Sacrifice: an Inconvenient Investment

My poor father is most likely sick of me exploiting stories about him and connecting them to the gospel somehow, but, hey, that's what dad's are for, right? To teach us? And in fairness this involves more than just him, it includes my whole family.
In a family of eight we had problems keeping any sort of junk food around for more than 15 minutes. It didn't matter where you hid what you had, by the next day it was gone. As a opportunist child I often did extra chores to earn money to buy candy to keep in my room. Without fail it would be eaten by someone. It was at these times I would complain and whine until my sister would remind me of the definition of insanity; to do the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.
The main culprit was my Dad, which caused me much frustration. He would always say he would buy me more than I had before but I was too upset and proud to let him. I didn't want him to pay me back because than I couldn't be mad at me anymore.
Fifteen years later I am back living at home again. I have long since given up on hoarding treats and hiding them. I have learned that if they get eaten they get eaten, and now that I have a license, its not so much of a big deal to just run out and buy more.
But this week something happened, and then it clicked. Lately I have had a huge addiction to frozen chocolate that I keep in our freezer to snack on. My mom ate some one night, but it was no big deal, because she replaced literally 10 fold.
As I stacked the candy in the freezer I had an incredible answer to my prayers and thoughts of late. When times are hard, there are a lot of things that get said. From "think about how much you will grow" to "it will be worth it" or "it can't last forever, it will get better". These are all really vital pieces to keeping hope through hard times, but it also isn't really that helpful in the moment. I think, "great, but what about today, right now, right here?" I suppose the Lord knew that I already had the answers, but that I needed to hear it in a new way. As I was putting those chocolates in the freezer it hit me; this is the result of a slight inconvenience-and it has yielded incredible results. Yes, that night when I went to get my candy and it wasn't there I was upset. In the moment there was nothing I could do about it. But after all my past experiences I realized that being upset or refusing a "refund" to make up for it was the wrong thing to do. Instead I said and did nothing. I forgot about it really, and then, the next day, I more than doubled what I had. I realized that I had lost that investment for years by not letting my dad pay me back for the treats he would eat. Even more importantly, I realized how often I had denied Christ the opportunity to make up trials to me. He may take the candy for a bit, a inconvenience and an impossibly long moment, but at the end of it all, I should never let my pride rob me of the investment Christ is ready to give me. It was then I realized that sacrifice is an inconvenient investment.

Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh

The next member of the Nativity I would like to discuss is the gifts given to Christ by the wise-men. These gifts show to me that the wise-men loved and understood who Christ was.

Gold: Why gold? Well first of all it is worth a LOT. To me this gift of the wise-men was to show Christ they were willing to sacrifice a lot to know Him. They were willing to pay a price to find Christ in their lives and become better. When we come unto Christ we must be willing to sacrifice to allow the Atonement to work within us. An amazing example of this is Lamoni's father in the Book of Mormon. In Alma 22:15-18 Lamoni's father shows Aaron and God what he is willing to give up to know God. First it is his entire Kingdom; a pricy offer. But it is not until verse 18 that his "sacrifice" is accepted and Lamoni's father finds God. What was this sacrifice? ALL his sins. Let us search for ways we can sacrifice our sins to better know God for the more we become like Him the better we will know him. The second thing about the gold is that it was pure. For a long time we held gold as our currencies standard. I can think of no greater standard on this earth than Christ himself. He is the standard. He is the way. He is how we can learn to sacrifice our sins to Him and become as He is.

Frankincense: I learned in the Bible Dictionary that Frankincense was used by Priests during their sacrifices in the Temple. To me this shows that the wise-men truly knew Christ was here to be a sacrifice for our sins-to be the Lamb of God. They knew Christ's mission and what that meant for them-the price of their sins had been paid and it was now possible for them to return to God. To me this shows their deep gratitude and respect for this sacred gift of Christ.

Myrrh:  One of the uses for myrrh was for the embalming of the dead. Again the wise-men knew Christ. They knew he would die and then conquer death so that every single one of us can be Resurrected as He is and obtain immortality.





I know that the wise-men were giving the 2 year old Christ more than just "nice" gifts. They were showing their understanding, reverence, and devotion to Christ and His Atonement, example, and Resurrection for each of us. May we all follow their example and find meaningful gifts to give Christ this season. If we do so, we like the wise-men, may return home "another way" and allow Christ to change our hearts.