In our everyday lives, we may find ourselves being self centered and only caring about the things that will affect us (*Enmity). I know that happens to me all the time. I need to work on it. Luckily, there are numerous things that can be done so you're more focused and attentive to others. :) One powerful way that I have found is through service. Whenever I personally serve someone, I feel like I don't matter. My mind is focused on the well being of others. And when you serve others, you are rewarded! It's a win-win! God will bless you, and you'll get that warm feeling from the Holy Ghost testifying to you that what you are doing is right.
How should you serve someone? Sometimes the simplest things mean the most. They can be as simple as smiling at someone walking down the hall, or helping someone to pick up things they've dropped, telling somebody they matter--there are countless things that you can do to spread happiness in this world. "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass" (Alma 37:6-7).
In my life, I think that the best way to serve is in secret. My family has that tradition because it's a surprise and you feel loved. Then you try to figure out who the culprit is! :) I challenge you guys to try it. I love doing it for people, and I like receving it.
In the Book of Mormon, Mormon gives us this warning:
"And I know that ye do walk in the pride of your hearts; and there are none save a few only who do not lift themselves up in the pride of their hearts, unto the wearing of very fine apparel, unto envying, and strifes, and malice, and persecutions, and all manner of iniquities; and your churches, yea, even every one, have become polluted because of the pride of your hearts.
For behold, ye do love money, and your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches, more than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted.
O ye pollutions, ye hypocrites, ye teachers, who sell yourselves for that which will canker, why have ye polluted the holy church of God? Why are ye ashamed to take upon you the name of Christ? Why do ye not think that greater is the value of an endless happiness than that misery which never dies—because of the praise of the world?
Why do ye adorn yourselves with that which hath no life, and yet suffer the hungry, and the needy, and the naked, and the sick and the afflicted to pass by you, and notice them not?"
For those that "walk in the pride of your [own] hearts", It is a disease that has a cure. I hope that some day we are all full of charity and love toward others. I would like to conclude today with a quote from one of our beloved past prophets, President Ezra Taft Benson, "Most of us think of pride as self-centeredness, conceit, boastfulness, arrogance, or haughtiness. All of these are elements of the sin, but the heart, or core, is still missing.
The central feature of pride is enmity—enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen. Enmity means “hatred toward, hostility to, or a state of opposition.” It is the power by which Satan wishes to reign over us."
When I read this quote, I realized I made this mistake in the early part of this post. So, through enmity, Satan has gotten to us. And we do not want that, at all. I hope. Satan likes to see us fail, he makes us believe that there will not be any consequences and leads us carefully down to the depths of despair and sin. In this talk that President Benson gave (Great talk by the way! https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1989/04/beware-of-pride?lang=eng), he concludes with this great statement. Which I will show below. But I just want to say that we are not perfect, no one is, but through Christ and His Atonement, it is possible! And I say that in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
