Given that Singles Awareness Day — oh, excuse me — Valentine’s Day is tomorrow, it seems appropriate today to talk about something from the program last week that got me thinking.  Many of us know how we want life to be.  But it’s been said life is what happens while you were making other plans.  Life has a way of turning out differently than we planned. 

Many singles plan to find the perfect companion — someone they’re meant to be with, someone easy for them to fall passionately in love with and who falls passionately in love with them — and to get married and have a family and live the rest of their lives in a blissful happily ever after.

Then life happens.  They notice life doesn’t match their idyllic dream.  And that mismatch presents questions of compromise: Should they wait for the one who’s right for them forever, or should they just take the one who’s here right now because the one who’s right for them forever doesn’t seem to be coming and that person who’s right here seems good enough for right now?

Are our dreams portents of a possible future or a cruel joke of mortality?  Why do we dream if the dreams never become real?  Do they never materialize because they weren’t meant to be or because we aren’t good enough?

There’s two ways to answer that question.  Here’s the first: Of course, we aren’t good enough.  That’s why Christ plays such an essential role in our Heavenly Father’s plan.

If we were good enough, we could secure eternal blessings on our own.  We wouldn’t need a Savior.  We could simply persevere with hard work to secure our blessings.

But that’s not how it works.  Yes, we need to work hard to achieve our goals and dreams.  But we’re not likely to achieve them on our own because too often we get in our own way.

And that’s the beautiful part of the Atonement.  Elder Bednar put it beautifully when he declared

Christ saves us not just from sin but from ourselves — our mistakes, our imperfections, our propensities to fail, and the natural man or woman residing inside each of us.

There’s another side to that coin, though.  It says we are good enough to secure eternal blessings.  Last week, I introduced the analogy of the electoral college.  In the US, we elect the chief executive with a winner-take-all voting system that appropriates different numbers of votes to each state based on population.  All a candidate needs to win is 270 electoral votes.  And you can get that without the state with the most electoral votes.  The current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is a case in point.

In like manner, many singles think they need to be perfect to secure their dream companion.  Yet we’re all so mired in imperfection that many singles wonder how they could ever be agreeable to an acceptable marriage partner.  That happens in the same way the President doesn’t need to win California to become the President.  Those who are serious about what marriage really entails generally evaluate other people as a whole package.  That means strengths in some areas can compensate for weaknesses in others.

Of course, that doesn’t justify ignoring our weaknesses.  We should always do our best to improve in every area of ourselves and then trust the Lord to make up the difference.  And Christ can make up the difference because He is the difference — the difference between eternal glory and eternal misery.

In the end, we can best secure the blessings we desire when we partner with the Lord and walk with Him on the proper path towards our blessings.  The Spirit will reveal to us the next steps along that path.  And the Lord will grant us the courage we need to take those next steps.

Here as in every other way, your focus becomes your reality.  When you focus on what you don’t have and can’t do, your reality becomes filled with lack and inability.  That leads to frustration, anger, disillusionment, and despair.  But when you focus on what you do have and can do, your reality fills with abundance and possibility.  That leads to encouragement, appreciation, illumination, and hope.

Are you good enough to achieve your dreams and desires?  Of course you are — when you partner with the Lord.  So instead of the pity party many singles have on days like tomorrow, choose instead to partner with the Lord.  Counsel with Him to develop an action plan that will get you moving forward.  When you move in that direction, you’ll make real progress towards your eternal blessings.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

We all know the LDS single who’s so eager to be married that he or she instantly gravitates towards anyone who appears to promise a blessed end to single status.  Maybe you’ve even been that single yourself.

I was once all about finding that eternal companion but never actually finding her.  I felt like that hamster down at the pet store, always just spinning my wheels and never getting anywhere.  And I felt miserable.

I thought I was doing the right thing.  After all, our leaders have talked endlessly about the importance of marriage and family.  Our LDS culture is centered around family.  It made sense to go after it directly.

But that’s exactly the problem.  It doesn’t come when you pursue it directly.  It comes when you let it come to you.

We’re all hard wired to operate out of habit.  And what we do determines what we get.  So if we entertain less effective habits, we’ll keep getting less effective results.  And it won’t end until we replace the less effective habit with a more effective one.

