Hello! I've created this blog in an attempt to have a place to collect the parables I make up for talks or church lessons. I may also occasionally add one that I hear from someone else. Let me be clear that this is a Pro-LDS church site, but that the views are my own and should not necessarily be assumed to be in complete accordance to LDS doctrine. I will of course make all attempts to ensure that the ideas do match up with the doctrine, but I'm not a LDS scholar or expert on all things Mormon, so I may get things wrong from time to time.
So here's the first one, which I used in my Elder's Quorum lesson last week.
I coach my 7 year-old's baseball team, and right now we're in the middle of our fall season. A couple Saturdays ago, as I was assigning different team members their fielding positions, a boy named Alonzo came and asked where he was playing. I told him shortstop, and to my surprise he moaned and groaned about it. The other coach and I incredulously explained that shortstop was normally considered to be the most wanted position on the field, and it was where all the best players liked to play! He seemed happy about that and went off to get in position.
Then my son Ben came and asked where he would be playing. I told him he'd be at 2nd base this inning, and he also moaned and groaned about it. I know he normally gets bored if he doesn't get to make any plays all inning, so I explained to him that so far this game, the other team had been hitting a TON of balls to the second baseman, and that he was sure to get to make some plays. To my surprise, he said he still didn't want to play there, and wanted to play right field instead. RIGHT FIELD! In my head I'm thinking how all the worst kids on any little league team always get stuck in right field because no balls ever come out there. I asked why he would want to go out there, and he replies, simply, "because it's shady out there."
Well, I made him play second anyways, and after the first three batters all hit the ball right to him, and he was able to even get one of them out, he turns to me with a smile on his face and says "I believe you now!"
Doing missionary work is often like this. We're told that we'll have opportunities, but we might not necessarily have faith that they will come. Instead, we'd rather be off in right field, where it's nice and shady and we don't have to do a lick of work.
President Lorenzo Snow stated "In the providence of God, I have been called as an ambassador." He considered it a privilege and a blessing to have been able to do missionary work. He may have been talking about a full-time mission, but the work is the same, and the chance for us to be an ambassador is the same.
We all yearn for those spiritual experiences to come and buoy us up. We all wish we could have awesome gospel conversations with our friends, acquaintances, and coworkers, but we may not have the faith that choosing to stand out in the sun is worth the risk. We'd rather stand in the right field shade, where it's easy, but in all honesty will be boring. And maybe there will be innings where nothing comes our way even at second base, but we'll never have those innings where three easy grounders come to us in a row unless we take that risk, and show a little faith.
