Farewell Address

Jesus Christ is the perfect example. He shows the path that we should follow and demonstrates all of the attributes that are necessary for achieving salvation. Throughout literature and film there are examples of Christ-figures, illustrating the prevalence of Christ as a central part of our lives, even in places you might not think of- like Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia, Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings, Optimus Prime in Transformers, and Harry Potter. Our daily lives also contain Christ-figures, not always in every aspect, but in certain characteristics. Finding certain characteristics about people that are Christ-like helps me to get along better with people as well as having many role models, instead of always searching for someone that could be emulated in everything because that would take forever. There are almost infinite ideas to use for Christ being a perfect example, but to be worthwhile I would like to focus on Christ’s Leadership, Charity, Knowledge, and Patience, showing how Christ exemplifies these, some examples from my life that illustrate these attributes, and how we can develop these characteristics in our own lives.
Christ was a leader and teacher because a leader essentially is a teacher. All of the characteristics of Christ come together to forge the perfect leader that he is, so I will focus on one of the aspects of teaching that he used specifically that I identified with. Christ asked questions, sometimes as an answer to a question. He knew that an answer that is given is less valuable than an answer that is worked for, so He would ask questions causing the questioner to think through and reach an answer on their own. The ten lepers who were healed and the question asked of the one who returned “Where are the nine?”, or of Saul “Saul, Saul why persecutest thou me?”. My dad would always ask me questions when I needed help with my homework, in particular writing essays. Rather than just give me a thesis statement or some main ideas, which he easily could have done, he asked me to think of them on my own. Rewording the question if I was stumped. This really frustrated me. I thought that if I knew the answer I wouldn’t be asking for help. But I have since come to appreciate this style of teaching as now I can easily formulate and write essays. Christ knew his purpose in coming to Earth, which provided a clear goal to be reached. This allowed Christ to lead from strength and certainty, able to guide individuals, sure of the end goal. As a leader Christ also listened, a skill that is often forgotten and that shows true compassion and love for your followers, or any individual. Listening shows that you care about the lives and ideas of others and allows you to better know individuals, thus making you able to use individual’s strengths increasing efficiency. Each of us can do these things to. We must have the end goal in mind or we are just wandering without direction floating with the tide. We need to listen to others and take in what they say. Use their suggestions to make us better and to get to know everyone on an individual basis. Asking questions to clarify what others understand from what we have taught and giving others the opportunity to show what they know and reach conclusions themselves.
Charity is the pure love of Christ, which all of us can try and emulate. Seemingly a lofty impossible goal, we should focus on just little bits at a time. Christ showed his love by always being in service to others. Healing and showing the truths of his teachings enabling others to have blessings. I always think of the story when Christ has been teaching all day and admittedly exhausted. More people come to Him and want to be taught and the disciples try and turn them away because they are tired, so Christ must also be. Christ then invites the crowd to come and he teaches them. Also all are equal in the eyes of Christ. He treats no one better than or worse than another. Mr. Baczuk, a history teacher, football coach, and student government advisor at Skyline, is a superb example of this. For student government he always asked us how we could make our activities desirable to the entire student body, particularly those who didn’t usually come. We also were required for the class to eat lunch twice during the trimester with an individual we didn’t know and was more lonely looking, as well as bring 3 individuals to extra curricular activities. Mr. Baczuk also works to know the names of many students, whether he has them in class or not. All of us can be feel love towards others too. One way is to do service for them, which usually helps. Something that really helps me love others is to just get to know them. For example there was this kid who I knew from debate and debated multiple times, that I just hated. There really wasn’t much of a reason, but I couldn’t stand him. Then this year I had the opportunity to judge at debate tournaments and I realized that I actually had a lot in common with him and I couldn’t hate him anymore. I tried for a little bit, but I didn’t- I actually thought he was pretty cool.
Christ also had Knowledge and worked to know things. First he knew all of the teachings of the Gospel, enabling him to teach them to others because obviously you can’t effectively teach something you don’t know yourself. Second, and almost more intriguing is that he had a tremendous knowledge of the intricacies of Jewish law. He could talk about it with any of the Jewish leaders. Having knowledge gives us the ability to make better decision because the more we know, the more likely we are of making decisions that are good. Christ also had a knowledge of the people. He knew their history as well as bits about each of them, partially because He listened, which I already talked about. Christ’s knowledge extended beyond that of the scriptures, which is necessary to lead effectively. A fantastic example of someone who thrives on knowledge is Mr. Harvey, another teacher at Skyline and the debate coach. He knows more than perhaps anyone I know. He is always learning new things and loves to share this knowledge with others. One day, he told our class how as a child he would read encyclopedias, which seems a bit odd, but demonstrates a true thirst for knowledge. I also love learning new things and often Google random ideas or subjects that I have been curious about to know about them. We all can learn new things every day. We should gain a knowledge of the Gospel and Scriptures, but that cannot be our sole focus. Other areas need to be covered, so we can relate to individuals and lead them. Knowledge also opens opportunities. If you know many things, then on a practical level you can have more options for work, or almost anything else.
Christ was also patient. Patience and perseverance are closely related so I will talk about both because to persevere patience is needed. Patience is often associated with calmly dealing with individuals that would generally cause frustration. THis is definitely an aspect of patience but not the entirety of it. Patience is enduring anything that is less than desirable because of an end goal that can be achieved. With patience it is also necessary to have goals. The greatest example for me of the Savior’s patience is with the Disciples. The people on Earth closest to Him and the most knowledgeable about His teachings. There are a few occasions when they ask Christ questions that he has already answered for them many times, but Christ instead of being upset like many of us become when someone just isn’t getting it, He calmly teaches the Disciples again. Wow. This really sticks out to me and is a great example of Christ’s patience and perseverance. An example from my life would be running. Most of you probably know that I ran Cross Country in High School. Well, before I started running I had been involved in close to zero physical activity for about three years. Then I jumped to running 3-4 miles every day. To complicate things I injured my ankles right before the first meet. I assumed I was just sore because I had done basically nothing for so long and my entire body had been hurting for the past two weeks of practice. I continued to “run” getting slower and slower. One weekend we went to Utah for a trip, but Coach still wanted me to run, so I went out with my Mom, Dad, and Uncle who ran rather often. My mom couldn’t believe that I was going as slow as I was and didn’t believe that I could not go faster, but eventually I just stopped and walked the rest of the way to my Grandparent’s. When they got back we looked at my ankles and they were very swollen. About four inches in diameter. I stopped running for the weekend and iced my ankles with them raised above my head. When we got back I found out they were both sprained in three places each, but I could still run. So I decided to keep running. eventually got better and drastically improved my time. I ran the rest of high school and this past summer trained for and ran a half marathon, which was something I had set a goal to do. I kept going even though it was rough and often I wondered when I would finish and see the end. Patience is a hard thing to develop, but if we work just a little at a time I think it’s possible. Focus on small goals that help you achieve the larger goal. Perseverance can help us in essentially every aspect of our lives, as long as we are working on developing it.
Christ is the ultimate example, but don’t be frightened or disheartened by His perfection. There are many Christ figures we can look to in our lives. Whether we find them in the books we read, movies we watch, our teachers, co-workers, friends and family it doesn’t matter. As long as we are trying to become more like Him ourselves. He is the perfect Leader, shows flawless Charity, has infinite Knowledge, and endless Patience. He is our example. We can all work to be like Him, by listening, having goals, knowledge, looking for the good in others, and taking small steps.