This week’s lesson teaches that the true purpose of religion is not to create burdens but to relieve them, that Christ wants to share our burdens, and He promises rest to our souls.
But callings and family relations, marriage, children as “central to God’s plan” can often feel like anything but rest. Paragraph 6 of “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” is seemingly quite a to-do list: “Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.”
What about the world’s to-do list? Does it really offer rest? More often it leads to chasing “shiny” attractions and tireless running in a hamster wheel of sorts.
God has promised rest from this world; rest from hopeless grief, selfish regrets, and eternal loneliness.
Elder Bednar reminds us, “We can press forward in our daily lives with heavenly help. Through the Savior’s Atonement we can receive capacity and “strength beyond [our] own” (“Lord, I Would Follow Thee,” Hymns, no. 220). As the Lord declared, “Therefore, continue your journey and let your hearts rejoice; for behold, and lo, I am with you even unto the end” (D&C 100:12).
He carried the cross, and can help us carry ours.
art: Ales Krivec