Marathons

Thursday, April 17, 2008

9/13/03
Stake Conference
Stake Conference General Session:

Key message: Endure to End and you’ll reap joys unknown.
Call to Action:
Key objectives:
Key Topics:
Set your expectations for the long haul.
Make and keep commitments
Live one step at a time – but remember the overall picture.
Enjoy the Moment

Introduction
Last month we had a spiritual feast in this building. We had over 200 of the finest young men and women to live in this dispensation, fill these classrooms, play in these fields, and bear testimonies in this gymnasium.

It was a wonderful experience for all who participated. I want to share with you the theme from that the youth conference and some thoughts that I gathered as we spoke about the theme - …’endure to the end’.


Examples of Endurance:
Would everyone who has ever run a marathon please stand.

Take a look at these people. These are people with wills of iron, who have learned what it takes to seek after a goal and achieve it.

You don’t just decide that you want to run 26.2 miles and then go do it. It requires daily runs – short runs, then progressively longer runs, until after several months of development they run a long extended runs including a 22 miler as preparation. By time you run your 26.2 miles in the race, most of these people have run over 500 miles in preparation. That’s a lot of mileage on your own 2 feet with no one else around to watch you or drive you.

Other people have endured great preparations…how about King’s peak? I won’t ask everyone to stand, but this is the highest peak in Utah. It is a huge effort. We have a Bishop in the Stake who took his son and climbed Kilamanjero. I got to see the kind of preparation and endurance it took to get ready for that hike. They hiked Kings several times, then Nebo, Lone, Twin and most every tall peak in Utah, in snow etc. to prepare. But after enduring the preparation – they were ready and had a successful climb.

We need to learn from their experiences, and from experiences of our own – how to endure. How to stay focused and keep moving toward a goal, even when it is painful, when it is discouraging, and when it doesn’t feel like we can ever accomplish it. Because this is the key to eternal life – enduring to the end.

What is enduring to the end?
‘Endurance’ sounds like it means, to outlast our existing challenges. For example, just hanging in there during the race so you finish the race. In one sense that’s true. When you endure to the end, you outlast the initial challenges.

But just as these runners have done, enduring to the end, is not just coexisting with trials, it is starting where you are in your preparation, and then on a daily, regular basis reaching higher to accomplish just a little more than you did the day before. It is more than just doing what you’re doing and doing it a little longer. It is doing just a little more than you are currently capable of doing, in an effort to achieve.

No one makes you run a marathon. It is something you choose to do because you ‘want’ to take on the challenge.

So it is in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Endurance to the end, is more than just coexisting with the challenge of being LDS. It is a constantly reaching higher until we have become like unto Christ – until we have become perfect. Can there be a greater goal? Can there be a higher reach than this? This desire to accomplish the greatest goal of all should be the driving force behind our living challenging gospel principles in a world of unreal liberal looseness.

Every great goal we accomplish requires that we start by voluntarily reaching a little higher, trying a little harder, stretching a little farther, and going a little longer. It is during the second mile, when we are in our extremity, that the greatest blessings of the Lord come to us.

How do we Endure?
4 key things enable us to keep moving.

1. SET YOUR EXPECTATIONS FOR THE LONG HAUL
When runners start out each morning on their daily jog – they accept the fact that there will be some pain, some discomfort, and some moments that will not be fun…so they set their sober faces on, and go out come rain or shine, wind or calm. what…they just keep going, knowing that they’re willing to sacrifice comfort, fun, and excitement – for a goal much bigger than the fun of the moment.

We must accept the fact that life is not supposed to be one huge win after another. One huge stimulating experience after another. There are days when you will be bored. There are mists of darkness that you have to push your way through. There are days which are not going to be ‘the best day of your life’. Days which you just learn to accept and move onward.

