These past few weeks, I have noticed and reflected on my husband’s relationship with my son. It has been such a blessing to watch their love and relationship grow over the past year. Now that my son is starting to better learn and understand the world around him, I have noticed a whole new dynamic be introduced into their relationship.
My son has always been a daddy’s boy, and I am totally fine with that. I love to see the way that they play together and interact with one another. Recently, my son got some new legos. As we watched my son figure out how to put the legos together all on his own, I saw my husband’s face light up. He was so proud of how quickly my son was learning new things. Over the last week, I’ve seen this same excitement in my husband as my son is starting to recognize and repeat more and more words. Every time my son learns something new, or even tries something new, I see the joy in my husband’s eyes.
These beautiful reactions that I am so blessed to witness, have caused me to ponder on our own relationship with our Heavenly Father. I imagine that our Father in Heaven is a lot like my husband watching his son. I’m sure that Heavenly Father sees us when we learn something or try something new, no matter how small the accomplishment, and smiles on us with pride.
This has brought me to think about, what can we do in our daily lives to make our Father proud? There are so many answers to this question, and it may be a personal question for you to decide what you need to do at this point in your life to make God proud. That being said, I know that when we follow God’s will and strive to keep His commandments, He is happy with us and our decisions, and He is proud of what we have accomplished.
I have found a list of ways that we can build our relationship with God, and if you don’t know where to start to strive to make God proud, choosing one of the things from this list will definitely help you to take a step in the right direction. I won’t go through the whole list, but I wanted to go through a few of them individually.
Read God’s Word
The scriptures can be such a blessing in our lives. We are so lucky to have the word of God at our fingertips at all times. Especially now, technology has made it possible to read and study the scriptures anywhere we are. As I think about the importance of studying the scriptures, I am reminded of Elder Scott’s final general conference address before he passed. He talks about how God most often communicates with us through the scriptures.
Elder Scott also said: “Don’t yield to Satan’s lie that you don’t have time to study the scriptures. Choose to take time to study them. Feasting on the word of God each day is more important than sleep, school, work, television shows, video games, or social media. You may need to reorganize your priorities to provide time for the study of the word of God. If so, do it!
“There are many prophetic promises of the blessings of daily studying the scriptures.
“I add my voice with this promise: as you dedicate time every day, personally and with your family, to the study of God’s word, peace will prevail in your life. That peace won’t come from the outside world. It will come from within your home, from within your family, from within your own heart. It will be a gift of the Spirit. It will radiate out from you to influence others in the world around you. You will be doing something very significant to add to the cumulative peace in the world.
“ do not declare that your life will cease to have challenges. Remember when Adam and Eve were in the garden, they were free from challenges, yet they were unable to experience happiness, joy, and peace.7 Challenges are an important part of mortality. Through daily, consistent scripture study, you will find peace in the turmoil around you and strength to resist temptations. You will develop strong faith in the grace of God and know that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ all will be made right according to God’s timing.”
I know that this is true. Consistent study of the scriptures can bring us closer to God and give us more strength than we would ever be able to have otherwise. No matter how busy our lives may seem, we can always make time for God and His word.
Serve Others
No matter what we do, helping others makes God happy. Not only does it make God happy, but it is our responsibility to care for and serve those around us. When Jesus Christ was on the earth, he taught us about the importance of serving our fellow men. In Matthew 22, He said:
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
First, we must love God. Then, we show our love to God by loving His other children. He depends on us to be His hands here on earth. As we strive to be His disciples, we will be able to accomplish so much good in His name. We will also help others to come unto Christ, and in turn, come unto Christ ourselves.
Of this, President Nelson said: “Giving help to others—making a conscientious effort to care about others as much as or more than we care about ourselves—is our joy. Especially, I might add, when it is not convenient and when it takes us out of our comfort zone. Living that second great commandment is the key to becoming a true disciple of Jesus Christ.”
Pray Daily
How wonderful is it that God has given us a way to communicate personally with Him. He is our Father and He wants to hear from us. The more we reach out to Him through prayer, the more we will come to understand the way that He speaks to and interacts with us personally.
Sister Marriott, in a conference talk from 2015 said, “ How do we, a modern, busy, competitive people, become yielded and still? How do we make the Lord’s ways our ways? I believe we begin by learning of Him and praying for understanding. As our trust in Him grows, we open our hearts, seek to do His will, and wait for answers that will help us understand.”
With so much going on around us, it is even more important that we take time to converse with our Father in Heaven. He knows what is going on in our lives. He knows what we need. He knows our questions and doubts. He knows us. What better person to talk to than someone who knows us individually? As we pray to Him and strive to come closer to Him, He will make us His.
Our Father Will Welcome us Home
I know that there are so many other things that we can do to make our Father proud, but the important thing is that we continually strive to come closer to Him and keep His commandments. No matter where you might be at the moment or how far you may feel like you have to go to make yourself right before God, He sees every effort and He is happy with anything that we do to improve our lives and live His Gospel.
Something that motivates me to continue on when times are difficult or when I may feel discouraged is to think about the possibility of living with God again someday. If we do our best while we are here on the earth, we will be happily welcomed home by our Heavenly Father. One passage that has stayed in my mind since I read it almost ten years ago is the Gospel Principles manual when it talks about exaltation. To me, it paints a beautiful picture of where I want to end up after this life.
It says, “Imagine what joy each of us will have when we return to our Heavenly Father if we can say: “Father, I lived according to Thy will. I have been faithful and have kept Thy commandments. I am happy to be home again.” Then we will hear Him say, “Well done … ; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord” (Matthew 25:23).
I know with all of my heart that God is proud of us when we choose to follow him. Just like my husband smiles on my son when he learns something new, God does the same when we make any effort to come closer to Him. I also know that as we make daily choices to come to know and serve God, we will eventually be happily welcomed home by our Father.