This week was mostly uneventful because I woke up sick on Monday morning and had to stay in my room for the next four days. I watched some movies and did some schoolwork for the online Staff Officer Course I am taking for the Army right now. By New Year’s Eve I was feeling better and was able to get out and see the big celebration they had here. I was on a video call with my family back home so they could see me countdown to midnight here when it was only 2:00 pm there.
The New Year brings some reflection of the past year and setting goals for the next one. Before I left for this deployment, Dana and I and each of our children made goals of things we all wanted to work on for our growth and development during this time of separation. We each made goals in the areas of intellectual, physical, spiritual, and social improvement because we want to follow Jesus’s example to “increase in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” (Luke 2:52). More importantly, those goals can help us come closer to Jesus in our relationship with Him and how we treat the body and family He gave us. I believe that when we set and work toward meaningful goals like that, we are building upon The Rock Himself. I have been reflecting on those goals and feeling pretty good about my progress in some areas and needing to work more at others.
Speaking of building upon The Rock, they told us that this desert did indeed have a “rainy season”, but we did not believe them. Well, the last few days, and especially today, “the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon [our] house” (Matthew 7:25). The water level rose all around the chapel tent we meet in for church on Sundays, and even threatened to flood the building itself, but fortunately we are built on a solid foundation!
When we build our lives on Christ, not just by believing in him but by the very way we live each day, and guide our choices with righteous goals, we will not fall to the adversary. We will “stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places… even until death” (Mosiah 18:9) and receive the joy that accompanies those who follow Him in this life, and eternal salvation with Him in the life to come.
May we each reflect on this past year with gratitude for the many blessings God has granted us, learn from the past, set righteous goals for the future that bring us closer to Christ, and then live in the present each day that we may more fully appreciate each moment we are given and increase the righteous use of our God-given agency to follow Him. (see President Thomas S. Monson April 2003 General Conference Address: In Search of Treasure)
In His Service,
Chaplain John Critchfield
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