Hello, brothers and sisters. I’m going to talk about "Let your light so shine". This comes from the scripture Matthew 5:16, which reads: "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." You may recall that, two years ago, President Thomas S. Monson had given a talk in General Conference about this, and linked it with another scripture, which is actually one of my favorites: 1 Timothy 4:12. This says, "...be an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity." Both of these make it pretty clear how to let this light shine: by doing service and being an example. But what, exactly, is this light?
For this answer, I decided I actually wanted to try reading a different talk, as well, and found one by Robert D. Hales from back in 2002, called "Out of Darkness Into His Marvelous Light". Here, he explains that the light we should be letting shine is one that "each of us brings ... to the earth, the Light of Christ." We know this by these scriptures in D&C 93:2--"And that I am the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world" and D&C 88:11-13--"And the light which shineth, which giveth you light, is through him who enlighteneth your eyes ... Which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space—The light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things..." I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty incredible to me. This light of Christ is literally from Him and is a piece of everyone and everything. It is what gives us life.
So that’s cool, but let’s go back to how we’re supposed to make the light of Christ within us shine. I think we hear a lot about being an example in church, but it's hard to think of the right way to go about it sometimes. Hopefully, by the end of this, what we're really being asked to do is a little clearer.
However, to do that, I'm going to talk about something totally random: the Olympics.
See, this talk that Hales gave was just a couple months after the Winter Olympics were held in Salt Lake City, so back then, it was the right year and time of year to talk about them, which he did a little bit of at the very beginning. I'll just read that for you: "Throughout the Olympics there have been many expressions of light, such as the Olympic flame; the child of light; and the theme, ‘Light the Fire Within.’ Perhaps the most memorable light was found in the eyes of the competitors themselves. But what moved us most was not the competition or the spectacle. It was the deeper truth these things symbolized—the source of the light within each of us." Okay, I'll be honest, I didn't really know what he was talking about at the beginning because I've pretty much never watched the Olympics, but I had a feeling of where he was going with it. The light within the competitors, the light within all of us-- "Oh, maybe he'll continue with saying something like we need to exercise our faith like a dedicated athlete practices their sport!" Turns out the Olympics thing ended there... But what he said later still goes along a similar line as my train of thought, so I was getting close.
Hales really continued on with saying this: "Light and darkness cannot occupy the same space at the same time. ... When light is present, darkness is vanquished and must depart. More importantly, darkness cannot conquer light unless the light is diminished or departs." What this translates to is that the light of Christ and the Holy Ghost, when present, can and will make Satan and all his different influences leave. What this is contingent on, though, is how strong the light is. The way to make darkness depart is to "learn to generate that light each day by believing on Jesus Christ and following His commandments". By doing this, you are also "learn[ing] to claim the protective light of the gospel as your own". On the flip side, Hales also said, “Unless you are fully engaged in living the gospel—living it with all of your ‘heart, might, mind and strength’—you cannot generate enough spiritual light to push back the darkness.”
Alright, now let's pretend we all love the Olympics, we all love sports, and we don't hate working out. Not just that, let's pretend we're all Olympic athletes for a moment. The sport we've all chosen to work at, whether skiing, swimming, gymnastics, running--is very, very important to us. It is not just our career, but our life. Being a world-class athlete takes a lot of determination and dedication, and you've got to work at that sport daily if you want to compete. There's no "Nah, I'll skip out on practice on the weekends", because you can very quickly lose your progress the moment you take too much of a break. If you do, before long, you'll realize your endurance has dropped, you're forgetting what you're supposed to do next and how to do it, and you've stuck yourself in a rut. If your practice is infrequent, and you are not taking care of yourself, you are not at your prime. Without enough work, you can't be in the Olympics anymore. Without making sure you are doing your very best, always, the light within the competitors' eyes that Hales talked about fades away.
That felt like a thoroughly depressing thing I just made all of you Olympic athletes imagine, but it really does happen, in sports and in our spirituality. When we are feeding and exercising our faith and trying to do our best, we can maintain our testimony and make it stronger. We are making the light within us shine brightest when we live and breathe the gospel and strive to keep the commandments and covenants we have made with the dedication of an Olympic athlete. That also means we can easily dim or even shut off that light when we stop.
Notice, though, that people still aim for being part of the Olympics, despite the challenge that puts on their body, their skills, and their self-discipline. Why would they do that? Because they love what they do. Going through all the training an athlete of any caliber does, but especially theirs, requires a lot of love for the sport and participating in it. Being a spiritual athlete is a lot like that--praying, reading the scriptures, keeping the commandments, and overall worshiping God is meant to be how we show Him we love Him, and that we love showing Him we love Him. We don’t mind that it can be difficult to do what He asks of us because our love triumphs over giving up. Serving others and showing them how to love God and show that love, too, is worth a lot to people who have very bright lights.
I think that is the real key to understanding how you can be an example and let your light shine. It’s not that you're trying to look like a good person. Rather, you're doing things that show your love for God and that make you happy, and you're not afraid to let other people see that.
I remember at FSY last summer that Elder Salinas, an Area Seventy, had told us something that really stuck with me- if you want to be as happy as you were while on your mission, or going to a church camp, or whatever, then those things that you did so much of back then, reading scriptures and praying and serving, keep doing that. I find it true that realizing what habits make your day a little better and let the Spirit stick to you a little stronger, are what make you happy, and you're consistently happier when you do those things than when you stop, no matter what's going on in life. So, just like an athlete would hopefully practice their hearts out enough to show their light because they love their sport and it makes them happy, we should practice keeping the commandments and praying and strengthening our testimony wholeheartedly because we love Him and His gospel and we are happier when we do these things. We'll really let our light shine then.
I've known a couple spiritual athletes who shined their light bright to me. Like my mom- she wanted to baptize within days of meeting the missionaries when she was 19, and has held strong to the gospel since then. She later served a mission, wanting to go even though she was the breadmaker in her home, and even though she was essentially engaged to my dad. Luckily, he was willing to wait for her to finish the 18 months before getting hitched. She and my dad also strived to teach my sister and I the gospel and follow the prophets' mandates, like reading scriptures as a family and keeping the Sabbath day holy and keeping food storage. She already has so much faith and trust, but still strives to maintain it and grow.
I also had a Baptist friend in high school who was an example to me. She was fun and hilarious, and she strived to uplift rather than hurt people, and I was amazed when I saw her sit down at the lunch table, pull out her packed food, then do a silent prayer, right there in the cafeteria. She didn't feel embarrassed or try to hide that she was praying. I mean, that was back in Alabama, where people like to be more flashy about being Christians than Mormons typically like to be, so I guess that didn't throw other people off much, but I never had the guts to do that- I never even thought to do a prayer before lunch while at school. I really appreciated and respected her for that, and decided to follow her example. I became more determined to do prayers more often throughout the day, even in places where usually we'd say we shouldn't. I still do that because she showed me it's okay, and I’m glad she did.
I’d like to end with just saying that the light of Christ is real and letting it shine by truly loving Heavenly Father and His Son and letting your actions speak for that, you can really reach your potential to not just be happy yourself, but inspire others to do what makes them happy, too. It’ll also make it so much easier to fight off the darkness when you are firm in practicing and living the gospel like an athlete. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
(October 22, 2017)
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