Look up

"When facing difficulty, we often wish life would be easier . . . .  Yet instead of wishing our situations were better, we should wish we were better.  Learning how to conquer challenges is a major purpose of mortality.  We’ll never do that unless we increase our inner strength and become more than what we now are."

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Every six months, I’m seeing the same thing.  General Conference just keeps getting better and better with an increased outpouring of spiritual strength.  Great as that is, choosing that one Conference address on which my monologue will focus is getting more and more difficult.

But for the present moment, I feel impressed to focus on the address entitled “Don’t Look Around, Look Up!” given by (and I know I’m going to slaughter this good man’s name, so bear with me) Elder Yoon Hwan Choi of the Seventy.

Yes, Elder Holland hit his usual home run.  Elder Bednar taught healing truths about missionary service.  We rejoiced to see and hear the Prophet speak in Conference.  The list goes on, but something seems more inviting in Elder Choi’s remarks.  Perhaps it’s because he declared

It’s not always easy to look up when your parents are opposed to the gospel, when you are a member of a small Church unit, when your spouse is not a member, when you are still single although you did your best to marry, when a child has strayed, when you find yourself a single parent, when you are physically or emotionally challenged, when you are a victim in a disaster, and so on. Hold on to your faith in those hard times. Look up to Christ for strength, balance, and healing. Through the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, “all things shall work together for [your] good.”

So often in our lives as LDS singles, we find ourselves in need of strength, balance, and healing.  We can find all of these in the Savior when we look up to Him.

Find strength

Life is hard for everyone.  LDS singles are no exception.  Although our challenges are all unique, the solution is very much the same.  We must look to the Savior for the strength to soldier on.

When facing difficulty, we often wish life would be easier and wonder why the battle before us must be ours.  Yet instead of wishing our situations were better, we should wish we were better.  Learning how to conquer challenges is a major purpose of mortality.  We’ll never do that unless we increase our inner strength and become more than what we now are.

No one can increase that strength within us more than Christ.  His Atonement manifests His power through which He can transform us into new creatures able to do what before we could not do.

Elder Choi pointed us to the Savior when sharing this experience:

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One day, a few months after my baptism, I heard some members criticizing each other in church. I was very disappointed. I went home and told my father that maybe I should not go to church anymore. It was difficult to see members criticize others like that. After listening, my father taught me that the gospel had been restored and it is perfect but members are not yet, neither himself nor me. He firmly said, “Do not lose your faith because of the people around you, but build a strong relationship with Jesus Christ. Don’t look around, look up!”

Look up to Jesus Christ—the wise advice of my father—strengthens my faith whenever I face challenges in life. He taught me how to apply the teachings of Christ, as in these words: “Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.”

We can find the strength we need to conquer our challenges when we look up to the Lord.

Find balance

Directing our focus to eternity can be challenging, especially when the reality of our mortal existence presses us to place our attention in the temporal world.  We ease that difficulty when we balance what we see in our mortality with what we know about our eternity.

If we live life based only on what we see around us, we walk by sight.  The more we walk by sight, the more reactive our approach to life becomes.  Simply reacting to life is living on autopilot playing out previously programmed habits that lead ultimately to the unfulfilled life.

The restored gospel of Jesus Christ teaches life can be more wonderful when we walk by faith.  We can use the gift of agency to choose consciously an approach to life aligned with gospel standards that responds rather than reacts to life.  And we can balance what we see in mortality with what we know about eternity when making those choices.

Elder Choi spoke about our need for balance and how we can get it.

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Dear brothers and sisters, it is not easy for us to recognize the love of Heavenly Father when we look around with our temporal eyes, because we see inconvenience, loss, burdens, or loneliness first. On the other hand, we can see the blessings beyond when we look up. The Lord has revealed, “When we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.” To all those who embark in any service of God, know that you are a solid connection for powerful blessings to those before you and to generations after you.

Our focus determines our reality.  When we focus on the limitations of mortality, our reality will be one of limitation. But when we focus on embracing our own personal ministry of contribution to others, our reality will be a life that contributes back to us.

Find healing

We can get in our own way of making that contribution to others when we cling to our past.  For LDS singles, that past often includes heartache, loneliness, discouragement, and hopelessness.  Many of us keep repeating those stories of failure to ourselves.

Yet carrying unnecessary baggage from the past does nothing but hold us back from living the full and joyful life we can live today.  It’s much easier to move forward when our load is lighter.  Still, letting go of the past can be difficult, especially when we hold on out of habit.

Elder Choi points us to the only lasting solution — the Savior.

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It is never too late to look up to Jesus Christ. His arms are always open to you. There are generations before us and after us depending on us to follow Christ so that we can be an eternal family of God.

Part of the healing we need comes from the power of Christ through His Atonement.  Yet another part comes only as we step outside ourselves and realize our lives are smaller pieces in a much larger puzzle.  Partnering with the Lord can help us let go of our past so we can make our full contribution to the plan of happiness God has for all His children.  And by faithfully embracing a personal ministry that contributes to the lives of others and alleviates their pain, we can find our own pain alleviated.

The longer we look only around at our own lives, the more we will feel helpless, hopeless, and hurt.  By looking up to the Lord, we can begin to receive the strength, balance, and healing we need to live our best life.  And that will bring us more joy in our journey.