Elder Terence M. Vinson of the Presidency of the Seventy said in October 2019 general conference:
“Somewhat hidden in the Old Testament book of Haggai is a description of a group of people who could have used Elder Holland’s counsel. They got it wrong by not placing Christ at the center of their lives and their service. Haggai paints some thought-provoking word pictures as he reprimands these people for staying in their comfortable houses instead of building the Lord’s temple:
“Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste?
“Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.
“Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.
“Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.”1
Don’t you love those descriptions of the futility of prioritizing things of no eternal consequence above the things of God?
In a recent sacrament meeting I attended, a returned missionary quoted a father who summed up this idea perfectly when he said to his children, “What we need here is less Wi-Fi and more Nephi!”
Having lived in West Africa for five years, I saw plenty of examples of people prioritizing the gospel naturally and unashamedly. One such example is the name of a tire repair and wheel balancing business in Ghana. The owner has named it “Thy Will Alignment.”
We can feel enduring joy2 when our Savior and His gospel become the framework around which we build our lives. However, it’s so easy for that framework to become, instead, the things of the world, where the gospel sits as an optional extra or as simply attending church for two hours on Sundays. When this is the case, it is tantamount to putting our wages into “a bag with holes.”
Haggai is telling us to be committed—to be, as we say in Australia, “fair dinkum” about living the gospel. People are fair dinkum when they are what they say they are.
I learned a little about being fair dinkum and being committed by playing rugby. I learned that when I played my hardest, when I gave my all, my enjoyment of the game was greatest.
My favorite year of rugby was the year after high school. The team of which I was a member was both talented and committed. We were the champion team that year. However, one day we were to play a lowly ranked team, and after the game we all had dates to take to the big, annual college dance. I thought that because this would be an easy game, I should try to protect myself from injury so I would be able to enjoy the dance fully. In that game, we were not as committed in the hard contacts as we might have been, and we lost. To make things worse, I ended the match with a very swollen, fat lip that did not enhance my appearance for my big date. Perhaps I needed to learn something.
A very different experience occurred in a later game in which I was totally committed. At one point I ran with real intent into a contact; immediately I felt some pain in my face. Having been taught by my father that I should never let the opposition know if I was hurt, I continued to play out the game. That night, while trying to eat, I found that I couldn’t bite. The next morning, I went to the hospital, where an X-ray confirmed that my jaw was broken. My mouth was wired shut for the next six weeks.
Lessons were learned from this parable of the fat lip and the broken jaw. Despite my memories of unsatisfied cravings for solid food during the six weeks when I could ingest only liquids, I feel no regrets about my broken jaw because it resulted from my giving my all. But I do have regrets about the fat lip because it symbolized my holding back.
Giving our all doesn’t mean that we will be continually enveloped in blessings or always have success. But it does mean that we will have joy. Joy is not fleeting pleasure or even temporary happiness. Joy is enduring and is founded on our efforts being accepted by the Lord.
An example of such acceptance is the story of Oliver Granger. As President Boyd K. Packer stated: “When the Saints were driven from Kirtland, … Oliver was left behind to sell their properties for what little he could. There was not much chance that he could succeed. And, really, he did not succeed!”4 He had been commissioned by the First Presidency to do a task that was difficult, if not impossible. But the Lord commended him for his apparently unsuccessful efforts in these words:
“I remember my servant Oliver Granger; behold . . . For Elder Vinsin’s complete talk, click. . . ‘True Disciples of the Savior.
