Everything You Think Of Me

I watched the Grace Notes interview with Lauren Daigle with my wife last night and appreciated her testimony of the need for each of us to follow what God wants us to do in our lives. The most important question for us each day is to understand what the Lord wants us to do and focus on that day. We have to learn how He speaks to us and learn to follow His direction in activities big and small. In her song You Say she sings to God: “The only thing that matters now is everything You think of me.” Perhaps the most crucial part of our personal discipleship is becoming that kind of person who values what the Savior wants for us above all other things. The problem with Cain was that he “loved Satan more than God” (Moses 5:18). Joseph Smith’s problem with losing the 116 plates was that he “feared man more than God” (Doctrine and Covenants 3:7). The Lord similarly chastised David Whitmer: “You have feared man and have not relied on me for strength as you ought” (Doctrine and Covenants 30:1). We must learn, as the first commandment invites us, to love Him more than all else. In the Book of Mormon the Lord praised Nephi (the son of Helaman) with these words: “Thou hast not feared them, and hast not sought thine own life, but hast sought my will, and to keep my commandments” (Helaman 10:4). He had not been afraid to preach the gospel to a people who rejected him because he knew it was what the Lord wanted us to do. For all of us in our own spiritual journey we must learn to put His will and His commandments above everything else. We must fear God more than we fear man.

               Perhaps one of the keys to becoming that kind of disciple—one who will always seek to do the will of the Lord and “fear not what man can do”—is to strengthen our faith in the future promises of the Savior (Doctrine and Covenants 122:9). Knowing that He will come and that we will all stand before Him some day can help us put our daily actions in the right perspective. Brother Ahmad S. Corbitt in the most recent general conference spoke about how the prophets in the Book of Mormon were able to look forward to the promises of the coming of the Savior and rely on that in their lives even before He was born into mortality: “Long before Christ, the Nephite ‘prophets, and … priests, and … teachers … [persuaded the people] to look forward unto the Messiah, and believe in him to come as though he already was.’ The prophet Abinadi taught, ‘And now if Christ had not come into the world, speaking of things to come as though they had already come, there could have been no redemption.’ Like Alma, Abinadi ‘look[ed] forward with an eye of faith’ and saw God’s sure promise of salvation as already fulfilled. They ‘overcame [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb, and … the word of their testimony’ long before Christ was born, just as you did. And the Lord gave them power to invite and gather Israel.” They had power in the present because they had looked forward “with an eye of faith” knowing that the promises of the Lord would be fulfilled (Ether 12:19). I love the way that Lamoni’s wife expressed her faith in the future: “For as sure as thou livest, behold, I have seen my Redeemer; and he shall come forth, and be born of a woman, and he shall redeem all mankind who believe on his name” (Alma 19:13). She knew that he would come in the future and that changed everything for her in the present. We too can look forward with sure faith towards the second coming of the Savior, knowing that we will see Him again face to face and “stand before the judgment-seat of Christ” (Mormon 3:20). Our faith in that coming day will help us today choose to do His will, to value what He thinks of us more than what others think.