Efficiency

In the most recent general conference President Eyring said this, “The second lesson is that the Lord’s work is not just to solve problems; it is to build people. So as you walk with Him in priesthood service, you may find that sometimes what seems like the most efficient solution is not the Lord’s preferred solution because it does not allow people to grow.  If you listen, He will teach you His ways. Remember that God’s work and glory is not simply to run an effective organization; it is ‘to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man’” (Moses 1:39).  I think this is a really important principle to understand, especially for myself.  It’s easy in our day to day tasks to focus on efficiency and finding the quickest way to get things done, but that is not the Lord’s way.  In serving in the Church and especially in raising children, sometimes it is the least efficient way to get something done that we should adopt.  The Lord’s purposes are not about time but about people.  But that can be hard to remember when you just want to get the meal made and the little ones insist upon cracking the eggs and pouring the milk and participating in every other part of the process.              

               I think we see in the scriptures evidence for this principle that the Lord’s preferred solution is not always the most efficient one.  One example is the familiar story of Nephi getting the plates.  They were being obedient to the Lord’s command, and yet their first two attempts to obtain the record from Laban failed and nearly cost them their lives.  Then finally as Nephi was led by the Spirit he was able to obtain the plates because the Lord did “deliver Laban into [his] hands” (1 Nephi 3:29).  The Lord could have of course done that on the first try; if the Lord was planning on delivering Laban into their hands anyway, why didn’t He do it on the first attempt, save them trouble, and get the on their way faster?   Clearly the Lord had things he wanted all four of the boys to learn about faith and perseverance and trusting in God that they couldn’t have learned in any other way.  On that same journey we also see that the Lord wasn’t worried about efficiency as they traveled across the desert.  It took them eight years to make it through the wilderness: “They tarried in the wilderness, or did not travel a direct course, and were afflicted with hunger and thirst, because of their transgressions” (Alma 37:42).  The Lord clearly wanted them to learn something about their need to be obedient and not slothful, and that was much more important to Him than getting them there in a timely manner.  Another example of this principle from our dispensation is the story of the lost 116 pages.  Clearly the most efficient way to get the Book of Mormon published was not to spend an enormous amount of time translating pages that would ultimately be lost and replaced by something else.  But Joseph learned an incredibly important lesson from the experience with Martin Harris that he would summarize this way: “When the Lord commands, do it.”  The Lord could have prevented the whole experience and allowed them to get through the translation much quicker, but he was shaping Joseph just as much as He was getting a book published.  In a world that is constantly seeking to be more and more efficient and productive, but the Lord’s goal is not to make productive or efficient children; it is to help us become like Him.