I had an insightful experience yesterday. I was helping my Great Uncle Paul Doxey Donaldson login to his Ancestry account. He is so thoughtful and kind and makes me feel so valued and loved. This is one of the more beautiful things about my extended Donaldson family that I've been missing so much. He told me how much I meant to my grandfather and how proud he was of my basketball skills and being kind etc. He also mentioned what a lovely and kind woman my grandma was. As I drove away, I started crying just missing my grandparents and that feeling of love. Those tears turned into tears of regret realizing how happy it would have made my grandpa if I had played basketball at BYU and wishing I had done it to make him proud. Then it turned into me thinking of all the ways I had disappointed myself and God. I had a couple of strong impressions. One was that although my grandpa would have loved me playing basketball in college, he wouldn't want me to feel bad about myself for not playing and that what was really important, striving to live the gospel and raise children to God and keeping covenants was much more important to him. I also had a strong impression from my Heavenly Father. It was if He was saying, "You think I can't use imperfect people? Believe me, I've used imperfect people. I'm all about using imperfect people." I then looked up a talk by Elder Marvin J. Ashton called, The Measure of Our Hearts.
Part of it says:
The prophet Joseph Smith "We consider that God has created man with a mind capable of instruction, and a faculty which may be enlarged in proportion to the heed and diligence given to the light communicated from heaven to the intellect." He was ahead of his time!
We also tend to evaluate other on the basis of physical, outward appearance; their "good looks," their social status, their family pedigrees, their degrees, or their economic situations.
The Lord, however, has a different standard which he measures a person. When it came time to choose a king to replace King Saul, the Lord gave this criteria to his prophet Samuel: "Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his statue;...for the Lord seeth not as a man teeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord locket on the heart." (1 Sam. 16:7)
"For I, the Lord, will judge all men according to their works, according to the desire of their hearts." (D&C 137:7,9)
A willing heart describes one who desire to please the Lord and to serve His cause first. He serves the Lord on the Lord's terms, not his own. There are no restrictions to where or how he will serve.
Serve the Lord with all my heart, might, mind and strength.
