Spiritual Stamina

While teaching the Young Single Adults in institute this week I was marveling over how quickly the Nephites could turn from righteousness to rebellion, and over how some missionaries finish their missions, come home, and lapse into inactivity.  “How is it possible?” I asked.

“Spiritual stamina,” one student answered.  “They lack spiritual stamina.”

I like that.  I like that phrase a lot.  I’ve been turning “spiritual stamina” over in my mind ever since.

How do you build up stamina?  It’s done through exercise.  It’s done through practice.  It’s done through doing something over and over again until it becomes habit.  It becomes who you are, and what you do every day.

One of my coworkers at the temple the next day told me that he is learning to play the piano.  I was impressed that he would undertake such a difficult goal in his older years.  He explained that he is practicing one hour per day.  His inspiration came from an article he read about the “10-year rule.”

He sent me the article, the premise of which is that if you want to become world class in any endeavor you must devote 20 hours per week to diligent and determined practice in that endeavor for 10 years.  To become world class you need 10,000 hours of practice.  Twenty hours per week times 52 weeks per year times 10 years equals 10,000 hours—hence the 10-year rule.

If you want to be a world-class golfer you don’t just hit golf balls for 20 hours per week, but you hit them with a goal of putting them within a small patch of grass 80% of the time.

The great pianist Vladimir Horowitz supposedly said, “If I don’t practice for a day, I know it.  If I don’t practice for two days, my wife knows it.  If I don’t practice for three days, the world knows it.”  (“What it takes to be great,” by Geoffrey Colvin, Fortune Magazine, 19 October 2006).

My 10-year-old granddaughter has taken it upon herself to learn to type using the Dvorak keyboard.  In the Dvorak method the keys of the typewriter are in different places than they are when using the keyboard and the method that we are all used to.  That old keyboard was arranged as it was to keep the letters that were hitting the typewriter paper from jamming together.  The letters that were most used were purposely spaced apart so that they wouldn’t be likely to be striking the paper at the same time and thus jamming.  It was a system with a built-in way to slow you down.  With modern technology we no longer have to worry about keys jamming together, so the Dvorak method was invented.  In the Dvorak method the most-used letters are given home positions under the fingers in order to facilitate the least amount of time-wasting movement.

I consider myself a good typist.  Using the old method I can type about 70 words per minute (WPM).  Ten-year-old Calista regularly updates me on her progress.  At 10 years old I didn’t know the first thing about typing.  I didn’t even know that there was a home position for each finger.  Calista practices each day.  Yesterday she set a new personal record of 72 WPM with 95% accuracy.  If she keeps practicing, it won’t be long before she hits 100 WPM.  She’s probably already world class for 10-year-olds, but at 100 WPM she’ll be world class for all age groups—and she’ll just be a young teenager.

It won’t happen without diligent, devoted practice.

Whatever you want to become, it requires diligent, devoted practice.

Would you like to be a gospel scholar?  Would you like to be firmly rooted in your faith with no danger of ever falling away?

It will require diligent, devoted practice.  Spiritual stamina can only be achieved through spiritual exercises that are done daily.

It has been observed that no one ever fell away from the Church who was reading his Book of Mormon.  As president of the Church, Ezra Taft Benson never once got up in general conference without exhorting Church members to daily read the Book of Mormon.  Coupled to those exhortations were promises.  The promises he made to those who would faithfully read their Books of Mormon daily were impressive.  I went back through all of the talks President Benson gave in general conference as president of the Church and listed them on a roll of butcher paper.  The 46 entries thereon formed a 21-foot-long scroll that made a wonderful visual aid that I’ve used in many lessons and talks.

Prayer must also be part of our daily spiritual exercise program.  If a person is daily reading his Book of Mormon and praying, is there any way he could ever fall away from the Church?  I don’t think it would be possible, especially if he was also attending sacrament meeting each week, and serving in some capacity or calling.  The Holy Ghost is the companion of such a person, and such a person has spiritual stamina.

It would be interesting to interview the returned missionaries who have gone inactive, and learn what it was that brought about their inactivity.  I’m sure that in nearly every case we would learn that inactivity came about through the cessation of one spiritual practice after another.  The missionary first dropped his daily scripture reading habit because it was no longer required of him following his release.  He then skipped church one Sunday because of an invitation to do something else.  He felt a little guilty about it, but less so as church meetings on succeeding Sundays became easier to miss.  Next he succumbed to a temptation that made him feel so guilty that he didn’t feel worthy to pray.  Thereafter prayer became sporadic or perhaps stopped completely.

