Actually Doing All Those Things

In ages past (by which I mean about 9 months ago) I used to watch a General Conference talk every morning and share my highlights and insights here. I don't know why I didn't do that last General Conference three months ago, but I want to do it again this morning, partly because it gives me spiritually powerful and insightful things to blog about, and partly because I found a good Conference talk for it: President Deiter F. Uchtdorf's October 2012 talk, Of Regrets and Resolutions.





The regret that President Uchtdorf listed that I most want to focus on is the second one, I wish I had lived up to my potential. Yesterday, I blogged about what that potential is. Today, I want to blog about how we can live up to it.

In a lot of ways, God has already told us what we need to do. He has given us commandments and counsel through the scriptures and prophets, He sent His Son to be a living example for us, and He gives us tips and nudges in the right direction through the influence of His Spirit and the Light of Christ. We know of many things that we should be doing. Now what we need to do is actually do those things.

Declaring our testimony of the gospel is good, but being a living example of the restored gospel is better. Wishing to be more faithful to our covenants is good; actually being faithful to sacred covenants—including living a virtuous life, paying our tithes and offerings, keeping the Word of Wisdom, and serving those in need—is much better. Announcing that we will dedicate more time for family prayer, scripture study, and wholesome family activities is good; but actually doing all these things steadily will bring heavenly blessings to our lives.

The trouble is that there's a lot to do and it can be overwhelming. Plus, we're not perfect. We're bound to make mistakes and slip-ups from time to time. While it's theoretically possible to keep all the commandments perfectly (Jesus did it), it's not realistic for us to maintain such a standard. As President Uchtdorf said in another talk, The Love of God, "there are so many 'shoulds' and 'should nots' that merely keeping track of them can be a challenge." God doesn't expect perfection from us. But then, what does He expect, and what should we expect from ourselves?

I believe that God expects us to do what we can. Obviously, that's different for every person, since we all have different talents and time constraints. But there are some commandments that are easier to keep than others, and while we're counseled not to "pick and choose" which commandments we'll keep and which ones we'll ignore, I think we are free to choose which commandments we'll focus on, and right now, I think I'd benefit most from focussing on the basics.

Some of the commandments that we struggle to keep are, ironically, the small things that we're asked to do so regularly that they could become automatic habits. These include things like praying frequently, reading the scriptures, writing in a journal, paying tithing and fast offerings, and fasting itself, for that matter. Even on this list, some of those things are more difficult than others, but I think most people will find that keeping those commandments are realistically doable, and by keeping those commandments (or any commandments) regularly, we increase in the spiritual power we need to help us keep the commandments we find more challenging. I recently prayed for help with keeping such commandments, and the advice that I got back from heaven was to do the basics, frequent prayer and scripture study, and I'd be given the power I need.

It seems too simple, like it's too small of a thing to make any real difference. I can barely even remember what I read in the scriptures last night, or what I prayed about, but I did it, and I'm sure that some spiritual good will come from that, and I'm equally sure that if I do those things regularly enough, the spiritual benefit they bring could really add up. A single grain of sand doesn't weigh much, but a pile of sandbags could weigh a ton.

I think I got off on a tangent.

We know what we should do. We may not be able to do all of it all of the time, but we can do most of it most of the time. And we should do what we can. As we do, the power by which we keep the commandments will increase, and we'll become able to keep more of them more often until we eventually become able to live up to our potential for perfection. It'll take years, even centuries (if not longer) to reach that point, but we can make steps toward that goal, starting today, and it begins with keeping as many commandments as we can keep as often as we can keep them.