Claiming our Birthright
Imagine with me…you are going for a walk with your Father. It’s a beautiful day and you’re enjoying the beauty around you. Your Father turns to you and tells you that he is planning on retiring in the near future and he’d like you to take over the multi-million dollar family business. It is your birthright. You are thrilled! The family business is prosperous and you and your children and children’s children will have great wealth and stability.
Your Father councils you that the business he has worked so hard to build is very complex and will require extensive training so that you will be prepared to take over. Never having actually worked in the business, the promised rewards are so spectacular that the work required seems simple. You are told that you start your training tomorrow. Instantly visions of an office with a view, company car, business trips, and long lunches come to mind.
The next morning you wake up and head to the office prepared for greatness. When you arrive, you are handed a broom and mop and instructed to clean the floor. This is not what you were expecting. How long will it take before you are ready to run the company? Is this how the future company President is treated? You are the heir apparent. Your first priority is to find out where’s your Father’s office is and explain to him the mix-up.
Lunch time finally arrives and you rush to his office. He listens patiently as you explain to him about the confusion and how you know you are ready to get to the “real” work. He invites you to sit in on the Board of Directors meeting starting in the next few minutes and offer suggestions. This will be great!
The meeting begins and suddenly you feel like you’re in another country where they speak a different language. Your Father looks over at you from time to time with an expression indicating that he’s wondering if you have anything to contribute. You start to avoid his gaze. After what feels like an eternity, the meeting is over.
After everyone has left the room, he invites you to sit down. He then patiently explains that he wants you to learn the business from the ground up. By doing this, you will then understand each worker’s needs and be able to keep the company strong.
Now, he tells you that it is your decision. Do you want to pay the price required to receive your birthright?
Our Heavenly Father wants to give us everything. He wants us to be like Him. We are given tasks and instructions, also known as commandments, as gifts so that we may be like Him. We also have been given the gift of agency. We can choose the level of our happiness and peace in this life and in our next existence.
President Howard W. Hunter taught,
“To fully understand this gift of agency…it is imperative that we understand that God’s chief way of acting is by persuasion and patience and long-suffering, not by coercion and stark confrontation … He wants to help us and pleads for the chance to assist us, but he will not do so in violation of our agency. He loves us too much to do that, and doing so would run counter to his divine character.” 1
Our Heavenly Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ will never force us to obey the commandments. They lovingly invite us to choose the right. We choose our actions but we cannot choose the consequences of our actions.
Anita Canfield, in her book, “The Young Woman and her Self-Esteem” tells a story of her teenage son who is frustrated with his parent’s rules. He talks about wanting to be an adult so that he doesn’t have to follow any rules. His Dad reminds him that adults must obey physical laws, such as getting enough sleep and obeying traffic and civil laws or there are adverse consequences. Not wanting to be out done, the son said he wanted to be a God someday so that he didn’t have to answer to anyone. Her husband’s comment has stuck with me all these years, “God is God because he obeys all the rules.”
The Prophet, Brigham Young stated,
“The volition of [man] is free; this is a law of their existence, and the Lord cannot violate his own law; were he to do that, he would cease to be God.2
Sometimes, it’s hard to follow all the commandments. We want to skip to the blessings. Our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus the Christ had no home, no luxuries. His entire life was spent teaching, serving and administering to others. Elder Neal A. Maxwell said, “Jesus descended below all things in order to be able to comprehend all things (see D&C 88:6; 122:8). Thus he is not only a fully atoning Savior but is a fully comprehending Savior as well.3
My husband refers to this life as the ETC – the Eternal Training Center. This is the time of preparation for eternal life with our Father, our Savior and our families. We can choose to follow his curriculum or we can choose to follow our own paths. Brother Brad Wilcox taught, “We are learning heaven. We are preparing for it. We are practicing for it." 4,5
Our Father sent his son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins. Because of his infinite Atonement, when can choose to continuously repent, follow God’s commandments and return to inherit all the incomprehensible blessings he has prepared for us. Are we prepared to pay the price to inherit our birthright?
Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught, "How can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, 'Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken. Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then, let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy!'" 6
Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught, "How can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, 'Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken. Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then, let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy!'" 6
2. Journal of Discourses, 11:272.
