all and seeks His will in all.  And Spiritual Synergicity acknowledges our dependence on Him and sees the powerful combinations between body, brain, and spirit, and between our soul and His Spirit.

Reason Number Three:  The Three Alternatives tie most closely (and give us the atmosphere in which to apply) the principles of Faith, Hope, and Charity.

When hundreds of you were guessing what the Three Alternatives would be, the most common guess by far was "Faith, Hope, and Charity." Indeed, these are the key principles of the Gospel, and the God-like attributes we are counseled to obtain.  But the three alternatives have to be alternative attitudes, alternative paradigms for viewing the world and our place within the world — approaches for living that can be directly substituted for the Three Deceivers.  That is where Serendipity, Stewardship and Synergicity come in, because they are also the exact world views that make it most natural to live by faith, hope and charity.

The Three Alternatives are the lenses which, if we choose to view the world through them, can give us daily opportunities to exercise faith, to practice hope, and to apply charity.

When we look for the serendipities in life, we are applying and depending on faith and hope, and we discover frequent opportunities for charity.  When we acknowledge our own nothingness and God's "everythingness," we understand stewardship and that we can only care for all that He "loans" us through our faith, hope and charity.  And one good definition for Synergicity is "the combining of faith, hope, and charity to see the ways that God makes mortality fit together."

Upcoming:  A month (four weeks) on each of the Alternatives

Despite the fact that all you Meridian Readers are "quick studies" and (those who have read regularly) understand the Three Alternatives pretty well by now, we want to delve deeper !  So over the next four weeks (basically through the month of June) we will explain the attitude of Serendipity further — with examples, applications, and illustrations that will help you apply it in your own life.  Then the four columns of July will deal with Stewardship, and the four columns of August will aim ad Synergicity.  A summer devoted to the Three Alternatives!

Enjoy them, apply them, pray for them, and write back to me with your feelings about them.


What do you think of the Three Alternatives? Do they preserve all of the good aspects of Control (initiative, discipline, responsibility and so on) but eliminate all of the negative aspects (judgment, jealousy, conceit, presumption, envy, covetousness, frustration and other deceiving and damaging qualities)?  Does a serendipitous perspective help us to see “things as they really are”?  Does a stewardship "trunk" grow good and righteous branches?  Does an attitude of "synergicity" open us to inspiration and personal revelation?  Upcoming columns will explore each of the Three Alternatives individually and in much greater depth.  All through the process, Richard will continue to appreciate your input at Richard@meridianmagazine.com.