Gifts of the Spirit

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has a unique setting. Within any organization, there are people who contribute to its inner workings and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is no different! What is unique about the Church is that all of our contributors volunteer. They are in no way compensated, except for maybe the teachers of our little ones. They often get paid in the unconditional love children can and most often do offer.

Although every one volunteers to labor in the Church, sometimes the laborers within the Church feel discouraged because their calling does not receive as much prestige as others. For example, often times a Sunbeam Teacher (Sunday School for 3-4 year olds) feel like less than the Primary President (Leader of the entire children's Sunday School). This is natural, at least I think it is. As human beings, we want to be the best. We want to achieve the most. We compete with each other. Again, this is a natural thing. But that does not mean that it is a good thing.

Like parts in a play, there is no such thing as a small calling. Every one has a part to play. Or a calling to fulfill. For instance, my calling is a Ward Historian. Essentially, I contribute nothing to a normal Sunday. Basically I am a glorified scrapbooker. I take pictures of every ward function, write short little blurbs about each ward or stake activity. But guess what? I wasn't called by a man. I was called of God. For some reason, this is what the Lord wants me to do. This is where the Lord wants me! And I couldn't be happier to be in this calling. I didn't always have this attitude. At first I was disappointed that I didn't receive a calling that commanded a little more respect, like Relief Society President or Primary President. It took a lot of pondering for me to get to a place of acceptance and gratitude for this calling. And now I love it!

When these feelings of discouragement, any member of the Church can go to 1 Corinthians 12: 15 and read, "If the foot shall say, because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body." The body of course is symbolic of the Church. So if one person looks at themselves and says, "I'm not President of anything, so I am not really important or a part of the Church."This could not be further from the truth. Paul goes on to say in verse sixteen. "If the whole body were an eye where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?" This alludes to the fact that every calling within the Church is incredibly important. And I think it wonderful that Paul took the time to go over that. Every calling is important! No matter how large or small!

Within our callings, we use different gifts. Often a Sunday School teacher or Bishop will need large amounts of patience or kindness towards there charges. There are many more gifts of the Spirit, but Paul referred to Charity as "more excellent" to me this means that it is above all the others. And I think this is because without Charity nothing else functions correctly. Charity is synomous with the "pure love of Christ," as explained in the scriptures. Charity is a pretty well covered topic in the scriptures. Lets look closer at that.

Charity is…

·      Long suffering (1 Cor 13:4, 7)

·      Kind (1 Cor 13:4)

·      Truthful (1 Cor 13:6)

·      Never failing (1 Cor 13:8)

Charity is not….

·      Envious (1 Cor 13:4)

·      Proud (1 Cor 13:4)

·      Rude (1 Cor 13:5)

·      Quick to Anger (1 Cor 13:5)

·      Evil thinking (1 Cor 13:5)

·      Something that gets joy out of misfortune (1 Cor 13:6)

Charity is not something that is easily developed for me. I need to be much more kind and much less quick to anger. This is something I am working on, continually. All I keep thinking throughout this assignment, is what more can I do in order to help myself more fully develop this attributes of Charity? One thing that I think I am going to do is to memorize 1 Corinthians 13:4 and repeat it to myself when I feel I am becoming angry or I am not being kind enough. And pray that I may see others how Christ sees them and feel Christ's love for them, like Moroni mentions in Moroni 7:48.  There is always room for improvement!