Packing Your Wagon

Too heavy … then lighten the load!

If the going is too heavy, maybe you need to lighten your load.

When we talk about our schedules, commitments, expectations, pressures, and even about dates, deadlines, decisions, finances, future obligations, and unlimited opportunities we may have thought:

“So much to do and so little time!”

Too often we allow ourselves to be driven from one deadline, activity, or opportunity to the next. We check events off our calendar and think, “After this week things will let up,” or “After this semester …” or “After graduation, then the pressure will ease.”  We live with false expectations.

Unless we learn to take control of the present, we will always live in anticipation of better days in the future.  And when those days arrive, we shall still be looking ahead, making it difficult to enjoy the here and now.

The beautiful fall leaves come and go and in our busyness we miss them.

Magic Moments … and We Miss Them

We live in a time when we can do more, have more, see more, accumulate more, and want more than any time we have ever known. I believe if possible the adversary would keep us busily engaged in a multitude of trivial things in an effort to keep us distracted from the few vital things that make all of the difference.

I believe the most destructive threat of our day is not nuclear war, not famine, not economic disaster, but rather the despair, the discouragement, the despondency, the defeat

caused by the discrepancy between what we

believe to be right and how we live our lives.

Much of the emotional and social illness of our day is caused when people think one way and act another. The turmoil inside is destructive to the Spirit and to the emotional well-being of one who tries to live without clearly defined principles, values, standards, and goals.

What Do I Value?

The question shouldn’t be “What will people think?” but “What will I think of myself?” We must have our own clearly defined values burning brightly within.

Values provide an inner court to which we can appeal for judgment of our performance and our choices.

We live in a time when too often success is determined by the things we gather, accumulate, collect, measure, and even compare in relation to what others gather and accumulate. This pattern of living invites its own consequences and built-in stress.

Heading West

We read about the pioneers who, in the early history of the Church, left their possessions, “their things,” and headed west. Those who were with the handcart company, who would push or pull their carts into the wilderness, would give much thought to what they would make room for in their wagons and what they would be willing to leave behind. Even after the journey began, some things had to be unloaded along the way if people were to reach their destination.

Today our tests are different. We are not called to load our wagons and head west. Our frontier and wilderness are different, but we too must decide what we will make room for in our wagons and what is of highest value.

What’s In Your Wagon?

As we take an inventory of the things we are carrying in our wagons and make decisions about what we will be willing to leave behind and what we will cling to, we have guidance. The Lord has given us a great promise to which I bear my testimony. He has said,

“Therefore, if you will ask of me you shall receive; if you will knock it shall be opened unto you. Seek to bring forth and establish my Zion. Keep my commandments in all things. And, if you keep my commandments and endure to the end you shall have eternal life, which gift is the greatest of all the gifts of God” (D&C 14:5–7).

When we understand that our covenants with God are essential to our eternal life, these sacred promises become the driving force that helps us lighten our load, prioritize our activities, eliminate the excesses, accelerate our progress, and reduce the distractions that could, if not guarded, get us mired down in mud while other wagons move on.

If any of you are burdened with sin and sorrow, transgression and guilt, then unload your wagon and fill it with obedience, faith and hope, and a regular renewal of your covenants with God.

Gospel Principle:

As we learn to simplify and reduce, prioritize and cut back on the excesses,  that we have enough time and money for the essentials, for all that we ultimately want and even more.  Our house should be a house of order. (D & C 88:119; Mosiah 4: 27.)

Additional Information:

Packing Your Wagon, by Ardeth Kapp, New Era, Jul. 1991, p.35.

Pioneers: Followers of Jesus Christ

From: YouTube Mormon Messages. By Dallin H. Oaks, apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, pays tribute to modern-day pioneers who faithfully follow Jesus Christ. Read the entire talk, “Modern Pioneers” by Elder Dallin H. Oaks.

Ardeth G. Kapp

Ardeth G. Kapp, author and lecturer, has served as president of the Church’s Young Women organization (1984-92). She served with her husband, Heber B. Kapp, as he presided over the Canada Vancouver Mission from 1992-1995.  She was an institute teacher at the institute adjacent to the University of Utah. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah, and a master’s in curriculum development from BYU.  She was a member of the Church Curriculum Planning Committee as well as a board member of the Church Educational System and of Deseret Book Company and on the Board of Directors for the Deseret News Publishing Company and the Board of Trustees for Southern Virginia College.  She is currently a member of Board of Directors for Utah Youth Village, Deseret Book Company, and Upward Reach Foundation.