I am, in general, a good person. I don’t lie (about the big stuff), cheat (except for diets), or steal (does raiding my kids’ Easter baskets count?). I care about other peoples’ feelings. I want the best for my kids. I donate to charity, volunteer at the school, and have even participated in more than one walk for a good cause.
I try to always do the right thing, but don’t always succeed. I sometimes sleep in later than I should, eat more than I’m supposed to, exercise less than I need. I’ve been known to tell my kids they can eat whatever they can find in the cupboards for dinner because I just didn’t feel like cooking. In fact, that’s happened more than I’d like to admit. On the best days, my house is cluttered – on the worst, it’s downright filthy.
In Relief Society last year, the presidency handed out small cards with the lesson schedule for the entire year. The back of the card looked like this:
2009 Providence
I will live Gospel Basics.
-Personal prayer morning & evening.
-Family prayer morning & evening.
-Personal scripture study daily.
-Family scripture study daily.
-Family Home Evening each Monday.
-Attend my church meetings.
-Magnify my calling.
-Repent. Forgive others.
-Become temple worthy. Attend often.
-Keep the commandments.
-Share the gospel.
-Serve others.
By doing these basics, I will build my faith and testimony in Heavenly
Father and Jesus Christ, and strengthen myself and my family.
Each Fast Sunday I will evaluate my progress in living gospel basics.
Wow. I was completely overwhelmed! Maybe because I knew that sometimes I get pretty lazy in some important areas of my life. I absolutely have a testimony of the truthfulness of the restored gospel. I know that Jesus Christ atoned for my sins. I know that the Church is true and that we have a living prophet on this earth today. But what am I doing about it? I looked at that list of sixteen things I need to be doing (I say sixteen because I may be good at saying my evening prayers but not morning and I might repent but have a hard time forgiving others, etc) and felt utterly overwhelmed. If I were grading myself on my proficiency in any one of those areas, I wouldn’t have scored myself above a C. Overall, I would give myself a D-, and that’s probably being generous. I do all of those things some of the time, but I don’t even do some of them all of the time.
All of my life, I’ve been told to “Hold to the Rod”, and I feel like I’ve got a good grasp on that rod. But maybe, just maybe, while holding to the rod, my feet have become stuck in the mud. Not moving. Not progressing toward the ultimate goal of living again with my Father in Heaven.
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| Holding On...And Going Nowhere ©Darrell Wyatt |
Maybe I can better explain what I mean with a modern-day illustration. A few months ago, I went on a trip that required flying by airplane. All through the airport, there were large hallways with moving walkways (like flat escalators) on either side. As I moved closer to my departing gate, I noticed that there were three different groups of people moving through the terminals: one group who used the moving walkways to speed their pace by walking on them, one group who used them to rest by just standing on the platform as they were moved closer to their destination, and one group who for reasons unknown didn’t use the moving walkways at all, but preferred to walk down the center of the hallways. All three of these groups eventually reached their final destinations, albeit at different times and through different means. Every person that I saw in the airport had a goal – to get to their departing gate, and they knew what they needed to do to get there. They had to move. They could not simply stand in the middle of the hallway and hold the handrail and expect to get where they needed to be. They needed to use the tools that were provided them in order to get anywhere. Even the people that stood still while on the moving walkways were progressing toward their goal by utilizing that mechanism. They may not have reached their target as quickly or as efficiently as the people who walked along the moving walkways, but they reached it nonetheless.
The same is true for us. We cannot simply “Hold to the Rod” and expect to reach our ultimate goal of returning to our Heavenly Father. We must move our feet and pull ourselves along, instead of becoming stuck in mud along the way. There may be times that we will feel tired and need to rest our feet for a moment, but we must keep moving. We can rely on the scriptures and the testimonies of those we love to be our “moving walkway” along the rod only for short time before we must get back on track and push ourselves. We may, after all, need to be ready to be someone else’s “moving walkway”.
How can we keep moving? Perhaps that daunting list of Gospel Basics is the answer. To me, they are more than just basic. They are the fundamentals of the Gospel. They are the platform on our “moving walkway” back to Heavenly Father, and it is our decision as to whether or not we take them and run or go at a steady pace or do nothing at all.
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