Many LDS singles have the less effective habit of making a beeline for anyone appearing to promise hope for marriage.  But when you understand how everything works, you’ll realize you need to ditch the beeline.

Here’s how it works.  Marriage means the agency of another person is involved.  You can’t choose for others.  Someone else has to choose you.  That means the most you can do is influence that choice.

That’s why you keep hearing platitudes like “Just be yourself” or “Keep working on yourself.”  They’re all true up to a point.  Doing these things will influence the right person to choose you.

But beyond that point lies the reality where we all live.  This most important choice has many influences in addition to the one you exert.  And these other considerations outside your control can drown any hope of acquiring desired blessings.  Your challenge, then, is to exert your best influence, trusting the Lord to cross your path with someone who will choose you.  Are you up to it?

You can best rise to the challenge by letting go of pursuing marriage directly and adopting a personal ministry.  This really is your best approach for exerting your best influence.

Here’s why.  When you pursue marriage directly, you broadcast to everyone around you you’re all about marriage.  No one really wants to marry someone who’s more interested in some personal agenda.  So you come off appearing desperate.

When you drop the beeline and adopt a personal ministry, you’re about something bigger than yourself.  You let your best self shine while serving others.  Devoting yourself to your own personal ministry shakes off the scales of desperation so that others see you as someone interesting, someone worth getting to know better, maybe even share a life with.

Guess what? Now you’re influencing others to decide in your favor.

Other powerful influences exist, yes, but that’s where walking by faith comes in.  When you partner with the Lord, He’ll lead you to those with whom your best influence will be more than good enough.  That’s because they’ll hearken to the voice of the Spirit when He says, “Give this one a chance.”

Many LDS singles live in fear that their desired blessings won’t come.  But that’s no way to live.  It’s much more joyful to let go of directly pursuing marriage and instead pursue what will influence others to choose in your favor.

Devoting yourself to your own personal ministry can make the waiting more joyful, however long that waiting lasts.  Do you want just to endure to the end?  Or do you want to thrive?

Of course, you should keep looking for and pursuing opportunities that arise.  But your universe won’t be rotating around them.  So let go of directly pursuing marriage.  Let it come to you.  When you devote yourself to your personal ministry, you can embrace your best self.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

Sooner or later, everyone encounters hard times.  It’s called mortality, and it’s part of the reason why we’re here.  Overcoming challenges allows us to learn in ways we could not otherwise learn and to become what we otherwise could not become.

If we focus too much on our challenges, however, we can easily succumb to feelings of overwhelm and discouragement, even despair.  Some people escape their doldrums by remembering that there is always someone who is worse off than they are.  For some LDS singles who have struggled for years without promised blessings, it may seem difficult to believe that anyone has had it worse than they do.

And yet there are those who have had it worse.  The scriptures provide an excellent example in Abraham.  When you come to realize how much worse he had it, you can find the courage and resiliency to keep walking by faith.  After all, most of us can’t touch Abraham’s experience.

By the standards of any age in world history, Abraham had a challenging life.  He was once placed on an altar to be sacrificed, only to have an angel save him.  He was constantly on the move, and in one of those places to which he moved, his brother died.  He had to deal with apostasy in his father, a problem since he longed to have what his father’s ancestors had — priesthood authority passed down from father to son.  Having a father who continually returned to idol worship didn’t really help much in that respect.

And yet, like life for all of us, it wasn’t all bad.  He obtained priesthood authority from someone more righteous and more advanced in years than his father.  He grew to become a rather wealthy man, leading a house with many servants.  And somewhere in that mix he married Sarah, a wife he dearly loved.

But try as they might, infertility entered and would not leave.  Whatever hopes Abraham had for a son to inherit from him must have slowly faded as the years went by one after the other with no change anywhere in sight.  It’s understandable why Abraham fathered a son through Hagar, one of Sarah’s handmaidens.  It seemed to be the only way to produce an heir.

Then came the Lord’s promise.  After so many years of wanting and not having, Abraham received a promise from the Lord that he would have a son through his wife Sarah.  He was 62 years old.

His wife Sarah was ten years his junior, so it’s no surprise that she laughed at the thought of giving birth to a son.  Abraham also had his doubts.  Those doubts would continue as they each got older.  It was during this time that Abraham had a son through Hagar.  What seemed incredible when the promise was made seemed even more so with each year passing thereafter.

