Aspiration or Consecration?

Today I listened to a 2009 BYU devotional by Raymond Smith called Depending on the Lord: Gospel Insights from a Musician.  He spoke of our need to consecrate ourselves to the Lord so that He can make more out of our lives than we can alone.  He told of blessings he has received by keeping the Sabbath Day holy when he felt he really could have used that time to earn money or do homework or practice his instrument.  I appreciated his perspective on what happens when we strive to put the Lord first in order to keep our covenants with God: “It doesn’t seem logical that if I turn down work, I will make more money, and if I study one day less in a week, I will get better grades. Similarly, it does not seem logical that if I pay my tithing I can really do more with only 90 percent of my income. But that’s because part of the equation is missing. It isn’t really that I can do more with 90 percent than 100 percent. Rather, it is that 90 percent plus the Lord’s blessings equals more than 100 percent.  It is so with all things in life for those who recognize their dependence on the Lord and put Him first in their lives and trust Him to fulfill His scriptural promises.” 

He went on to highlight the difference between aspiration and consecration.  In his words the former says, “I must do whatever it takes to control the outcome,” but the latter says, “I will do what is right now and trust the Lord for the outcome.”  Consecration will choose keeping the Sabbath over working harder in our worldly pursuits; aspiration will choose to use the Sabbath in order to advance one’s self and gain the honors of the world.  Consecration will choose to study the scriptures even when it would see that the time is desperately needed in a thousand other pressing pursuits; aspiration will sacrifice time for spiritual things in order to gain a leg up in worldly endeavors.  I guess this then begs the question in our own lives: In our pursuits is our motivation to aspire to the honors of men or do we simply desire to consecrate our best self to the Lord?  If consecration is our real aim, then we should be more concerned about our personal efforts to serve God than with the measurable achievements we can name before men.  The Lord put it this way when speaking of Oliver Granger, “His sacrifice shall be more sacred unto me than his increase” (D&C 117:13).  He taught the principle as well when he watched the widow give her mite: “Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all: For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had” (Luke 21:3-4).  She consecrated everything she had for the Lord; the others who were rich were giving to be seen and praised of men.  The widow was not concerned with any outcome of her action: she was not looking for praise or blessings and simply wanted to give what she had to God.  The “rich men casting their gifts into the treasury” were concerned with how they were perceived and praised by those around them.  This is an easy thing to speak of but it’s not so simple in our lives to have the kind of pure motives and devotion as this poor widow.  Perhaps each day we should ask ourselves: are we working today for aspiration or consecration?