“Nevertheless, after all this, I never have known much of the ways of the Lord, and his mysteries and marvelous power. I said I never had known much of these things; but behold, I mistake, for I have seen much of his mysteries and his marvelous power; yea, even in the preservation of the lives of this people. Nevertheless, I did harden my heart, for I was called many times and I would not hear; therefore I knew concerning these things, yet I would not know; therefore I went on rebelling against God, in the wickedness of my heart, even until the fourth day of this seventh month, which is in the tenth year of the reign of the judges.” (Alma 10:5-6). The prophet Amulek remembered the exact date that he not only received the Call from the Lord, but also chose to give heed unto it - the fourth day of the seventh month of the tenth year of the reign of the judges. I’m not quite as good as Amulek - I had to look it up in my journal - but I opened my call to be a missionary on the twenty fifth day of the tenth month of the two thousand and eighth year of Our Lord. But I think that the broader point that Amulek was trying to make when he mentioned that he was called many times but he would not hear is that if he had not been so hard-hearted, then perhaps he would not have needed to remember a very specific day when he finally responded to the Lord’s call. We don’t have to wait until we receive a letter in the mail from the first presidency, or our bishop announces our name from the pulpit, before we can choose to heed the call of the Lord. We have a constant, open invitation to labor with the Lord in His vineyard. In this past General Conference, Elder David A. Bednar gave a talk called In the Path of Their Duty. Almost all of the examples that he gave of people “in the path of their duty” have little to do with official callings - sitting next to people at church, raising children, caring for aging parents. These are all examples who never hear the ringing of the Lord’s call because they never hang up on Him. They leave the line open. They don’t draw a distinction between church work and their “real life.” Jesus decried the pernicious habit in his day of people who would excuse themselves from helping their friends and family and neighbors by declaring their wealth and possessions as “corban,” or earmarked for dedication to the temple. Ostensibly, the Parable of the Good Samaritan is about treating even our enemies as our neighbors and thus worthy of our love. But I think the main point that the Savior was trying to make - especially with his inclusion of the priest and the levite who seemed to consider themselves “in the path of their duty” and thus exempt from helping a fellow human being dying and crying out for help - is that the path of our duty is not some highway overpass that lets us stick our noses up and blindly trod upon the fingers of all of those reaching their hands out in supplication. The path of our duty leads us directly to the one person who needs our love and help the most right now. "I think of our Lord and Exemplar, Jesus Christ, and His short life among the people of Galilee and Jerusalem. I have tried to imagine Him bustling between meetings or multitasking to get a list of urgent things accomplished. I can’t see it. Instead I see the compassionate and caring Son of God purposefully living each day. When He interacted with those around Him, they felt important and loved. He knew the infinite value of the people He met. He blessed them, ministered to them. He lifted them up, healed them. He gave them the precious gift of His time." (Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "Of Regrets and Resolutions" October 2012). I know so many of us see so much pain and suffering and injustice in the world around us and our hearts burn within us to do everything we can to make the world just a little bit better. But so many of us are waiting for the call. We feel unqualified, out of our depth, out of our jurisdiction. We don’t want to step on anyone’s toes or ruffle anyone’s feathers. We assume that better people with more training and more authority are handling things. We don’t have to wait for the call to serve. Each of us is called from one microsecond to the next. Like Amulek before the fourth day of the seventh month of the tenth year of the reign of the judges, many of us harden our hearts and will not hear the Lord calling out to us. I know that if we choose to leave the line open, the Lord will show us from moment to moment what the path of our duty is. “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” (Proverbs 3:5-6). A lot of what the Lord calls us to do will not make sense. We should trust Him anyway. The Lord will direct the path of our duty from moment to moment. If we truly trust in the Lord with all our heart, then every second of every day we will be on the path of our duty, to whatever strange and unexpected and definitely not on the plan or the itinerary destinations our path takes us.
