Zero Fatalities

I was profoundly affected by the messages that I heard in our stake conference this weekend.  In the Saturday evening meeting, our stake president, President Timothy Taylor, spoke on a topic that I have taken the liberty to call, "Zero Fatalities."  I have also taken the license of mixing his words with mine.  I hope he won't mind.

As a traffic engineer, he receives reports from the Utah Department of Transportation about the deaths on Utah roads.  There have been over 200 deaths on the roads this year and of those, over 80 were the result of the victims not wearing a seat belt.  UDOT's zero fatality goal emphasizes the question, "How many deaths are acceptable?"  and in an even more personal way, "How many deaths are acceptable in your family?"  Of course, the answer is an emphatic zero; hence, the "Zero Fatality" slogan.

The question that came into my mind as our president spoke was, "How many spiritual deaths are acceptable in my family?"  To illustrate, he told the true story of a young man who wanted to spend the night at a friend's house.  He called his parents for permission, but they wanted him to come home by his curfew of 12:00 am.  When 12:15 rolled around and her son had not yet returned home, the mother became worried and started to drive the route that her son would have taken home.  After driving for a few minutes, she saw a police car pass her with his lights on, and shortly after that, she came upon the scene of a horrible accident and saw the family car in the middle of a field.  Her son had swerved to miss a deer and had rolled the car.  Because he was not wearing his seat belt, he was ejected and the car rolled on top of him.  Her wonderful son, who was known for always wearing his seat belt, had, for whatever reason, not put it on that night and had lost his life as a result.  In his case and many others, it did not matter that he had worn his seat belt all of the previous times.  What mattered was the decision to leave it off that night.

Like seat belts that keep us physically safe when we choose to wear them, we can develop small and simple habits that will keep us spiritually safe if we practice them--not sometimes, not most of the time, but always.  Here is another rhetorical example that illustrates the importance of developing habits that maintain our spiritual health.

Eating is an "always" activity.  Our bodies get hungry and we eat.  What if we chose not to eat?  Someone might ask us why we are looking so sickly and thin.  We might answer, "Oh, I eat most of the time but sometimes I don't because I just don't have the time, and eating is so boring.  It's just the same thing over and over again--put something in your mouth and chew it up."  Of course, this answer is nonsensical.  Yet, how often do we use these excuses for the spiritual essentials in our lives?  Just like "most of the time" cannot and should not exist when it comes to "always" activities like eating and seat belts, it should not exist for things that contribute to our spiritual health.

Why, when we are crying out for peace in much the same way that our bodies cry out for food, why are we not ALWAYS doing the things that will bring us peace?  Like eating and seat-belt wearing, the following spiritual essentials need to become fundamental habits:  family home evening, family and personal prayer, family and personal scripture study, and regular temple attendance.  As we do these things on a regular basis, we should remember that "always" is less about the quantity or the time we spend each day and more about the quality of how we do them.  They should deepen our relationship with and understanding of our Heavenly Father and His son, Jesus Christ.

God is an "always" God and we must be "always" Saints--not "most of the time" Saints.  If we are doing the small and simple spiritual essentials most of the time, then we will receive the help that we seek and need from God most of the time.  I don't know about you, but I want and desperately need that help all of the time, as I seek to keep myself and those I love from becoming spiritual fatalities.

There is a great promise found in the Book of Mormon to those who always build their foundations on these small and simple essentials: And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall (Helaman 5:12).