Liberal to All

In his recent talk in general conference, Elder Alan T. Phillips testified of the love of God for each of us as His children. He said, “Do not misunderstand or devalue how important you are to your Father in Heaven. You are not an accidental by-product of nature, a cosmic orphan, or the result of matter plus time plus chance. Where there is design, there is a designer.” He encouraged us to also recognize the value of each individual. He taught, “How we treat one another truly matters. President Russell M. Nelson teaches, ‘The Savior’s message is clear: His true disciples build, lift, encourage, persuade, and inspire.’ This is even more important when our fellow travelers feel lost, alone, forgotten, or removed. We do not have to look far to find people who are struggling. We can start by helping someone in our own family, congregation, or local community. We can also seek to relieve the suffering of the 700 million people living in extreme poverty or the 100 million people who are forcibly displaced due to persecution, conflict, and identity-based violence. Jesus Christ is the perfect example of caring for those in need—the hungry, the stranger, the sick, the poor, the imprisoned. His work is our work.” Statistics like that can seem so overwhelming, though, that we might feel that we can’t possibly make a difference. That reminds me of the story that Elder Holland told about Mother Teresa: “A journalist once questioned Mother Teresa of Calcutta about her hopeless task of rescuing the destitute in that city. He said that, statistically speaking, she was accomplishing absolutely nothing. This remarkable little woman shot back that her work was about love, not statistics. Notwithstanding the staggering number beyond her reach, she said she could keep the commandment to love God and her neighbor by serving those within her reach with whatever resources she had.  ‘What we do is nothing but a drop in the ocean,’ she would say on another occasion. ‘But if we didn’t do it, the ocean would be one drop less [than it is].’” Alone we likely cannot make a big difference in the world, but perhaps we can help someone, and it will make a difference to him or her. Knowing that we are all children of God and that He cares just as much about our neighbor as He does about us should motivate us to seek to do something to help others around us.

            Thinking of the statistics that Elder Phillips shared about the number of refugees in the world reminded me of Elder Kearon’s talk several years ago about the same subject. He related his efforts in Europe to help refugees and said this: “The reality of these situations must be seen to be believed. In winter I met, amongst many others, a pregnant woman from Syria in a refugee transit camp desperately seeking assurance that she would not need to deliver her baby on the cold floors of the vast hall where she was housed. Back in Syria she had been a university professor. And in Greece I spoke with a family still wet, shivering, and frightened from their crossing in a small rubber boat from Turkey. After looking into their eyes and hearing their stories, both of the terror they had fled and of their perilous journey to find refuge, I will never be the same.” He also quoted this scriptural passage from a time when the righteous Nephites were helping the poor and suggesting that we should do likewise: “And thus, in their prosperous circumstances, they did not send away any who were naked, or that were hungry, or that were athirst, or that were sick, or that had not been nourished; … they were liberal to all, both old and young, both bond and free, both male and female, whether out of the church or in the church, having no respect to persons as to those who stood in need” (Alma 1:30). Many of us do indeed live in prosperous circumstances, and we must find our own way to be “liberal to all” with the means and time and talents that the Lord has provided us. Our ultimate aim as the covenant people of the Lord is to establish Zion so that we can welcome the return of the Savior one day to the earth. And part of that means becoming like the righteous societies of old who achieved that status: “there was no poor among them” and “they had all things common among them; therefore there were not rich and poor” (Moses 7:18, 4 Nephi 1:3). We must keep seeking to help all those we can, caring about the Syrian woman in a refugee camp and the Turkish family in Greece and our neighbor in need down the street. As we seek to offer our own drop in the ocean, relying always upon He who is the Refuge for us all, we will be doing His most important work.