Putt not drop quote by President Hinkley

Brothers and Sisters – we live in a world that continually drills into us that we should be over-stimulated and constantly entertained. This kind of mentality doesn’t encourage endurance. It encourages change. If you’re not happy, change your life…redefine yourself. Get a new hairstyle, new car, new spouse, new job, new family, new whatever it takes to be happy. Change is good if you’re changing things which bring sorrow. But there are somethings that have a growthlife of years and decades and generations, and if you change those things before they bear fruit, you lose.

The philosophy of the world says “Life is too short to waste it doing things that don’t make you happy.” What kind of nonsense is this? Actually, in an eternal sense, “Life is way too long to destroy it making choices which uproot your greatest opportunities for joy and happiness in the long run…before they get a chance to bloom.” Some of our greatest joys will come from work which doesn’t bear fruit immediately. The greatest, deepest joys come with years, decades, and even generations of work.

The joys of marriage are just beginning when the kids are born. If you abandon that marriage then the joys that come with raising them, helping them throughout their lives, enjoying grandkids etc. is gone.

The joys of gospel living are just beginning when we get baptized or when we go to the temple. If you abandon those covenants , then the joys that come with a lifetime of gospel living and gospel service are lost.

Don’t look for October Corn in July or you will grow tired of watering and weeding the garden.
Set your expectation that you are geared for the long run so you can reap the eternal rewards that come from eternal fruits.

2. Make commitments (Make Covenants)
One of the things that keeps many runners going out every day is to remember the commitments they made to compete. They sign up and pay money to compete. They book a hotel and plan travel. They get involved with other runners who also want to participate with the expectation they would do it together. They let others know they are preparing. These kinds of commitments make it very hard to back out - making it much easier to continue even when it is difficult.

Every Sunday when we partake of the sacrament – we need to remember what we’ve covenanted to do. To keep his commandments. To honor our marriage covenants. To strengthen our family. To avoid addictive behaviors. To perform our church callings. To forgive those who have hurt us. To go to the Temple. And so on.

We don’t make these covenants to the Stake President or to the Bishop of the Ward. . We don’t make these covenants to our neighbors. We don’t even make them solely to our spouses and children. We make our covenant promises to the God of Heaven and Earth. To the same being who makes the sun to rise and set. To the only person who knows you better than you know yourself, and the only person who sees whether you keep those covenants or not. Also he is the only one who can help you keep those sacred covenants when the times get tough.

Be humble as you approach these covenants. Recognize as King Benjamin told his people the key to endurance or the key to retain a remission of sins is to ‘remember the greatness of God and your own nothingness.’

As we honor and worship the Greatness of God and humbly accept our own nothingness before him, will we honor our covenants with enough intensity to keep us working when the going gets tough. Only then will the covenants we have made have the power to save us. We will work harder to keep our promises to God when we recognize the power and the greatness of God. We will accept his will for us, and we will be led down the path of joy.

As the president of the Las Vegas temple said, ‘We only have one choice in life – either ‘my will be done’ or ‘thy will be done’. We choose.


Pray. Pray for strength to Endure. Pray for commitment to continue to reach higher. Pray to recognize the greatness of god in our everyday lives..


Live day to day – but remember the big picture
When a runner heads out and starts to prepare for a marathon, I am told that they can’t think about the magnitude of what they are trying to accomplish. If they start out thinking that they are going to run 26 miles, then when they run that first ½ mile and feel like dying, then they will immediately give up…knowing that the goal is unreachable.

But instead if they will set a goal of each day increasing – by just a little bit – their performance. Then slowly, after weeks and months, they start running longer and longer runs until finally after many months of work they accomplish what was once felt to be impossible.

This requires patience of unbelievable proportions. It also requires that the desire to reach higher is always driving you.

The same is true in living gospel principles. For example - loving someone who is unloveable – maybe even an enemy…may seem impossible at first. But if you work on just getting through the day. And then day after day you reach a little higher – sacrificing for them, giving to them. Over time, you will be amazed at the love you have developed for one who you once believed you could only hate.

You suffer, but learn from your suffering so that you will be able to endure the next trial even better.

“Have patience – In time even grass becomes milk”. Charan Singh – mystic

Be at peace – be still and know that he is God. Know that his will will be done and you’re a servant to make it so.

