Faithful Over a Few Things

In the parable of the talents, the first servant who was given five talents used them to gain five more. The lord in the parable said to him, “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.” The second servant who was given two talents and used them to gain two more was similarly told, “Well done, 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” (Matthew 25:21, 23). I believe that just that much of the parable has a lot to teach us and should bring us comfort when we are tempted to compare ourselves with the accomplishments of others. The Lord doesn’t judge us on the quantity of our personal increase, but rather He recognizes what we start with and simply wants us to improve upon what we have been given. In our world the man with ten talents would have been lauded much more than the man with four talents, but to the lord even though the total amount they gained was different the value of their contribution was the same. They both received the same reward and praise from Him. It is easy to look at others around us—the ten-talent kind of people—and feel like our much smaller number of talents is not valuable compared to theirs. But if we remember what the Lord said to Oliver Granger, we will know that what matters is not the quantity of our contribution but the commitment we have to improving upon what we been given: “His sacrifice shall be more sacred unto me than his increase, saith the Lord” (Doctrine and Covenants 117:13).

                The famous phrase in the book Candide by Voltaire is this one that Candide said to Pangloss at the end of the story: “Il faut cultiver notre Jardin”, meaning that we must cultivate our own garden. I have always taken that to mean that we should be happy to do good and improve our small portion of the world without worrying about trying to do more than we are called to do. We need to work and we need to cultivate and we need to grow—but we don’t have to do it in more than the garden we were given. Alma seemed to have desired for a moment to do more than the great work he had already done when he exclaimed, “O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people! Yea, I would declare unto every soul, as with the voice of thunder, repentance and the plan of redemption, that they should repent and come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the earth.” But immediately after expressing this desire he realized it was not his mission to preach the gospel to the whole world and that he should be “content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me” (Alma 29:1-3). He had been given his number of talents, which he had certainly multiplied in magnificent ways, and he needn’t worry that he couldn’t do even more than that. The Lord blessed Alma’s efforts in the “garden” he had been given and that was enough—he was not called to do more than that. Each of us has been given gifts to share and opportunities to seize and people around us to bless, and we need not worry if it feels that our contributions are small compared to others. The Lord will judge us according to what we have been given and how we have improved our own talents. As He declared in our dispensation, “To every man is given a gift by the Spirit of God. To some is given one, and to some is given another, that all may be profited thereby” (Doctrine and Covenants 46:11-12). We each have our gift, our garden, our talents, and our work is simply to use those as best we can to make a difference in our corner of the Lord’s vineyard.