In my household, if it is to be, it truly is up to me. This semester, sometimes things languish because I arrive home late without much energy to tackle chores or respond to emergencies. Monday night, I had a fantastic day. In addition to most of the work required at work this week, I managed to get home, do three loads of laundry, tend the garden, clean the refrigerator, fix a toilet, write this article, put fresh sheets on the bed, and go for a walk to the store for groceries. I managed all of that before 10pm. Fortunately, the world isn't usually dependent on one person to take care of everything important, but one important thing could only be achieved by one person. For the rest of God's work, He invites us to participate. He doesn't force it; it is up to us to decide to make ourselves available and then go and do or be what God commands of us.
My early years laid the foundation to be able to do what God asks, but I wasn't consciously aware or decidedly dedicated to that proposition until I served a mission. One week during our district meeting, the district leader shared a personal anecdote as his spiritual thought. Elder Palmer read an excerpt from a letter his mother wrote him in which she detailed a dream. In this dream, she saw God and His counsel sitting around a table looking down on Elder Palmer in Austria who was distracted. God sighed and said to the others, "We'll wait until they finish, and then we'll whisper them these important instructions." He felt ashamed that he was distracted. For a while, he changed, but only for a while.
I decided then and there to be as available as possible to serve God. I didn't want Him disappointed because He had to wait for me to finish up my asinine and banal activities in order to do things of consequence. Over the following few weeks, I heard a story about two missionaries who decided one day to go to the gym. Rather than change before they left, they traveled in suits and ties to the gym, worked out, changed, and traveled back. On the way back home, someone at the bus stop approached them because they were recognizable as missionaries. Even though they made this trip many times per week, per month, per year, they were incognito until this day, and because they were available and recognizable God was finally able to use them. I don't know or care if the story is true, but it was true for me. I was the one who traveled to the park to play football on Thanksgiving in Linz, Austria, who changed at the park for the game and then changed back for the trip home. I was the one who rode the train to Hochkoenig bei Salzburg to hike, hiked the mountain, and then changed back into a shirt and tie to travel home. Elder Bouwhuis, the Zone Leader, pulled me aside and said he should be setting the example because he was ZL. He didn't change. Neither have I.
My life, my choices, my activities, are sometimes calculated with the express purpose to be available if and when God needs me. I have driven out in the middle of the night to places, sat in the park for 30 minutes, and then gone home. I wrote letters, made phone calls, stopped to help motorists, etc. I have been the beneficiary of other people who were available to help me, and I am determined that, however paltry my service may compare, I will be there to help Him help His children. When I was young they taught us to sing a song that includes these words: "The Lord needs valiant servants to do His work in the latter-days who follow the teachings of Jesus and serve His people in a loving way. I will be His servant and keep my covenants valiantly. I'll stand for truth; I'll stand for right. The Lord can depend on me." Sometimes I stumble, and sometimes I fall, but it means a great deal to me that God can depend on me. I know I have been available to act when He needed it, and although most of those opportunities bore no fruit of which I am aware or no fruit I hoped, I did my part valiantly.
Sometimes I sit at this keyboard and feel prompted to do certain things. Frequently, it amounts to nothing more than sending a short note, either by text or email. More often than not, the note I send does not receive a response. I act on the part I control. I send out the messages and trust that God will deliver them where He needs them, that I am doing the best approximation of what He would do of which I am capable. Perhaps I do the wrong things or in the wrong way, but at least I am willing to act. Neal Maxwell wrote: "God gives the picks and shovels to the chosen . . . They may not be the best or most capable, but they are the most available" (Neal A. Maxwell, “Deposition of a Disciple” p 54). My bishop years ago sat us down one day at church and told us "God would send other people if He had them, but He doesn't have other people. He has you."
There is a book my paternal grandfather used when he taught young men that deals with this. The story deals with the Spanish-American war when it is important for General Winfield Scott to find someone who can carry a message to General Garcia. They find a man to carry the message to Garcia, who doesn't ask how or why or what to do but who finds a way. He makes it happen, and it makes the difference. I imagine that God and His counsel look down on this earth when there is work to do in my general vicinity. I imagine they consider who's available to go. I imagine they sigh to discover I'm the only one available to send. I imagine God says, "Doug will go, and I will make up the difference." I feel like Miracle Max in "The Princess Bride" that I might kill whomever God wants me to make a miracle. He trusts me and sends me anyway sometimes.
Christ himself was the ultimate example of willingness and availability to serve. When the time came for a vicarious sacrifice, He called out: "Here am I. Send me." If we want to be like Christ, to show we love Christ, and to bring men to Christ, we must be willing to carry the message to Garcia, to listen and act on promptings, to be available and willing to go and do and be what He needs. God doesn't have other people. He has us. It is an imperative duty then to follow Christ and say when God asks something, however difficult or easy it might be, "Here am I. Send me."
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