Be Grateful

In the December 2011 Ensign, President Henry B. Eyring talks about The Choice to Be Grateful.  He says that in order to better value our blessings, we must do two things.  First, we have to pray and ask for help to see our blessings amid our challenges.  Second, we have to help God bless others.  By offering service, we realize those things that we have to be grateful for.  This Christmas season is about gratitude, about being grateful for the greatest gifts we have been given through the Atonement of Christ.  We can best show our gratitude for anything by serving in return.  Mosiah 2:17 tells us that we serve God by serving others.  That's what Christmas is all about - serving God by serving others.

Blessings of a Mission

In the October 1995 General Conference Priesthood Session,  President Gordon B. Hinckley said, "I had been interviewed by a representative of the BBC Radio Worldwide Service. He had seen the missionaries and noted their youthful appearance. He asked me, "How do you expect people to listen to these callow youth?"

In case some of you do not know the meaning of callow, it means immature, inexperienced, lacking sophistication.

I replied to the reporter with a smile, "Callow youth? It is with these missionaries today as it was with Timothy in the days of Paul. It was Paul who wrote to his young companion, saying, 'Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity' (1 Tim. 4:12).

"The remarkable thing is that people do receive them and listen to them. They are wholesome. They are bright, they are alert, they are upstanding. They are clean looking, and people quickly develop confidence in them."

"Callow youth?" Yes, they are lacking in sophistication. What a great blessing this is. They carry no element of deception. They speak with no element of sophistry. They speak out of their hearts, with personal conviction. Each is a servant of the living God, an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ. Their power comes not of their learning in the things of the world. Their power comes of faith, and prayer, and humility. As we have been reminded, the work is not easy. It has never been easy. Long ago Jeremiah said that the Lord would gather His people one of a city and two of a family and bring them to Zion and feed them with pastors after His own heart (see Jer. 3:14–15). In terms of the individual missionary, the harvest is not great in most instances, but in the aggregate it becomes tremendous. The work demands courage, it demands effort, it demands dedication, it demands the humility to get on one's knees and ask the Lord for help and direction.

I throw out a challenge to every young man within this vast congregation tonight. Prepare yourself now to be worthy to serve the Lord as a full-time missionary. He has said, "If ye are prepared ye shall not fear" (D&C 38:30). Prepare to consecrate two years of your lives to this sacred service. That will in effect constitute a tithe on the first twenty years of your lives. Think of all that you have that is good—life itself, health, strength, food to eat and clothing to wear, parents, brothers and sisters, and friends. All are gifts from the Lord." Of Missions, Temples and Stewardship October 1995.

Sacrifice Oratory

This is the text of my oratory on sacrifice:
Beginning in the book of Genesis and continuing throughout the old testament, God commanded his people to sacrifice.  Followers of God's command sacrificed the first of their flocks of fields - those things of greatest material worth.  The patriarch Abraham was even commanded sacrifice his son. 

In the Americas, the Aztecs and Incas sacrificed prisoners of war. Jews make burnt offerings. Muslims perform dahiba. Christians believe in the sacrifice of Christ.  Hindus perform yagya.  Fossil records even show evidence of animal sacrifice.  There is a ubiquitous presence of sacrifice across the world and throughout human history.  The reason for all this sacrifice?  Sacrifice defines value. 

Allow me to explain.  The famous English scholar William Tyndale lived for years in hiding, running from authorities, while translating the bible into English.  After he was captured and imprisoned for two years, he was declared a heretic. In 1536 he was burned at the stake.  Before he died, he cried out "Lord, open the king of England's eyes!"  He valued an English translation of the Bible more then his life.  Because of the great value he placed on the translation, other people saw its worth. A short four years after Tyndale's martyrdom, four translations of the bible were published in England. 

A more modern example is found in India.  A strict caste system, though outlawed in 1950, segregated the population there for nearly three thousand years, and is still a fundamental part of Indian society.  Narayanan Krishnan is a Brahman, a member of the highest caste. He was working as a chef in a five star hotel with plans to travel to Europe to work, when, in 2002, he visited his family in his home town. There he saw a starving man, an untouchable, lower than the lowest caste, eating human waste.  Shocked, Krishnan fed the man.  

He gave up his job at the hotel, and now works full time feeding the homeless and hungry in India. These people are considered worthless by many in India, yet Krishnan was willing to sacrifice his time and his career to serve them, demonstrating how valuable these people are to him. 

