While moving forward in life many people wonder when they will find a time to sit down and take a moment to connect with God. Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teach that the Lord expects effort on our part and that while spiritual things may take work, that work is part of helping us become more like God and Jesus Christ.
“There is just something about that principle of work, President Nelson has mentioned several times that God loves effort and I think that we just need to roll up our sleeves and figure out how we can best do work of all different types,” said Jason Flora, the Humanities and Philosophy Department chair at BYU-Idaho, in an interview with BYU-Idaho Radio.
In Flora’s devotional talk titled “We Each Have Work To Do!” he spoke on the importance of work in shaping us into better people.
“Work has always entailed intentional effort or exertion on the part of our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, and so it must be with us in our journey to become more like Them. To bring about God’s perfect plan for each of us, as His literal spirit children, surely we must continue to undergo the mortal and ofttimes painful process of being ‘hammered,’ ‘scraped,’ ‘pressed,’ and ‘stretched’ in order that He might ‘fashion’ us into that ‘useful or desired product,’” Flora said.
Often, members of The Church of Jesus Christ hear the words of Church President Russel M. Nelson as he admonishes them to hasten the work of the Lord. Hastening the work starts with hastening ourselves in doing the work.
“Consequently, much of our current work should be focused on increasing our personal spiritual strength and speed,” Flora said.
Flora ended with some points on how we can advance our spirituality and strengthen ourselves to hasten the work of The Lord through increasing our capacity to receive revelation, letting God prevail in our lives, and choosing to repent daily as we strive to listen to the words of The Lord consciously and consistently.
You can listen to his full devotional address here.