When you can’t make time to live the gospel

We're taught to make Christ the center of our lives, but who has time for that?

I sat in an elders quorum lesson a few weeks ago that baffled me.¹

In the course of the lesson, the teacher asked the group, “What are some distractions that can keep us from focusing on Christ and His gospel?” It was a good solid question, and the answers rolled in. Someone said work, our jobs, can keep us from being focused on Christ. Someone suggested that watching too much football might be a distraction. Someone else suggested that our phones are distractions. Someone else said golf. These things can all be distracting, for sure.

But the fascinating part was that these things were all brought up because of the time they take. The presumption was that by spending time on these things, you were by definition not spending time on a gospel thing. If you spend time watching football, that’s time you could have been ministering. If you play golf, that’s taking away from time you could have been reading the scriptures.

At that point, someone brought up Kobe Bryant, the basketball player (as one does, in elders quorum), and how he would hit the gym at 4:00am so that he could get in some practice time before anybody else even woke up. There was general nodding and agreement from the group in applying this to the gospel: yep, if you want to focus on Christ, you’d better get up early so you have enough time to do it.

But the problem with the idea that football and jobs and phones are impediments to our salvation is the conclusion that living the gospel requires time. There’s an implication that we should, ideally, be spending 100% of our time actively reading scriptures or praying or taking someone a casserole. If we’re not in the temple at this very moment, if we’re not currently ministering, if we’re spending our time frittering away at things like our jobs then we’re going to be terrestrial kingdom candidates at best. Good luck if you have two jobs, or are a single parent, or have any other commitment that keeps you from the full-time job of being a Latter-day Saint.

I’m being facetious, of course, but I just can’t think of when Jesus Christ taught us this. All of those things—scriptures, prayer, temple service, ministering, etc.—are all great things, and things the Lord has asked us to do.

But I would also suggest that those outward actions, those gospel checklist items, are pointing us to something greater; they’re there simply to help us build our individual, personal relationship with God. Here’s the point:

The Lord didn’t tell us how many minutes to read our scriptures, how often to attend the temple, or when to pray. But He did tell us to love God and love our neighbor, and we can do that anytime, in any place.

I believe each of us can live a Christ-centered life at work. I believe we can watch football games while loving God and loving our neighbor. I believe we can—heaven help us—play games on our phone and still qualify for the eternal glory our Heavenly Parents have promised. Living the gospel is not a separate activity, it’s the way we do everything as we live our lives. Or more precisely, it’s who we are while we do them.

I recently read the book “New Happy: Getting Happiness Right in a World That’s Got it Wrong,” by Stephanie Harrison, which is spectacular and worth your time. The author explores, to good effect, the contrast between what she calls “Old Happy” and “New Happy.” Old Happy is largely still our society’s preferred understanding of happiness, and is anchored in achievement, perfection, status, and wealth. New Happy, instead, is based on being your authentic self, and giving of yourself to others. The irony of Old Happy is that these external goals can’t actually make you happy. New Happy, in turn, is much healthier, and much more likely to invite happiness into your life.

Part of what was profoundly impactful to me about this book was how exactly it describes our church experience. You could turn this into a church book by changing a few words here and there, and otherwise it would apply directly.

Old Happy becomes Old Righteous, the belief that you are never doing enough, that there is always more to do, and that the atonement of Jesus Christ and His grace come into effect only after all you can do, only if you qualify, only if you’ve earned enough points to win God’s love. Old Happy, and thus Old Righteous, values:

1. Being perfect, or as close to it as possible

2. Conforming to the prescribed path

3. Working harder and harder (and never resting or slowing down)²

New Happy, on the other hand, becomes New Righteous, the belief that those things actually aren’t the key to your happiness or your salvation, and that if you live authentically to yourself and try to love your neighbor, then the grace of Jesus Christ has always been enough. New Happy and New Righteous are premised on:

1. Discovering who you really are, as a child of God who is loved unconditionally, and

2. Using that to help other people.

I was taught the Old Righteous model growing up. You probably were, too. I was socialized into a church culture that told me that I always need to do more, and also that it will never be enough. I could always read my scriptures more, and do more family history. Not doing my ministering in a magnifying-my-calling sort of way brought me guilt and shame (and still does).

