How do we know that we are doing a “great work?”

I think the problem often comes down to how we define the word “great.” Much of the time “great” is a comparative term — we think it’s about some things being great and other things being not great, and therefore not as worthy of doing. And from there we compare our task to those of others. In a sense we have made the term “great” less than it can be by reducing it to only those things that are somehow bigger, more important or better than others. So, we think that only a few things can be “great.”

Is that the best way to think about “great?” Is that what the Lord thinks? The great work in this week’s readings (Ezra and Nehemiah) is the reconstruction of the wall around Jerusalem. But this wall is not something that is looked back on today as one of the great construction projects of antiquity — we remember the pyramids, the hanging gardens of Babylon, the Colossus of Rhodes, etc. From what I know, there seem to have been walls around most large cities of antiquity, and we don’t comment much on them. And today no one even thinks it is important to have a wall around a city. So in what way was the reconstruction “great?”

If the Lord says that his focus is the “immortality and eternal life of man”, meaning the spiritual training of each of us, isn’t that the standard for determining what is great? And isn’t the great work that each of us is doing nothing but our own “immortality and eternal life”? If this kind of success with one person is a “great work”, then what does that say about the word “great”?

I think we tend to think in terms of a kind of spiritual grade inflation, assuming that by multiplying the size of the project and the number of people involved, that somehow makes it better, more “great”. But like any grade inflation, this is an illusion, and may actually be counter-productive, because we get in the habit of thinking about success in the wrong way. Instead, let’s try to focus on the kind of great that the Lord uses — raising each one of us to Him.

 

The Lord inspires people to accomplish His purposes.

Along with our misapprehension of the idea of “great” is also a division we place between education and accomplishing His purposes. When I think about His purpose of providing immortality and eternal life, it seems to me that education IS His purpose. That is, the kind of education that is both theoretical and applied—both instruction and practice. We are so focused on the earthly model that separates our activities into a learning period, where we learn how to do things, and a period of activity, in which we accomplish things, that we often don’t see that these are one and the same thing. Education for Eternity IS the purpose of life.

Here poet and educator Richard Haag teaches poetically the value of education, demonstrating, I think, its role in our eternal lives.

 

Come thou, rejoice, inspired, immortal soul,

Free and poetic in thy noble thought;

Sing of the wond’rous grand and glorious work

Which God, Jehovah, in our time hath wrought.

Of all its features—for the field is wide,

The work embraces all that God hath made—

The cause of education stands supreme,

Deep and in richest soil its roots are laid.

Preparing, through the teacher’s patient toil,

The youthful, pure, the eager-learning heart,

To enter in the Holy House of God

Where further light the spirit may impart.

What greater purpose can an object serve,

Than thus to teach each pupil heaven’s call,

That mission-labor wherein each one may

Accomplish in this life most good to all?

And this in youth, the happy spring of life,

When love and faith and brightest hopes abound,

The seed-time, then, when all the souls on earth

The best prepared, most innocent are found.

Then praising Israel’s God in joyous songs,

In strains of deep emotions raise thy voice,

While striving much the talents to improve,

In education evermore rejoice.

For treasured in this cause above all else,

Above the beauties and the charms of youth,

Is that bright pearl of greatest price, that gem

Eternal and divine—the precious truth.

Now let thy vision open to a spot,

A perfect joy, a true a real scene,

Where, what a glory to the latter days,

The prosp’ring schools of Zion may be seen.

Behold the system, as it now unfolds,

Established firmly here through Jesus’ name,

By Him from whom its powers, its growing strength,

Its happy life, and its existence came.

Though in the combat that is being waged

Between the powers of darkness and of light,

The cause is now involved—it also stands

To help in gaining vict’ry for the right.

And while engaged in this great, noble work,

While struggling with the foe in trials severe,

The band of valiant workers still maintain

The holy laws of God without a fear.

Those very difficulties, tests and trials,

Conditions set to injure and destroy,

Have caused it still more vig’rously to grow,

And in its growth have everlasting joy.

Thus is the picture even more sublime,

Attractive, here in this much favored land

Among the Saints of God, the king of heaven,

Protected by His care and mighty hand.

Here on this land of Joseph in the west,

The paradise of mother earth to-day,

The glory of the gods in future time,

When righteousness shall hold unbounded sway.

And now to see the sons of God employed

In many schools of prophets yet to be,

Where Zion’s fairest daughters also meet

So pure and chaste, intelligent and free:

To search, to learn from science and from arts,

To glean from fields of truth on ev’ry side,

How happy, when to all in this pursuit

God’s glory is their greatest joy and pride,

But only this, and not the spirit’s work

Can ever be described by poet’s pen,

And while all is essential pure and grand,

This spirit makes true women and true men.

It is the strength, sweet influence, the life

Of Zion’s schools, while with the burning love,

The peace, the wholesome nourishment it brings,

It reaches in its loveliness above.

