The Plan of Salvation Inc.?

Too many people think of the Church or the Plan of Salvation like a business. When others get assigned certain roles or put in certain offices, people's subconscious takes them through job interviews they have had in the past. They picture God as a CEO, sifting through résumés looking for the person that will be the best person to hire for that position. They see God scrolling down through their education, work history, awards, hobbies, etc and saying to Himself, "Yep, she's (or he's) the one for the job. She clearly stands out from the rest. She's the one that will bring this company to the next level."

God is not interested in having His company make it on the Fortune 500 list. He is not looking to grow His company to be an industry leader. He could accomplish that with His hands tied behind His back. What God is trying to do is build people. He is trying to make Eternal Beings out of average folks like you and I. He gives people jobs, not because they are the ones with the stellar résumé and references, but because the job will help turn them into what He wants them to be. He doesn't choose the person that is best suited for the job, He chooses the job that is best suited for the person. He looks more at how the calling, assignment, office will change the person in it, and less at how the person will "propel the company forward." Now, the really cool thing is that His company still rolls forward to "fill the whole earth" (D&C 109:72), despite having a bunch of amateurs working for Him.

It is crucial to understand that the principle stated above is how God works. If you don't, you start feeling inferior or unappreciated or undervalued when God doesn't give you a job that you think is important or validating. This is especially true when we are talking about traditional family roles. Many women have felt and continue to feel underestimated, undervalued, and dismissed when society or God asks them to be primarily in the home. They feel somewhere inside that unless they are filling the exact same role as men, they will never be equal to men (as if that has always been a great thing to aspire to anyway). They feel dismissed when they are known as a homemaker and not an executive, a stay-at-home mom and not a business manager. I can understand why they might feel this way, especially if they don't quite understand the importance of mothers and if the don't understand God's approach to building people. I have mentioned this before, but it's worth repeating. The family is not organized the way it is because "women just can't hack it in the market place" or because "men are better suited to be corporate leaders." It is organized that way because those roles are designed to change men and women into what God wants them to be, Eternal Fathers and Eternal Mothers. It makes me think of the words of Hugh B. Brown that God "is the Gardener here, and [He] knows what [He wants us] to be".

Image obtained from roebuckfp.com