Happy birthday, Mom!
I am so excited about the connections
I found in the reading for "Come Follow Me" study this
week. Even the title of the program, "Come Follow Me," is
an invitation of the Savior to find "what lack I yet?" by
learning from Him every week. Are we turning to the Savior through
our studies? I have done so more this week than ever before and it
has been a joy!!
First, the reading in Matthew 19
starts off with the Pharisees and a question about divorce. We don't
know the context of this argument or why it was such a sticking point
for them (that I know of) but Christ teaches that divorce is not
encouraged and in fact we have been commanded to cleave unto our
spouse in love and righteousness. Dallin H. Oaks adds this clarification:
Heavenly Father intends for the marriage relationship to be eternal. However, God also understands that “because of the hardness of [our] hearts” (Matthew 19:8), including the poor choices and selfishness of one or both spouses, divorce is sometimes necessary."
So divorce is a question of selfishness, whether of one or both spouses. So hard.
Similarly, following up with this
debate, children are brought by those who love them to see and be
blessed by the Lord. The children are turned away, selfishly or erroneously.
Christ admonishes them: be unselfish. Let them come.
Then the rich young man enters the
scene: "I have obeyed all these commandments; what next?" In
Mark's account, we see that the Savior loves the young man and in
this setting says, "Go and sell all that thou hast and give it
to the poor." Give of your wealth and trust me that I can take
care of you.
The Savior follows up with a sad
statement of how hard it is for those with abundance to follow
Christ.
To give away all and take up the cross.
Pure unselfishness...and I don't believe He is just talking about an abundance of riches.
In a great talk by Larry R. Lawrence, "What Lack I Yet?"
he gives several instances of people with an abundance of foul
language, criticism, etc. Any time we have an abundance of
something—hate, jealously, possessions, books, knowledge, and even
sickness and tragedy and previous spiritual experiences!—and allow
that to get in the way of turning to the Lord now, it can get in the way
of receiving His blessings.
And what are those blessings?
Well, that is exactly what the
Apostles asked next!
"What are we going to get since
we are following thee? Since we did give up all?"
His answer: "To all that forsake
home, mother, father, everything that seems that it should be most
dear, and follow me, I will give
back to them one hundredfold."
Whatever you give up, He will restore it to you 100xs over. That is
some incredible return on investment, eh?
Now
the following parable is amazing, in relevance and in hope. I mean, who of us are really ready to give
up all that we have, sell that which we have—our riches, our hate,
our learning— and in turn depend upon the Savior for our hire, for
our wages? I most certainly have my own favorite sins :S. We may be like the rich young man and initially go away
sorrowing. But the parable of the laborers give us hope. For no
matter when we consent to be hired of the Lord (for the man hiring
simply went to the marketplace and gathered up those who were idle
and were willing to come and work), we will receive all that the
Father had. If I am not ready to consecrate all now, He is patient. I will miss the peace of knowing that at the end of the day, my family will be "fed and clothed" as was the assurance given to those early laborers with their promised wage. But I will receive the same reward, whenever I am ready to be "hired of the Lord."
As Elder Holland said in his remarkable talk about this
parable,
It is a story about grace. It underscores the thought I heard many years ago that surely the thing God enjoys most about being God is the thrill of being merciful, especially to those who don’t expect it and often feel they don’t deserve it.
What
a beautiful sequence of teachings!
Following this, the apostles
continue to jostle over position...they just don't get it! They have
an abundance of time with our Savior, an abundance of His love, and
they just can't let go of that early laborer feeling of jealousy of
"I deserve more than them!" To their arguing the Savior lovingly replies: If you would be great, give up
that which you have—your leadership, your prestige, your quest for
position and power—and serve. Serve, serve, serve. Be unselfish.
28 Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
Lily
and I had a conversation the other day. She commented how she sends
out so many letters, and she just doesn't know if they are doing any
good. This is the labor of the Lord that consecrates us. To serve,
to minister, and not necessarily be ministered unto. For as we do
so, we are working side
by side
with our Savior in His Vineyard, even though we don't see Him there.
