It was presented to me earlier this year, by my request, by my wife. On it is a vast number of things that, at the time, needed doing around the house.
Now, many months after this list was presented to me, I look at it with satisfaction and regret. And some dread. I think you men out there know these feelings connected with your own lists, written or not.
I am satisfied because there are many things on the list that have been crossed out, completed, and I hope my wife is happier for it.
I look at it with regret for the things still on it that are not crossed out, the things I have not yet done, and I hope my wife still has the patience in her to give me a while longer to get to them.
Then there’s the dread. I know this list is months old. I know there are things that need doing that are not on this list, but, coward that I am, I don’t dare even write them down yet because of the great number of things still left to be done on the original list.
Sometimes, looking at this list, I feel like Mel Brooks’ version of Moses, who came down from Mount Sinai with three stone tablets on which God has inscribed the “Fifteen Commandments.”
Yet as he presents the tablets, he drops one of them, and it shatters. Only momentarily flummoxed, Brooks’ Moses intones, “the Ten Commandments!”
Sometimes I wish that same thing would happen with this list.
But that’s not the way of the world. The things that need doing still need doing.
I feel the same way when I’m listening to the prophets and apostles speak at Conference, or when I’m reminded of what they said at previous Conferences. Or what they’ve said in other settings. Or what they’ve sent to our stake presidents and bishops to say. They’ve offered us a lot of instructions. As I listen and recall, I take out my spiritual to-do list, and feel those same feelings of satisfaction, regret, and dread. Will what I have done feel overshadowed by what I have yet to do, and will I have to reprioritize everything to fit in the commandments our leaders pepper us with?
But that’s not the way of the spiritual world, either. The Ten Commandments are still the Ten Commandments. And aren’t we lucky to have modern-day prophets and apostles who know the commandments and have open communication with our Father in Heaven – as we do as well – to help us see and know how we can be obedient, humble, faithful, and repentant in our modern world?
I want to share a few brief moments when I feel I’ve been rewarded spiritually and temporally by obeying the commandments. That doesn’t mean I get to cross those obeyed commandments off my list – the list from our Father in Heaven never grows shorter, and the temptations never seem to stop. But with practice, I think we can see where obedience and faith and repentance can come easier with repetition to seeing how these commandments apply in our modern lives.
Commandment Seven advises us against committing adultery.
Easy, right?
Well. I look at what President Russel M. Nelson advised priesthood holders at the last April Conference and can see while I’m not an adulterer, I’ve got some work to do in the area of honoring my wife.
He told us:
Brethren, your first and foremost duty as a bearer of the priesthood is to love and care for your wife. Become one with her. Be her partner. Make it easy for her to want to be yours. No other interest in life should take priority over building an eternal relationship with her. Nothing on TV, a mobile device, or a computer is more important than her well-being. Take an inventory of how you spend your time and where you devote your energy. That will tell you where your heart is. Pray to have your heart attuned to your wife’s heart. Seek to bring her joy. Seek her counsel, and listen. Her input will improve your output.
Not committing adultery? That’s easy. But look at the seventy times seven admonitions President Nelson gives priesthood holders here. “Make it easy for [your wife] to want to be yours.” Suddenly, that seems a lot harder to accomplish.
Sometimes I succeed at this.
Other times, I fail.
I pray when I take that occasional inventory that my successes outnumber my failures. I can’t cross this one off my list. That’s up to my wife – and to God – when this life is done and we’re together in Heaven, looking at that heavenly to-do list to see how well I did.
But when I succeed, oh the feeling. I’m reminded of the lines from “Come, Come Ye Saints:”
We’ll make the air with music ring
Shout praises to our God and King;
Above the rest these words we’ll tell:
All is well! All is well!
A happy wife is a true blessing. I hope I make her happy more often than I disappoint her.
The first commandment tells us we should have no other gods before God.
Easy, right?
Whenever that question comes up, I feel like responding as did Peter:
From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?
Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.
(John 6:66-68)
Then the devil says to me, as is the way of the world, “To whom shall you go? Let me start a new list for you!” And that list is long and sometimes convincing. Those other gods don’t have to be the idols of old – they’re often things like social media, the internet, that pesky full-time job that keeps getting in the way of my relaxation sessions. So many other ways and means for me to spend my time and money.
So sometimes we look at what the Lord offers, and we doubt.
If I said I never had questions or doubts or felt like, “You know, if it were ever convenient to skip out on a Sacrament meeting, today would be the day,” I’d be a liar.
We all have doubts.
But, thankfully, God knows that. And so do his prophets, who tell us things like Dieter F. Uchtdorf said not too long ago:
It’s natural to have questions—the acorn of honest inquiry has often sprouted and matured into a great oak of understanding. There are few members of the Church who, at one time or another, have not wrestled with serious or sensitive questions. One of the purposes of the Church is to nurture and cultivate the seed of faith—even in the sometimes sandy soil of doubt and uncertainty. Faith is to hope for things which are not seen but which are true.
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters—my dear friends—please, first doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith. We must never allow doubt to hold us prisoner and keep us from the divine love, peace, and gifts that come through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Even Simon Peter, faithful Peter, had his doubts. If he walked imperfectly in the steps of the Savior – and Peter even briefly walked on water, as the Savior did – who am I to say I will never doubt? Our prophets admonish us to do as Peter did when he saw the storms about him and sank. He cried, “Lord, save me!”
And Jesus did, responding not with a rebuke – but with love: “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”
(Matthew 14: 29-30)
Sometimes I fail. Sometimes I see the waves and feel the wind, and my faith wavers. I am, at times, weak.
But when I falter and fail, I’m often reminded of the words of another hymn, and here it’s difficult for the words not to come out in French, because the saints in France love this hymn, and we sang it often while I was on my mission:
Dear to the heart of the Shepherd,
Dear are the sheep of his fold;
Dear is the love that he gives them,
Dearer than silver or gold.
Dear to the heart of the shepherd,
Dear are his “other” lost sheep;
Over the mountain he follows;
Over the waters so deep.
Over the mountain He follows. When I wander, when I doubt, He is never far away. And when I return, He is happy. But he does ask, “wherefore did thou doubt?”
Remaining faithful is never something I can cross off my list because, like Laman and Lemuel, though I have seen miracles, I still have my spiritual struggles. But striving to be faithful is a true blessing from the Lord, and I’m grateful we have prophets and apostles who guide us in keeping the faith in the world we live in.
(Bear testimony; do soft-shoe shuffle off the stage.)
No comments:
Post a Comment