Are You Plugged In?

Living and serving in Fairview, Tennessee has its benefits, but our washing machine is not one of them:

Our washing machine, created 1300 B.C.

The thing sounds like it's going to explode every time we use it. One of these days, it probably will.

But that's beside the point.

The other morning I was doing laundry when a powerful storm knocked the power out. My clothes were left, soapy and soggy, in the ancient washing machine on an unfinished cycle. Fortunately, the power came back on moments later, and the cycle restarted itself.

I pondered how our lives are much like a washing machine (aged and about to die or new and efficient, as the case may be). When connected to power, the washing machine is effective at performing its job. Without power, however, it is useless.

When we live the gospel, we are effective at doing what God has called us to Earth to do. We are 'plugged in' to God's power—the blessings that come from righteous living.

Conversely, when we aren't living the gospel, we voluntarily cut ourselves off from the power and blessings which God stands ready to give us. We are no longer effective at doing what we were called to Earth to do, and we and those around us suffer. Our lives—much like my clothes inside the powered-down washing machine—become a jumbled mess.

Washing machines are different in size and style, but all are essentially the same in purpose and function. Washing machines are made to wash clothes, and they're mighty effective at doing that...when coupled with electricity.

We, too, are different from one another in perhaps innumerable ways. But we're all made in God's image and we all have the same purpose: to love and serve others in this life, and to return to live with our Father in Heaven. We can accomplish those goals only if we are plugged in to the power of the gospel.

One of my companion's favorite scriptures—and I'd have to say it's becoming one of my favorites—is 1 Nephi 7:12 in the Book of Mormon:

Yea, and how is it that ye have forgotten that the Lord is able to do all things according to his will, for the children of men, if it so be that they exercise faith in him? Wherefore, let us be faithful to him.

Let us have faith in the Lord. Let us plug in to the blessings of the gospel.