Remember to Enjoy the moment
As a runner, you accept the fact that every moment is not going to be fun. BUT – if you can get a wonderful experience every so often – a new vista – see a friend on the side of the road – a pause for a drink of gaterade - note that your times are better than you expected…then it makes the challenging times endurable.

This happens in life all the time. Sweet experiences can make a thousand sour experiences bearable.

My son on a mission in Spain where there is very little teaching wrote:
1 – Blaine’s experience
2 – Rosey Pushing Holly

Remember these Kodak moments. Pray for these moments. Pray that you’ll appreciate those moments. Because in the doldrums of everyday life, we too often look past slow life and see the excitement of fast-paced living and think we’re missing something. The only thing we’re missing is the sheer joy which comes when we are still and know God.’

Each moment find something to be grateful for. Pray for a grateful heart. It can be something as simple as a sunset or as wonderful as a hornet’s nest in a tree.

Albert Einstein said, ‘there are only two ways to live life, one is as though everything is a miracle, the other is as though nothing is a miracle.’

Develop the ability to see everything around you as a miracle – a gift from God.


I AM THANKFUL FOR…

THE TEENAGER WHO IS NOT DOING DISHES BUT IS WATCHING TV,
BECAUSE THAT MEANS HE/SHE IS AT HOME AND NOT ON THE STREETS.

FOR THE MESS TO CLEAN AFTER A PARTY, BECAUSE IT MEANS THAT
I HAVE BEEN SURROUNDED BY FRIENDS.

FOR THE CLOTHES THAT FIT A LITTLE TOO SNUG, BECAUSE IT
MEANS I HAVE ENOUGH TO EAT.

FOR A LAWN THAT NEEDS MOWING, WINDOWS THAT NEED CLEANING,
AND GUTTERS THAT NEED FIXING, BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE A HOME.

FOR ALL THE COMPLAINING I HEAR ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT,
BECAUSE IT MEANS THAT WE HAVE FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

FOR THE PARKING SPOT I FIND AT THE FAR END OF THE PARKING
LOT, BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM CAPABLE OF WALKING AND THAT I HAVE BEEN BLESSED WITH TRANSPORTATION.

FOR MY HUGE HEATING BILL, BECAUSE IT MEANS I CAN STAY WARM.

FOR THE LADY BEHIND ME IN CHURCH THAT SINGS OFF KEY, BECAUSE IT MEANS THAT I CAN HEAR.

FOR THE PILE OF LAUNDRY AND IRONING, BECAUSE IT MEANS I
HAVE CLOTHES TO WEAR.

FOR WEARINESS AND ACHING MUSCLES AT THE END OF THE DAY,
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE BEEN CAPABLE OF WORKING HARD.

FOR THE ALARM THAT GOES OFF IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS,
BECAUSE IT MEANS THAT I AM ALIVE.

AND FINALLY.......

FOR PEOPLE WHO BRING PROBLEMS TO ME AND ASK ME TO HELP, BECAUSE IT MEANS THAT I AM VALUED.


Another virtue we need to develop to enjoy the moment is a sweet SENSE OF HUMOR:
A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs—jolted by every pebble in the road. –Henry Ward Beecher, preacher and writer (1813-1887)
A stake president’s call is for nearly 10 years. Most of us complain when we’re called to a challenging calling thinking that it might last a year or two. Do you ever wonder how he endures? He has a great sense of humor is one of his keys….President Smith told us - ‘I am not in charge of the affairs of this stake.”
President Smith gave us a thought at Stake Presidency – “Money”
A couple drove several miles down a country road, not saying a word. An earlier discussion had led to an argument, and neither wanted to concede their position. As they passed a barnyard of mules and pigs, the wife sarcastically asked, "Relatives of yours?" "Yep," the husband replied, "In-laws."
Humor can lift even the most discouraged heart. When I was a little boy living in Kansas City, my neighbor’s son went through an ugly divorce and was forced to move back home. He was discouraged and depressed for weeks – never smiling or finding any reason to laugh. On Christmas morning his parents asked him to take their annual Christmas present over to our house. Since the dad worked for pepsi it was a huge case of pepsi-cola. In our home you never drank cola products because of the caffeine. But he didn’t know that – we always took the cola products down to a store and exchanged it for something else. So on this particular Christmas morning the divorcee brought the pepsi to our house. I was about 6 years aold and answered the door. When he handed me the pepsi – I said, ‘Oh brother – Mom and Dad here’s that pepsi again – I guess we’ll have to take it back again this year.’ He laughed all the way home, and his parents commented later that it was the best thing for him as it lifted the darkness that had kept him down for so many weeks.
Enjoying a sense of humor is different than being filled with lightmindedness or loud laughter, which is something we’re commanded to avoid.