But the Lord reaffirmed His promise would be fulfilled.  And we all know how the story ends.  Sarah did give birth to Abraham’s son Isaac.  Sarah was ninety years old.  Abraham had lived a full century.

I’m not suggesting that we need to live a full century before we see the fulfillment of the promises the Lord has made to each of us.  Instead, I’m suggesting we live in faith, faith born from reflecting on Abraham’s position relative to our own.

Abraham was 62 years old when he first received the promise of a son and 100 years old when that promise was fulfilled.  That means he had to wait 38 years for the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise to him.  That’s a long time to wait.

And I’m willing to wager (though I’m not a betting man) that most of us waiting for the fulfillment of our own blessings have a ways to go before we can touch Abraham territory.  I myself have been single for more than two decades.  As long as that has been to endure, it’s only about half of what Abraham endured.  Clearly, I can’t touch this.

Most LDS singles are in that same boat.  As long as you’ve each waited for the fulfillment of your desired blessings, you haven’t waited anywhere near as long as Abraham had to wait.  So you can’t touch this either.

The Lord pulled through for Abraham.  He’ll pull through for each of us.  As we continue to walk in faith that all of His promises will be fulfilled, He will send us many tender mercies to support us.  We can feel the confidence that we will receive our promised blessings.  And that will bring us more joy in our journey.

Have you ever wondered why God’s plan is called the plan of happiness when so many LDS singles just aren’t happy?  Some would say that’s because they’re single.  After all (goes the reasoning), you need to be married to follow the plan.

Some might cry, “But that’s not my fault!  I’m keeping the standards!”  To these singles, adherents of the you-have-to-be-married perspective usually respond, “Sorry, but that’s not the plan.  In order to be happy, you need to be married and raise a family.”

These answers fail to satisfy many LDS singles.  They easily despair many who never married at ever feeling accepted with their subculture.  The divorced can encounter a discouragement of their own.  Once “accepted,” now they find themselves “unaccepted” because now they aren’t following “the plan” anymore.  And they aren’t alone; the widowed can experience their own identity crisis.

But plenty of unhappy married people live in this world, proving marriage alone won’t make you happy.  Is following the plan of happiness really the only way to be happy?

First, we need to clarify what plan we’re talking about.  Within LDS subculture, some things exist because they’re essential parts of the gospel, and others exist because they’re cultural traditions that bear some relation to the gospel but aren’t essential parts of it.  That means there’s more then one “plan.”

We all know the plan our subculture hands us.  After high school, you serve a mission, go to college, get a job, and somewhere in that mix get married.  Plenty of people who follow this plan are happy, but not every follower of this plan is.

If you’re one of these unhappy individuals, you can easily think you need to follow the plan to be happy.  But are you even following the right plan?

Yes, God wants you to serve a mission if that’s right for you.  But missions aren’t for everyone.  And college isn’t right for everyone either.  You might do better going to a trade school or learning skills in the School of Hard Knocks.

You can follow this line of thinking for the remainder of the life plan our LDS subculture provides.  Many of the milestones in this plan aren’t essential to the gospel.  Rather, they exist because our traditions have made them essential to our culture.

What about marriage and family life?  Marriage and family help us to grow in ways we can’t otherwise.  They help us become what we otherwise couldn’t.  That’s at least partly why marriage and family are part of God’s plan of happiness.  How could we be truly happy if we couldn’t reach our potential?

And generally, you should encounter these milestones when you’re young.  But the exact timing will be different for everyone.  God’s plan of happiness is not that we check set items off a list as soon as possible.  God’s plan of happiness is that we do what’s right for us when it’s right for us.

That truth reveals the nature of happiness itself.  Happiness — not the emotion or feeling but the state of being — comes from giving your all to what’s right for you.  Timing contributes greatly to what’s right; nothing can be truly right when the time isn’t.

Because not everything is right for everyone at the same time, God’s plan of happiness is in actuality individualized.  It contains some general features that apply to all.  But the details depend greatly on the individual.

That’s why you need to counsel with the Lord to know if you’re following God’s plan of happiness.  And only you and those with stewardship over you can know that.  Only by revelation can you or anyone else know what’s truly right for you.

