Several Saturdays ago, my wife and I joined ward members cleaning our meetinghouse. With an upright vacuum, I tackled the classroom floors.
At the front of the Relief Society room and behind a portable podium, the vacuum was unable to pick up a noticeable something.
Despite repeated efforts of maneuvering the vacuum’s power head alongside the baseboard, that “noticeable something” — a piece of paper, lint or dirt, I couldn’t quite tell exactly what it was — remained on the carpet, rather than inside the vacuum.
Frustrated at the inability of vacuuming up whatever it was, I did what I thought was the next best thing — I kicked a bundle of the nearby microphone cord overtop to hide it from view. If I couldn’t see it, it was gone — and hopefully nobody else would notice it, at least until it was someone else’s turn to clean the meetinghouse.
To the quick and casual view, everything looked clean. And I moved on to the next room.
Vacuuming doesn’t require much brainpower, so the mind tends to wander. And as much as I would have liked for it to have wandered, my mind kept returning to a certain location in the Relief Society room and a certain “noticeable something” remaining on the carpet.
The mind started to enlarge the lingering item, becoming bigger and multiplying. And the mind started to imagine someone on Sunday moving the strategically positioned microphone cord, pointing out what by now seemed to be a heaping pile of “noticeable somethings” on the carpet and crying out, “Who did or did not clean the meetinghouse on Saturday?”
Also coming to mind were scriptures like Luke 8:17: “For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad.” And Alma 39:8: “But behold, ye cannot hide your crimes from God; and except ye repent they will stand as a testimony against you at the last day” — although “crimes” seemed a little harsh in this situation.
Soon a commitment was made — to return to the Relief Society room for a correction before storing the vacuum.
I likened the experience to the importance of being prompt and proper when cleansing ourselves of sin — “prompt and proper when cleansing” became a part of my subsequent personal gospel study.
A teaching from Elder Neil L. Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the October 2009 general conference applied to my return to make resolution.
“When we sin, we turn away from God. When we repent, we turn back toward God,” Elder Andersen taught.
“The invitation to repent is rarely a voice of chastisement but rather a loving appeal to turn around and to ‘re-turn’ toward God. It is the beckoning of a loving Father and His Only Begotten Son to be more than we are, to reach up to a higher way of life, to change, and to feel the happiness of keeping the commandments.”
Another teaching — also suggesting my self-condemnation was a little extreme — came from Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the October 2022 general conference.
He asked his listeners to imagine being in the presence of the Savior. “I believe He would start by expressing His deep love for you. He might say it with words, but it would also flow so strongly — just from His presence — that it would be unmistakable, reaching deep into your heart, filling your whole soul.
“And yet, because we’re all weak and imperfect, some concerns might creep into your mind. You might remember mistakes you’ve made, times you gave in to temptation, things you wish you hadn’t done — or wish you had done better.
“The Savior would sense that, and I believe He would assure you with words He has spoken in the scriptures:
“’Fear not.’
“’Doubt not.’
“’Be of good cheer.’
“’Let not your heart be troubled.’
“I don’t think He would make excuses for your mistakes,” Elder Uchtdorf continued. “He wouldn’t minimize them. No, He would ask you to repent — to leave your sins behind, to change, so He can forgive you. He would remind you that 2,000 years ago He took those sins upon Himself so that you could repent. That is part of the plan of happiness gifted to us from our loving Heavenly Father.”
A postscript: I returned to the Relief Society room, moved aside the bundled-up cord and found not just the sole “noticeable something” but a couple of previously unseen other particles nearby. With some resolve and renewed effort, everything got cleaned up.
As many use a new year to set resolutions and make changes in their lives, prompt and proper cleansing can apply. And when one focuses on cleaning “noticeable somethings,” other opportunities and needs can also appear.
— Scott Taylor is managing editor of the Church News.
