Now, this talk isn’t going to be about learning how to smile while you paint a house, or being “happy to help” whenever a need arises, although that’s a good place to start, my talk will focus on something that delves a little deeper. Joy is not Happiness. Happiness is a state of mind, but I believe Joy extends beyond that- a state of being. It is, true and lasting happiness. Happiness in and of itself can be fleeting: the taste of a cupcake, right before it falls from your hands and stains your favorite shirt; being up 35-0 during a football game before losing after the opposing team steps up their game dramatically; getting an “A” on a test before being exposed for cheating off of the classmate to your left; the list can go on and on. Joy manifests itself in smaller, but more permanent ways: the memory of baking and decorating those cupcakes with those you love and cherish; taking a trip to grandma’s house to watch the big game together as a family before thanksgiving dinner; studying diligently in and outside of class and acing the test that allows you to take up work in your desired profession; the list can also go on and on…
There is one joy that transcends all others, and that joy can only be found in those things that are sealed up in this life and the next. A few things fit this description, but the one I would like to focus on the most is service. We have often heard that “When we are in the service of your fellow men, year are only in the service of your God,” but few think on what that all means and entails. Service is any act that is done out of the goodness of your heart, without expecting anything in return. In the world today, it is often defined as things that we do not get monetary compensation for, but I think service can be given, even if we are being paid to do it. For the past 6 months or so, I have been giving respite care to a young girl with cerebral palsy, and although it is my job, I believe that I am serving her as well. My job is to take her to the bathroom, get her dressed, do her hair, bathe her, take her out walking, and assist with feeding. But that’s not all I do for her. I sing songs to her, play with her, laugh with her, push her to her limits physically, read to her, talk with her, and help her to live her life to her fullest capacity. I do not receive a raise for how happy she is at the end of the day, and my pay does not decrease if she is upset with me the next, but I still persist in doing all I can to make sure she progresses to become the best that she can be. We walk farther every day, learn new words and phrases each week, and she has learned the words to every song I sing, without any significant exchange monetarily on her part. She does not pay me for the work I do. She does not provide anything in return, to her knowledge. The only reimbursement I receive from her, is joy. I have experienced true joy in watching her laugh when she thinks something is funny, listening to her sing songs I have taught her, leading her along the sidewalk on a walk that would have taken anyone else 7 minutes, after 45 minutes of struggle, and seeing her smile when she is reminded of the simple things she gets to do everyday. She has taught me what true joy feels like.
On a personal note, I struggle with something my family has come to term anxiety on what used to be a regular basis. I stressed out about everything. Being on time, getting good grades, pleasing the people I came into contact with, obeying the rules, spending money wisely and frugally, whether or not people liked me, feeling worthwhile, and my performance in everything from running a lap around the track to writing an essay. Whatever I did had to be perfect, or else it was not good enough. I filled my plate to the brim and stacked more activities on the top, ending up with a neatly stacked pile of stress threatening to topple over at the slightest change in the wind. There were days when I would want to do nothing more than crawl up in a ball and cry, and others where I felt like I could conquer the world. I would have panic attacks and often wondered if I truly had a purpose here on earth. Thankfully, those feelings no longer haunt me quite so forcefully, and the reliance I have put on Heavenly Father has helped to ease my burden significantly. It is simple to pinpoint the day when I felt like I was able to climb to the top of my stress mountain and place my own title of Liberty atop it. I was about to run my last 400m dash as a high school student, and I could feel the panic attack coming. I was warming up and felt like if I didn’t at least PR, I would be letting not only myself, but my coach and the whole team down. I looked sick, I felt worse, and everyone around me knew something was wrong. As I checked in, my teammates told me to give it up- I was in no state to run that race- but a still small voice whispered “You are strong enough, give your strength to these other girls.” I was puzzled. I didn’t feel strong, I felt like my chest was compressing and I couldn’t stand without feeling nauseated. Slowly though, I started to look around at my competitors, and realized that I wasn’t the only one who seemed to be plagued by butterflies that day. I sat down with them and started putting on my spikes while making small talk, getting them excited for the race and encouraging them to run their hardest. As I spoke with them, all the feelings of anxiety I had left. It was as if they as a flock of birds decided to fly south for the winter and left me up north to hibernate. I was calm, and I was peaceful. I said a silent prayer of thanks and asked for the spirit to be with each of us as we ran, and then we were off, racing down the track like the next 60 seconds of our lives determined our entire future. I finished with a PR of 2 seconds and met my coach at the finish line grinning from ear to ear. I clapped hands with my competitors and wished them all luck at districts that year, and gave my teammate a big hug. I said a prayer of gratitude as the next heat took their positions and then cheered the rest of my team on as they ran. The joy I felt that day was not because I had PR’d, or because I had taken first in my heat, or even because I had not thrown up after the race. I felt joy because I had turned my attention to others in my time of need, and the Lord had blessed me because of it. I felt joy because I saw the hand of the Lord in all our lives that day. From that point on, my feelings of anxiety could be chased away with service to others, even if it was the simplest of acts.
