“We Serve That Which We Love”

I'm sorry I haven't done any posts lately...I've been buried! You know I love you all and think about you every day.

I had to give a talk in church this morning. For those who are interested, here's the text of my talk.
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Good Morning! I’m grateful for this opportunity to speak this morning! I have asked over and over again for the spirit to be here as I speak. I have received several witnesses that what I’m about to say is what the Lord wants me to say. I hope that even a small part of it will touch your heart.

One of the joys of belonging to the church is that we have multiple opportunities to serve one another. Sometimes, our callings are perfect for us, but most of the time, we head into callings and service with no clue what we’re doing. I don’t think I’m talking about only myself here….Have you ever wondered why our Father in Heaven wants a bunch of rank amateurs serving in this or that capacity in his church?

I would like to answer this question by reading a scripture from Matthew 22: 36-40. “’Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law?’ Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

We’ve all heard this scripture many times I’m sure, and yet as my progression in the gospel keeps moving forward, I am more and more convinced that these two commandments are the core of the gospel. Our relationship with God and with others, our love for them, is God’s greatest concern, and is the reason that our church is structured the way that it is.

In Elder Marvin Ashton’s talk, “We Serve That Which We Love” from the April 1981 General Conference, he says: “Day-to-day acts of service, whether for good or evil, may not seem important, but they are building cords of love that become so strong they can seldom be broken. Ours is to place our areas of love in proper perspective. Meaningful love always works for our eternal progress and not against it.”

It’s so easy to serve people that we have feelings of love for. It’s easy to serve God when we love him. Putting our time and energy into these relationships always works to our eternal benefit. To the Lord, relationships with him and with others are EVERYTHING.

However, one of the things the spirit communicated to me that I needed to address is this: Many of us have relationships in our lives that are broken, or hurting, or just not at the level that we would like to see. If we want to improve these relationships and heal them, we need to invest our service into the relationship. Even where we may feel with our earthly hearts and understanding that we already do all the work in such a relationship, service can change the hearts not just of those that we serve, but our own heart as well. This is true even where we feel we have no love left to give in a relationship. Most of the time, we are talking about the “feeling” of love. However, if we look at loving others as behaving in ways that benefit them and serve them, then perhaps we can find ways to continue to love even where the feelings of love are dormant. We can renew these feelings as we serve. Again, to quote Elder Ashton, “We serve that which we love, and we love that which we serve.” And if we feel we cannot serve one whom we ought to love but do not, then we should remember King Benjamin’s words from Mosiah 2:17: “And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom, that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God.”

How can we find the courage to serve in damaged relationships? Through the atonement of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who took upon us our individual weaknesses and sins, and all of our trials…because of him, we can face the difficult journey of healing knowing he is at our side. And if the relationships cannot be repaired, we can move forward in peace knowing that the Lord knows all we have done to make things right.

It is important that we realize that serving others and loving them needs to happen in emotionally healthy ways. Elder Ashton says, “Giving our time, the listening ear, the understanding heart, and the unconditional love, even opening doors of opportunity at times are some ways to serve those we love. But if we deprive family members of opportunities to learn to work, if we teach them to avoid or escape the responsibilities for their own actions, if we use them to further our own ambitions, then we do not serve them well or love them prudently.”

I love what he said. Our entire relationship with others is an opportunity to serve. What we say, how we say it, and how we behave are serving. We can serve others by withholding unkind words, by replacing them with positive words. We do not need to do everything for our children or others in order to be serving them. Like most things in life, we need to find a balance, a balance that helps us serve without becoming an enabler or a disabler. Elder Ashton also points out that if we have a member of our family who needs to have increased love, that we can give them opportunities to serve the family, to work and contribute. This is where a child can learn of their worth and their ability to serve, and how their love can be increased for the family.

By the way, if our relationship with our Father in Heaven is not where we would like it to be, then service of him is also a big part of the solution. If we serve in his church, not only will our love of others increase, but our love of God will also increase. As we strive to do his will and serve him by obeying him, then will our love for him continue to grow. We will be keeping the two greatest commandments!

The principle of service increasing our love works even when we are serving those we do not know. As we strive to serve those around us that we haven’t gotten to know yet, our love for them will increase.

It is not just people that we love, though, is it? We also invest our time and energy into work, into hobbies, into diversions. We come to love those things that we invest our time in. Therefore, we must be careful that our time, service and energy are directed to worthwhile pursuits. Here again, Elder Ashton cautions us: “Equally apparent in the world today is the love of that which is evil. We may jeopardize our future by loving and sacrificing for that which is not conducive to our health or our progress.” A bit further along he says…“One of the greatest accomplishments of Satan in these last days is his success in turning men’s affection towards the destructive, the fleeting, or the worldly.”

This turning of affection doesn’t happen in a moment. It happens gradually, over time, as we invest our sacrifice and our service into areas that might even seem good or desirable at first. We might seek a better job in order to provide better for our family, and become so consumed with the desire to provide better and better for them that we begin to invest our time to an extent that we sacrifice that which we intended to provide for. Elder Ashton says, “As adults, if our top priorities are constantly directed toward the acquisition of more and better worldly goods, it will not take long to increase our love in those directions. The purchase of a larger house or a nicer car or a more expensive boat may cause us to sacrifice our resources and develop an unwise love for these symbols of success and pleasure. We learn to love that which we serve, and we serve that which we love.”

Sometimes we find ourselves seemingly trapped by these unwise pursuits, or by sinful diversions. How do we stop loving those things that we should not love? According to Elder Ashton, we must, “stop the expenditure of time and effort in these directions. If this can be managed, then that love will wither and die. Our love should be channeled into sources that are eternally oriented.”

This might mean turning off the computer. It might mean redirecting our thoughts. We might need to stop having certain people in our lives. More importantly, it means replacing those diversions or sins with activities that allow us to serve others and God instead of following after the same destructive patterns that have consumed our lives.

I know God loves us. He does not want to be discouraged. Whenever we decide to serve him and others, he will bless our efforts and help us. I love this time of year…it’s almost Easter! I look forward to it every year because it has such deep meaning for me in my life. As Easter approaches, I find myself reflecting more and more on the ultimate act of service and grace provided by his son, Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for the love that he has for us, a love that we can only begin to comprehend. When he was in the Garden of Gethsemane, he knelt and took upon him my sins. His thoughts were of me and of you individually.

As I reviewed this talk this morning, I prayed and asked my Father in Heaven if all that I had included in my talk was pleasing to him. I felt peace that it was. I then turned to BYUTV online, and caught the tail end of an address by President Uchtdorf. Much to my surprise, he quoted the same scripture in Matthew that I included in my talk, and discussed how keeping these two commandments allows us to follow ALL of the commandments and blesses us. He then finished with this statement: “Love is the way of the disciple.”

I know that service is the key to love, it is the key to obedience, and ultimately it is the key of happiness in this life. I’m so grateful for the gift of the Holy Ghost, who testifies of truth, for his presence in my life and for the inspiration that he grants to me. I’m grateful for my Savior, who is the ultimate example of “Serving that which we love.”