“Hearken ye to these words. Behold, I am Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. Treasure these things up in your hearts, and let the solemnities of eternity rest upon your minds.” (D&C 43:34). There’s an experiment that they do to explain how gravity works. They stretch out a rubber sheet, place a bowling ball in the middle, and then place a marble on the edge of the sheet. Instead of the marble heading straight towards the middle, it falls into an orbit around the bowling ball, because the bowling ball, as the heavier object, is warping the sheet, or the space around it. Whatever we decide to treasure up in our hearts and whatever we allow to rest upon our minds will warp the space around it much like the bowling ball warped the sheet. The heaviest object, the thing upon which we devote the most attention, will cause all other thoughts and dreams and pursuits to revolve around it. Therefore, if we will put our focus on Christ and let the solemnities of eternity rest upon our mind, then the weight of those solemnities will change the shape of our mind so that all other thoughts that enter into it will be forced to revolve around that once central idea. If we do not let Christ be the center of our thoughts, then something else will become the center of our attention. But placing our focus on worldly things will lead us down a frustrating and fruitless path. Anything we choose to spend our time and attention on that originates in this world will eventually fail and disappoint us, because the natural state of all things in this world is to decay and fall apart. Companies and TV stations and websites that were big fifty years or even five years ago are ancient history today. No one cares or remembers that they are gone. Some new thing has fallen into the center of our attention to warp our minds and cause all of our thoughts to revolve around it. But it will soon get knocked out of place by some other new thing. And on and on. Only the Solemnities of Eternity, centered on our Savior Jesus Christ and His Atonement, have the power to rest upon our minds with such finality that they are impossible to be pulled into the orbit of any fleeting fad or craze. If we will treasure up our Savior Jesus Christ in our hearts and have His doctrines and teachings rest upon our minds, then we will have a firm and immovable center that will help us to maintain the proper perspective whenever some new thing tries to capture our hearts and minds. I know that keeping the hope of Christ as the anchor for our souls is the only way that we will not be carried about by every wind of doctrine. I hope we can all allow the solemnities of eternity to rest upon our mind so that it is changed for the better.