You can’t be happy without that revelation.  How can you give your all to what’s right for you unless you first know what’s right for you?  And how can you know what’s right for you except it’s revealed to you?  And how can you get that revelation unless it falls within the bounds of your stewardship?  That’s why you need that revelation about what’s right for you and why only you and those with stewardship over you can know what’s right for you.

You can be happy without following the life plan our LDS culture provides.  But you can’t be happy without following God’s plan of happiness for you.  Correctly understood, it’s the only way you can be happy.

When you partner with the Lord, you can know what’s right for you.  When you know what’s right for you, you can give your all to those right things.  And when you do that, you will be truly happy.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

Everyone dreams of living a better life, yet we all respond to those dreams differently.  Some while away the days not doing much to move closer to those dreams.  Others are doing something, only they’re stuck.  Try as they might, they just can’t seem to succeed.  Either way, it seems like everyone needs a miracle for their dreams to come true.

And then there’s those I call patient fools.  They believe the absence of the miracle they need means it must not be the right time.  And so they patiently wait, expecting their miracle to deliver their dreams when the time becomes right.

For many LDS singles, that miracle is finding an eternal companion.  Some dream about the day it will happen but never take action to move towards it.  Others take action but can’t seem to make any progress.  Still others simply wait, thinking the time is somehow not yet right.

Whatever miracle you want in your life, that miracle won’t happen by itself.  Someone needs to act, and that someone is you!  If you truly want it, you can make your miracle happen.

Dreams inspire us with a vision of possibility.  They animate the imagination and stir something within the soul.  Yet no dream enters reality on its own.  We must take action!

The world didn’t just appear out of nowhere.  Under the direction of our Creator, heavenly workers took action.  Those workers then returned to report their labors.  The miracle that is Earth did not happen all at once but step by step as action was taken.

In like manner, your dreams will never happen unless you take action.  Yes, taking action introduces change, and with change comes new challenges and new concerns.  But only through action will your dreams become reality.

And you can respond to those challenges and concerns with faith.  Partner with the Lord.  By returning to Him every day to report the actions you’ve taken, you can receive counsel and direction regarding your next steps.  When you take those steps and then return and report again, you can counsel with Him regarding the next steps.  By walking consistently in faith, you can make your miracle happen.

Many of us aren’t just sitting on the sidelines of life twiddling our thumbs.  No, we’re out there taking action.  The problem is we don’t seem to be going anywhere.

The pursuit for eternal companionship leaves many LDS singles feeling like that hamster down at the local pet store.  That hamster takes action, exerting tons of energy to run faster and go farther.  But in the end, running inside a wheel doesn’t move the hamster that far.

Likewise, many LDS singles exert tons of energy running between conferences and other activities.  But in the end, they don’t move very far.

If this describes you, stop running inside a wheel, and start doing the right things for you.  You must take action, but not just any action will produce your miracle.  You must take the right action.  You must do what’s right for you.

I’ve talked before about how the right things are more than just the standards for being active LDS.  They include owning your life, opening yourself to possibilities, partnering with the Lord, and embracing a personal ministry by which you bring goodness into the world.  Each of these right actions contribute to making your miracle happen.

Some LDS singles have trouble accepting that truth.  They live under the myth that their blessings will come if they just live a righteous life.  They’re fine waiting until the “right” time for their miracle when it will just happen.

These patient fools have grown comfortable in their complacency.  They fool themselves into thinking their patience is rooted in faith.  But faith is a principle of action.  Patience truly rooted in faith is not passive, but active!

Patient fools also fool themselves into thinking the time for their miracle isn’t right just because it hasn’t happened yet.  I’ve previously described how many LDS singles use the concept of timing as a crutch.  Yes, the Lord has a timetable, but just because something hasn’t happened doesn’t mean the time isn’t right for it to happen.  The time can be as right as rain, but miracles require action to happen.

If you truly want it, you can make your miracle happen when you take the required action now.  Own your life.  Embrace a personal ministry.  Partner with the Lord.  Counsel with Him regarding your next steps.  Work hard and be open to possibility.  Then return and report to Him.  When you make the right things for you a lifestyle, you can make your miracle happen.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

We’ve discussed ways LDS singles can overcome the challenges of LDS singles life.  Dating becomes more simple and fun when we act out a proper understanding of the dating journey.  Learning to forgive others along the way can lighten the load on our journey.  Partnering with the Lord can help us understand our gifts and fulfill our own personal ministry.  And holding fast to our covenants while being industrious can help create our happiest time.

