Sharing

It may be too simplistic, but I might describe the Law of Consecration as being like sharing. The Law of Consecration is kind of like sharing in that we are sharing what we have with others, though, when we share, we usually don't share everything we have, and we usually know exactly whom we're sharing with. In the Law of Consecration, we are asked to consecrate everything to the Lord, and then He distributes everything back out to everyone who needs anything. I may not want to share something with someone, but under the Law of Consecration, that's not my call.

I suppose, if I were more righteous, if I cared more about other people, if I had more charity, I might be more willing to share what I have with others, and if I had an eternal perspective, I might not feel so much of an attachment to the material objects I consider "mine."

Of course, another point that's probably important to make is that nothing on earth is really "ours." Everything we have is given to us as a gift from God, and most of it is just on loan. We get to keep our bodies (or rather, God will give us new bodies after these ones have been destroyed), but every other physical thing in this world is only borrowed. God made the Earth and shared it with us so we could have experiences on it and then return home, not so we could stay here with all "our" stuff.

In a sense, we are already sharing everything - we're just not doing it very well. We all share this one Earth and everything on it, but we could stand to share it more evenly, more generously, and more fairly. That, in a nutshell, as it could be explained to eight- and nine-year-olds, is what the Law of Consecration is: Everyone sharing everything with everyone else. Of course, the actual system is bound to be far more complicated than that, but I think that, for the sake of explanation, "sharing" is close enough to the Law of Consecration to serve as a suitable model, at least for Primary kids.