Half-hearted obedience

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Afternoon Session of the April 1980 Conference. 

Have you ever had thoughts that sound like these of mine?:

"I really don't feel like going to the ward activity. I would so much rather stay home. But I know we should go. So we'll go."
"I wish I didn't have to substitute-teach the 12-year-olds on Sunday. But I said I would. So I will."
"I wish we hadn't signed up to clean the church today. We have so many other things to do! But I guess we might as well go get it over with."

In my life, I'm usually seeing these moments as relative successes—because I did the right thing in the end! I didn't just slip away like I wanted to. Sure, I know it would have been better to do those good things happily, but I feel some satisfaction for at least doing them reluctantly!

But here's what Elder Mark E. Peterson said in his conference talk:

There is no reward for half-hearted obedience. We must become vigorous and enthusiastic about living our religion, for God commands that we serve him with all our heart, with all our might, with all our strength, and with the very best of our intelligence.

With him there can be no halfway measures. We must be fully for him or we may be classed with those who are against him.

Got that? No reward—for half-hearted—obedience!

I keep wondering about this. Is the "reluctant, but doing it anyway" obedience I described above—is that what Elder Peterson means by "half-hearted obedience?" And is that sort of obedience really worthless? If it is, how does one avoid thinking "what's the point of even trying to be good, then?!"—and giving up entirely? (This would happen sometimes in my youth group when I was young. We would joke about it. "If you don't LOVE to go to the service project, there's no point in going, since you won't be blessed for it anyway!")

I don't know, but I have a couple of ideas. One way I think of it is to divide desires into levels: our current and immediate desires, and our deep and underlying desires. The former, for me, are often selfish and misguided. But my deeper desires are (usually!) to serve God and follow His will. Even when I am struggling against an immediate selfishness or laziness, that deeper part of me wants to be better and is determined to keep trying.

This explanation (from a discussion on honesty) says it well:

The failure to repent means embracing the sin, embracing the lie. Repentance is what explains why not all sin is hypocrisy. The person who is trying to repent is making their whole life, including their sins, comport with their faith. The individual who is “faking it until they make it” is orienting their actions towards the gospel, even if they are not exemplars yet.

I also think "half-hearted obedience" might mean something like "temporary" or "limited" obedience. In other words, obedience that has an end point. Obeying only until you get rewarded, or only after you understand fully why you're doing it. Those don't seem like the sort of obedience God wants. But simply "obeying, but not with much enthusiasm" seems like a different category—not an ideal place to be, certainly, but surely it is at least a point along the path to happy obedience?

It might seem like I'm protesting too much and trying to find a way that I'm NOT in the wrong when I'm less-than-enthusiastic, and I don't mean to do that. I'm just thinking about a discussion we had in Relief Society when one of the sisters was talking about how hard it was for her to keep the Sabbath Day holy as a single mother. How sometimes she dreaded even coming to church. And many people told her (and I agreed)—"Well, but you're here, aren't you? That means something! That matters!"

If she believed there was "no reward for half-hearted obedience," might she decide not to come to church at all?

Or someone I was talking to who said she doesn't like to go to the temple too often because then it "stops feeling special." She seemed to think that only the transcendent, exciting temple trips were worthwhile, and the routine or "half-hearted" ones weren't. But for me, often, my tired, imperfect and yes—even half-hearted—temple trips ARE meaningful, and I DO gain benefit from them, whether in revelation that comes later, or just in the peace and satisfaction that comes from knowing I served someone else.

Surely the person whose temple work I'm doing can benefit from even my imperfect obedience?

Well, whatever Elder Peterson meant, I do think there is wisdom in his underlying message, which is that we need to aim for enthusiastic obedience! And I think we can progress toward it. I love this quote by President Monson:

Courage is required to make an initial thrust toward one’s coveted goal, but even greater courage is called for when one stumbles and must make a second effort to achieve.…Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’

Obedience (even grudging obedience, I would say) is one of the best and most sure ways to gain the presence of the Holy Ghost. So if we can even start to obey—if we can take one step into obedience—then the Holy Ghost can get to work on us, changing our hearts. And then we can keep making those second and third and fourth efforts President Monson is talking about, resolving to "try again tomorrow" for the better, enthusiastic, wholehearted obedience which is what God truly expects of us in the end.

Other posts in this series:

• The Death of the Checklist Religion by Nathaniel Givens
• Our Path Goes through a Desert by G
• To Be of Full Strength Until the Lord Comes by Jan Tolman