The Whole Picture

I was reading my mission journal recently and found an entry where I described how I had asked my mission president how to obtain the right balance between differing responsibilities. I was a leader over other missionaries and I had the work my companion and I were doing in our own area to teach the gospel. I summarized his response this way: “He told me that it’s easiest on a mission and it only gets worse from here. He told me two keys for him are organization and keeping the whole picture in mind. He told me to learn it now because I’ll have to find that balance my whole life.” Well, he was certainly right about it being easiest on the mission! While I was very busy with different activities and worked very hard, in reality it was all one work to focus on. Now with a family, a career, church responsibilities, etc. it is indeed a challenge to know how to best use my time each day and how to get everything done that needs getting done. I like, though, his answer that we must keep the whole picture in mind; the writer of proverbs put it this way: “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18). When we can see past the busy activities of any given day and understand the bigger picture of where our life is headed and what the Lord wants us to accomplish, it makes it much easier to determine what is most important now. When we have a vision of what the Lord is making of us we can work through the day-to-day challenges with hope for the future.

                I just finished reading the vision of Nephi recorded in 1 Nephi 11-14 and it led me to wonder why the Lord would give him at the start of his journey that grand vision of the promised land, Nephi’s posterity upon it, the Savior’s visit among them, their wickedness and destruction, and the work of the Lord in the last days. Perhaps the Lord realized that Nephi needed to see the bigger picture of where he was headed and what he was accomplishing as he embarked with his family on an arduous journey across desert and sea. He would spend eight years with his family in an unforgiving wasteland with little food and then have to cross a vast ocean with storms and many other dangers. Surely there were days that were overwhelming to him as he tried to take one more step in the sand with his family, but perhaps in those moments he remembered this great vision in which he had seen that his family indeed made it to the promised land. When they were sick or another family member died—surely there were many deaths in addition to Ishmael as they crossed the Arabian desert—perhaps he reviewed in his mind the grand vision of the Savior’s visit to his posterity: “And I saw the heavens open, and the Lamb of God descending out of heaven; and he came down and showed himself unto them” (1 Nephi 11:6). He had seen the Savior’s triumph over death and His ministry to those in Jerusalem and in the Americas, and perhaps that gave him the hope he needed that he too could overcome the challenges before him. He had a vision of the power of the Lamb of God given to the saints in the last days which undoubtedly gave him faith that this power could be his in the most difficult moments.

                So in our challenging days and when life seems overwhelming, we too should seek to have eyes from the Lord to see beyond the daily grind and understand in greater detail where He wants us to go, who we can become, and what we can accomplish. That perspective will help us know what really matters and how to find the balance I sought as a missionary. I love these words from Sister Michelle D. Craig: “I witness that Jesus Christ loves us and can give us eyes to see—even when it’s hard, even when we’re tired, even when we’re lonely, and even when the outcomes are not as we hoped. Through His grace, He will bless us and increase our capacity. Through the power of the Holy Ghost, Christ will enable us to see ourselves and see others as He does. With His help, we can discern what is most needful. We can begin to see the hand of the Lord working in and through the ordinary details of our lives—we will see deeply.” May we seek like Nephi to see what the Lord has in store for us and the great things that we can accomplish through His grace.