Seek Not To Be Cumbered

I remember someone once describing an object lesson to me that a leader had presented to her group of youth.  The leader took a collection of balls and threw them all at once at someone and told the person to catch the balls.  That naturally ended in only one or two of the balls being caught with others scattering across the floor.  Then the leader gathered the balls again and threw them this time individually at the person.  She was able to catch and hold all of them because they came one at a time instead of all at once.  The application, as I remember it being told to me, was that life can be overwhelming when trying to work on all of our weaknesses or personal items in need improvement at once.  We can easily get overwhelmed by the thought of how many areas we need to improve on in our lives or how many things we are not doing that we should be doing.  When we get all these items thrown at us at once, we may not even “catch” any of them because we say, “What’s the point—look at how many I am dropping so why try for any?”  King Benjamin seemed to be addressing this attitude when he counseled, “And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength” (Mosiah 4:27).  The Lord reiterated this to the Prophet Joseph in connection with the translation of the Book of Mormon: “Do not run faster or labor more than you have strength and means provided to enable you to translate” (Doctrine and Covenants 10:4).  Both of these scriptures, though, follow up the counsel with a charge to be diligent lest we get complacent.  King Benjamin said, “And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize,” and the Lord counseled, “Be diligent unto the end.”  So how do we be diligent in what we need to without being overwhelmed by the task of being a faithful disciple of the Savior?          

            I think that perhaps Martha felt a little like the person trying to catch all the balls at once.  Trying to host the Savior was surely a stressful experience for her, and she was “cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone?” The Lord responded, “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:40-42).  I appreciate the word cumbered because I think it accurately describes how we feel often, especially in the fast-paced world we find ourselves in.  The Lord said in our dispensation, “Seek not to be cumbered. Forsake all unrighteousness” (Doctrine and Covenants 66:10).  There are a few definitions of the word cumbered, but I’d like to think here that the Lord meant it in terms of being overloaded and burdened—seek to not be overwhelmed and over burdened by life and its demands.  Don’t take on more than you can handle.  We should not try to address all of the areas of our life that need improvement, but we should rather seek to find right now that “one thing” that “is needful.”  We have to be able to figure out, through the inspiration of the Lord, what that one thing is at any given time that we should be seeking to improve or work on in our lives, for we can really only do one thing at a time.  But what that thing is that we should be improving or doing or working on will surely change from day to day and from person to person.  The Lord’s counsel to Joseph in the very next verse in section 10 after telling him to not run faster than he could was this: “Pray always, that you may come off conqueror,” and perhaps that is our key.  It takes prayer and seeking to discover each week, each day, each hour, what that one thing, that good part, that the Lord would have us focus on.