First Confession: I’m a consecration story junkie.

I have a soft spot in my heart for my grandmother’s grandfather, Helaman Pratt, whose Salt Lake City fiancee dumped him when he accepted a call to settle the Big Muddy. I have a certain awe for the Saints in Cottbus and Wolfsgruen who spent time living in a single building with their entire branch to make it through the difficult conditions in Germany just after World War Two. I was deeply moved when the Perpetual Education Fund was announced as another concrete route for increased economic consecration, and I love to hear stories of people who save for something specific and then are unexpectedly blessed not to need as much as they’d thought and give the surplus as a thank offering instead.

Second Confession: As a consecration-story junkie, I sometimes feel disappointed with myself and with Latter-day Saints in my country today. We live with a culturally inflated sense of what our own economic needs are, tending to see lack where God likely sees surplus. We protest so much over our freedom from authority in trivial things, I wonder if we’ll ever be ready for the big practice of full economic consecration back. And though I largely respect the political positions of my Republican brothers and sisters, I worry a lot about the attitudes that can come with listening uncritically to American conservative media. Sometimes the old spirit of consecration seems a long, long ways away.

  • Have you ever felt this way?

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