Pressing toward the Mark

First time he was in the general conference leadership session he kept feeling “you don’t belong here” until he was greeted by Elder Holland.

“Are you willing to let God prevail in your life?” That might have been the most important question/invitation from last conference.

There is joy in pressing toward the mark.

To press toward the mark is to faithfully continue on the “strait and narrow path which leads to eternal life” with our Savior and our Father in Heaven.

While we look at Paul’s service, we are inspired and uplifted by our own “Pauls” in our day, who also serve, teach, and testify with love and gratitude amidst the challenges they face in their lives and in the lives of their loved ones.

We should look around for “Pauls” to inspire us.

Interestingly, Paul is exhorting us to press forward while calling us to forget that which is behind—our past fears, our past focus, our past failures, and our past sadness. He is inviting us, just like our dear prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, to “a newer, holier approach.” The Savior’s promise is real: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.”

In my first general conference address, I shared an experience of my mother teaching me to work in our field. “Never look back,” she said. “Look ahead at what we still have to do.”

I wonder how I could help the kids learn to look forward instead of focusing on past disappointments. If I could it could change our culture.

“Are you willing to let God prevail in your life? Are you willing to let God be the most important influence in your life? … Will you allow His voice to take … precedence over every other ambition? Are you willing to have your will swallowed up in His?”

Russell M. Nelson

While the challenges of mortality will come to all of us in one way or another, let us focus on the goal of our “press[ing] toward the mark,” which is “the prize of the high calling of God.”

My humble invitation to all of us is to never give up! We are called to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.”

It is not so much about what we are going through in life but what we are becoming. There is joy in pressing toward the mark. I testify that He who overcame all will help us as we look up to Him. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

If we visualize what we are becoming and focus on what the Lord desires to make of us we will not go far from the mark and we will have peace in the journey—even in turbulent times.

Let us run with patience the race that is set before us.