When The Desire Behind Your Discipleship Goes Out

As much as I love Jesus Christ and His gospel, I have to admit that I don't always want to choose Him. I don't always want to do what is right. I don't always want to keep pressing forward. I've felt this way on several occasions throughout my life, but one particular experience from about three years ago illustrates this feeling well enough. I woke up one Sunday morning after a long night with very little sleep. I was greeted for the day by a pounding headache and a completely spoiled mood. I felt awful and I wanted to stay in bed for the rest of the day.

An obnoxious little voice in the back of my brain told me that I needed to get ready for church. I quite forcefully commanded that voice to shut up and let me sleep. But as annoying little voices tend to keep talking, it seemed I was stuck with it.

Get out of bed. Go to church. Today is Stake Conference. You need to be there.

I didn’t care. I didn't feel well. I wasn’t going and there was nothing that could possibly change my mind. And yet, the voice in my head continued nagging, and so I got up and resolved to take a long nap as soon as I got home.

I arrived just before the meeting began and found a random seat by some of the sisters in my ward. I didn’t greet them. I wasn’t in the mood. I didn’t pay attention to a word of the announcements and I couldn’t have repeated the name of the opening hymn if you had paid me. To be honest, I didn’t really tune in at all until the first speaker stood up and began his talk with, “I know that sometimes it’s hard to come to church, but we do it. And the reason that we do it is that it is right.”

I rolled my eyes. Alright, I get it.

Much to my surprise, the rest of the meeting was superb. Absolutely wonderful. I sincerely enjoyed listening to each of the speakers and found myself in a much better mood by the time it was over. My head still hurt, but I had gone to church, learned a lot, and could now justifiably run home and take that nap.

The very next week, however, I awoke with the same annoyance and desire to skip church. This had never happened to me before. I had never actively dreaded going to church, and I didn’t quite know what to do with that. I wish I could say that I remembered the words from the week before and chose to go to church, simply because it was the right thing to do. I wish I could tell you that the speakers were once again amazing and that I felt spiritually uplifted and edified once again.

But I can’t. Because guess what? I turned off my alarm, rolled over, and went back to sleep. Or rather, I tried to go back to sleep. The words were in my head before I had even had the chance to drift back into unconsciousness.

“Are we going to have this argument every week?”

Anyone who says that God doesn’t have a sense of humor is lying. Or at least does not know the same God I know. In all honesty though, I don’t think God was trying to be funny. I think He was probably genuinely annoyed at my lack of effort (and lack of learning from the previous week.)

But despite the fact that He was probably reasonably disappointed in me, I started to laugh, because truly, I had not expected that response.

So you know what? I went to church. And the speakers were all perfectly ordinary and mundane. I remember nothing else particularly noteworthy from that day. But I had gone and this time, I had learned my lesson.

Sometimes we don’t have it in us to want to go to church. Sometimes we just don’t have the desire to read our scriptures or to pray. Sometimes we just want to be left alone. On those days, I try to remind myself that it’s okay to feel that way. Yes, we should love what the Lord loves, but when we can’t do that, we should just strive to do as He does. Sometimes that’s still going to be difficult, but it is more doable.

If your desire to come unto Christ has gone out, I want you to know that I’ve been there too. If you feel tired and want to give up on God and yourself, I understand. I know what it’s like to think that maybe it would be easier to not try at all, particularly when we just keep falling short. But I promise that it won’t be like this forever. The apathy will not last. Your desire to follow the Son of God will come back. It might take weeks, months, or even years, but as you continue moving forward, it will come back. The love you once felt for Him and His gospel will return, but not without effort on your part.

So keep trying. Keep believing. Keep doing what you know is right, simply because it is right. As you do what the Lord does, I promise that you will eventually come to love what He loves too.