Recently, we were assigned to help clean our ward building.  Our team included a family with an older Primary child who was enthusiastic to help.  As I worked my way around the building disinfecting countertops, I found this child in the kitchen happily wielding a large mop and bucket.  It was a lot to manage but the child didn’t seem to mind and was pleased with the job.  As the child left the kitchen, it was easy for me to mop up a little of the extra water on the floor and quickly wipe up any spots that had been missed.  As I finished, I thought about all the ways the Lord lets us help long before we have any expertise.  Though our early efforts can be messy, He is not discouraged.  He is completely capable of doing all the work but delights in our desire and efforts to work beside Him.  

 

As an apprentice would bind themselves to a master to learn a trade, we bind ourselves to God ensuring our place in His classroom and workshop where we learn to become like Him.  “‘Once you and I have made a covenant with God, our relationship with Him becomes much closer than before our covenant.  Now we are bound together.  Because of our covenant with God, He will never tire in His efforts to help us, and we will never exhaust His merciful patience with us.  Each of us has a special place in God’s heart…Jesus Christ is the guarantor of those covenants.’  If we will remember this, the Lord’s high hopes for us will inspire, not discourage, us.” (Elder D. Todd Christofferson quoting President Russell M. Nelson, October 2022)

 

Though the apprentices are learning and training, our Master is so powerful He brings quality to our clumsiest attempts. The Lord does His work with us “helping”, His work is us. In His care, we can  “cheerfully do all things that lie in our power;…then…stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed. (D&C 123:17)  He is doing His work in us.