In the Parable of the Ten Virgins, oil is used as a symbol for spiritual preparedness and readiness to receive the Lord and His goodness in our lives. We could easily argue that a single droplet of oil on its own has very little intrinsic value. One drop of oil is not enough fuel to keep a lamp burning for even a second. The drop of oil only becomes valuable as part of a collection. Many drops of oil combined together can provide the power to keep our light shining forth. Just as it is hard to perceive the worth of a single droplet of oil on its own, it can be equally difficult to recognize the value in our efforts to obtain such a drop. We are all told to do the same things over and over to make sure that we have enough oil in our lamps - say our prayers, read our scriptures, go to church, serve others. Sometimes our prayers can feel monotonous. Sometimes we read and reread the same verse of scripture and nothing seems to be penetrating our mind or our heart. Sometimes we start to daydream during church...or nod off and actually dream. Sometimes we try to serve someone who accepts our service with bad grace and no thanks, or we tried to make things better and it seems like we only made them worse. Sometimes living the gospel feels like we are doing drills - rote, tedious, uninspired, effortful, thankless work. There’s often no spark or sizzle, no pillar of light coming down from heaven, no round of applause, no overwhelming feeling of accomplishment and fulfillment. But by engaging in these daily drills of the basic things - prayer, scriptures, church, family time, fasting, sharing our testimonies - drop by drop we add to our cruse of oil. If we feel like we went to church and got nothing out of it this time, we should think again. Maybe the speakers didn’t move us to tears, maybe the kids we were teaching in Sunday School were bouncing off the walls and generally ignoring our prayerfully prepared lesson, maybe somebody thoughtlessly offended us - again! - but the fact of the matter is however well or poorly it went, we got another drop of oil just the same and we can keep the light of Christ burning inside of us for a little while longer yet. I know that no effort we make to follow our Savior and keep our covenants and love our neighbors is ever wasted. I hope we can all do our daily drills for a few more drops of oil and not get discouraged if sometimes the individual droplets seem small and insignificant. Having enough oil for our lamps when we meet the Savior will have made all of it worth it in the end.
