This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Morning Session of the April 2014 Conference.
How can I even choose which talk to write about this week? Two of them are talks I've already returned to over and over. ("Grateful in Any Circumstance" by Elder Uchtdorf and "Bear Up Their Burdens with Ease" by Elder Bednar.) When I look at them in the gospel library app they are full of my highlights and comments from multiple years. I seem to learn different things from them every time I read them. But, I guess this time I will focus on a few quotes from Elder Bednar.
As I've read his talk over the years, I've often wondered about these questions he tells us to ask ourselves:
“Is the load I am carrying producing the spiritual traction that will enable me to press forward with faith in Christ on the strait and narrow path and avoid getting stuck? Is the load I am carrying creating sufficient spiritual traction so I ultimately can return home to Heavenly Father?”
I've wondered about it because it seems that we largely do not determine our own loads! So what good does it do to ask ourselves if they are creating sufficient traction? Isn't it God who decides the trials and circumstances we must face? But I suppose some of it is what we’ve taken on ourselves—obligations or worries we need not have. Perhaps we could shed those. Or maybe some loads are sin and guilt, which we need not carry—but we do need to carry the load of honorable obligations, like our obligations to take care of our families.
On this reading I thought maybe the emphasis was on the "creating traction" part, though. Even if we don't choose what loads we carry (or we don't fully choose them), maybe we can choose the amount of "traction" they are giving us. I tried to think of ways we might do that. Maybe it means we choose to take on responsibilities and efforts that are spiritually helpful—like accepting callings and taking ministering assignments seriously, and choosing to form families and have children if we can, knowing that kind of "load" will definitely help us progress.
I also like the idea that choosing to love more people, allowing more people into the circle of those we care for and feel responsible for, would be a righteous increase of our individual loads and would surely generate more "traction." In President Monson's talk, he included a quote from President Kimball that I feel like I've been looking for my whole life. I've heard the idea in other talks but I didn't know there was a specific quote from a prophet about it:
We must remember that those mortals we meet in parking lots, offices, elevators, and elsewhere are that portion of mankind God has given us to love and to serve. It will do us little good to speak of the general brotherhood of mankind if we cannot regard those who are all around us as our brothers and sisters.
Once I got to maybe my fourth or fifth baby, I started to glimpse the actual weight of the choice we were making to have more children. I realized how much more we were taking on than a few more years of diapers or a few more years of sleepless nights. And when you think of having stewardship over even more people than your own family, it's easy to get a little gun-shy and start to think, "I can't afford to care about any more people! It's too hard and there's too much potential for heartache!" But it's also clear that "the portion of mankind God has given us to love and serve" can constitute an important part of our individual traction-giving load (the "joyful burden of discipleship" I was just writing about recently)—if we accept it and choose to carry it willingly.
It also seems clear that carrying our load, whatever it is, with Jesus, will instantly give us more traction. Elder Bednar says,
"In essence, the Savior is beckoning us to rely upon and pull together with Him, even though our best efforts are not equal to and cannot be compared with His. As we trust in and pull our load with Him during the journey of mortality, truly His yoke is easy and His burden is light."
I get a little frustrated with the idea of "share your burden with the Lord!" because it seems so nebulous HOW to do it! Just saying "I hereby cast my burden on the Lord!" doesn't work. But it's also probably simpler than it seems. Maybe we invite Him to share our load by telling Him about it in prayer. And we also do it by making covenants, as Elder Bednar explains here. Maybe sharing our burdens with Jesus also means trusting that already He is there bearing some of the weight, even when we can’t tell for sure because we still feel tired and heavy. I’m sure Jesus is already lightening my load in so many ways, but sometimes I don't appreciate it and thank Him.
Elder Bednar also says this:
As we are yoked with Him through sacred covenants and receive the enabling power of His Atonement in our lives, we increasingly will seek to understand and live according to His will. We also will pray for the strength to learn from, change, or accept our circumstances rather than praying relentlessly for God to change our circumstances according to our will.
That made me think about how we might gain "traction" while carrying our loads by deciding to act deliberately against the “natural man” and to surrender ease and comfort in favor of growth and knowledge. By thanking God for hard things. By trusting Him to turn all things for our good. By specifically asking the Elder Scott-ish questions of "What can I learn from this?" and "Is there more I can learn?" All those choices would lead us to more power through covenants, and therefore increase our ability to progress in becoming like God.
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