I express my gratitude daily for all of the good people who serve and have served as volunteers at the FamilySearch Library. We often laugh as people express their pay grade or say, “The pay is out of this world.” The following poem is often quoted as well;
“Who does God’s work will get God’s pay. However long may seem the day, However weary be the way, No mortal hand, God’s hand can stay, He may not pay as others pay, In gold, or lands, or raiment gay, In goods that perish and decay; But God’s high wisdom knows a way And this is sure, let come what may, Who does God’s work will get God’s pay.” (Malachi 3) His pay will seldom be a gold coin laid in our hand but rather a feeling of satisfaction knowing that we have blessed another in some way as we fulfill our church assignments or just do a kind deed because we saw an opportunity to do one. Very few things are more satisfying than the feeling we have after providing a service to others. It may be as simple as picking something up that they dropped. When we have been blessed with the opportunity to provide a more long term service to another than it is almost like we become family. We rub shoulders and sweat together as we move a heavy object and finally set it down in its place. The look of gratitude on the faces of those we helped is greater pay than a coin in hand.
My wife and I are in our mid-eighties now, and we spend most of our time at the FamilySearch Library trying to identify our ancestors who have passed on and either doing their temple work or arranging to have it performed by others. What a joyful time to see families tied together in the most important and significant way possible—for time and all eternity. Nobody asks us anymore to help with moving or other heavy work, even though we would like to help, our help would be limited. Elder David Bednar stated that “When you cannot do what you used to do, you only do what matters most.” What matters most to us at this point in life is family research. What a joy it is when we find others working on the same line. I was searching my great grandmother Anastasia Lachapelle, and had her family back several generations and came to what was a dead end and I could go no further. A few months later someone else working her line connected her family from where I was stuck, back to Quebec and even further back to France. Many generations were opened up that I was unable to find. I was so thrilled I shed tears of joy. No gold exchanged hands but God’s pay, in this case, filled my bag and was tamped down and caused great joy.
The system informs us when others add or delete from families we are working on, as well. That is how I knew that someone had added to what I had done. The prophet Malachi stated the significance of God’s pay and the blessings we can expect for doing the work he has required of us. In many cases the pay is delayed, delayed until we get to the other side but God does not forget to bless those deserving of His blessings.
There is a story about a hat being passed around the congregation to take up offerings for a visiting minister. Soon, it was returned to him…embarrassingly empty. Slowly the minister inverted his hat and shook it meaningfully. Then, raising his eyes heavenward, he exclaimed, “I thank you, Lord, that I got my hat back from this congregation.” It seems the congregation did not feel that he had done God’s work and was therefore not worthy of God’s pay.