The Power is In You

To my son,

               The Savior gave the parable of the talents towards the end of His life. In it a man who was traveling to a far country gave three of his servants money before he left. To one he gave five talents, to another he gave two talents, and to the last he gave one talent. The first two used the money to make more money, and both doubled their amounts. But the third “went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money.” Eventually the man came back to see what had been done with the money he gave them. To the first two who had used their talents to gain more talents the man said, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” To the last who had done nothing with his talent but had buried it in the earth, the man said, “Thou wicked and slothful servant…. Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents” (Matthew 25:14-30). In other words, the man rebuked his servant because he had done nothing with the money that had been given him. The servant had not lost the money, but he had also not made it grow—he could have at least lent it out to get interest on the money. What I like about this parable is that the word used for money—talent—gives us an immediate application of how we can apply this story to our own lives. The Lord has also given each of us talents—not money but abilities and special characteristics—that allow us to serve others in some way. Just like in the parable, He wants us to develop those talents and expand them in His service. For each of us the talents are different, but the principle is the same: if we seek to grow them like the first two servants in the story, we will be blessed by the Lord.

               One of the ways that we can grow our talents is to set goals for ourselves. I love this quote from President Ballard: “I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don’t set goals in our life and learn how to master the techniques of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential. When one learns to master the principles of setting a goal, he will then be able to make a great difference in the results he attains in this life.” The Children and Youth program invites you to set goals in four areas of your life: spiritual, social, physical, and intellectual. These come from this scripture describing the Savior’s life when He was young: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man” (Luke 2:52). I encourage you to set one goal in each of these areas and then work to accomplish those goals. There is no reward quite like working hard towards a goal, stretching yourself to accomplish it, and finally achieving that purpose with the help of the Lord. Soon after Mom and I were married, I set a goal to get a masters degree, which meant a couple more years of schooling. I already had a college degree and could have taken the easy road and not tried to get any more education, but I felt like it was important for me to stretch myself and do this. That quest took us to Maryland as a family for two years where you were born and where we had a lot of great experiences and met wonderful friends. The achievement of that goal for me was a great blessing in many ways for our family and I am grateful that the Lord helped us accomplish it. I hope you will find ways to push yourself to accomplish new things—great blessings will come as you try to stretch yourself and follow the invitation of this scripture: “Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; For the power is in them” (Doctrine and Covenants 58:27-28). I know the power is in YOU to do just that, and I am confident you will accomplish great things in your life as you grow the talents the Lord has given you.

Love,

Dad