These are parables and examples of trust. Do we trust that when God
says that He will reward up more than we are able to comprehend that
it will
not matter what our neighbor gets?
That we will be okay? That we will be happy?
As
Holland also put it in his talk on this parable: "The race is
against sin, not each other."
The
final beautiful example in Matthew 20 is not out of place. Jesus is
walking down the street and there are multitudes around. Two beggars
seek his attention but the multitude seeks to drown them out. In the
face of social backlash, the beggars both implore the Savior to "have
mercy" on them. He asks what they would like. They want to be
able to see. He does so. And this is what we can receive as we
persist in the face of the clamor and the uproar and the possible
backlash in our lives as we persist to the Savior and ask to see more
clearly what it is that we lack and then trust that we can give that
to Him and still be okay.
I
have seen this happen in my life this week. God has placed a few
items in my mind that I should work on. Usually, I reason and justify
and find side tasks to do first...and end up not getting the thing
done that seems too hard, too out of reach. This week I have purposefully
decided to trust: trust that my children will be cared for as I focus
on these tasks; trust that when I am asked to speak to a child about
something seemingly difficult or periphery that it is going to
"work"; and even to trust when to be silent when I feel a
lesson should be taught and know the child will be okay. Sometimes my own wisdom, reasoning and experience stepped in the way. But each time I have acted on these promptings, I have been amazed. Truly a week of miracles. A week of light.
It
hasn't been easy.
Case in point: One morning, we were getting ready
to go to the YMCA. Now, getting this crew anywhere
is pretty epic so I choose my outings very carefully :D. Not only
are there the logistics (no problem, relatively speaking) but there are the emotions. Zsa-man is one of my most emotionally touchy kids and today it was his turn to put the brakes on the preparation. He saw
Papaya carry out a stuffed animal. He insisted he must have one as
well. Now, I had already prepared a container of cereal, arranged
for a pair of non-irritating socks, and not even tried to offer him
any but his best shoes. I thought, "letting him get a stuffed animal is worth it and will take less time," even though
he was one of the last to get ready to go. (Normally a few minutes
would not be a big deal, but we were trying to squeeze basketball in
before one of Quinn's appointments so we were even more in a hurry
than usual.)
Happily,
Zsa-man hurried upstairs to get a stuffed animal. He returned, we
commenced the "shoe-ing" and then he happen to see that
Papaya had not one, but two
stuffed animals. Oh dear! Let the drama unfold. Everyone else was
gone, I tried to convince him that it would be okay, to count his
many blessings (which I numbered to him while I carefully put on his
socks just right so they wouldn't "feel weird"). I even
told him I would let him watch a movie when we got home (a rare fun
at our house)! Wasn't that cause for rejoicing?
Apparently
not enough.
I
carried him out, still mournful over the unfairness, over his woes.
As
I humorously related the sequence of events to Quinn, chuckling over
how Zsa-man was so fixated on that other
stuffed animal that he couldn't see the many blessings he had, the
Spirit whispered, "Sound
familiar?"
My
mind went instantly to the many times I let myself get in a funk
because of that "other stuffed animal" that I lack. That
things aren't just
right,
and ignore the abundance of blessings around me. This was one of my
"What lack I yet?" experiences of the week and on Wednesday
I had many opportunities to try and not become a Zsa-man-like basket
case of emotions and forget my multitude of blessings. Whew! The things that went wrong!
Quite
the week. Quite the lessons. Ware selfishness. Trust the hundredfold promise.
"The formula of faith is to hold on, work on, see it through, and let the distress of earlier hours—real or imagined—fall away in the abundance of the final reward. Don’t dwell on old issues or grievances—not toward yourself nor your neighbor nor even, I might add, toward this true and living Church. The majesty of your life, of your neighbor’s life, and of the gospel of Jesus Christ will be made manifest at the last day, even if such majesty is not always recognized by everyone in the early going. So don’t hyperventilate about something that happened at 9:00 in the morning when the grace of God is trying to reward you at 6:00 in the evening—whatever your labor arrangements have been through the day."--Holland
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