My question then was, what made service the key to happiness in this life? King Benjamin’s sermon happens to shed a lot of light on this subject, so I turned to the scriptures.
Mosiah 2:41 says, “41 And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it.” It is obvious that as we keep the Lord’s commandments, great will be our joy, but why service? Why that above all? The two greatest commandments as spoken by Jesus in the New Testament are to Love God and to Love your neighbor as yourself. It can be assumed then, that if we are obeying the two greatest commandments of God, we will experience the greatest joy, right? Service fulfills both of these commandments simultaneously because, as we find in Mosiah 2:17, “when we are in the service of our fellow men, we are only in the service of God.”
The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. The happiest people are those who are serving others, but one of my professors finally opened my eyes when he said, “have you ever noticed that the second we stop focusing on ourselves, we instantly feel better about things?” I had never thought about that. I realized that I did feel better when I wasn’t thinking about myself, and in a way, had always used it as a coping mechanism. If I was going through something hard, I would try to see if any of my friends were going through something else that I could help them with instead. I focused my attention on their problem rather than my own, because it helped to think that even though I was having a terrible day, I had helped someone else have a better one.
The question then, is how we can better serve our fellow man? I have a few ideas, ones that I have been working on trying to do better. First, we must realize that the purpose of this life is to perfect those around us, not ourselves. If we focus all our attention on ourselves and the perfection of ourselves, we will utterly fail. Time and time again it has been proven that “when men are rely on their own strengths, they are left to their own strengths” and that those strengths will undoubtedly falter. We go to Christ to make our weaknesses strengths, but he give us strength through others. As we focus our efforts on helping others to progress, we will progress for “he who saves his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake will save it.” Second, merely focusing on others during the day more than we focus on ourselves would help. Too many times we go about our day worrying about ourselves and walk right past those who are suffering far greater torment. President Monson, during a talk at the October 2009 Conference, said “We become so caught up in the busyness of our lives. Were we to step back, however, and take a good look at what we’re doing, we may find that we have immersed ourselves in the “thick of thin things.” In other words, too often we spend most of our time taking care of the things which do not really matter much at all in the grand scheme of things, neglecting those more important causes.” He shared a poem that has stuck with me and gives a solution to our dilemma:
I have wept in the night
For the shortness of sight
That to somebody’s need made me blind;
But I never have yet
Felt a tinge of regret
For being a little too kind.
Third, we can fulfill our baptismal covenant and “mourn with those that mourn, yea and comfort those that stand in need of comfort.” Too often, I experience people and fall into the trap myself who, comfort those that mourn, and mourn with those that stand in need of comfort. I was speaking with a close friend last week who spoke of the crises she was facing in life at the moment, and how all anyone would say was “It will all be okay in the end.” She said, “Although it’s great to say that, and I know that it will, it doesn’t provide any comfort to me for what I am going through right now. I know that it will all work out, and that on the Lord’s time everything will fall into place, but I need to know what to do about it now, not just wait until it's all over.” She was in mourning, and most were trying to give her comfort, comfort that was not needed or helpful in her state. She needed someone to mourn with her, and help her to a point where she would need comfort. I experienced similar feelings when I left for college last semester. So many people told me they would miss me, and that they wished I wasn’t going because they didn’t want anything to change, but not enough people could provide me the words I needed: I am so excited to see you grow! I didn’t need people to mourn with me about going to college, I was over the mourning phase and stood in need of comfort. I needed to hear that everything was going to work out and that I would have a fun time at college, not that there were those who thought I should stay home. My point is that we need to assess what people are feeling before we can serve them. One of my favorite Disney movies portrays this through two emotions bent on re-establishing Happiness in a little girl’s life. I would say that Joy represents Comfort, while Sadness represents Mourning. The film points out that you need both to stay happy, and that neither one or the other can be used more heavily to gain the desired effect.
