Idolatry and me

Yesterday, in Sunday school we talked about being better husbands and fathers. One of the things we discussed is how hard it is to help our wives because of how busy we are.

As husbands and fathers our role is to provide for our families, however as in many things the tendency has been to run to extortion. One of the biggest flaws we have fallen into as a society, is modern day idolatry.

Yes we are to provide, but how much and at what cost? Do we have to work 60 hours a week in order to provide for our families? If we are serving the almighty dollar all day long, competing for possessions, from 8:00 am till 7:00 pm, when are we raising our families, when are we administering to the sick and afflicted, and when are we building the Kingdom of God. 

Is this the way God intends us to live?

Today during a lunch break I ran across "The False Gods we Worship" by President Spencer W. Kimball and it reminded me of our sunday school discussion, so I thought I would throw a quote from the talk into this blog.

Here are his words:

The Lord has blessed us as a people with a prosperity unequaled in times past. The resources that have been placed in our power are good, and necessary to our work here on the earth. But I am afraid that many of us have been surfeited with flocks and herds and acres and barns and wealth and have begun to worship them as false gods, and they have power over us. Do we have more of these good things than our faith can stand? Many people spend most of their time working in the service of a self-image that includes sufficient money, stocks, bonds, investment portfolios, property, credit cards, furnishings, automobiles, and the like to guarantee carnal security throughout, it is hoped, a long and happy life. Forgotten is the fact that our assignment is to use these many resources in our families and quorums to build up the kingdom of God -- to further the missionary effort and the genealogical and temple work; to raise our children up as fruitful servants unto the Lord; to bless others in every way that they may also be fruitful. Instead, we expend these blessings on our own desires, and as Moroni said, "Ye adorn yourselves with that which hath no life, and yet suffer the hungry, and the needy, and the naked and the sick and the afflicted to pass by you, and you notice them not" (Mormon 8:39).

As the Lord himself said in our day, "They seek not the Lord to establish his righteousness, but every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own God, whose image is in the likeness of the world, and whose substance is that of an idol, which waxeth old and shall perish in Babylon, even Babylon the great, which shall fall" (D&C 1:16; italics added).

I know that I spend way to much time and effort on the vain things of the world. Sundays discussion and this talk has been a great reminder for me to review where my heart and priorities are.