I have been thinking a lot lately about an object lesson my friend Christina and I taught years ago at laurel camp.
The object lesson goes like this:
You have a jar that represents how much time you have in your day. Just like the jar; your day can only hold so much. You have a bunch of sand that represents all the secular activities you have to do that day: grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, a job, hobbies, etc. You also have a bunch of ping pong balls that represent spiritual things. If you try and put the sand in first and then put the ping pong balls in last, you find that you run out of space for all of the balls to fit. Put if you place the balls in the jar and then pour in the sand you find that you can fit both the balls and the sand in the bottle.
The take away from this object lesson is that if we make time for spiritual things first (i.e. reading scriptures, family prayer, personal prayer), then we can fit all the spiritual things and secular things we need to accomplish in our days. If we leave spiritual things until the end of the day, they often get crowded out by other things that are more urgent. Many times we find at 11:00p.m. that we are too tired to read our scriptures, or if we do, we find that we don’t receive a lot of benefit from them.
I admit to using repetitive phrases in my prayers and one of them is, “Please help me (or us) to have the Spirit today,” But lately I’ve changed it up a little, “Please help me to do the things today that will bring the Spirit.”
It seems like this has always been a constant struggle for me (But then again, who doesn’t struggle to keep up their personal spiritual study?) but it seems like it is even harder in China where there is just so much more to do. Trips to the grocery store are a 3 hour round trip, dishes have to be washed by hand, laundry takes longer, hardwood floors that have to be swept with the dust mop every other day. In truth I have struggled with personal study. But how desperately I need to do the things that keep the Spirit with me, especially at a time when my church calling prevents me from attending Relief Society or Sunday School. At a time in my life where I don’t get to associate with Christians on a daily basis.
How can we expect to reflect the light of Christ to others if we aren’t replenishing our own stores of oil? For myself I feel a responsibility living in this land, to be a good example, but more than anything there is a joy and a peace that comes into my life by putting spiritual things first. My spiritual barometer has been falling lately and I need to “do the things that bring the Spirit”
