Elder Richard L. Evans wrote:
Here is a simple statement of the law of harvest, of the law of return: “Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.” (Eccl. 11:1) In plain inelegant language, it is the law of putting something into something before we expect to get something out of something.
Basically, unselfish giving, working, serving, is in a sense an enlightened sort of selfishness, for it carries with it the charity of the certainty of receiving. But the one who tightly withholds self, who seeks altogether to “save” self, that effort, that energy, to get without giving, to hold tightly to everything will undoubtedly, as any miser must, be found among the most impoverished of people as to the things that matter most.
It is trite to say so, but still inescapably true, that “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” (Gal. 6:7) And we should not expect to have a harvest without working and waiting; we should not expect to receive dividends without saving and investing—nor to acquire a skill without practice, nor knowledge without study, nor reward without work. We must not expect friends without offering friendship, nor kindness without giving kindness, nor understanding without offering understanding—and we must be ready to give first, and not expect others always to make the first move. In other words, we must be willing to put in before we expect to get out. And the attitude of holding back, never making the first move, of “saving” ourselves in a stingy way, constitutes a kind of stifling stalemate.
Someone has to have faith, and the willingness to wait—faith enough to put in the fuel before the wheels begin to go, faith enough to save and invest before the dividends come due, faith enough, and foresight and wisdom and understanding and kindness and hospitality, and bigness of heart to make the first move in friendship, in love, in service, and even in common courtesy.
Someone has to have faith in another, faith in the future, faith enough to learn, to work, to save, to invest, to wait—faith enough to give of one’s self before getting. And as surely as the law of return, the law of compensation operates, and assuredly it does: “Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days”**—with an increase of it also. ~Richard L. Evans, Thoughts for One Hundred Days (Publishers Press: Salt Lake City, 1966), 107-8 (language modernized)
** Elder LeGrand Richards (deceased) modified this as: “Cast thy bread upon the waters and it shall return unto thee buttered and jammed.”
