Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

I wasn't able to go to church today but this is what stood out to me from the fireside our lesson was based on.


Elder D. Todd Christofferson,  “Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread”  

Thoughtful planning and preparation are key to a rewarding future, but we do not live in the future—we live in the present. It is day by day that we work out our plans for the future; it is day by day that we achieve our goals. It is one day at a time that we raise and nurture our families. It is one day at a time that we overcome imperfections. We endure in faith to the end one day at a time. It is the accumulation of many days well-lived that adds up to a full life and a saintly person.
  
Consistent effort in seemingly small, daily steps is a key principle in achieving any great work, including progress in the pathway of discipleship.

In the 1950s my mother survived radical cancer surgery, but difficult as that was, the surgery was followed with dozens of painful radiation treatments in what would now be considered rather primitive medical conditions. She recalls that her mother taught her something during that time that has helped her ever since: “I was so sick and weak, and I said to her one day, ‘Oh, Mother, I can’t stand having 16 more of those treatments.’ She said, ‘Can you go today?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, honey, that’s all you have to do today.’ It has helped me many times when I remember to take one day or one thing at a time.” 

Thinking of our daily bread keeps us aware of the details of our lives, of the significance of the small things that occupy our days. Experience teaches that in a marriage, for example, a steady stream of simple kindnesses, help, and attention do much more to keep love alive and nurture the relationship than an occasional grand or expensive gesture. That is not to say, brethren—you who are married—that your wife wouldn’t appreciate something new and really nice to wear or occasionally some other gift that expresses, with an exclamation point, how you feel about her (within the parameters, of course, of your miserable budget). It’s just that a constant, daily expression of affection, in both words and actions, is far more meaningful in the long run.