The author describes it this way:

This voice in your head—the one that keeps telling you that you are not good enough—that's not really you. It's the result of growing up in a culture that told you that no matter what you do, you are not enough. That's why unwinding Old [Righteous] starts with learning a new way to relate to yourself—with unconditional self-acceptance, knowing that you are worthy exactly as you are.

Old [Righteous] has convinced you that your worth is based not just on your performance, but on constantly achieving more and more. It also has convinced you to perpetuate this idea by grading yourself constantly in your progress toward this inhumane goal.³

Does this sound like you? It sounds like me. And it sounds like my experience in the Church for many, many years. That’s not the fault of the gospel; it’s an artifact of our culture, that has focused so heavily on perfecting ourselves. We’ve taught ourselves convincingly, via a verse that has maybe done some of us more harm than good, that we should be “anxiously engaged.”

Somebody told me when I was young that certain Christian sects believe that when you get to heaven, you’ll spend eternity gazing upon the face of Christ. I don’t know that that is actually true (the closest thing might be the Catholic concept of beatific vision, which has more depth to it than that). But I still remember it now, thirty-some-odd years later, because I didn’t think I would enjoy doing only that for all of eternity (and I didn’t suppose Jesus would like it all that much either).

I don’t think the Lord has asked us to do that. He hasn’t asked to avoid anything non-gospel-related. He hasn’t asked us to spend every waking moment in the scriptures. He has not asked us to cut out employment, interests, and hobbies just because the activity itself is not inherently spiritual.⁴

It’s insightful to recognize that the prophets and apostles have generally had careers and interests outside of anything churchy. President Nelson famously had a career as a heart surgeon. President Oaks was a judge. Elder Cook and Elder Christofferson were attorneys. Elders Andersen, Rasband, and Stevenson were all business executives at different types of companies. A few did come up through Church employment or the Church Education System, but they’re outnumbered.

If these brethren did not eschew their careers—they were, on average, exceptionally successful in them—then I’m not sure I need to either. And while I don’t think the folks in the elders quorum lesson that day really meant that we should quit our jobs so we can have more time to live the gospel, it sure came across that way.

We haven’t even mentioned yet how our adherence to this perfection-oriented paradigm, and fetishizing always doing more, can actually distract us from having a positive, familial relationship with our Heavenly Parents. Elder Bednar said:

As we pridefully focus upon ourselves, we also are afflicted with spiritual blindness and miss much, most, or perhaps all that is occurring within and around us. We cannot look to and focus upon Jesus Christ as the “mark” if we only see ourselves.

And Stephanie Harrison’s take on it—again, not from a religious point of view, but striking very close to home—is this:

It's our quest to fulfill Old [Righteous]'s idea of good—perfection—that prevents us from accessing our own immutable inner goodness. The busier you are trying to be your perfect self, the less time you have to connect with your goodness and share it with others.⁵ (emphasis added)

I don’t want anyone to think I’m recommending that you don’t read your scriptures, pray, go to the temple, minister, do family history work, share the gospel, magnify your calling, etc. etc. You should absolutely do those things. But if we’re losing sight of the fact that those things aren’t in themselves the gospel, then we’re doing it wrong. Being Christ-like, and making Christ the focus of our lives, doesn’t require big actions or chunks of time. It means being Christ-like while we’re driving kids to baseball practice, while we’re making dinner, and while we’re sitting in yet another meeting at work.

We’re not going to make ourselves perfect. That’s Jesus’s job. Our job, devastatingly unprofitable servants as we are, is to love God and love our neighbor.

If we can make the time for that.

1. I wish I could say this was uncommon. My ward is full of terrific people, committed Latter-day Saints, salt that has not lost its savor… most of whom see the world dramatically differently from how I do. Ah well.

2. Stephanie Harrison, New Happy: Getting Happiness Right in a World That's Got It Wrong (New York: TarcherPerigee, 2024), 10. These points are selections from, but still word-for-word from, the definition of “Old Happy” in the book.

3. New Happy, 44.

4. You might counterpoint here with the story of the rich young ruler, who was told to sell everything he has and follow Jesus, or with then Jesus told Peter and Andrew to follow him and they “straightway left their nets.” These are good stories about people who were asked to give up everything else; you might use our modern apostles as an example of that as well. But this was not Jesus’s message to the many, many other people he interacted with. It’s not the call for everybody; the Lord has not asked each of us to sell everything we have, or to leave our nets.

5. New Happy, 57.