The Effects of Living a Religion

"But even in this present life, there is danger in the very concept of religion. It carries the suggestion that this is one more department of life, an extra department added to the economic, the social, the intellectual, the recreational, and all the rest. But that whose claims are infinite can have no standing as a department. Either it is an illusion or else our whole life falls under it. We have no non-religious activities; only religious and irreligious." --C.S. Lewis

In Relief Society today, we were talking about missionary work. One of the question posed was why talking about religion intimidates some of us. One of the comments pointed how ridiculous, even crazy, part of the premise the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is based on. We believe a fourteen-year-old boy had a vision. That he saw the Father and the Son, and he was told what to do. Other people find that hard to accept.

My mom, when she once spoke with me about her conversion (she was baptized at age 20), mentioned that it was something that seemed pretty unbelievable. But she found herself believing in spite of any urges she had to think of it as a crazy story. She knew it was true.

But that wasn't what brought her to the missionaries. She was friendshipped into the church. When her family moved into the house in Kaysville shortly after her high school graduation, she and her sisters were assaulted by a myriad of invitations to church activities. And they weren't invitations designed to convert my mom or her sisters. They were welcoming invitations. Everyone there wanted to be friends with them.

And my mom found herself impressed by all of these people. By the way they interacted with each other. How they related to other people. Their optimism. Their kindness. In short, she wanted to learn more about what religion they were because of who they were. I can never express to any of the people who had such an impact on my mom how grateful I am.

One of my Institute teachers used to talk about how the world likes to compartmentalize their life as they would a pie: a slice for work, a slice for play. Slices for hobbies, slices for religion. All part of the same pie. His point was always this: for us as members, religion is the whole pie.

It affects who we interact with and how, our work lives, our home lives, and our relationships of any kind. It dictates what we say and how we say it--and how we feel afterward. I can't think of any part of my life that isn't affected my what I believe.

Because there is an amazing power in living what we believe. They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

I think a good example is worth a thousand sermons.