My challenge to each of you is to find your joy in the service of others, and to embark on your own journey to serve this year. There are many things that this can entail. I am going on a mission to serve the people of Tampa Florida for the next year and a half, my friend is getting married in April and will embark on his journey of service to his wife and family for the rest of his life, many are set apart with different callings in the church in the which they will serve their fellow members of the church. What will you do to serve?
I want to bear my testimony to you that I know it is only through service to our Father in Heaven and his children here on earth that we will experience true and lasting happiness. I know this with a surety that will never falter. Testimony, close.
The question then, is how we can better serve our fellow man? I have a few ideas, ones that I have been working on trying to do better. First, we must realize that the purpose of this life is to perfect those around us, not ourselves. If we focus all our attention on ourselves and the perfection of ourselves, we will utterly fail. Time and time again it has been proven that “when men are rely on their own strengths, they are left to their own strengths” and that those strengths will undoubtedly falter. We go to Christ to make our weaknesses strengths, but he give us strength through others. As we focus our efforts on helping others to progress, we will progress for “he who saves his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake will save it.” Second, merely focusing on others during the day more than we focus on ourselves would help. Too many times we go about our day worrying about ourselves and walk right past those who are suffering far greater torment. President Monson, during a talk at the October 2009 Conference, said “We become so caught up in the busyness of our lives. Were we to step back, however, and take a good look at what we’re doing, we may find that we have immersed ourselves in the “thick of thin things.” In other words, too often we spend most of our time taking care of the things which do not really matter much at all in the grand scheme of things, neglecting those more important causes.” He shared a poem that has stuck with me and gives a solution to our dilemma:
I have wept in the night
For the shortness of sight
That to somebody’s need made me blind;
But I never have yet
Felt a tinge of regret
For being a little too kind.
Third, we can fulfill our baptismal covenant and “mourn with those that mourn, yea and comfort those that stand in need of comfort.” Too often, I experience people and fall into the trap myself who, comfort those that mourn, and mourn with those that stand in need of comfort. I was speaking with a close friend last week who spoke of the crises she was facing in life at the moment, and how all anyone would say was “It will all be okay in the end.” She said, “Although it’s great to say that, and I know that it will, it doesn’t provide any comfort to me for what I am going through right now. I know that it will all work out, and that on the Lord’s time everything will fall into place, but I need to know what to do about it now, not just wait until it's all over.” She was in mourning, and most were trying to give her comfort, comfort that was not needed or helpful in her state. She needed someone to mourn with her, and help her to a point where she would need comfort. I experienced similar feelings when I left for college last semester. So many people told me they would miss me, and that they wished I wasn’t going because they didn’t want anything to change, but not enough people could provide me the words I needed: I am so excited to see you grow! I didn’t need people to mourn with me about going to college, I was over the mourning phase and stood in need of comfort. I needed to hear that everything was going to work out and that I would have a fun time at college, not that there were those who thought I should stay home. My point is that we need to assess what people are feeling before we can serve them. One of my favorite Disney movies portrays this through two emotions bent on re-establishing Happiness in a little girl’s life. I would say that Joy represents Comfort, while Sadness represents Mourning. The film points out that you need both to stay happy, and that neither one or the other can be used more heavily to gain the desired effect.
My challenge to each of you is to find your joy in the service of others, and to embark on your own journey to serve this year. There are many things that this can entail. I am going on a mission to serve the people of Tampa Florida for the next year and a half, my friend is getting married in April and will embark on his journey of service to his wife and family for the rest of his life, many are set apart with different callings in the church in the which they will serve their fellow members of the church. What will you do to serve?
I want to bear my testimony to you that I know it is only through service to our Father in Heaven and his children here on earth that we will experience true and lasting happiness. I know this with a surety that will never falter. Testimony, close.
No comments:
Post a Comment