We Will Serve the Lord

It is hard to believe that it is already Spring Break and that by the end of this week, the month of March will be over half-way finished.  Spring Break in graduate school really doesn't mean much other than you don't have to attend your regularly scheduled classes.  This break from classes gives you time to sort of catch up with the numerous assignments that are looming on the horizon.  So I will be spending a lot of time reading and writing this week in preparation for the second half of the semester.  But there will be one fantastic part of my break this coming Friday, when Julianne is coming to visit for the weekend!  After two long months, I am very excited to see her again!

"The Consecration of Joshua," Arnold Friberg

I've been thinking a lot lately about personal discipleship and what it means.  Making the switch from a YSA ward to a family ward has caused me to consider my personal discipleship and just what the Lord expects of me.  For perhaps the first time in my life, I have found it difficult to go to Church because I feel like something of an outsider there.  So on Sundays, it has taken extra effort to get up and get ready for Church.  (Of course I should note that this is not necessarily due to any failure on the part of my ward members, who seem to be wonderful and loving people who just don't know me that well).  But in experiencing this challenge, I have realized that this challenge presents me with an opportunity to deepen my level of commitment to the Lord.  Just because something is hard doesn't mean we ought to give up or that it isn't worth doing.  Indeed, the hard things in life are often the things that we most certainly should not give up on because they are the things that are most worth doing.  I have realized that even if I feel like an outsider, I need to be at my meetings because I love the Lord and I want to grow closer to Him.

This week I was reminded of the story of Joshua, a story that we perhaps don't discuss enough in the Church.  If ever a person (excepting the Lord) was put into an unenviable position, it was Joshua.  Succeeding Moses could not have been easy and the Lord knew that.  He reassured Joshua, "as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.  Be strong and of a good courage....Only be thou strong and very courageous....Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee withersoever thou goest" (Joshua 1:5-7, 9). The number of times that the Lord urged Joshua to be strong and courageous surely showed just how difficult a situation Joshua had been placed in.  He was to take over for one of the greatest prophets who would ever serve and testify of the Lord.  The weight of this duty would require every ounce of strength and courage that Joshua could muster, but he had the promise that the Lord would be with him to guide him and strengthen him in his duties.

Joshua magnified his calling to the best of his abilities and established Israel firmly in the land that the Lord had promised them, leading them by the power of revelation and by faith in the Lord's power to make good on His promises to them.  At the end of his life, after the dramatic events of crossing Jordan and watching the walls of Jericho tumble, Joshua had but one piece of counsel for the children of Israel: "Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord.  And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:14-15).  Joshua wanted the people to serve the Lord sincerely and to stop giving their allegiance to the false gods that had captured their worship in earlier days.

Serving the Lord in sincerity and truth is our aim and our desire.  And no matter what anyone else does or says, we can serve the Lord.  The beauty of true worship is that it is an individual choice.  Of course it is always easier when we feel the strength of combined worship, unity, and fellowship.  Of course it is easier when we feel like we fit in and we are comfortable.  But if for a small moment we must worship without that usual feeling of comfort, we can and should still do so.  In the end, our worship is a reflection of how we feel about the Lord, not about how comfortable we feel in the ward we are attending.

I've discovered another thing.  There are people there who are reaching out to me and welcoming me if I am willing to accept their friendship.  More often than not my feelings of discomfort have more to do with my inability to give others the benefit of the doubt and to see their warmth and friendship than with their unwillingness to befriend and fellowship me.  Worshipping the Lord entails learning how to see others the way that He sees them and accept their goodness the way that He accepts them.

I am grateful for the way that He has been teaching me through this experience.  I have much to learn as I strive to become a true disciple and worship Him in sincerity and truth.  But as a first step, I can determine with Joshua, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

Brett