“Wake-Up Calls,” Friend, Nov. 2012, 2–3
From the First Presidency
Wake-Up Calls
From “Opportunities to Do Good,” Ensign, May 2011, 22–26.
Our Heavenly Father hears the prayers of His children across the earth. He has invited us to participate in His work to lift up those in need.
There is a hymn about the Lord’s invitation to do this work that I have sung since I was a little boy:
Have I done any good in the world today?
Have I helped anyone in need?
Have I cheered up the sad and made someone feel glad?
If not, I have failed indeed.
Has anyone’s burden been lighter today
Because I was willing to share?
Have the sick and the weary been helped on their way?
When they needed my help was I there?
Then wake up and do something more
Than dream of your mansion above.
Doing good is a pleasure, a joy beyond measure,
A blessing of duty and love (Hymns, no. 223).
The Lord regularly sends wake-up calls to all of us. Sometimes it may be a sudden feeling of sympathy for someone in need. You may have felt sympathy for someone who seemed sad or afraid at school.
One Sunday a small child handed the bishop his family’s donation envelope as he entered the chapel before the sacrament meeting. The family had just learned of someone in the ward in need. The boy’s father had said something like this to the child as he placed a generous fast offering in the envelope: “We fasted today and prayed for those in need. Please give this envelope to the bishop for us. I know that he will give it to help those with greater needs than ours.”
I could tell from the boy’s smile and the way he held the envelope so tightly that he felt the great trust of his father to carry the family offering for the poor.
Illustrations by Paul Mann