An Insight

I realized today in church that my favorite hymn is "Come Come Ye Saints." Every verse tells me something about how to face each day. The deep optimism, especially in the face of trial, reminds me that one way or another, things work out. Perhaps they don't work the way I'd like, and often things don't work out the way perhaps I expected. But I find that when things do work out, the new way is better than what I could have expected. There were a couple of phrases that struck me as we sang this hymn today. The first one is:

’Tis better far for us to strive
Our useless cares from us to drive;

I realized that only through striving for the best things, the most important things (raising a family righteously, serving in and out of our callings, repenting daily), can we improve. And not only that, while we are in the midst of striving, we can shed those things that really don't matter and that might be holding us back -- useless habits, old hurts, pet sins, activities that don't move us along towards heaven.

The other verse that particularly struck me today was this one:

Why should we mourn or think our lot is hard?
’Tis not so; all is right.
Why should we think to earn a great reward
If we now shun the fight?
Gird up your loins; fresh courage take.
Our God will never us forsake;

Elder Holland visited our stake several years ago to reorganize our stake presidency. He said something then I have remembered. I'm paraphrasing here, but he commented on how often we petition Heavenly Father in our prayers to help us be like the Savior. Then, when He sends us down the road to our own Gethsemanes in answer to our prayers, we complain and cry, "Why me?!" These two things are a reminder to me that the best things, the most worthwhile experiences in our lives come only through striving, effort, and sacrifice.

So today I'm looking at my life and trying to figure out what I need to shed (probably playing so much Spider Solitaire on my computer, for one) in order to spend my time on the more worthwhile things, and reminding myself that this refiner's fire called Life is helping me along my path to eternal life. I chose it. I'd better make the best of it.