Finding Greater Happiness, Peace, and Rest

This week I finished up all of my work for my semester and I couldn't be happier!  I've spent the last few days cleaning my apartment, packing up my belongings--some to move to the new place I will be living next year and some to head home with me on Thursday--and basically enjoying a few days to breathe and feel like a regular human being again.  I have to admit I find it challenging every time I come to the end of a semester because there always feels like there is some assignment that I am neglecting or some book that I should be writing a review of.  My rest will be a little short lived, as I need to begin (and actually have already begun) preparing for my comprehensive exams.  But I must admit that when I picked up William Cronon's Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West on Thursday, it felt good to sort of read through a book and enjoy it rather than looking for flaws in it that I could point out in a class to act like I was somehow smarter than the book's author (there's probably a lesson in here about how we feel happy when we look for the good in things rather than looking for things to pick apart).

1835 manuscript of Abraham 1:1-5, Handwriting of W. W. Phelps,
 Joseph Smith Papers Website

Earlier this week I had an interesting conversation with a friend about meaningful accomplishments and fulfillment that has made me think about the topic quite a bit.  This friend is incredibly accomplished and is looked up to by just about everyone who knows them.  But in examining another friend's equally impressive life, this friend felt like they ought to do more and be more.  I couldn't help but feel like I knew exactly what my friend was saying.  Every now and again I look at the lives and accomplishments and families of my friends and think to myself: "I should be more like that person."

Such moments catch us in a paradoxical situation.  On the one hand, the ability to see the good in others and then to desire to improve and grow in our own lives is a godly attribute.  Do we not constantly look to the life of the Savior and His prophets for examples that we might improve and grow and have examples to follow?  I believe that each of us, like Abraham, lives in some awareness of the fact that "there [is] greater happiness and peace and rest for [us]" and each of us is filled with a desire "to be one who [possesses] great knowledge, and to be a greater follower of righteousness" (Abraham 1:2).  Improvement, growth, and progression are the very reasons that the Lord sent us here to this earth.  The Lord expects us to see that "there [is] greater happiness and peace and rest" and then do what is necessary to receive that.  Abraham found that greater happiness, peace, and rest through seeking "the blessings of the fathers" and developing a deeper level of personal discipleship.  Such is the case for us as well, as greater obedience helps us to grow closer to the Lord.

On the other hand Elder Holland was spot on when he said, "We can be so hard on ourselves, often much more so than with others!"  Even as we recognize the great distance ahead of us in our progression to heaven, I believe it is important that we take small moments and recognize how far we have come, always acknowledging that we "have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save" (2 Nephi 31:19).  If there is a long road ahead of us, it will help us to remember that there is also a long road behind us, full of the same bumps, challenges, and trials that we will have to overcome in the future.  We have "overcome by faith" (D&C 76:53) in the past, and we will do so in the future.  

Often many of those whose lives we look at with wonder and amazement (and in my case, at times with a little envy) view us with that very same wonder and amazement.  Even more importantly, I feel assured that our Father in Heaven looks upon us with a parental kind of pride (the good kind President Uchtdorf spoke of a few years ago), pleased with our individual and collective efforts to return to His divine presence.  As Elder Holland once said, "I testify that no one of us is less treasured or cherished of God than another.  I testify that He loves each of us--insecurities, anxieties, self-image, and all.  He doesn't measure our talents or our looks; He doesn't measure our professions or our possessions.  He cheers on every runner, calling out that the race is against sin, not against each other.  I know that if we will be faithful, there is a perfectly tailored robe of righteousness ready and waiting for everyone, 'robes...made...white in the blood of the Lamb.'"

May we yield to the divine impulses for growth and improvement, even while we see the growth and accomplishment that we have arrived at, and recognize the great challenges that we have overcome with faith.  In so doing, we will find greater happiness, peace, and rest as we are "encircled about eternally in the arms of [God's perfect] love" (2 Nephi 1:15; see also Alma 34:16 and D&C 6:20).  At that great day, I fully expect each of us to hear the words "Well done, thou good and faithful servant...enter thou into the joy of thy Lord" (Matthew 25:23) along with our family and friends whose lives and works so inspired us in this life.

Brett