The Gospel Building Block of Movement

“This is so much fun!”

I have heard countless young children say that exact phrase when they are running around, being chased by another child their age. My own children love being chased so much that instead of simply asking for attention when they feel a need for love and companionship, they will simply yell out, “catch me, daddy!” and immediately run away from me with a wide grin and heavy but happy breaths.

For children, bouncing off the walls, whether literally or figuratively, is as natural as is breathing. They do it because it brings them joy and because their bodies compel them to use up the energy that otherwise couldn’t be contained in its overabundance. I believe that the joy of running for children stems from a gospel building block, or precursor, to various principles of salvation. The desire and joy from movement children feel runs deeper than a basic instinct to survive.

In this world of constant change, there are a few things that always remain the same. We learn in the scriptures that God is the same yesterday, today and forever and the rules He set up to govern our lives here on earth are constant and true. Just like the law of gravity will always affect our lives physically, the balance between good and evil will always affect us spiritually.

Both physical and spiritual laws revolve around movement of one kind or another. In fact, happiness and sadness always stem from movement. In the eternal scheme of things, there is no true state of stagnancy in this life. We are either moving forward, towards further happiness, or backwards, towards misery. This rule is intertwined with the inherent joy children feel from movement. The truth is, though, that it is not just children that find happiness in movement.

Just as much as I have observed little children overjoyed to be chasing one another, I have also observed mature adults look on these youngsters and wonder where their energy comes from. The awe-struck adults often wish they, too, still had this youthful energy storage and fail to realize the children are just as curious as to how the adults are able to move the way they do. The defining factor is that a child’s energy is used up in the spur of the moment with carelessness and lack of skill, while adults use years and years of mature study and experience to create masterpieces and fix problems.

A wise person once stated in a short story he wrote: I find that youth isn’t wasted on the young, it’s forsaken by the old. - Craig Odell Smith; Growing Young

Age doesn’t have to be some horrible fate every man and women is doomed to face. It can simply be a process of learning to use movement to better one’s own life and the lives of others’ around. And speaking of not forsaking youth and dooming ourselves to the downsides of growing old, the hymn True to the Faith says it well:

We will watch and pray and labor

With the fervent zeal of youth. Yes!

The point that is being made in these examples is that youth is not solely defined by a set number, or lack thereof, of years under one’s belt. Elder Derek A. Cuthbert taught this as well in his talk, The meaning of Maturity. He teaches that we need to maintain the innate attributes we have as children as we attempt to reach maturity. These childlike attributes are innocence, humility, simplicity, faith, and love. They are not items we should leave behind like toys that lose their purpose or splendor.

But maintaining these attributes of youth is not the end. Cuthbert also points out: “Once we have made the necessary changes in our lives, we must add to these five basic qualities five more in order to achieve maturity in the Lord.” – wisdom, leadership, accountability, dependability, self-mastery.

Being young not only brings with it a zeal for life but a certain carelessness or lack of responsibility. The Lord intends for us to carry our youth and sense of awe and discovery and use it to hone in on the hard-earned, mature qualities. In Heavenly Father’s eyes we are all children at various stages in becoming more mature. Unless we are getting closer to the level of maturity He is at, we find ourselves lacking happiness and purpose in life.

And the level of purpose we have is in direct proportion to how much we are moving.

Just like cash flow dictates the success of a business, the currency and overall movement of our physical and spiritual lives dictates both our happiness and our progress back to Heavenly Father. The Lord encourages us to avoid slothfulness with this command: Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness – D&C 58:27

From a physical movement standpoint, the reason the Lord frowns upon laziness or slothfulness is because this is a powerful tool the adversary uses against us; to damn our progress. The way to break past the dam of laziness is labor and industry. In fact, President Hinckley taught that, “labor is the price of cleanliness and progress and prosperity”.

Cleaning, organizing, work, play are all impossible without movement and all can be anxious engagements within an industrious society. It is the devil’s perversions that lead us to believe that play and entertainment are synonymous. Being a vegetable on a couch, watching TV all day is a good example of entertainment for the sake of entertainment. There is a time and a place for entertainment, but to spend one’s life thinking that entertainment is the only source of enjoyment is simply one of the devils many wiles.

Play, on the other hand, can be a very beneficial way to promote industry. It not only gives the mind a break from various forms of labor, but can hone the very skills required to do the labor. Children may be the best example of this. Just as readily apparent as childrens’ desire to run and catch each other is their desire to sit down and play with toys or whatever is laying around - Interestingly enough, what they are doing with their toys to have ‘fun’ is often mimicking the labor adults and other role models around them often complain about being faced with.

It is all about perspective. We can learn to enjoy physical movement as we mature in this life and our movements slowly change and evolve, or we can let the changes drag us down. In this case we train ourselves to despise the very movements that would otherwise bring us our greatest joy.

Within the eternal law of moment, moving spiritually is exactly the same. Self mastery was the last quality from Cuthbert’s list and self mastery is the price of virtue. Again, from President Hinckley: “You should recognize, you must recognize, that both experience and divine wisdom dictate virtue and moral cleanliness as the way that leads to strength of character, peace in the heart, and happiness in life.”

Experience and wisdom are requisite for true mastery of self and look at all the blessing that comes with it. Strength of character, peace in the heart, and happiness in life are not things that come by vacationing on a floating pool-chair for the duration of one’s life. Faith, perseverance, love and many other principles are necessary to learn what it takes to find those desired outcomes. And principles are only valid by virtue of getting up and doing something about them.