"Just Do It"

"Do the thing, and you will the power." -Ralph Waldo Emmerson

In my first blogpost, I talked about my compulsion to write and compared it to a calling from God, in the sense that I felt pulled to do it, so that I could not not do it and feel okay. I believe there are multiple thing like that in people's lives that they feel that just have to do. 

I'm not speaking of whimsical, fleeting fancies, or burning perverse obsessions. I'm talking about the things you feel you were meant to do, you just have to do. Maybe it's not your first choice, but it's what was "thrust upon you" (some have that). But in some way you have been prepared to do it, and though feebly, and though resistance and opposition within and without might combine to discourage or dissuade you from your task, there is some power some force, that enables you to believe, to move forward with faith, just enough, to take the next step and move onward.

In my church, we talk about callings. The Bishop, or the Prophet, someone in authority represents God, to call an individual for a time to serve in our lay (unpaid) ministry. There is a phrase associated with callings that is used often; it is: "magnify your calling". In the scriptures it is given as an instruction: “Magnify thine office.” (D&C 24:3). 

Thinking of the word "magnify" I used to consider the magnifying glass, or microscope, making things larger, expanding the light associated with the object, growing the light. I thought that it meant I had to do far better than the guy before me (the average calling in the church lasts probably 2 or so years, before one is released called elsewhere and another is called in their place). I thought it meant I had to somehow outsmart the menial tasks and common difficulties of the calling, and smash a home run out of the church parking lot. Sometimes I felt like I did this, and I received "the praise of men" and I had my "reward" as Jesus said of the one who pray and give gifts out of show "to be seen of men." Forgetting, "treasure's in heaven."

But, the spiral of negative consequences from misusing the Lord's calling didn't stop there...this kind of approach to church service (which bled into every effort of my life, or maybe it was the other way around), actually led me to a full on embracing and open mouth smooching of the "hustle culture," I've referred to before, that gave plenty of fuel for my addictive behaviors. 

"Hustling for self worth" as Brene Brown and my sponsor like to say. Its a treadmill of "success" and praise, and in order to maintain it, I need to impress and innovate and re-invent and invert my spine and supercharge my nerves and lose my sleep and cough up blood...and....and...I suppose one day I die.

President Monson, offered another definition of the term "magnify your calling." He said, "Magnifying your calling, simply means, to perform the duty that pertains to it." Or, in other words, "Just Do it". 

*Insert breathe.

Ha--

So, I think the magnifying is just as much about turning the results over to God, as it is about doing the work He has given. Like the boy who brought 5 loaves and 2 fishes to Jesus, with which the Lord fed 5000.

Mary, when called to be the mother of the Son of God said two things that embody this process, 1) "Behold the handmaid of the Lord," indicating her willingness to serve in the capacity in which she was called, and 2) "My soul doth magnify the Lord". She was willing to be a glass, a vessel for the light of God to shine through. She was not the light, but she chose to perform her duty with a pure heart, and God's glory shone through and was magnified through her.

Maybe you have been formally called to a ministry, maybe you have felt the whisperings, the inklings, the tingling's to do something (Mother, Father, student, doctor, writer, coach, accountant...). May I suggest you just do it, and offer a promise, a bet--my own personal experience and observation--that if you do, you will find your efforts are magnified. 

Here's a little story to illustrate.

The Teacher

by Elias Orrego

Arnold Aghast, exchanged glances with his bloated reflection in the dusty trophy cabinet of his office. There among the once shimmering volleyball and soccer tributes to a successful youth, sat the tired eyes and sagging cheeks of middle school science teacher that seemed to mutter, "I don't wanna be here."

"How did I get here?" He thought, as he slid his wood chair loudly with a stand, to drown out the laughter and nonsense of the motley pre-teen cacophony in the next room, just begging for him to raise his voice.

He rubbed his eyes as he slid his loafers along the yellowing wax floor, through the doorway that led to his lesson room. 

Crumpled paper, kids on desks, not in chairs. One student drew a doodle on the chalk board. Several had phones out. And the noise, noise, noise, noise. 

He picked up the chalk, cleared his throat. He wrote the date on the board, and began to write out the lesson title. Something about gravity.

He didn't yell. He pushed from his mind all the "why's" and "why me's". The "woe is me's" were too tired, they'd all had enough, and he did the only thing he could do.

He just wrote, and he talked. His reading, his thinking, his wonder of science came out, like a body of mass flying through space. Then, Newton's Third Law.

At some point the talking stopped. The throwing paper, the whispers, the texts.

Every eye was fixed.

Hands went up, hands were writing. Bums were in chairs and wheels in heads had centrifugal force.

By the time the bell rang, somethin happened. Nothing. He didn't know what happened no one moved...

And every face in the room seemed to stair back at him saying, "Teacher, keep teaching us."