My Sport is Your Sports Punishment

In life we want to compare ourselves to the progress of others. That type of thinking is a waste of time. I think the standard will be how much we improved ourselves. 

Transcript

Welcome to the Verbal Motivation podcast. Where we talk about the things that motivate our lives, our religion and our relationships. My name is Nathan Vail. 

If you have an opinion about the subject matter in today’s podcast, please leave it in a voicemail at 530-876-4153 or you can send an email to verbalmotivation@gmail.com. 

This is episode number 34 called, my sport is your sports punishment

I mentioned some months ago that  when my son Tyler was starting high school he decided to go out for track. Well, he wasn’t great as a sophomore. In fact, in one of the first meets that I watched him run, he was so far behind that they started setting up for the next race because they didn’t realize he was still out there. But, to his great credit and our great pride, Tyler never gave up. He pushed himself year after year until the end of his senior year he was one of a handful of runners from his high school cross country team that qualified to go to the state meet in Woodward Park California. 

One day he came home with a t-shirt that said, “my sport, is your sport’s punishment.” It was truly hard what he was doing.

In the book of second Samuel King David is offered for free animals to use as a burnt offering to the Lord. But to his credit, he profoundly said, “2 Samuel 24:24 And the king said unto Araunah, Nay; but I will surely buy it of thee at a price: neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing. So David bought the threshingfloor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.”

Tyler and I had many conversations about things he was trying, to increase his health and competitiveness. One of those things was that he decided he wasn’t going to drink soda anymore. This one seemed odd to me because what could be the benefit of not drinking soda on a day that you're not running? I picked up several good habits myself during that time but the soda one never made sense to me. Probably because I love soda. One day I was sitting at my desk drinking soda and out of the blue the thought struck me that if you are not an athlete and you sit at a desk all day, it may not matter if you drink soda. But if you're an athlete and you're out on the track exhausted with nothing left to give and you have to dig deep and find within yourself the strength to push just a little bit harder to cross the finish line; that instance, little things like not drinking soda may make an enormous difference.

Similarly in our spiritual growth we may ask ourselves, what difference does it make if we go water skiing instead of going to church this one time, or watch a movie with inappropriate content because our friends are, on the other hand, we might ask why would going to the temple frequently make enough of difference to justify the inconvenience of doing it? 

If we are on a spiritual plateau in life , it may not change anything, because that’s where we are are, just like a non-athlete, drinking soda may not make much of a difference in our daily lives. 

But if we are striving to progress and become more like our father in heaven. In that instance, the little things we do or don’t do could matter a lot. There are times in life that we need to dig deep spiritually and find the strength to hand on to our testimony despite what is going on around us. In that moment, the things we did when it didn’t matter, suddenly could matter a lot. 

There is a saying in war that, “there are no atheists in foxholes.” Which means that when death or great fear is imminent, we suddenly look for some higher power for help. But what if we decided not to wait for the proverbial foxhole in our lives to truly find our religion. 

I'm no scriptorian but it seems to me that the law of Moses taught us a lot about what not to do and when Jesus fulfilled the law of Moses with a hirer law, it teaches us about what to do. If that is true, I don’t think it is a coincidence.

Elder Gary E. Stevenson, speaking about learning to feel the spirit said, “If you hope to feel the Spirit, be in a place where the Spirit can easily dwell.”

The temple is definitely one of those places. 

At the Feather River Temple dedication, there was a young lady who was invited to give one of the talks because she loved the temple so much she was there constantly volunteering during the open house. Someone asked her if she loves the temple so much, how does she ever leave. She said, “I take it with me.” What a perfect example she was. Now, I know nothing about her, but I think there is more to her story than just taking home what she randomly found there. She very likely came prepared and looking for something to take home. 

Isn’t it fascinating how many people come to the temple and do almost the exact same thing each time, yet they go home filled with answers to prayers and other things they came looking for?

The temple is not meant to be an isolated experience, nor is it valuable in many cases if we come unprepared. 

it is meant to be an education in how to feel and receive revelation. Training wheels if you will.

But being worthy to go there requires a lot more than just refusing some of the available pleasures in life. That is a good starting place. But the temple is a next level event where we decide that we are going to be better people and we commit to live in that higher place. When we go, having thus prepared, we are not only able to feel the spirit, but we learn how to take it home with us.

How many of us go to the temple only as an ancillary action in association with some other event. Like weddings or a family member going for the first time. On occasions like this it is possible that we don’t go prepared for spiritual growth because we are there for a wedding and the temple just happens to be the place.

Is it possible that many of us are foxhole believers? Only looking up when life has us down?

Elder Elder Robert M. Daines. In describing his own spiritual journey said, “...I thought more about getting into heaven than being with my Heavenly Father” He continued with this observation saying “You may look heavenward and see not the face of love and mercy but a thicket of rules through which you must wend your way.” 

When I was in high school we were made to take a physical fitness class. In order to pass the class we had to run a mile faster at the end of the semester than at the beginning. We all knew that was the standard. So, we ran as slow as we possibly could at the beginning of the semester, we then ran the mile only as many times as was mandatory through the year slowly and conveniently increasing slightly each time and then miraculously improved at the end by running at a pace we could have easily done at the beginning. We met the requirement, but didn’t really get anything from it. 

That is a very different level of growth than Tyler finding himself trailing the pack at great distance as a sophomore and working his way tirelessly to a competitive position as a senior. In the gospel, true growth only happens when we change our attitude from obeying rules, to a desire to become something more. The temple is the perfect tool for that kind of paradigm shift in our lives.

President Nelson recently declared that, “increased time in the temple will bless your life in ways nothing else can.”

Have you ever wondered why during COVID there was never any talk about doing temple work via Zoom? The temple I think is very much like Wifi, you can only feel it if you're close. 

We watched many great athletes compete this last week in the olympics. It was inspiring to see what level a person can push themself to. But watching them, didn’t improve my individual health or athletic abilities. Life is a participation sport. The temple is no different. If we want to enjoy the blessing promised for attending the temple, we have to attend. 

I think this is why there is such a push right now to put a temple within visiting distance to as many members as possible. There is great power there and there is simply no substitute for time spent in the temple.

It was with great pride that my wife and I watched Tyler compete with some of the best runners in the state. He didn’t win. But it doesn’t matter now who he beat or even how fast he ran. What matters is the personal momentum he developed in high school, which probably shaped a lot of the success he enjoys today. And how proud we were as parents to watch him grow from where he started as a sophomore to where he ended as a senior.

In our spiritual lives we are not competing with anyone else. When we stand at the judgment bar, I think the standard will be how much we improved and who we decided to become while in this life. It won’t matter who else there was or how much better they did. That kind of comparison is waste of time. But if we strive to be like our heavenly parents, marking our progress and pushing ourselves as we go, in the next life our father in heaven will recognize us as far off as we approach and He will embrace us with tears of pride welling in his eyes, because we overcame ourselves and in so doing, became more like him.

My name is Nathan Vail and this is the Verbal Motivation Podcast