Like so many others, my mother has never felt 100% comfortable getting up in sacrament meeting on the first Sunday of the month to share her testimony. I remember when I was little asking her why she didn't. Didn't she have a testimony? Aren't we supposed to share our testimonies? My mothers answer then, and her continuing commitment today is "my testimony is my life." The more I've grown, the more I've come to appreciate those words.
Recently I heard a mother telling her newly baptized daughter, "if you want to know if someone has a testimony, look at the way they live their life." This week in her letter my mother said this: "Another way of being a missionary is to LIVE the gospel. As people see our happiness or successful handling of life's trials they will turn to us or possibly ask us how we got that happiness." I couldn't agree with her more. While the literal preaching of the gospel is essential to helping other come to a better understanding of the truth, what will be perhaps more crucial in the end is whether or not we actually practiced what we preached.
There's a quote in PMG that says "You need to be a Christlike missionary, not just do missionary things." For the member at home, I think we can easily transpose that into, "You need to be a disciple of Christ, not just do churchy things." If you are just doing something without actually being it, are you really living it? No. If you are an active member, but you are miserable because of your calling and all the "gospel to-do's" do you really understand the gospel? Again, no. Why? Because the gospel isn't weight, it's wings. It's was giving to lift and edify. To stretch? -of course. But always with the end goal in mind that it is going to take us higher. My Dad said this in one of his emails a few week back:
"A scripture that comes to mind is: Matthew 11:30 “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”. I think about the Scripture when I’m feeling life is getting too complicated or hard. It reminds me that it is probably me that is complicating my life and making my life hard because if I was closely following the Lord, the feeling would be more “easy” and “light”. That’s not to say that you won’t be challenged or have difficulties if you follow the Lord’s teaching, my sense is that when I have been living the Gospel the most closely, life’s challenges and difficulties felt easier and lighter as I dealt with them."
As I reflect, I am reminded of the several sweet experiences I have had when someone approached us, the missionaries, and said, "I noticed that you did _____, and I wanted to let you know that I appreciate it." The conversation then leads into why we acted the way we did, and of course that conversation comes back to Christ. On that note, I wanted to end with a scripture, and an invitation.
1 Peter 3:15
"...sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you..."
Here's my invitation: BE a disciple and LIVE the gospel of Christ. I'll let you know that this is the same scripture and invitation we will be using in many our AML's this week. Our goal is to commit every active family to create a family mission plan, with the idea conveyed in that scripture as their main focus.
Have a great week!