Yet all this assumes we assume ownership of our lives.  No one will create your best life for you.  You must create it.

Fortunately the Lord wants you to have your best life and is willing to help you create it.  But first you must accept responsibility for however your life turns out.  You must own every part of your life.

Owning your life must precede living your best life.  Failing to accept responsibility for how your life turns out means assigning that responsibility elsewhere.  And that leaves you playing the victim.

Confident people never play the victim.  Victimization isn’t a position of power.  Victims are victims because they’re powerless.  Playing the victim means giving away your power to someone else.  And yes, you had power over your life before you gave it away.  It’s called agency.

The Lord has declared, “For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward” (D&C 58:28).  We make our lives by the choices we make for ourselves.  Inasmuch as we choose well, we’ll not lose our reward.

That’s the law of the harvest.  We reap what we sow.  Any other result would place the universe out of balance, and God would cease to be God.

I know what some of you are thinking.  “It’s not my fault no one ever married me.”  “It’s not my fault I got divorced.”  “It’s not my fault I’m widowed.”  In short, “It’s not my fault I’m single.”

Actually, it is.  And the sooner you own all of your life by accepting your part in the events that have brought you to where you are, the sooner you can move past your challenges and live life with confidence and satisfaction.

Sure, other people make decisions that directly impact your life.  But your decisions — the ones you make for yourself — also impact your life.  Those decisions are the only ones you can control.  You empower yourself by placing your focus there.

I’m sorry if you’ve never married.  But you chose how to present yourself, what attitude to broadcast, and what direction to take in life.  You can’t convince me those factors didn’t influence others when they decided against you.

I’m sorry if you’re divorced.  But if you’re completely honest, you’ll admit you contributed to your failed marriage.  Even if (and given how imperfect everyone is, that’s a really BIG if) you did everything right, who decided to get married?  Yes, you married a jerk, but who chose that?  You chose to enter a marriage that ended how it ended.

I’m sorry if you’re widowed.  But again, who decided to marry your spouse?  You chose to marry someone who died before you do.  Had you known that would come, you might have chosen differently.  But you couldn’t see then all the consequences your choice would have today.  We often make such choices in life.  And now you have the consequences from your choice.

This approach may feel incredibly harsh, but it’s also incredibly empowering and liberating.  Having once tasted it, you’ll never want to go back.

Why is owning every part of your life empowering and liberating?  If your choices can make an undesirable life, then your choices can also make a desirable one.  Your past doesn’t determine your future.  Your choices in the present determine your future.  You can make better choices and get better results.

Again, the choices of others do affect the course of our lives.  But placing any focus there is unproductive because you decide only for yourself.  Your choices brought you the life you have today.  You must accept that truth to move forward.

Accepting that truth doesn’t mean wallowing in self-pity or punishing yourself constantly for choosing poorly.  Just accept your choices had their consequences, learn from the experience, and move on.  It’s really no more complicated than that.

Own every part of your life.  Don’t allow failure to take responsibility for anything in your life hold you back from having your best life.  When you take that attitude, you can move forward with confidence towards that best life.  And that will bring more joy in your journey.

Last week while discussing Elder Ballard’s most recent Conference address, I spoke about making goals to get married and our need to center our dating efforts on the Savior.  Doing that means understanding the fundamentals of dating.

One fundamental principle is recognizing the two types of dating.  We often confuse ourselves by not making this distinction.  We introduce even more confusion in our dating journey when we try to be where we aren’t.  Placing too much seriousness too soon in our journey turns us into our own worst obstacle.

Being in the place where we are means conforming our actions to where we currently find ourselves.  Because there are two types of dating, we should act differently in each respective stage.  Committed dating will have more seriousness than casual dating.

In fact, when you correctly understand the fundamentals of dating and the two types of dating, you can’t avoid a simple but profound conclusion: Unless the other person is a jerk, a stalker, or a criminal, you should date everyone.

The provision against dating a jerk, a stalker, or a criminal makes sense to most.  You shouldn’t compromise your personal safety.  But the rest of the conclusion to date everyone else will put many LDS singles into a panic.

If that’s you, please calm down.  This just shows you understand neither the fundamentals of dating nor the nature of casual dating.

