Rather than try to catch up on everything... I've decided just to start from where we are. While we've been away we had a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas, celebrated lots of birthdays (mine and Jack's 5th included!) had amazing fun with cub scouts, primary girls, family and friends, and kicked off a beautiful New Year.
I got a new class in primary and am now teaching the 10 year olds. We're also meeting at 10am which is WONDERFUL!! My kids aren't still half asleep, there's time for breakfast and we get such a crowd that we've had to open the cultural hall for the last two weeks just to accommodate everyone. It's a good feeling.
I was assigned last to give my first "talk/speech" as an adult today. After much contemplation of staying home sick and a resignation not to trip or puke on the podium, I showed up, smiled, and did my thing :)
It's long as all heck but as I'm obviously going to frame it and plaster it to my wall I figured I do the same thing on the web. Just riding the high of not sucking too bad ;)
PLEASE don't feel obligated to read it... but if you want too, here ya go. Don't mind the spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes... and imagine a completely cool, calm and collected me (which is better than the sweaty palmed, high heel shifting, nervous giggle me). I'm not fishing for anything here, just wanted to share <3
My name is Sister Booth. To be honest, last week in my primary class I was encouraging my kids to try and be courageous this year and get up here to bear their testimonies. Because it’s easier to share your testimony with a room full of people who believe mostly what you believe than to share it with one person who has no idea what a testimony even is…
We were discussing how public speaking is still public speaking and for some of us (even though I can go on and on when I don’t have a microphone and a room full of reverent eyes watching me) it is pretty intimidating to get up here. I think I’d said something along the lines of “I’m always worried that I’m going to trip on the stairs or something” when Brother Tuia came in to hand me my envelope… I didn’t even know what it was a little worried. Then he told me it was a speaking assignment… then I got a lot a bit worried. But what a way to set an example for my class than to get up here, happily (not having tripped on my way up to the stand) and share a message that will hopefully touch your heart in some way.
I opened my invitation when we got home from church last week and read the topic that had been given to me, it said, “Yoke is easy, Burden is light”. I had zero clue what that meant so I googled it.
I found that it had nothing to do with eggs but was in fact a well-known scripture. Matthew 11:28-30 “28, Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29, Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30, For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
That sounded so wonderful and comforting to me. Until I realized that my basic interpretation of, “Jesus, who is gentle and humble in heart, is willing to bear my troubles for me because loves me” was so surface. I mean, it sounded great but what did it really mean, to me anyway?
To love and trust in God fully and 100% seems super hard! In the scriptures, people are constantly asked to do things that are hard if not impossible even at times sounding reckless: David, here’s a rock, go kill that giant. Lehi, leave your nice house and go live in the woods with your whole family. I’ll tell you where you’re going later. Pacifist Ammonite mothers, send your young sons to war. Although he never guarantees our safety or comfort or even respectability, he asked that we put our faith in him and follow where he leads.
There is another scripture in Matthew 6:33 “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”. There you have it, Seek ye first the kingdom of God and HIS righteousness. We are called to do what God asks us to do regardless of the cost and we must trust that he’ll cover us.
Know that God wants you to accept a calling that you think is time consuming and hard? Take it, know that it is his will and trust that God will cover you. Know God wants you to help someone who needs money to get their car fixed? Then give them your money and trust that HE will cover you. Know that you are commanded to tithe 10% but don’t know how you’ll afford that trip to Best Buy without that extra little bit of cash? Then pay your tithing because as much as you like your neighbor across the street to be able to see what you’re watching on your giant TV, know that you also like to have a place to worship and you like the air conditioning on those July Sundays, plus, it has been commanded of us and he will cover you. Seek first God’s kingdom, always and in all things, regardless of the cost because God will cover you.
Now, wherein the problem lies is that, infallibly there is a cost. There is suffering involved. Sometimes it seems like He’s not doing His part. You miss dinner with your family or a school play or a baseball game. Your own car suddenly breaks down, or the air conditioning is broken this week… And you begin to think that maybe you’ve just been foolish and that God isn’t really going to cover you. Maybe the Lord’s way is just too hard. But Life is hard, not the gospel.
Here is where the yoke comes into play. What is a yoke? It’s this device for joining together a pair of pulling animals, like oxen, that usually consists of a crosspiece with two bow-shaped pieces, each enclosing the head of an animal. Or it is a frame fitting the neck and shoulders of a person allowing them to carry weight on either side. Wow, sounds pretty heavy, impeding, overwhelming.
In Matthew 11:25 which is just a few verses prior it says, “At the time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou has hid these things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes.” Children. It comes down to a child like trust in HIM. Not believing in this person or that person, because they seem so smart. But believing in our Heavenly Father as a child trusts his dad, because it’s what we do.
