Our Best Efforts

In our stake conference yesterday one of the speakers emphasized this question from Elder Tad Callister: “We might all ask ourselves: do our children receive our best spiritual, intellectual, and creative efforts, or do they receive our leftover time and talents, after we have given our all to our Church calling or professional pursuits?” This is a thought-provoking question and one particularly important for me today as we celebrate here the third birthday of our youngest child. President Monson used to often say, “Time marches on,” and indeed that is the case with what seems to be an accelerated pace as I watch my children grow and wish sometimes that I could freeze time. But I cannot stop time, and it highlights all the more the need to make use of every day we have here on earth to love and to serve and to take time with our families. I know that little girl of 3 will one day leave our house and my opportunity to train and love them in their youth will be gone. Amulek warned us, “For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors.” This is our time to prepare, and surely no preparation for returning to live in eternal families with God is more important than loving and serving our family here. He continued, “I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed. Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world” (Alma 34:32-34). Now is the time to use our time in the most important pursuits; now is the time to love and cherish the people God has given to us and to give them our “best spiritual, intellectual, and creative efforts.”

                In the book The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, there is a poignant scene in which the narrator was trying to fix his airplane that had crashed in the desert while the little prince was trying to ask him worriedly about the one thing in the world most important to him: his rose back on his home planet. He tried to ask about the possibility of a sheep eating his flower despite the thorn the rose has for protection, and the narrator responded with impatience, “Thorns are no good for anything—they’re just the flowers’ way of being mean!” He tried to tell the little prince that he couldn’t be bothered: “I’m busy here with something serious!” The little prince responded in anger, “You confuse everything… You’ve got it all mixed up!” He continued, “For millions of years flowers have been producing thorns. For millions of years sheep have been eating them all the same. And it’s not serious, trying to understand why flowers go to such trouble to produce thorns that are good for nothing? It’s not important, the war between the sheep and the flowers?... If someone loves a flower of which just one example exists among all the millions and millions of stars, that’s enough to make him happy when he looks at the stars. He tells himself, ‘My flower’s up there somewhere…’ But if the sheep eats the flower, then for him it’s as if, suddenly, all the stars went out. And that’s not important?” At that point of anguish the little prince broke down. The narrator related, “He couldn’t say another word. All of a sudden he burst out sobbing. Night had fallen. I dropped my tools. What did I care about my hammer, about my bolt, about thirst and death? There was, on one star, on one planet, on mine, the Earth, a little prince to be consoled! I took him in my arms. I rocked him. I told him, ‘The flower you love is not in danger… I’ll draw you a muzzle for your sheep… I’ll draw you a fence for your flower…’” I thought about that story again yesterday as I hugged my little girl who was crying after a fall. Indeed what could be more important than hugging and comforting a child? The Lord likely won’t ask me how well I satisfied this or that client at work in the next life, but He will certainly ask how well I loved this and that child.

                The Savior Himself emphasized our need to focus on children and love them during His mortal ministry. Matthew recounted, “At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:1-6). The greatest work we can do in this life is to receive a little child in His name.