Monday, October 31, 2011

Keep Your Eye on the Things of the Spirit

Today I read 2 Corinthians 4 which seems to have been a continuation of what we talked about yesterday. Paul talks to the Saints about keeping our minds and thoughts on the things which are of the Spirit and therefore eternal. In this life, we are surrounded by things that will not last through the eternities. We know that there are all kinds of people who will do anything for money, as if money could buy happiness. People will literally kill over it. They will commit all kinds of atrocities over a piece of paper that if the government decided to, could become worthless tomorrow!

And yet, being mortal, and having a need for money in order to provide for ones family, it is easy to see how some of us could become confused or could become infatuated with obtaining more money and more material possessions in the mistaken belief that it will bring us happiness of even give us a sense of peace and satisfaction. I remember when I was a missionary, I used to teach an English class for service among the Chinese people. One night during my class they asked me why I did what I did, meaning serve a mission and pay for it all myself. So I asked them a question, what brings happiness.

To a person, they all answered money. I threw it right back at them and declared that money does not bring happiness. Happiness comes from helping those around you, from seeing your those you deem your friends help themselves, by living a good and righteous life. They tried to tell me I was too young, I didn't understand the way the world works. It was quite sad to be the only one in the room to really understand exactly how the world works and to understand that true happiness comes from keeping as far from it as possible.

Yesterday, my Stake had our Stake Conference and we had a member of the 70 in attendance. He shared some very good counsel with us. He told us that God has a plan for us and if we want to get the most out of our lives, we need to find out what that plan is. We can get through life on our own, but we will be much happier and a lot more productive if we figure out what God's plan is and what He wants us to be doing. In other words, if we focus on the things of the Spirit.

Now, that is not to say that we need to not worry about this life. Far from it. As parents we have an obligation to provide for our families and our children. It is up to us to obtain enough money to sustain a comfortable life for our loved ones. This requires doing a lot of focus on the temporal and the here and now, unless you are one of the few lucky ones who are in the service of the church and receive monetary compensation for it. But for the 90% of us that are not, we have to spend an average of 40 hours a week, mired in the world. But it does not have to be an uncomfortable or unhappy experience. Rather, life is what we make it. If we choose to be happy no matter what, then we will be happy. It is our choice and ours alone. Now, that is a lot easier said than done, that is for sure. It is not always easy to ignore what is happening around us and choosing to be happy. But probably the easiest way to make that happen is to serve those around us.

As we server our fellow man, we will forget about our own troubles. We will come to realize that whatever trials and tribulations we may personally face is quite small in comparison to some. There are those in our world who do not have enough food to eat. Once upon a time, I was one of those people. It is not pleasant. However, my situation was never as dire as some. And I got through that hardship by focusing instead on what I could do to help those around me. And I got through it just fine. It was not fun to go through and it was not an enjoyable experience but I think I am a better man because I went through it. And I never lost my focus. I always kept true to what I wanted and to the Gospel. I served in my callings that I had and helped those around me. I kept my eye on the things that were most important. And despite it all, I look upon those days as quite pleasant and even happy. Not the going hungry part of course, but everything else I did during those years. Somedays I even miss them. You learn things when you go through tough times that are very hard to learn in any other way. But they are necessary and we need to learn them. Remember that Heavenly Father does not put us thorough things just because. He does it because we need to learn the lesson and this is the most efficient way for us to learn it. He loves us and wants us to progress. It is up to us if to choose if that is what we want too. Until tomorrow.

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