I taught a lesson two Sundays ago to our church youth about how God loves all His Children. It was an important lesson about treating everyone with love, respect and kindness in both word and deed.
One of my favorite quotes that I used for the lesson is by our church’s Prophet, Russell M. Nelson, from a June 2020 social media post. He said, “The Creator of us all calls on each of us to abandon attitudes of prejudice against any group of God’s children. Any of us who has prejudice toward another race needs to repent!
“During the Savior’s earthly mission, He constantly ministered to those who were excluded, marginalized, judged, overlooked, abused and discounted. As His followers, can we do anything less? The answer is no! We believe in freedom, kindness and fairness for all of God’s children!
“Let us be clear. We are brothers and sisters, each of us the child of a loving Father in Heaven. His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, invites all to come unto Him—’black and white, bond and free, male and female,’ (2 Nephi 26:33). It behooves each of us to do whatever we can in our spheres of influence to preserve the dignity and respect every son and daughter of God deserves.”
I love his clear direction to repent and abandon any prejudice we may have toward others and to be kind to all of God’s children. We are blessed to live in a diverse community within the Coyote Valley. What if we decided to be kind to everyone in our community and build each other up? Especially those who may be different from us in some way, or who may have differing opinions than ours? I already love our community, but I think how much greater it could be if we all chose to exercise more kindness to one another.
Being kind doesn’t mean we need to necessarily agree with others, but that any disagreements are treated with civility and respect toward the other person. How we deal with disagreements sets an example that our kids will learn from—both good and bad. May we be kind to those we disagree with and talk with respect and civility about them.
As part of my lesson preparation, I opened an old high school yearbook trying to remember a person’s name. I started to read through some of the comments that friends wrote in my yearbook. One comment that stuck with me was from a girl that wrote, “you are such a gentleman…and so nice to everyone.” I was glad to be known that way in high school and hope the same is true now. What will you choose to be known for? Wouldn’t it be great if it was for being kind?
Matt Deakin is the Bishop of the Morgan Hill Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is a member of the Interfaith Clergy Alliance of South County. Bishop Deakin can be reached at [email protected].