I can see how it would be easy to slip into inactivity with such a scenario.  It happens inadvertently.  One loses spiritual stamina when one ceases to practice.

One gains spiritual stamina as he diligently and devotedly practices his spiritual routines.

As a young man Lorenzo Snow had a habit of daily retiring to a secluded spot near his home to pray.  He continued that practice following his baptism.  He was happy and excited about his new-found faith until two or three weeks later when one day he found himself weighed down by an oppressive spirit.  In this gloomy attitude he began having doubts about the course he had chosen.  As the time for his daily devotional approached, he didn’t feel like praying.  He was tempted to forego the exercise; but because it was a habit, he went at the usual time and knelt in prayer.  He said,

“I had no sooner opened my lips in an effort to pray, than I heard a sound, just above  my head, like the rustling of silken robes, and immediately the Spirit of God descended upon me, completely enveloping my whole person, filling me from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, and O, the joy and happiness I felt! No language can describe the instantaneous transition from a dense cloud of mental and spiritual darkness into a refulgence of light and knowledge, as it was at that time imparted to my understanding. I then received a perfect knowledge that God lives, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and of the restoration of the Holy Priesthood, and the fulness of the gospel.

“It was a complete baptism—a tangible immersion in the heavenly principle or element, the Holy Ghost; and even more real and physical in its effects upon every part of my system than the immersion by water; dispelling forever, so long as reason and memory last, all possibility of doubt or fear in relation to the fact handed down to us historically, that the ‘Babe of Bethlehem’ is truly the Son of God; also the fact that He is now being revealed to the children of men, and communicating knowledge, the same as in the apostolic times. I was perfectly satisfied, as well I might be, for my expectations were more than realized, I think I may safely say, in an infinite degree.”  (Teachings of Presidents of the Church, Lorenzo Snow, chapter 3).

The key here is that he had a habit.  This is who he was.  He had diligently and devotedly given himself to this practice, so he had spiritual stamina.  His spiritual stamina carried him through the trial.

I have a spiritual exercise that I’ve devotedly pursued for almost 50 years.  I first learned about general conferences of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the fall of 1967.  I had then been a member of the Church for seven months.  Thereafter I tried to always listen to conference, and to later read all of the talks when they were printed in the Church publications.

I followed that practice for about five years.  It became a frustration to me that I would remember reading some thought by one of the Brethren in general conference, but when I wanted the quotation, I couldn’t locate it.  Then I stumbled upon a system that enabled me to minutely index the talks right down to a well-phrased sentence.

I indexed the two most recent conferences (I think that was in 1972), and then went back and indexed everything back to the October 1968 general conference.  Reading, digesting, taking apart, and indexing a talk from general conference requires about an hour.  I’ve maintained that habit.  My index is one of the most valuable things I have.

With just four more conferences I will have completed indexing 50 years of general conference.  With an average of 39-40 speakers in each conference, I have easily spent well over 4,000 hours on this project.  Four thousand hours is equivalent to 166 twenty-four-hour days.  According to the 10-year rule I haven’t yet reached “world-class status.”  I have surely exceeded 4,000 hours in this endeavor, but I have probably not reached 10,000.

However, this endeavor gave me the ability to locate all of the stories that have been told in general conference, and to compile them into what will be a 6-volume set when my 50-year indexing goal is complete.  Five volumes are finished, but they’re not publishable since the Church owns the copyright on the material.  The Church has, however, given me permission to share my compilation of stories with family and friends.

My family uses all of these materials.  They are the ones for whom I’ve done these things.

But I’m the one who has benefited the most.  I’ve easily spent 10,000 hours in these projects.  I’m an expert in the words of the prophets as delivered in general conference over the past 50 years.  I have internalized their words, and, oh, how it has blessed my life!

Hopefully I have spiritual stamina.  I cannot imagine life without the Church.  I shudder to think of life without the gift of the Holy Ghost.  I become ever more grateful for my Savior, His Atonement, the gift of repentance, the scriptures, my covenants, my Priesthood, and my testimony.  I’ve not just given 10,000 hours to these things, but my life.

I owe everything to my Savior.  I only hope that my spiritual stamina can carry me through the remainder of my life, and that the Savior will find my offering satisfactory.