Giving Life, Giving Love

 

Elder Russell T. Osguthorpe, BYU Devotional, March 8, 2011

"My first mission was in Tahiti. I love the way Tahitians greet each other. The literal meaning of their greeting word—ia ora na—means “life to you” or “that you might live.” We are either giving life or taking life from each other as we move forward on our way.

"Harsh words take life away from the one who receives them and even from the one who utters them. But words spoken in love give life....

"[The Savior's] life on the earth was an example of what it means to do good. But it was also a singular example of what it means to do good for the right reason. Every act of the Savior on earth was done out of love. Even in the great premortal council His offer to the Father was motivated by love for others, while the adversary’s was motivated by selfishness. The Savior’s mission was to give us life by allowing us to choose to love the Lord and follow Him. (See Moses 4:1–3.) The adversary’s goal was to take away our agency and thereby make it impossible for us to love, because it is impossible to love unless we choose to love. Love must come from within. It cannot be forced upon us. So for purposes of his own selfish aims, the adversary would have made it impossible for us to keep the first two commandments. He would have made us into nothing.

"Christ had a clear mission in mortality. He came to earth to save each of us. He knew how His life on earth would end and how His act of love for us would change everything. Each of us has a clear mission as well, but, like the Savior, we need to remain open to the needs of others we pass along the way. Our calendars can never be so packed that we don’t have room to show love to those around us."