This burden, this yoke? It has been relieved from us. When we’ve taken on the yoke of Christ, we find that it is surprisingly light. Even in the midst of disaster, we can have faith that The Lord is in charge. There is a bigger plan at work here. You trust, you don’t despair, or curse him or your lot. Allow the love of our Savior to work and instead of anxiety you will find peace. We know we can and should do this, the scriptures tell us so.
But then you begin to question if you really should be giving up so much of your burden, should I really just back up and put all of my trust in him? Am I really at peace or am I just in denial. Do I even deserve this? I know he loves me but can he really take on all of my troubles and sorrow?
Like the oxen we are trained to pull under the weight. So there we are, used to the tugging and straining and leaning into our heavy load and then Jesus comes by and gives us his yoke, but it feels amiss and it’s throwing us off BECAUSE it is so easy and light. So many times, we slip on our old yokes because while painful, they seem to fit.
Then all of us who have taken back those yokes, sit and worry like everyone else. And we live like everyone else because God can’t really think I’d be able to go there or do that… He knows how burdensome my yoke is already. He’ll save those tasks for the super worthy saints and missionaries, not someone like me who is trying her best to stay out of trouble. It seems the standard of HIS life is so astonishingly high that it seems unreachable, too hard, too high and beyond our capacity.
But Jesus’ yoke IS easy, and his burden IS light. Come unto HIM and he WILL give us rest. That’s a good thing too because there’s no way we’d be able to do all of the things that our Father in Heaven wants us to do or go where he wants us to go carrying our own heavy yokes. When we are willing to trade that worry and sorrow for peace and joy and willing to give up our respectability and safety for gentleness and humility, then can we trust that He will cover us, and he will.
To do this goes against what the world sees as normal. Why are you peaceful during these turbulent times? How is your tree not rocking back and forth like the others during this storm? Brothers and sisters, I know it sounds hard to make sense of but consider this scripture found in 1 Corinthians 1:25 “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men”. Doesn’t have to make perfect sense to us to be perfect and of God.
Psalms 55:22 Cast thy burden upon the lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. Righteous is the key word there. We can’t just assume that we can make all these imprudent decisions and then when the road gets rough, ask Jesus to take the wheel only to grab it back when we think he’s navigated through the worst of it. It’s important that we constantly remember that we need to do our part. If we do our part, he will be there for us, offering his yoke, lightening our load.
We must remember to ask. Keep that constant line of communication open and available. Philippians 4:6 says, “Be careful for nothing; (meaning don’t be unduly concerned about anything) but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
Most of you know that my Husband joined the church this summer and in that move, brought me back into a fold that had not forgotten my name and brought my family that much closer to life eternal together. When he, well we really as I’d been inactive for 10 years, began learning of the Church with the missionaries I nervously awaited the inevitable lesson on tithing. Always an incredibly hard worker, my husband loved his money and we enjoyed all the things that it afforded us.
We work for ourselves so when work is good, money is good and almost everything seems good but when it’s slow things get really tight and stressful. Work this past summer was crazy slow we were unused to the stark reduction of income. I stressfully anticipated certain tension as I began to feel my own foreboding feelings set in. I was trying to figure out which bill I’d be able to push should we be unable to make a payment. As his baptism neared, he asked me one Sunday morning, “Are you going to write the tithing check or should I?” In everything that was happening I surely wasn’t expecting him to bring that up.
I told him that he was new and that we didn’t have to jump right in to everything. Especially tithing. We could ease into things, people would understand.
My husband looked at me and said, “Baby, I’m in this for good. If we’re going to do something we’re in it to win it. It’s no good shooting for second place.” At that moment, I realized that it hadn’t been His willingness to pay tithing that I’d been worried about. It had been my own. It was easy to masquerade my feelings of doubt and fear to myself as my Husbands, until he called me on it and there went the smoke screen. I wrote it, we paid it and God covered us. In that time of trouble for us financially, the usual irritability coupled with our standard petulant behavior with one another was noticeably absent. We had an opportunity to really focus on the spiritual things that we were learning. Embrace our callings and continue our growth together. My husband, although not knowing one bit about who Matthew of the New Testament was let alone Matthew 11:30 had accepted Jesus’ yoke and had traded in his burden for faith and peace.
His example to me is contagious. Though I didn’t expect him to offer up his yoke to Christ until we were old and gray, I’m so happy that he decided to shine my way back to a God that will always cover me.
Brothers and Sisters, I have a strong testimony that if we will continue to learn of Jesus Christ, humble ourselves and do what we are called to do that God will cover us. Life is hard but life is simple. You never give up. You just keep going. You don’t quit, and you will make it. I will try to take his yoke willingly for he is the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but through him. And that is exactly where I am trying to go.
I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.
