Good, Better, Best

This is based on a talk given by Elder Dallin H Oaks in General Conference, October 2007.  The title of the talk was Good, Better, Best.  It took me a bit of time to find it, because, when I went to look for it, I thought that President Uchtdorf had given the talk more recently. All of the quotes were taken from this talk or the Scriptures.

Elder Oaks’ presentation was set up in four sections, each section building upon the previous one.  I am not going to attempt to cover all the sections but feel that I should concentrate on the first two sections. 

Elder Oaks began by stating, “We should begin by recognizing the reality that just because something is good is not a sufficient reason for doing it.  The number of good things we can do far exceed the time available to accomplish them.  Some things are better than good, and these are the things that should command priority attention in our lives.” (end quote)

He goes on to state that Jesus Christ taught this principle when Martha complained that Mary needed to be helping her rather than listening to what the Saviour had to say.  The Saviour’s answer can be found in Luke 10 verse 41 and 42.  Elder Oaks stated that “it was praiseworthy for Martha to be ‘careful and troubled about many things’, but learning the gospel from the Master Teacher was more ‘needful’.” 

In essence, we need to be able to recognize the good works that can be done, and we need to learn to set our priorities so that we are able to discern which of our possible activities are better suited to lead us towards our salvation.  This pertains to almost every aspect of our lives, work, recreation, family time, and learning.  “Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom”, Doctrine and Covenants 88 verse 118.

I would like to spend some time speaking with regards to choices concerning family and personal activities. 

We are living in a time that, quite often, both parents must work outside of the home in order to provide some of the necessities of life.  With the cost of child care, sometimes it is not cost effective to do this when your family is large.  I understand this as I was a single parent and the sole wage earner for a number of years and, when I began in this situation, my sons were too young to be left on their own.  I had to be extremely careful on how the money was spent and the activities that we could do.  I wanted to be sure that I raised my children so that they would want the Gospel as part of their lives.  I’m not saying that my choices were the best ones, I did make mistakes.  I can say that, at the time of the choices, I thought that I was doing the right thing. 

Elder Oakes pointed out that “in choosing how we spend time as a family, we should be careful not to exhaust our available time on things that are merely good and leave little time for that which is better or best.” (end quote)  Annual vacations are fine, but the youth remember the time that you spend with them on a one-on-one basis more than the trips.  The youth and children want to spend time with you and want you to show them the love that you feel for them.

One of the things that I noticed that my sister did with her children was to schedule their time, especially when they were quite young.  It seemed as if they had a different activity almost every day of the week.  It was nice that she could afford to do this, but they had no free time.  They just couldn’t go outside to play.  As they grew older, my nephew became involved with hockey and, consequently, even family activities, such as the annual Christmas get together, were affected.  I can sit down with my niece and feel that she cannot imagine doing anything different than what her friends are doing.  I feel that she did not have a chance to develop her imagination to a great degree.  Don’t get me wrong, it is good to have some structure for the children, such as music or another appropriate activity, but family time activities should not be sacrificed to individual over-scheduling. 

Elder Oaks pointed out that “the amount of children-and-parent time absorbed in the good activities of private lessons, team sports, and other school and club activities also needs to be carefully regulated.  Otherwise, children will be overscheduled, and parents will be frazzled and frustrated.  Parents should act to preserve time for family prayer, family scripture study, family home evening, and the other precious togetherness and individual on-on-one time that binds a family together and fixes children’s values on things of eternal worth.  Parents should teach gospel priorities through what they do with their children.” (end quote)

Whenever I look back at the time that I was growing up, I can think of the times that I have discovered how to accomplish my objectives based on the practices that my parents observed.  Almost every day, we were sent out to play and, as long as we let our parents know where we were and were back at the time stipulated, we lead healthy and relatively happy lives, depending on our home lives.  We knew that, if we did something wrong, we would be in trouble with our parents as well as the parents of the other children involved.  We knew that we would have to pay the price.  We also learned that if we were honest about our activities, any punishments would be less than if we were not honest.  In essence, we learned that yes, we would pay the consequences, but if we told the truth, the consequences would not be as severe.  As an example of this, my sister and I were playing a modified sport in our backyard when we were in our early teens.  We accidently broke a pane in the greenhouse next door.  We immediately went to our neighbour and confessed about the accident and offered to pay for it.  All that we asked was that our parents were not told about it.  The neighbour would not take any money from us.  Several years later, we found out that our neighbour did tell our parents, but they chose not to discuss it with us because we had done the right thing.

Children need free time to discover the world around them.  That does not mean that there should not be any consequences for making what they know to be bad choices.  They also need to have family time for the guidance that parents can and must provide. 

Another good choice that parents can make is to have meals together and discuss each person’s day’s activities.  This gives the children a chance to give an accounting of their activities in an atmosphere of loving regard.  Elder Oakes also provides the results that studies revealed of the development of children academically, psychologically, and keeping their lives free of smoking, drinking and drug use.

For most of the remainder of this talk, I would like to read Elder Oakes’ words directly:

“President Gordon B. Hinckley has pleaded that we ‘work at our responsibility as parents as if everything in life counted on it, because in fact everything in life does count on it.’

  He continued:  ‘I ask you men, particularly, to pause and take stock of yourselves as husbands and fathers and heads of household.  Pray for guidance, for help, for direction, and then follow the whisperings of the Spirit to guide you in the most serious of all responsibilities, for the consequences of your leadership in your home will be eternal and everlasting.’

The First Presidency has called on parents ‘to devote their best efforts to the teaching and rearing of their children in gospel principles…The home is the basis of a righteous life, and no other instrumentality can take its place … in …this God-given responsibility.’  The First Presidency has declared that however worthy and appropriate other demands or activities may be, they must not be permitted to displace the divinely-appointed duties that only parents and families can adequately perform.’”

I sincerely pray that all hear may take these words into their hearts.  Read the entire talk by Elder Oakes and pray about what you take away today from this post and listen for the Spirit to guide you in your choices.  Remember, there are many good things to choose from.  Let the Spirit guide you to the better and best things for you and your families to be lead to salvation.