A casual date is just that — casual.  So why make the date serious by putting extensive restrictions on having one?  The point of casual dating is to learn more about what you want in a companion so you can narrow down your selections to just one.  You’ll then focus on securing the agreement you need to transition to committed dating.

That means your probability of success increases as you increase the size of your casual dating pool.  You do that when you lower the restrictions on who can enter.  That means dating everyone (with the obvious exceptions, of course).

Many of us want to resist this way of thinking.  Some may think I’m advising against having standards while dating.  Still others may reject the conclusion because they just “know” So-and-so isn’t right for them.

First, you should have standards while dating.  Your success, however, will be more likely if you’ll be in the place where you are.  Casual dating by its very name suggests a different set of standards than committed dating.  You could very well casually date someone who you do not committedly date.  In fact, most of us have.

Second, I understand the feeling that comes when considering some people as a potential date.  It’s like every cell in your body is screaming “NO!”  But feeling is not knowledge.  You’ll never know unless (1) an angel or other heavenly messenger gives you the knowledge or (2) you get your own experience.  I’m thinking the odds for most of us seeing an angel aren’t that great.

I love this comment from a married woman named Kathryn.

Such examples abound, showing we really don’t know like we think we do.  We should stop pre-judging others and open ourselves to new possibilities.  Let experience tell the tale.  Like Kathryn, you just might be surprised at what you don’t know.

Our LDS subculture has primed us for years to look to temple marriage as a pivotal life moment.  And it is.  But you’ll never climb the mountain if you constantly stare at the peak without ever looking at the ground directly in front of you.

The best way to complete your journey is to look at the ground where you are and occasionally glance at the peak to ensure you’re moving in the right direction.  This is the role of feedback we discussed last week in Elder Ballard’s Conference address.

Once you know you’re moving in the right direction, be where you are.  Whatever stage you’re in, that’s the place where you should be.  That means your actions show you’re in casual dating if you’re in that stage of your journey.

When you’re ready to move to the next stage of your journey, secure the agreement you need to enter that next stage.  Keep focusing on where you are and the very next step you need to take.  Your steps will build upon themselves, and eventually you’ll find you’ve climbed the peak.

I have yet to find my eternal companion, but I’ve found some wonderful experiences by opening myself to new possibilities when casually dating.  I’ve also had more committed dating experiences because I opened myself more in casual dating.  Open yourself to new possibilities.  You just might be surprised.  And you’ll have more joy in your journey.

Stake and ward leaders as well the singles themselves all play a part in ministering more effectively to LDS singles.  However, some local leaders are unwilling to change their thinking about how best to minister to LDS singles.  Exercising patience with reluctant leaders follows the path the Savior marked.

While it may take years to realize, positive change inevitably awaits all who pursue it with diligence and patience.  That may not appear apparent while traversing the path.  Not able to see the end from the beginning, we can easily lose heart.

Other realities of LDS singles life can provide a similar view.  Unable to see the end we desire after years of trying, we can feel to give up on ourselves and our righteous desires.

In such moments, we would do well to remember the Psalmist’s words: “Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart” (Psalms 37:4).

Our Heavenly Father sent each of us to mortality so we could have growth experiences we couldn’t otherwise have.  He never accepted this plan grudgingly.  He embraces it because He wants to bless us more than we could possibly imagine.

Not seeing the end from the beginning, we can easily forget that truth.  But we wouldn’t need to walk by faith if we could see everything.  Exercising trust in the Lord is part of the necessary process we need to grow according to His plan.

We can more easily trust in the Lord when we delight in Him.  If a righteous activity feels more like drudgery than delight, that’s a sign we need to change ourselves.  To receive the glorious end, we must stay on the right path.

But we also need to maintain the right perspective.  We must believe in order to receive.  That means acting in faith, nothing doubting, that our righteous desires for this life are possible, irrespective of our past experiences.  That belief comes easier when we delight in the Lord.

The greatest blessings always come according to (1) the Lord’s timetable and (2) our diligence in doing the right things for us.

As a boy, I spent some summers on my grandmother’s farm.  Her homemade strawberry jam on homemade bread was delightful.  But to get that delight, the strawberries first had to grow in the garden.  Then I had to do the right things with the berries — pick them, clean them, and combine them with the right ingredients in the right amounts.  Any deviation diminished the joy I experienced when that slather of strawberry jam entered my mouth.

