1. Seek to know and follow the will of Christ just as He sought the will of the Father.

The sacramental blessing on the bread commits us to be willing to take upon us the name of the Son "and always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given [us]" (D&C 20:77). It would also be appropriate to read this covenant as "always remember Him to keep His commandments." This is how He always remembered the Father. As He said, "I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me" (John 5:30).

Jesus achieved perfect unity with the Father by submitting Himself, both body and spirit, to the will of the Father. Referring to His Father, Jesus said, "I do always those things that please him" (John 8:29). Because it was the Father's will, Jesus submitted even to death, "the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father" (Mosiah 15:7). His focus on the Father is one of the principal reasons Jesus's ministry had such clarity and power.

In the same way, you and I can put Christ at the center of our lives and become one with Him as He is one with the Father (see John 17:20–23). We can begin by stripping everything out of our lives and then putting it back together in priority order with the Savior at the center. We should first put in place the things that make it possible to always remember Him—frequent prayer and scripture study, thoughtful study of apostolic teachings, weekly preparation to partake of the sacrament worthily, Sunday worship, and recording and remembering what the Spirit and experience teach us about discipleship.

Other things may come to your mind particularly suited to you at this point in your life. Once we make adequate time and means for these matters in centering our lives in Christ, we can begin to add other responsibilities and things of value, such as education and family responsibilities. In this way the essential will not be crowded out of our lives by the merely good, and things of lesser value will take a lower priority or fall away altogether.

I recognize that aligning our will to that of Jesus Christ as He aligned His will to the Father's is something not easily achieved. President Brigham Young (1801–77) spoke understandingly of our challenge when he said:

"After all that has been said and done, after he has led this people so long, do you not perceive that there is a lack of confidence in our God? Can you perceive it in yourselves? You may ask, '[Brother] Brigham, do you perceive it in yourself?' I do, I can see that I yet lack confidence, to some extent, in him whom I trust.—Why? Because I have not the power, in consequence of that which the fall has brought upon me. …

"… Something rises up within me, at times[,] that measurably draws a dividing line between my interest and the interest of my Father in heaven; something that makes my interest and the interest of my Father in heaven not precisely one.

"I know that we should feel and understand, as far as possible, as far as fallen nature will let us, as far as we can get faith and knowledge to understand ourselves, that the interest of that God whom we serve is our interest, and that we have no other, neither in time nor in eternity." 1

Though it may not be easy, we can consistently press forward with faith in the Lord. I can attest that over time our desire and capacity to always remember and follow the Savior will grow. We should patiently work toward that end and pray always for the discernment and divine help we need. Nephi counseled, "I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul" (2 Nephi 32:9).

I witnessed a simple example of this kind of prayer when Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and I were assigned to conduct a videoconference interview of a couple in another country. Shortly before going into the studio, I reviewed once again the information we had collected about the couple and felt I was prepared for the interview. A few minutes before the appointed time, I saw Elder Oaks sitting alone with head bowed. In a moment he raised his head and said, "I was just finishing my prayer in preparation for this interview. We will need the gift of discernment." He had not neglected the most important preparation, a prayer to consecrate our performance for our good and the Lord's glory.