As each new year begins, we seek goals for improving our lives, which should include inventory of things we have come to understand with more depth during the past year. Among many, I find myself reflecting on trust, obedience, and love—goals that relate to and depend on each other as we are moving forward to improve quality and usefulness of our lives.
Trusting with Obedience
My children are involved in sports, but behavioral cause and effect is the same for engaging in the arts, analyzing and building, reading and processing information, organizing and leading others—or almost any context for moving forward.
Athletes and Coaches
Coaches seek and value athletes who are coachable—able to perform with confidence, but accepting direction by someone who can see the bigger picture in the moment.
Moving forward in competition, the athlete must trust the coach, looking beyond personal qualities to include the coach’s plan and experience. Coaches consider the game from a perspective much higher than the individual participant, including the opponents’ strengths and tendencies. Trusting the coach beyond personal instincts can be difficult.
Recently my son Jordan and my daughter Mariah were both champions of a large multi-state wrestling tournament in the South, winning over the most talented wrestlers in many states. I watched each of their matches as they were moving forward, observing how their attention to their coaches and accurate obedience were directly tied to their level of success in each match.
The coaches praised specifically: “I love it that you listen to what I tell you and then do it.” The reaction window is very small, and the direction needs to be followed immediately or the opportunity will disappear. Doubt, hesitation, faulty hearing, or delayed execution can be costly.
Warriors with Faith
I’m reminded of Helaman’s stripling warriors in the Book of Mormon. Their fathers had buried their war weapons, so these sons were not skilled in fighting or prepared for war. They had never fought. However, they had been taught by their mothers to trust God and be obedient.
They also trusted the leader they chose, Helaman, who was a man of God. Moving forward into battle, they trusted Helaman’s knowledge, experience, and closeness to God. They knew that the God they trusted in all things would take care of them. Though they fought bravely and fiercely, not one of their lives was lost.
As Dallin H. Oaks maintained, “Our only sure reliance is to trust in the Lord and His love for His children. “1
Moving Forward with Trust, Obedience, and Charity
We see hatred and pride tear apart so much of the good in this world; war rips apart countries, civilizations, and cultures. People suffer from hunger and unthinkable abuse, as did the Nephite civilization. Like the stripling warriors, our safety and our sanity are in God, who knows us and understands the dangers and the pains we face.
Pure Love Like God’s
We must recognize God’s love for all of us and His commandments to have charity—pure love like His—for each other. With this love, Jesus could forgive those who condemned and murdered Him.
The scriptures tell us that charity—
Rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth;
Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Charity never faileth.
Moving forward as we strive for charity, we must extend our love to others. Charity requires human involvement—to reach out with love for our brothers and sisters in our homes, in our communities, and overseas: doing what we can, when we can, where we can.
Blessed Within Charity
Years ago my wife took part in a service trip overseas. She was to capture moments of love and service on video. As she interviewed one of the people being served, the woman said, “The same God that knows we have so little is the same God that knows that you have so much.”
As this woman and my wife understood, God’s blessings have reasons and expectations. When we have been blessed, we have the privilege of blessing others. As the Savior expressed this: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matt. 25: 40).
In 2023 our family had opportunities to serve in our home, in our community, and with international “neighbors. ” In Tonga we were able to help build a home for a sweet family in need. We went with a youth group; we all sacrificed time and effort, and we were all uplifted as we served our brothers and sisters in the beautiful Tongan nation.
We loved the people from the moment we met them. Our love for them grew as we got to know them personally and spent “family night” in their homes.
Moving forward with love can build bridges, open closed minds, mend broken hearts. Dieter F. Uchtdorf brought belief/trust, obedience, and love together with the greatest blessings anyone could ask:
As we believe in God, as we love Him and love His children with all our hearts, and as we strive to do as God has instructed us, we will find healing and peace, happiness and meaning. 2
My wish for the new year is that we may strive to be more Christlike as we strengthen our trust in Him, obey his instructions and covenants, and act with the love he would have us share with our brothers and sisters at home, in nearby places, and around the world.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In