Our road to eternal blessings is very much like that road to homemade strawberry jam.  We must allow natural processes to take their course.  Sometimes we need to grow before we’re ready to receive what we want.  Sometimes others need to grow.  Other times, we need to wait for the right person to cross our path.  In any event, we need patience while the Lord works to bring us the opportunities for our blessings.

Once the time is right, we must do the right things.  You don’t get jam in the garden; you get jam in the jar after doing the right things with the berries.  Likewise, righteous blessings will never be ours unless we do the right things with the timely opportunities the Lord provides for us.  That means more than just keeping the standards.  It means doing what’s needful to get what we want.

We can know what those right things are for us when we partner with the Lord.  He can reveal to us what we need to do to move ourselves closer to righteous blessings.  That relationship can also provide the strength needed to walk by faith.  It all comes more easily when we delight ourselves in Him.

Nephi understood what it meant to delight in the Lord.  He wanted to be not just in the Lord’s presence but so close he’d be encircled “in the robe of [His] righteousness” (2 Nephi 4:33).  Could Nephi have gained the strength to set the example he did because he delighted in the Lord?

We have many opportunities to near ourselves to the Lord and delight more in Him.  General Conference is just around the corner.  Prayer, fasting, scripture study, and temple attendance all provide opportunities to near ourselves to the Lord and delight in Him when we approach the activity with the proper attitude.

In any event, the Spirit can help us understand what right actions are best for us today.  When we heed that still, small voice, we’re bound to have more joy in our journey.

For years LDS singles have snickered while reading D&C 58:27-28.  After all, this is the famous scripture about “being engaged.”  Given our family-centered LDS subculture, everyone gets the joke.

Like all jokes, there’s an element of truth here.  Marriage is an important element of our Heavenly Father’s plan.  Where the joke ends, though, is where the reality begins.  Yes, LDS singles should be engaged to be married, or at least actively engaged in becoming so.  But the power to do that is not entirely within them because the agency of others is involved.  Dwelling on that reality fills many LDS singles with frustration.

Of course, D&C 58:27-28 is really about taking more action in promoting goodness within our spheres of influence.  And that is within the power of every individual.  Living our best life beckons us to dwell in this valley focused on what we can do and what we have instead of what we can’t do and what we don’t have.

Keeping that positive focus may prove challenging.  Yet three areas of emphasis can help LDS singles to maintain that positive focus on bringing goodness into the world.

Adopting your own personal ministry is one of many themes this program has embraced.  Find your own corner of God’s garden you can tend, and devote yourself towards nurturing blossoms from that ground.

By giving yourself to whatever noble cause is right for you, you align what you can do and what you have with an outward outlook.  As you help others to tackle their problems, you will find increased strength and capacity to tackle your own.

And an unanticipated bonus may await.  By focusing on the positive and bringing goodness into the world, LDS singles make themselves more attractive to a potential eternal companion.  They may even meet said companion in the course of pursuing their personal ministry.

Regardless of whether or not that happens, life offers more joy for LDS singles when they embrace a personal ministry.

LDS singles bring even more goodness into the world when they seek to serve their local leaders.  As we discussed last week, local leaders will be more inclined to help LDS singles when those singles seek to help them.

LDS singles can especially help their local leaders by teaching them how to minister more effectively to LDS singles.  Local leaders who minister more effectively can bless many lives.  But that can’t happen if they don’t first understand exactly how to minister more effectively.

This is where we LDS singles can play an important role.  We LDS singles can educate our leaders.  It’s for that very reason I wrote a book on how to minister more effectively to LDS singles.  This book shows everyone — stake leaders, ward leaders, and the singles themselves — what part they play in more effective ministering to singles.

Using this book to help our leaders is very simple.  Download the book yourself and then give them a copy.  Or send them a link which they can use to download their own copy.

And here’s the best part: The book is absolutely free.  I never intended to profit from the book.  I wrote it solely to improve life in our wards and stakes for singles.  No price tag should guard the gate to that knowledge.

Of course, that book isn’t just for our local leaders.  It’s also for us LDS singles.  The support networks many LDS singles need will never exist unless we LDS singles improve our own attitudes and perspectives.  That best happens when we engage each other in discussions and conversations that change minds, touch hearts, and transform lives.