The value of an item, idea, or person is only as great as those ideas or things sacrificed for them.  Because sacrifice defines the value of ideals, looking at how a society applies the principle of sacrifice presents an image of what is valued. Unfortunately, this picture shows a disconcerting lack of worthy ideals in America.

God, Family, and Country have long been considered the three ideals of greatest worth, and have only recently been widely challenged.  We see the rising value of independence and individuality in the declining value of God, Family and Country.

A search for religious freedom motivated early American settlers to sail across the Atlantic ocean.  Thousands of people of a variety of religions came, and became the founders of America.  America was founded upon the concept of religion, but this value is fading in American society today.  According to Gallup, the number of American citizens who do not identify with any religion is 6 times as high as it was 50 years ago. 

 This is frightening.  Religion is losing value - to other, less worthy pursuits.  Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son because God commanded it. Yet people today are sacrificing their God on the alters of work, pride, or pleasure.  Organized religion requires attendance, service, and prayer, not to mention tithes and offerings.  The rise of "New Age", or "Unorganized" religions show the unwillingness of people to make these sacrifices.  Many people will tell you that God is the most important thing in their lives, even more than family. But this number is declining, as is the number of people who value family.

Most people have distinctive memories of their family, smells, quirks, traditions.  Perhaps the memories are fond, of waking up on Christmas morning, of traditional decorating, of lighting candles, or stringing popcorn.  The family provides a shelter where children can grow and learn about the world before they are on their own.

A family is founded upon the relationship between a husband and wife.  The more a husband is willing to sacrifice for his wife, the more he values her, and, if the wife values her husband as well, they have a successful marriage.  It is no coincidence that many marriages occur at an alter.   Once the couple begins to have children, they can apply this sacrificial principle to them as well. The more sacrifices that parents make for their children, the more they will value, or love them.  It is far more difficult to fall away from or grow tired of those people who are loved most.

Divorce arises out of an unwillingness to sacrifice for each other. By looking at divorce in our society today, we can how highly people value their marriage.  According to the National Center for Health Statistics, of the 2,000,000 couples who married in 2009, about half of them will divorce, finding something more desirable than their families.

As reported by the New York Times, a 2009 study performed by Professor Jeffery Dew at Utah State University found that couples who disagreed about finances once a week were over 30 percent more likely to get divorced than couples who disagreed only a few times a month.  The family is being sacrificed on the alter of money.  As the fundamental unit of society falls apart, people become disinterested in the larger institutions of society.  This trend is present in the unimpressive amount of participation in our political system.  

In 2008, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 71% of the eligible population was even registered to vote, and that only 65% of the eligible population actually voted in the presidential election. In our society, the ability to vote for the president is not really considered worthy of the effort. Families and marriage are looked down upon as requiring too much work, too much sacrifice to keep. God is considered a waste of time. 

This depraved image of our society is disheartening. It is unacceptable for humanity to continue without understanding their priorities. The things we sacrifice are not as valuable to us as the things we sacrifice them for! Yet the most worthy things in the world are continually sacrificed. 

It is time to change. It is time for everyone to look at their lives, and ask themselves what they are sacrificing to get where they want to go. Priorities must be examined! If found to be lacking, or out of order, our priorities must be changed.  God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, so that Abraham would learn that he valued his God more than anything else in the world. In the same way, we can sacrifice appropriately to change our values. Sacrifice bestows the value of the offering upon its alter.  

A close examination of your life will reveal actions motivated by values that do not align with what you believe.  By sacrificing these actions, you can change these values.  Lay your time on the alter of your Country, your pride on the alter of your Family, and lay your life on the alter of your God!

Why Do We Serve?

With Christmas rapidly approaching, people turn their thoughts toward service to celebrate the birth of Christ.  In Matthew 22:36-40 and John 13:34-35, we are told to love our neighbors as ourselves, that true disciples of Christ love one another.  Because, "If ye love them which lover you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? (Matt. 5:46–47.)
We should, then, be serving out of love for others.  But is that always why we serve?  Elder Dallin H. Oaks lays down 6 reasons people serve, in his November 1984 Conference Address Why Do We Serve? They are, first, for riches and honor, second, a personal desire to obtain good companionship, third, a fear of punishment,  fourth, a sense of duty, fifth, hope for an eternal reward, and sixth, out of love.  
The first three are basically self interested.  The fourth is an unquestioning obedience to a law, duty or tradition (deontology). The fifth is a look forward at eternal consequences (utilitarianism).  The sixth, which Elder Oaks calls "the highest reason of all" is because of a Christ-like love of others (virtue). So as we serve this season, it may be beneficial to question our motives, and try to develop the pure love of Christ in our lives.