There is no other way.
I have discovered that this life is all about giving up, giving in or giving away. Before we even got here, we chose to give up the beautiful spirit home where we lived in innocence and happiness with our Heavenly Parents. The motivation was we could gain experience and a physical body like our Heavenly Father had. But mortal life was not without its inherent dangers. We would be exposed to temptations and evil we could not even conceived of. Our mission would be to choose good over evil or vice versa. We could lose our way and the opportunity to come back to his presence, But we all had the faith and confidence we would do what was required. We willingly and eagerly gave up what we had, for what we might become.
As little children we were concerned only about ourselves and meeting our needs. Yet even then we knew our parents were more experienced than we were. So we gave in to their wisdom.
When we were teenagers we were preoccupied by the need to be accepted. Impressing others, especially those we thought were special, consumed our daily thoughts. But we soon discovered we had to up give many of our frivolous fantasies if we ever hoped to get an education or the skills we needed for life. We discovered, after experimenting, it worked better for us when we cooperated with others. So we occasionally volunteered to give up, give in and give away.
As we met our future partners we have to give away our selfish, single habits and give in to dreams that involved at least the two of us if our marriage was to be successful.
When we had children, we found we had to give in to their immediate needs and give away some of our precious free time because little babies depended totally upon us to survive. There was no one else who would give what we should give.
When we joined The Church of Jesus Christ, we covenanted to give our time, talents and all we possessed to build the Kingdom of God so that he could bless us with peace and hope now, and receive Eternal Life hereafter.
When we gave up 10% of our increase, we became partners with God, giving up a portion of our earthly wealth so he could share with us his heavenly blessings.
As our children grew, we had to give up the dreams we had for their future because the dreams they had for themselves were even greater than we could have imagined.
Our young adult children, whom we had fallen in love with, brought home total strangers and asked us to give these, our precious offspring away to them. We would have held them to ourselves forever, but we realized they were never ours to keep in the first place. God had only loaned them to us to raise for him There was no other way they, or we, could reach the full measure of our creation unless we let them go. And so we, the parents, hugged, trembled and wept as we watched them drive away together, with our blessings.
When our children had children of their own, we gave up our rights of authority in parenting. We had to stand back and watch silently — even when they made mistakes — because they needed the room and experience to learn and to grow to be become even better parents than we were.
In our roles of leadership we finally realized we need not compete with others forever. We matured enough to give in to the desire for glory, recognition and power. Those things are best exercised by us when we shared them with others.
As we grew older, we gave up our need to be everything to everybody. We were finally willing to let others win and let others have their time in the spotlight. They needed the experience. We had our days aplenty of these things. We became content to see the job done, not always as well as it would have been by us, but as well done as others with less experience could do. We found ourselves glowing in the satisfaction of the joy of helping others to do and become better.
Now, as our personal health and strength decreases, we recognize someday we will have to give up our independence. Then it may become a joy for others to serve us as tenderly and unselfishly as they compassionately desire to do.
Someday, one of us will have to remain behind while the other slips away. When we are asked to give up our life and eternal companion, it will also mean giving up our spiritual and temporal rock, our pillar of strength. Then there will only be family and friends left to lean on. None of us are ever really prepared for this day.
It may be many or few years before our own time comes. Then we will be required to give up and lay down in the ground the last thing we could call truly our own. We will be left with nothing but our faith in the Saviour and the hope that he will handle it from there.
Constantly and deliberately, from the very beginning of life, we will have given up, given in or given away everything we thought we absolutely had to have to be happy and content, or to experience joy. At each step we discovered all things we thought were indispensable, and had acquired at such sacrifice indeed, were replaced with something else of much greater value than we could have hoped for.
We have been changed through the process, becoming refined, dependable generous, loving — and lovable.
What a remarkable, magnificent plan it is that requires us to fight our very basic natural inclinations to obtain its reward. What a surprise to discover that that was God’s very purpose for allowing us to come here: That we might, through our own choices, be united again with loved ones and become eternally as he is.
Doug Garrett