Lightmindedness and loud laughter imply a total abandonment of personal responsibility. It implies an intoxication or loss of control of the passion to do what’s right. It implies a lack of soberness.

We are commanded in over 50 places in the scriptures to be sober. This sobriety includes remembering the importance of obedience and of doing the will of God. There’s a difference between being somber and being sober. By being sober, we can approach the mist of darkness with firmness of mind and know that while we can’t see, we will emerge victorious the other side.

No one is going to come up and hand you a victory marathon. That will only come when you decide you’re going to accomplish it. It’s going to rain. It’s going to be hard. But if you realize that it’s still your goal and your accomplishment for the taking.

The same is true in life. Joy in life doesn’t come when some magic joy fairy appears and delivers it. Joy will come to those who overcome the problems that the world throws at them. Some people want to blame their enemies for their problems. Others want to blame their friends kids on their problems. Others want to blame their addictions for their problems. Others want to blame the system for their problems. Only when we are able to see these things as challenges to overcome and continue to own our own success rather than hand it off, will we have strength to keep going.


School Voice Message Menu

Hello! You have reached the automated answering service of your school In order to assist you in connecting to the right staff member, please listen to all options before making a selection:

To lie about why your child is absent - Press 1 .
To make excuses for why your child did not do his work – Press 2
To complain about what we do - Press 3
To cuss out staff members - Press 4
To ask why you didn't get needed information that was already enclosed in your newsletter and several bulletins mailed to you - Press 5
If you want us to raise your child - Press 6
If you want to reach out and touch, slap or hit someone - Press 7
To request another teacher for the third time this year - Press 8
To complain about bus transportation - Press 9
To complain about school lunches - Press 0
If you realize this is the real world and your child must be accountable/responsible for his/her own behaviour, classwork, homework, and that it is NOT the teacher's fault for your child(ren)'s lack of effort -

HANG UP and HAVE A NICE DAY!!!

Some have come to the point where they want to blame God for their problems. The truth is, life is tough. It is not fair. But God is here to help you endure the trials– he is not the cause of your trials.

Remember to endure the way runners endure – they continually reach higher.

If we do this consistently, year after year, decade after decade, always doing what we’ve committed to do, w will discover that small victories are very rewarding – and we’ll gain great confidence that we can endure.

I believe that many members of this Stake are today enduring huge trials. And that many have accepted huge challenges to improve their families, to improve their homes, and to improve themselves. I have a testimony that as we bring the Lord into our lives to help us endure – and to reach higher – that we will be able to gain that confidence that nothing can overcome us with His love. And this confidence is the Peace of which we’ve been commanded to develop.

May each of us evaluate our lives, and find a way to reach higher this day– and then continue in the process of enduring to the End.


