Stepping it up

Mark taught the combined Priesthood/Relief Society lesson a few weeks ago and as I sat there watching him, I was thinking about how much time he spends on his calling as Bishop each week. Then, I started to think about how much time the rest of us spend doing "church things" each week. That can mean service, visiting and home teaching, preparing lessons, etc. I'm not talking about showing up to something, I'm talking about "put your shoulder to the wheel" kind of church work. Honestly, as I was thinking about myself, I was pretty ashamed at how little it really was relative to the hours in a week.

Church lasts 3 hours each week. Of those three hours, how many are we engaged in service as in a calling and how many are we just participating in a class? Once you get past Sunday (or even past those three hours), how many hours do we REALLY spend in Christ-like service or on our callings? One hour? Two hours?

As I sat there watching my husband who probably gives 20 hours a week outside of Sunday (which is about 8 hours of work many weeks), I realized that the City of Enoch didn't get translated because the church leadership was doing a lot of work. The City of Enoch got translated because the PEOPLE were working hard as a whole body.

What if we gave just one more hour each week to the Lord? What if we reached out to people we aren't already assigned to visit? What if we looked for ways to help and lift others?

We are ALL busy. Mark is busy - he works 45 hours a week and has a 90 minute daily commute, 2 kids and a wife. Honestly, he has very little leisure time and few hobbies beyond reading. His calling literally consumes his free time. He spent 2 hours on the phone last Monday night and then had to make a trip to the church. We crammed FHE around it all and he finally dropped into bed at 11pm. Yet, he does it - without complaint.

I am going to challenge myself to step it up and reach out to serve more. Really, there's no excuse for not doing that. We have been told to "love one another" and love is a verb. There are so many hours in our week that are pretty much just wasted. How much better would every ward in the church be if we turned off our TV's, computers and video games and set aside our magazines and iPods and spent time doing true Christ-like service in our wards and communities?