If ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.
And behold, all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments (Mosiah 2:21–22).
O Lord,
my Father and my God,
Who lends
me breath
And thus
preserves my life from day to day,
That I
may live and move and have my way
Upon this
earth,
By this
one truth I’m humbly awed:
That all
that Thou requirest of me
Is this
one thing:
That I
employ that daily grant of breath
In
keeping Thy commandments until death
Shall one
day bring
Me
safely, surely home to Thee.
For
first Thou hast created me,
Granted
me life,
Wherein
already I am indebted,
In
Thy perfect image thus created
With
breath of life
Freely
given that I may serve Thee.
For
wisdom counsels: If I serve
My fellow
being,
I’m only
in the service of my God
And am
again indebted to my God,
Blessed
for being
Obedient
to Thy call to serve.
And
through the mercies of Thy Son,
Israel’s
Holy One,
Who
granted me both life and daily breath,
My
aspiration in weakness or in strength
Is to be
one,
Submissive
in all, as a son.