Think of the goodness withheld from our world when we attend singles activities with the primary purpose of satisfying our own agenda.  I’ve discussed previously the perils of the Dating Forum as well as the pitfalls of the Activity Club.  We need the outward focus of the Support Network as we seek to follow the Savior.

We do that by helping other LDS singles change the way they see singles activities.  We can also foster that change by inviting other LDS singles to join us whenever we recognize and take opportunities to help other LDS singles.

Whether by adopting a personal ministry, serving our local leaders, or supporting other singles, LDS singles have many options for improving their lives through improving the lives of others.  Focusing on bringing goodness into the world, whatever the area of emphasis, ennobles us and strengthens us to withstand the challenges of our own lives.  And that will bring more joy in our journey.

It appears Sno-mageddon is alive and well.  Normally when it snows here, it’s gone within a couple of days.  Not this winter.  Cold and colder temps attend every dumping of snow over previous layers of snow-turned-ice.

For a while I thought we might be getting a break.  I’ve been taking advantage of it while preparing to start a new semester.  But today, Sno-mageddon struck again, furiously dumping inches of snow within minutes.  The college soon cancelled classes.

I’m somewhat disappointed.  I certainly want my students safe.  But with Monday being a holiday and now today being cancelled, we’ve just passed our first week of the semester without ever having class!

Yet when I learned of the school closure, I didn’t shift into panic mode or even survival mode.  I shifted into thrive mode by preparing to take what I’ve been given and shine gloriously with it.

My experience today resembles LDS singles life.  Just as I didn’t anticipate a freak blizzard eliminating class, many LDS singles have met unintended circumstances.  We were preparing for a different experience when events beyond our control forced us in a new direction.

Lost opportunities can yield heartache, disappointment, and concern about the future.  Yet we can always choose our response.

Many of us struggle to choose optimism.  We yearn after hope but feel overwhelmed by despair.  I’ve felt that many times in my life.  How do you go on when everything around you seems to say you’ll never do anything but fail?

You must awake to this realization: Not everything around you indicates you’ll fail.  God certainly doesn’t believe that about you.  He loves you.  He believes in you.  He sent you here to succeed and that gloriously.  And He’s constantly pleading with you to believe in those truths. When you do, “the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).

We can get so busy keeping up with life’s demands that we wonder if we’ll ever succeed in having a good life, let alone our best life.  Mere survival appears increasingly like a noble virtue.

But do you think God sent you here so you could merely survive?  Or did He send you here to thrive?

Thriving is more than surviving.  Thriving is living life with zest and optimism.  It’s living in the moment, extracting every ounce of joy that moment offers.  It’s exuding confidence in the future that faith will not go unrewarded.

I honestly don’t see how any Latter-day Saint — single or married — can experience that without partnering with the Lord for his or her life.  That’s best done by seeking Him first.

Yet many of us are seeking first the wrong life partner.  We naturally want to belong, so when our culture pairs belonging with marriage, we look for someone who’ll help us belong. Plus we yearn for someone who can take away the loneliness, discouragement, and pain of being single.

That someone is Christ.  He taught, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 5:40).  Instead of looking first for an eternal companion to alleviate our troubles, we should look first for the Lord Who can do that and more.  Instead of seeking first that special someone to take to the temple, we should seek first to walk with the Lord in the temple.

The Lord’s love provides the strength to weather any storm.  Nephi understood this.  Bound to his ship’s mast in a violent sea, his wrists and ankles became severely swollen.  Yet he didn’t complain nor cease to look to the Lord.  Nephi always had trouble, yet he partnered with the Lord.  Can anyone honestly think his life was not his best life?

The Lord can lift you to heights you could never imagine alone.  Why settle for the companion you might have now when He can lead you to the companion you most need to have, the one you need for your best life?

With the Lord at your side, you can trust all will eventually resolve for your good.  That faith allows you to release everything preventing you from living life joyfully in this and every moment.  Hope, optimism, and positive energy naturally result from living with the Lord as your first life partner.

Don’t just survive.  Thrive!  Partner first with the Lord Who will help you to hear the whisperings of His Spirit more fully, see His tender mercies around you every day, and feel His love for you in powerful and undeniable ways.  He can make more out of your life than you can without Him.  He will bring you to your best life.  And that will certainly provide you with more joy in your journey.