The student is thus filled with heavenly zeal,

He finds his school a most inviting place,

There to acquire all useful knowledge taught,

Preparing him for his Redeemer’s praise.

The teacher sees there for himself a school,

To learn the whisperings of the spirit’s voice;

He is inspir’d, and hence through wisdom’s words,

He can in truth’s simplicity rejoice.

To both humility is taught while there,

The Gospel’s love serenely mild is felt,

Which penetrates their hearts, as they in prayer

Before their Father often thus have knelt:

* * * *

O God, Creator, Prince of Life and Peace,

Who in Thy mercy ever liv’st to bless,

May heaven’s light in these our schools increase

To lead us on to purest happiness.

O let Thy spirit with its gentle power

Encourage, strengthen those whom we revere

As leaders of this cause, and ev’ry hour

Uphold and keep us in Thy love and fear.

Rulers and kings shall honor thee our Lord,

The learned with worldly wisdom yet shall be

Confounded by the weak, who through they word

Shall in their efforts be made strong in Thee.

Grant us a crown, though not the world’s applause;

But a reward of choice and highest worth;

Assure us of the triumph of the cause

So marvelously bursting forth on earth.

1890

 

The house of the Lord is a place of joy.

Workshops are also places of learning, of course. And the Temple is clearly as much about education as it is about worship and working. Every time I visit the Temple I seek for understanding about my place in the eternities and what I should change about myself to become more like my Heavenly Parents. The Temple teaches us how to keep an eternal perspective in our lives, instead of continually wallowing in the day-to-day struggles of life.

I love this poem, which calls the Temple “God’s workshop / For happiness.” Freckleton shows how the petty doubts of everyday are diminished when put in perspective of eternal purposes — so how the everyday becomes fodder for learning the happiness we seek in the hereafter, forged in God’s workshop.

 

Where we were sealed

For our eternity

Is God’s workshop

For happiness.

The weight of worry

I had carried

Is removed,

Since never may our lives

Be parted,

Come what may.

Of all the dark nights,

I’ve no fear,

For dawn destroys the dark,

And you will rise with me

When death is gone.

The moment when our separate ways

Were plotted to a single course,

I found my foolish brain

Preoccupied with little doubts:

As whether you were sorry now

That this was for eternity.

So pondered while I should have let my heart

Rejoice in contemplation of the joy

We two should find along the road

That from our separate ways was formed.

But now, within my arms,

You’ve stilled my fears.

I gaze in rapture at the lands

Of wonder-filled eternity.

1943

 

God has an important work for me to do.

Like “great,” “important” has been transformed by our earthly perception into a comparative, a term for saying what we should value most, often based on the values of others and the amount of money involved. In the eternities will we really say what is important based on the number of souls involved? Or is even one soul worth our saving efforts? Or must we concentrate on the ninety and nine? Will we count “likes” in the eternities? Is the individual important? Or only the collective? How does the idea of eternity change our values and way of thinking about what it is important? Is becoming ourselves more like our Heavenly Parents “an important work” for us?

Here Charles Pierce lays out an intention to learn eternal principles from places like the Temple and the scriptures. Pierce suggests that we should try to “strive to bring my erring soul / In line with its eternal goal“ and “make each hour have in store / The joy it was intended for.”

 

Where everlasting truths abound,

In new or ancient scriptures found,

I’ll search with diligence and prayer

For words of life abiding there.

And in that light thus brought to mind

I’ll view my very soul, and find

Wherever it may not agree

With what my Father wants of me.

With patience, then, for weaknesses,

Avoiding all self-righteousness

I’ll strive to bring my erring soul

In line with its eternal goal.

I’ll start each dawning day anew

And do the things I ought to do.

At every dawn I’ll let hold sway

The lessons of each yesterday.

I’ll hold this gift of mortal time

As something precious and sublime,

And make each hour have in store

The joy it was intended for.

1949

 

I am blessed when I study the scriptures.

What a blessing this life of learning is! We are protected from the consequences of our actions in the eternities, and allowed to experiment and learn about actions in this life. We can learn here how to be more like our Heavenly Parents. Yes, the Temple is part of this learning, and the scriptures are part of this learning. And our life here is part of this learning.

In the following poem the prolific poet Joel H. Johnson looks at the blessing that the scriptures (and for that matter all learning) gives us, laid up in our memories, habits and experiences as a reward for the next life.

 

How blest the children, Lord,

Who seek the way that’s right,

And make the precepts of Thy word

Their study and delight!

 

Whose treasures are laid up

In heaven, where no decay,

Nor moth nor rust shall e’er corrupt,

Nor thieves e’er take away.

 

They shall be blest indeed

In all they have to do;

With heavenly light around them shed

To guide the footsteps true.

 

Their works of love and faith,

Remembered by the Lord,

Are written in the Book of Life,

To meet a sure reward.

1867