The best cure for worry, depression, melancholy, brooding, is to go
deliberately forth and try to lift with one's sympathy the gloom of
somebody else. -Arnold Bennett, novelist (1867-1931)
The road uphill and the road downhill are one and the same. -Heraclitus,
philosopher (Ca. 540-470 BCE)



Reach out and help someone else along the path. To Read When You're Alone
By Mike Staver
I was 13 years old. My family had moved to Southern California from North Florida a year before. I hit adolescence with a vengeance. I was angry and rebellious, with little regard for anything my parents had to say, particularly if it had to do with me. Like so many teenagers, I struggled to escape from anything that didn't agree with my picture of the world. A "brilliant without need of guidance" kid, I rejected any overt offering of love. In fact, I got angry at the mention of the word love.
One night, after a particularly difficult day, I stormed into my room, shut the door and got into bed. As I lay down in the privacy of my bed, my hands slipped under my pillow. There was an envelope. I pulled it out and on the envelope it said, "To read when you're alone."
Since I was alone, no one would know whether I read it or not, so I opened it. It said "Mike, I know life is hard right now, I know you are frustrated and I know we don't do everything right. I also know that I love you completely and nothing you do or say will ever change that. I am here for you if you ever need to talk, and if you don't, that's okay. Just know that no matter where you go or what you do in your life, I will always love you and be proud that you are my son. I'm here for you and I love you - that will never change. Love, Mom."
That was the first of several "To read when you're alone" letters. They were never mentioned until I was an adult.
Today I travel the world helping people. I was in Sarasota, Florida, teaching a seminar when, at the end of the day, a lady came up to me and shared the difficulty she was having with her son. We walked out to the beach, and I told her of my mom's undying love and about the "To read when you're alone" letters. Several weeks later, I got a card that said she had written her first letter and left it for her son.
That night as I went to bed, I put my hands under my pillow and remembered the relief I felt every time I got a letter. In the midst of my turbulent teen years, the letters were the calm assurance that I could be loved in spite of me, not because of me. Just before I fell asleep I thanked God that my mom knew what I, an angry teenager, needed. Today when the seas of life get stormy, I know that just under my pillow there is that calm assurance that love - consistent, abiding, unconditional love - changes lives.


Don’t look in the world for joy and love. Look in the spirit for those things, and you will find it.

Subject: CHILD INVESTMENT
I have seen repeatedly the breakdown of the cost of raising a child,
but this is the first time I have seen the rewards listed this way.
It's nice, really nice!!

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from
birth to 18 and came up with $160,140 for a middle income family.
Talk about sticker shock! That doesn't even touch college tuition.
For those with kids, that figure leads to wild fantasies about all the
money we could have banked if not for (insert your child's name
here). For others, that number might confirm the decision to remain
childless.
But $160,140 isn't so bad if you break it down. It translates into
$8,896.66 a year, $741.38 a month, or $171.08 a week. That's a mere
$24.44 a day! Just over a dollar an hour. Still, you might think the
best financial advice says don't have children if you want to be
"rich".
It is just the opposite. What do your get for your $160,140?
Naming rights. First, middle, and last!
Glimpses of God every day.
Giggles under the covers every night.
More love than your heart can hold.
Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.
Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.
A hand to hold, usually covered with jam.
A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kites, building sand castles,
and skipping down the sidewalk in the pouring rain.
Someone to laugh yourself silly with no matter what the boss said or
how your stocks performed that day.
For $160,140, you never have to grow up.
You get to finger-paint, carve pumpkins, play hide-and-seek, catch
lightning bugs, and never stop believing in Santa Claus.
You have an excuse to keep: reading the Adventures of Piglet and
Pooh, watching Saturday morning cartoons, going to Disney movies, and
wishing on stars.
You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator
magnets and collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand
prints set in clay for Mother's Day, and cards with backward letters
for Father's Day.
For $160,140, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a
hero just for retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof, taking the
training wheels off the bike, removing a splinter, filling the wading
pool, coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and coaching a baseball team
that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.
You get a front row seat to history to witness the first step, first
word, first bra, first date, and first time behind the wheel. You get
to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and
if you are lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called
grandchildren.
You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice,
communications, and human sexuality that no college can match.
In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there with God.
You have all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters
under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground
them forever, and love them without limits, so one day they will, like
you, love without counting the cost.
Enjoy your kids and grandkids!!!!!!!!!

.


I have noticed that the people who are late are often
so much jollier than the people who have to wait for them.