How the Savior Gave His Time

Another important way that the Savior ministered to those who were around Him was that He gave them of His time.  We see this perhaps most clearly in His visit to the Nephites.  Near the end of His first day there, He told the people that He needed to leave and be somewhere else, saying, “Prepare your minds for the morrow, and I come unto you again.  But now I go unto the Father, and also to show myself unto the lost tribes of Israel.”  But after He told them this, He beheld that they “would ask him to tarry a little longer with them.”  He responded, “Behold, my bowels are filled with compassion toward you” and He stayed longer (3 Nephi 17:3-5).  He didn’t just give them a few extra minutes, but He healed all of their sick, blessed their children, prayed for them, instituted the sacrament among them, and gave the disciples the power to give the Holy Ghost.  They wanted Him to remain with them, and so He gave of His time even though He had somewhere else to be as well.

               Throughout His ministry in the Old World we see similar instances where He took extra time to focus on those who needed Him, even when that wasn’t in His original plan.  For example, when He was twelve and was supposed to be headed back to Nazareth with His family, He took the time for three days to sit in the “midst of the doctors, and they were hearing him, and asking him questions” (JST Luke 2:46).  This, He knew, was His “Father’s business” and so He didn’t let other schedules get in the way of ministering to these people at the temple.  Later in His ministry He also showed that He had time for children even when others didn’t want Him to waste His time with the little ones.  When His disciples rebuked those who brought little children unto Him, “Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.  And he laid his hands on them” (Matt. 19:14-15).  He took the time to be with and bless the children that were brought to Him even though He was in the middle of teaching the adults.  On another occasion as Jesus was on his way to heal the daughter of Jairus, with people all about Him, the woman with the issue of blood “came in the press behind, and touched his garment.”  He was busy trying to help someone else and could have just continued on to help Jairus, and yet He took the time to stop and comfort this woman: “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague” (Mark 5:27, 34). 

            Another time when he clearly showed His willingness to take time for the people was the Sabbath day near the beginning of His ministry when He taught in the synagogue at Capernaum, healed a man of an unclean spirit, and then went to Peter’s mother-in-law’s house and healed her of a “great fever.”  After all of this in one day we read, “Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them” (Luke 4:33-40).  After all that He had done that day, once night came He still accepted to heal the countless people that were brought to Him.  He let the people take up His time that surely the mortal part of Him would have wanted to have used to rest.  In another instance after His resurrection, He walked with the disciples on the road to Emmaus and taught them, and then when “they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went… he made as though he would have gone further.”  Like with His visit to the Nephites, He likely had other people He needed to go and see, but when “they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening,” He obliged and spent even more time with them (Luke 24:28). Again and again He was willing to abide and give of His time to be with and teach and heal the people, showing us a powerful example of what it means to minister.