All That Thou Doest In the Name of the Son

A little while back I came home from work with my jacket on and I didn’t take it off.  A few minutes later I was in my two-year-old daughter’s room with her and she pulled out a jacket from her dresser drawer and told me she wanted to put it on.  I didn’t think much of it, and shortly thereafter I took off my jacket and hung it up.  My daughter noticed this and subsequently she took her jacket off she had just put on and put it away.  It was a small action, but it surprised me to see how much she wanted to copy me, and it was a reminder that my children are always watching what we do.  And, for better or worse, they will often copy the things we do.  This same daughter is also particularly fond of her seven-year-old brother, and lately we have been hearing out of her mouth the exact phrases that he often uses, such as the desperate plea for “just ONE more movie Dad!”  Mimetic desire is strong in children, and that is why we need to work to turn them to the Savior, for ultimately He is the Brother they and we should be seeking to imitate. 

               When Adam was offering sacrifice to the Lord, he learned about his need to look to and follow the Savior in all that he did.  When Adam didn’t know why he had been commanded to put animals on an altar and kill them, the angel explained the meaning of this sacrifice, “This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father, which is full of grace and truth. Wherefore, thou shalt do all that thou doest in the name of the Son, and thou shalt repent and call upon God in the name of the Son forevermore” (Moses 4:7-8).  In other words, Adam was to offer sacrifice to be like and remember the Savior.  Lately I’ve been pondering in particular this injunction to “do all that thou doest in the name of the Son.”  The angel didn’t tell Adam to do some things in the name of the Savior, to every once in a while think on Him and what He would do.  No, it was “all that thou doest” should be in the name of, in memory of, with a thought towards the Savior.  This of course is similar to the promise we make when partaking of the Sacrament, that we take upon us the name of the Son and “always remember Him.”  The promise is not to look to Him in important decisions or to think on Him every morning when we pray; no, it is to always remember Him.  Nephi also invited us, “Ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ” (2 Nephi 33:9).  We aren’t to do anything of importance without turning towards God in the name of the Son.   

            In other words, we are to seek to imitate the Savior like my little girl sought that day to imitate me.  We should constantly be thinking of and trying to follow His obedience, His love, His service, His compassion, His sacrifice, and His devotion to the Father.  Of course we can’t have the full attention of our thoughts focused on the Savior all the time, but perhaps we can have in our minds always these general questions that we seek to answer over and over throughout each day: What would He do here?  How would He respond to this challenge?  What would He have me say in this situation?  How can I serve now as He would serve?  How can I show love as He would to this person?  Learning to imitate Him, to do as He would in each situation, is surely a quest for a lifetime.  Gratefully, as the Lord told Adam, when we fall short of that ideal we can “repent and call upon God in the name of the Son,” and then try again to do all that we do in the name of the Son.