Simplify as You Magnify

By Lu Ann Staheli

It often seems the more ways we invent to simplify our lives, the more complicated our lives become. Technology allows us to make contact with others from almost anywhere, resulting in less time away from the concerns of work. Household appliances reduce the workload, while giving us an opportunity to use even more specialized equipment to complete each task. Automobiles are high tech, ready to tell us when every fuel, oil, and air level must be checked, meaning we spend additional time taking the car in to have those indicator lights turned off. Life has become a rat race all in the process of simplification.

It’s no wonder we sigh when we hear church leaders tell us to “magnify our callings.” To members of the priesthood, the late Elder Delbert L. Stapley of the Quorum of the Twelve once observed: “There are two main requirements of this oath and covenant. First is faithfulness . . . The second … is to magnify one’s calling. To magnify is to honor, to exalt and glorify, and cause to be held in greater esteem or respect. It also means to increase the importance of, to enlarge and make greater.”

Enlarge and make greater—two words that sound like more work. Is this a call to add one more thing—one more obligation—to our already busy lives? Does it mean we must make the simple hard or the plain glorified? How can members of the priesthood—and the sisters who support them—magnify their callings as husbands, fathers, providers of service in the church, and wage earners, without being lost in the charge to magnify? When it comes to matters of spirituality, perhaps the answer really is to simplify.

President Marion G. Romney, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, once said, “In order to magnify our callings in the priesthood, three things at least are necessary: One is that we have a motivating desire to do so. Another is that we search and ponder the words of eternal life. And a third is that we pray.” Those three things alone are enough to put all members of the church on the path to magnifying not only our callings, but the quality of our lives.

President Gordon B. Hinckley adds, “When we live up to our high and holy calling, when we show love for God through service to fellowmen, when we use our strength and talents to build faith and spread truth, we magnify our priesthood.

“We magnify our priesthood and enlarge our calling when we serve with diligence and enthusiasm in those responsibilities to which we are called by proper authority. We magnify our calling, we enlarge the potential of our priesthood when we reach out to those in distress and give strength to those who falter. We magnify our calling when we walk with honesty and integrity. We honor our priesthood and magnify its influence when we walk in virtue and fidelity.”

Magnifying your calling doesn’t mean adding embellishments to presentations of gospel truths. It doesn’t mean holding a meeting just to have a meeting. It doesn’t mean home or visiting teaching becoming one more obligation that must be fulfilled. Magnifying your calling applies mostly to what happens inside each of us during the process. The benefits we reap by helping others are pleasant byproducts of completing the charge the Lord has given us to magnify.

If we want to magnify our callings as husbands or wives, fathers or mothers, providers of service in the church and community, wage earners and nurturers, we can do so without becoming lost in the charge to magnify. Use the four concepts introduced by President Romney and President Hinckley—have a motivating desire, search and ponder the words of eternal life, pray, and give service to your fellowmen—as the litmus test when deciding what to do to truly magnify each calling, both in the church and life in general. If whatever is calling you to act passes the test, then you are doing as the Lord has asked. If not, then perhaps this desire isn’t really right for you.

We all have obligations that become time wasters, activities that pull us away from the simple life. Look carefully at everything you do. Are there ways you can simplify? Is there a point where, even in a worthwhile activity, you have done too much? To be closer to the Lord, we must have time to look inside ourselves. Our church callings should not pull us away from that time, but give us opportunity to draw closer to the One who gave the calling.

Again, President Hinckley has said, “To each of us the Lord has said, ‘Magnify your calling.’ It is not always easy. But it is always rewarding.”