Loving God in a Hundred Different Ways

One of my favorite talks from the most recent general conference was Elder Uchtdorf’s. He spoke about the widow who offered her two mites into the treasury and commented, “In praising this faithful widow, the Savior gave us a standard to measure our discipleship in all of its many expressions. Jesus taught that our offering may be large or it may be small, but either way, it must be our heartfelt all.” He suggested that we are to give our whole souls to the Lord, but then posed this question: “But how is this possible? To many of us, such a standard of whole-souled commitment seems out of reach. We are already stretched so thin. How can we balance the many demands of life with our desires to offer our whole souls to the Lord?” I can certainly relate to feeling like I am stretched thin and don’t have the time needed to fully do those things that I feel He wants me to do. Sometimes that leads to a long list of to-dos that I can never seem to get to the bottom of as I try to “fit in” those things that the Lord has asked. Elder Uchtdorf commented: “Perhaps our challenge is that we think balance means dividing our time evenly among competing interests. Viewed in this way, our commitment to Jesus Christ would be one of many things we need to fit into our busy schedules. But perhaps there is another way to look at it.”

                Elder Uchtdorf suggested that everything we do should be seen though the lens of that which is most important. He said, “How to distribute your time and energy among your many important tasks will vary from person to person and from one season of life to another. But our common, overall objective is to follow the Way of our Master, Jesus Christ, and return to the presence of our beloved Father in Heaven. This objective must remain constant and consistent.” In all of our tasks we should focus on following Him as being an integral part of that task, even if it doesn’t seem to relate to our relationship with the Savior. Elder Uchtdorf continued, “When we look at our lives and see a hundred things to do, we feel overwhelmed. When we see one thing—loving and serving God and His children, in a hundred different ways—then we can work on those things with joy. This is how we offer our whole souls—by sacrificing anything that’s holding us back and consecrating the rest to the Lord and His purposes.” I love that thought—we should encapsulate everything we do within the framework of loving God and His children. Then our purpose and focus in the many different tasks we have become different as we see ourselves keeping the first and second great commandments in all we do. The idea of serving God and his children becomes the backdrop for all of the activities we are involved in, and this allows us to find joy in the events of our lives even if there are things on our to-do list that we haven’t gotten done.  

                When Joseph and Sidney went to Perrysburg, New York to preach the gospel in 1833, they worried about their families and must have wondered what they were doing there. The Lord said to them, “Therefore, I, the Lord, have suffered you to come unto this place; for thus it was expedient in me for the salvation of souls” (Doctrine and Covenants 100:4). As we go through our days in our many different activities, perhaps we need to search more earnestly to see if the Lord hasn’t put us into certain places intentionally; perhaps what we are doing may be for the “salvation of souls” even if it seems we are doing only some mundane activity. If we focus all that we do towards loving God and His children then perhaps we will have His promise to Joseph and Sidney as well: "Therefore, continue your journey and let your hearts rejoice; for behold, and lo, I am with you even unto the end."