On being genuine

Last weekend I tried to decide the topic for a gospel study class I taught yesterday.  When a dear friend told me President Uchtdorf’s most recent Priesthood session address was her favorite Conference talk, I considered it.

As I read this wonderful address aimed at priesthood leaders who all should strive to meet the needs of the people, I saw lots of application to singles.  So I decided to use this address as the foundation for my lesson.

For the benefit of those not in class yesterday, lesson highlights comprise my post for this week. If you haven’t yet read President Uchtdorf’s address, or you need a refresher, take a moment to get familiar.

People over programs

For many Latter-day Saints, Church activity means rote motions involving programs.  That’s especially true with singles.  Too many singles committees restrict their function to planning activities.  As I’ve posted previously, falling to minister to individuals often yields low attendance.

Why do we singles attend activities?  To advance our own agenda?  For some personal advantage?  Or are we consciously choosing to seek opportunities to minister to other singles?  

Perhaps that’s why this section from President Uchtdorf’s address really resonated with me.

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This temptation to appear better than we are is found not just in our personal lives but can be found in our Church assignments as well.

For example, I know of a stake where the leaders set some ambitious goals for the year. While the goals all looked worthwhile, they focused either on lofty and impressive declarations or on numbers and percentages.

After these goals had been discussed and agreed upon, something began to trouble the stake president. He thought about the members of his stake—like the young mother with small children who was recently widowed. He thought about the members who were struggling with doubts or loneliness or with severe health conditions and no insurance. He thought about the members who were grappling with broken marriages, addictions, unemployment, and mental illness. And the more he thought about them, the more he asked himself a humbling question: will our new goals make a difference in the lives of these members?

He began to wonder how their stake’s goals might have been different if they had first asked, “What is our ministry?”

So this stake president went back to his councils, and together they shifted their focus. They determined that they would not allow “the hungry, … the needy, …the naked, … the sick and the afflicted to pass by [them], and notice them not.”

They set new goals, recognizing that success with these new goals could not always be measured, at least not by man—for how does one measure personal testimony, love of God, or compassion for others?

But they also knew that “many of the things you can count, do not count. Many of the things you cannot count, really do count.”

I wonder if our organizational and personal goals are sometimes the modern equivalent of a Potemkin village. Do they look impressive from a distance but fail to address the real needs of our beloved fellowmen?

I love that the first example recipient of service is a single adult!  How I wish local leaders would embrace that spirit and stop merely checking off boxes on their to-do lists!  How I wish they would minister to individual singles!

And that brought me to the crux of my lesson yesterday.  We singles can sit and decry how our leaders and the other married members of our wards and stakes aren’t doing enough to make us feel included.  We can complain how they continually refuse to reach out to us and minister to us effectively.  But we can’t expect our leaders to do for us what we refuse to do for ourselves.

Surrender to love

President Uchtdorf invoked the idea of a personal interview with the Savior.  Instead of asking after numbers and programs, he envisions Christ asking after our hearts and the people under our care.  I love how President Uchtdorf mentioned three special items:

1. How we love and minister to those in our care

Regardless of our situation, we all have people in our lives to love.  Whether it be a parent, a child, a sibling, a friend, or simply another single, we all have someone we can love.  When was the last time you ministered to such a person?

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2. How we show our love to our spouses and family

While we singles don’t have our own families according to the ideal modern-day prophets and apostles promote, we are members of wards and stakes.  When did you last show love to one of them?  If it was before yesterday, it’s been too long.

3. How we lighten their daily load

Feeling loved is a basic human need.  So yes, the married members of our wards and stakes should include us singles more.  But wallowing in complaints that they aren’t isn’t very productive.  Taking the initiative to lead by example and minister to them is.

President Uchtdorf continued

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Whether your testimony is thriving and healthy or your activity in the Church more closely resembles a Potemkin village, the good news is that you can build on whatever strength you have. Here in the Church of Jesus Christ you can mature spiritually and draw closer to the Savior by applying gospel principles day by day.

With patience and persistence, even the smallest act of discipleship or the tiniest ember of belief can become a blazing bonfire of a consecrated life. In fact, that’s how most bonfires begin—as a simple spark.

So if you feel small and weak, please simply come unto Christ, who makes weak things strong. The weakest among us, through God’s grace, can become spiritually strong, because God “is no respecter of persons.” He is our “faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments.”

It is my conviction that if God can reach out and sustain a poor German refugee from a modest family in a war-torn country half a world away from the headquarters of the Church, then He can reach out to you.

My beloved brothers in Christ, the God of Creation, who breathed life into the universe, surely has the power to breathe life into you. Surely He can make of you the genuine, spiritual being of light and truth you desire to be.

God’s promises are sure and certain. We can be forgiven of our sins and cleansed from all unrighteousness. And if we continue to embrace and live true principles in our personal circumstances and in our families, we will ultimately arrive at a point where we “hunger no more, neither thirst any more. … For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed [us], and shall lead [us] unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from [our] eyes.”

Isn’t that what we all ultimately want?  The scriptures commonly use hunger and thirst as metaphors for desire. Thus, God promises we’ll have no more desires.  And that’s because He’ll fill them all.

God will correct every injustice in our lives and cater every deficiency.  He will make up the difference because He is the difference in every joyful, meaningful life.  And that’s the life every one of us can have when we exercise the power of conscious choice.

Ministry of service

Theoretically, the Church should be a place of healing, just as President Uchtdorf described.  For many singles, however, attending church only picks at the scabs of old wounds, if not provide fresh ones.  It’s easy to feel marginalized when the culture focuses on what you don’t have.

Again, we could point to what others aren’t but should be doing.  Or we could embrace a ministry of service to the very people who should be ministering to us.  Others may act in ways that leave our needs — even our basic human needs —  unmet.  But what matters more is that we minister to the needs of others.

Simple, private service is often most effective.  As President Uchtdorf noted, the Savior served this way.

The greatest, most capable, most accomplished man who ever walked this earth was also the most humble. He performed some of His most impressive service in private moments, with only a few observers, whom He asked to “tell no man” what He had done. When someone called Him “good,” He quickly deflected the compliment, insisting that only God is truly good. Clearly the praise of the world meant nothing to Him; His single purpose was to serve His Father and “do always those things that please him.” We would do well to follow the example of our Master.

What will you do to follow the Savior’s example in serving others?  Happiness comes not from doing the right things, but from giving your all to the right things.  When you make that conscious choice, you can access all the joy that God wants you to have here and now.

So what are you waiting for?  What private moment will you take today to love someone in your life?