For 12 months or more I have been a distracted disciple. A year ago we sold our home in hopes of finding the “perfect” place (within budget constraints) to raise our family in California. I now know that this search for perfection has distracted my mind and heart away from God. Since moving three times in one year, we found three things out about ourselves:

1. A bigger house didn’t make us any happier.
2. A spiffy neighborhood didn’t make us happier.
3. Our children attending a higher rated school didn’t make us any happier.

What previously made us happy was the people we served, the interconnectedness and interdependence of our previous neighborhood and lives. We have met and loved new people while living in our rental homes, but because we saw ourselves as transient, we didn’t throw ourselves into serving our neighbors and ward members. What a mistake! We sought to find ourselves a new life, but our self interest left us spiritually adrift.

About six months ago I realized I was off track and committed myself to follow a self-made discipleship chart. My chart included regular family prayer, family scripture study, service, temple work and visiting teaching with the assumption of keeping the commandments. I did okay, and admittedly was doing better than the months prior to starting my chart, but at the end of a few weeks of dutifully following my chart I was left feeling overwhelmed and undernourished. I learned that goals are good, and should be made to make me a more effective servant of the Lord, but true discipleship wasn’t in check-marks and to-do lists.

Months passed, and I continued to think about discipleship. Some clarity came to me while listening to our Primary sing “Love One Another” during sacrament meeting last Sunday. This song led me to ponder on some of my favorite teachings of Jesus Christ.

Mark 8: 35-36

35 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.
36 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall again the whole world (or a perfect house), and lose his own soul?

John 13: 34-35

34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye alove one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

Matthew 22: 36- 40

36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

In these scriptures I found a key to becoming a better disciple: love. I also found my perfect place to live: with God. What I missed most about my old life was how connected I felt to the Lord. I felt Him guiding me to serve my neighbors and friends. Realizing that loving God and serving others is what brings me happiness, has reduced the pressure to find the “perfect” place to live. Opportunities for love and service can be found everywhere. I don’t need to be a distracted disciple any longer. I can recommit. I can reconnect. I can repent. I can learn to love God “with all my heart, all my soul and all my mind” again.

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To read more on discipleship please read the following articles.

The Path of Discipleship – By Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Discipleship by James E. Faust

Christian Courage: The Price of Discipleship by Robert E. Hales

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I love restaurants. Really love them. In fact, I love pretty much any kind of food I don’t have to make myself. I’ve been known to fantasize about being given a job where I’m an undercover restaurant critic who writes articles for the newspaper about local restaurants. They pay my bill, and I spout off brilliant analytics of menu, food, service and ambiance. That would be SO cool. I’ve never been a huge fan of buffets, but once children came along, buffets became the compromise. I still didn’t have to cook, the kids could eat quickly and pick what they want, and it was one step above the drive-thru window on the food chain. (For the record, we don’t eat out nearly as much as I’d like to.)

Unfortunately, it’s very easy and very common to carry this buffet attitude into other aspects of our life. We are our own boss– we have freedom of choice– and all too often, our choices are based solely upon what we want and what we don’t want. My husband and I have discussed the danger of “selective obedience”: picking and choosing the commandments we like while ignoring the ones we’re not so fond of. I’ve seen this in my own children. If I ask Clark to help me set the table, he’s usually quite compliant and jovial even, because he knows it means dinner’s on its way. But if I ask him to pick up the scattered pile of paper scraps left over from his scissors’ frenzy, it’s likely that there will be at least twenty minutes of repeating over and over again, “But I don’t waaaaaant to!” Sometimes they’re even polite about it: “Natalie, will you put on your shoes so we can pick up Grant from school?” “No thanks.” And Grant loves to give me the (lame) reason why he’d rather not do something I asked, “But mom, my legs are just too tired to put my backpack away.”

I imagine that if I’m going to be completely honest with myself, I could improve in my obedience too. Have you ever been to those enormous buffets in fancy hotels? They have their foods sectioned off by categories. So imagine the following three sections of the “Obedience Buffet”: 1) There are the things we know we should do because Jesus laid it out quite plainly in the scriptures– like forgive an offender, pray daily, or put the kingdom of God first on our priority list. 2) There are the things the living prophets counsel us to do– get out of debt, share the gospel with others, do regular personal and family scripture study, etc., and 3) there are also things that the Holy Ghost whispers to us that we should do– get off the computer and attend to your children, stop watching that one reality show that’s your guilty pleasure, or look for the good in this moment and try not to lose your temper. How often do I respond with “I don’t want to,” or “No thanks,” or “But….”?

Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin said:

“You cannot approach the gospel as you would a buffet or smorgasbord, choosing here a little and there a little. You must sit down to the whole feast and live the Lord’s loving commandments in their fullness. You have been taught the commandments. You know what to do: pray, study the scriptures, fast, pay your tithes and offerings, attend your meetings, partake of the sacrament, magnify your callings and serve others, sustain your Church leaders, make and keep sacred covenants, share the gospel, be honest, true, chaste, benevolent, and virtuous.”

So basically, this is the one time that we are allowed– no, actually encouraged– to pig out! Take it all in because each commandment comes with a blessing, and passing it by means rejecting the power and joy it could bring.

Matthew 5:6 says, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”

I tell my kids all the time, “I’m not asking you if you want to, I’m asking you to do it.” I can just imagine Heavenly Father saying the same thing to me: Just go say a prayer, Stephanie, you’ll feel so much better. I know you’re tired, but your children need you to love them and teach them right now. I will bless you and strengthen you. Stop focusing on all that stuff that doesn’t matter, just do what I asked and you’ll be fine.

“If you will follow the Christ, follow his prophet, and follow his Spirit, you will always choose the right. As a result of your wise choices, your testimony will grow stronger, and great blessings of joy, happiness, and peace will be yours.” –Elder Wirthlin

And let’s face it, that’s way better than what I could cook up on my own.

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I have Rhuematoid Arthritis. On a typical day, I wake up and the joints in my feet hurt enough to cause me to have a mild limp until mid day. I will have to favor one hand, wrist or ankle. Being a stay at home mom means I just have to plow through the pain. But some things are particularly hard. Seatbelts, opening jars, and lifting my baby can cause me to wince or worse. On a particularly hard day I came home from doing errands to find this on my doorstep.

The note reads,

CHICKEN ZUCCHINI CASSEROLE

Eat tonight after baking @ 350 for 45 min or freeze for another time.

Just because.

At first I thought:

“Oh I’m doing fine, they didn’t need to do that for me.”

But after I picking up the casserole and taking a peek at the freshly sliced zucchini inside, I wanted the chance to say to my anonymous friend, “Thank you for thinking of me, I have been having some tough days. You made me feel loved.”

A few scriptures came to mind as I walked that hunk of love wrapped in tin foil to the kitchen.

The first is found in the Book of Mormon in Mosiah 2:17

“And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.”

In the Holy Bible I remembered John 13:35

“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”

And finally, Matthew 6:1-4

“Take heed that ye do not your alms before me, to be seen of them; otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what the right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.”

Sister Kathleen H. Hughes spoke about this kind of service in her Liahona article What Greater Service Can We Know: Christlike Friends.

Not only did my anonymous friend serve me physically by feeding my family, but she also taught me how to be a better disciple of Jesus Christ. For both of these acts of service I’d like to say, “Thank you, you made me feel loved.”

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