ENDURANCE

I was recently asked to speak in a sacrament meeting about the topic of Endurance and this is the gist of my talk. It represents my own thoughts and feelings about a topic that may of us do not concern ourselves with, preferring to take each day as it comes. I gave the topic thoughtful consideration and prayed about it and these are my conclusions.


1. Endurance is not a passive endeavor. Lehi, talking to his sons tells them: “And now my sons, I speak unto you for your profit and learning; for there is a God, and he hath created all things, both the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are, both things to act and things to be acted upon.”

He continues to tell us: “Wherefore the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself.” When you think about these statements you come to the real conclusion - that either we act for ourselves or we are acted upon.

If we do not act positively to take charge of our daily life then we will be acted upon by every wind of circumstance that comes about, in which case life will HAPPEN to us. Even although we need to endure the struggles of our daily lives this does not mean just waiting for life to happen to us.

The word “act” is the prefix for activity, it is also the prefix for the word action. The Lord did not intend us to think that enduring means experiencing suffering in life without having any control over our eternal destiny or without our full participation. If we do not act and life happens to us and we complain and then shrug our shoulders as if to say well I guess I just have to endure it – or in other words to put up with whatever it is that causes us strain and stress and suffering then we are not enduring with faith because faith and action are one.


2. The true meaning of the word Endurance is not that we simply put up with life’s difficulties but that we continue in well doing in spite of life’s difficulties. It is that we continue to do good, that we persevere in living each day as righteously as we can. Remember the Lord’s teachings in his sermon on the mount, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Because of this we need continuous daily work to support our faith, daily reading and pondering of the scriptures, daily prayer, daily consecration to serve others and daily consecration or commitment to strive to acquire the virtues of a Godlike character.

Are we perfect? Perhaps in some things we are or can be perfect but without exception we are all deficient in something. Perhaps we lack compassion, or we may not be sufficiently patient, or we may lack virtue, our mind and heart may be unduly influenced by the world around us. Have we reached the full measure of a perfect man or a perfect woman? If not then we are still a work in progress and if that is the case then we have need to continue in practicing the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We have need to endure in faith.

Moroni asks us: “Have angels ceased to appear unto the children of men? Or has he withheld the power of the Holy Ghost from them? Or will he, so long as time shall last, or the earth shall stand, or there shall be one man upon the face of the earth? Behold, I say unto you, nay.” So, as long as we have breath we also still have a work to do.

The work of Salvation for ourselves is not yet finished. Neither is the work – our work – for the Salvation of our dead ancestors, neither is the work complete for our friends and neighbors, our acquaintances and our colleagues at work or our family at home. And because the work is not complete in any of these areas we are under the necessity of continuing in every good work and in every good thing – or in other words we need to endure in living a righteous life.


3. To illustrate my third conclusion about endurance I need to remind you of your childhood and mine. This week I saw two caterpillars crawling across the dusty road. A caterpillar is a little like a furry worm with lots of little legs. At some point in their lives these caterpillars will climb up a tree or settle on a leaf or on the side of a wall. And they will seemingly go to sleep. In a few days you will notice that they have covered themselves with a shroud and made for themselves a cocoon. Within this cocoon a marvelous transformation is taking place. First the caterpillar becomes transformed into a pupa then the pupa transforms itself into a beautiful butterfly. In course of time when the transformation is complete the butterfly will break free from its cocoon and fly away. It will only live a few days but by that point it has fulfilled the purpose of its creation.

We are the caterpillar and we are the butterfly. This life is the time for us to become transformed from a natural man or a natural woman into a Godlike man or a Godlike woman.

We all know the story of the impatient child who on learning that there was a butterfly inside the cocoon decided to help it get free and we all know or should know that doing so will actually destroy the very thing we want to set free. The reason for this is that nature has its own timetable. We cannot interfere with it. The cocoon which enables this transformation for us is the life we lead where we are continuously exposed to the influence of the Holy Ghost. It is within the walls of our home, it is here in the Church. It is in the Temple and it is in every place where we may be doing the work of the Lord or of being a good and worthy example to those around us. As we continue to live righteously like the caterpillar and the pupa we are gradually even imperceptibly transformed into a spiritual person.

As for the butterfly so also for us. If we break open the cocoon before its work is done and before the transformation is complete and do not endure in righteous living we will interfere with and cut short the process of our own spiritual development and perhaps also the spiritual development of those who count on us. Our Heavenly Father knows perfectly well what is necessary and essential for us to achieve perfection and in truth none of us will have completed that process even by the time we die – that work will continue after the grave. So we cannot sit back and think that the work is done – not when we are 7 years old, neither when we are 17 years old and not even when we are 70 years old. There is no retirement from living the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

As we are reminded once again in the book of Ecclesiastes, there is a time for everything under the sun, a time to live and a time to die and until that time comes when we lay ourselves down and close our eyes for the very last time in this life we need to continue in every good work. We have need to acquire by continuous effort the attributes of our Savior. We need to learn to love as he loves, have charity as he has charity, show mercy as he shows us mercy, extend patience to those around us as he extends patience to us.

We have need to succor and support and encourage those who are also engaged in this work and we have need to teach, testify and encourage those who have not yet started this process to do so. And if We have not yet started then We need to do so and then we need to continue and unwearyingly endure in righteous living to the very last day of our mortal life.


4. Endurance is the experience of the long distance runner. He is the one above all who knows that taking a break, making a detour and stopping for any reason may in all likelihood lose him the race. It is often the last door knocked on by the missionaries, the last stretch of the race which is the most challenging, the last minute for the food to cook or the cake to stay in the oven that makes all the difference. If we quit before our time is up and if we lose sight of the aim and purpose of our faith and hope, no matter how long we may have already endured – if we give up on our dreams, if we loosen our grip on the iron rod, if we stop relying on the arm of the Lord to save us, and if as a consequence we then lose our eternal hope and fail to complete our journey …………..just think how disappointed we will be.


5. Our lifetime is the accumulation of thousands of small moments, some enjoyable, some entertaining, some outstanding, some depressing, some filled with anxiety, some with shame, some with gladness and joy, some with sorrow and grief. We can best endure them one day at a time.


In conclusion:
1. Endurance is not a passive endeavor
2. Endurance means continuing unceasingly to do good, to live righteously
3. Endurance is essential for our spiritual development and for the
transformation of our character
4. It is the end result, the height of achievement that comes about after all
we have done that really matters and we can only taste that exquisite joy,
fulfillment and satisfaction if we endure in living righteously
5. We can best endure one day at a time

These are my conclusions about Endurance.