Elder Henry B. Eyring (now 2nd Counselor in the First Presidency of the Church) wrote:
. . . .I learned that the things I thought they had said were not the true standard of goodness. But, you see, that’s the problem with using people as your standard or your guide—they may be wrong, or you may be unable to discern what they really think and what they really do.
That is particularly true about the best of people. You see, the Lord said, “Do not your alms before men.” (Matthew 6:1) And the best people don’t. They do good privately. Now and then I get a glimpse, always by accident, of the way some people live the simple commandments of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They don’t know more than you and I know; they just do more of the simple things you and I have already been taught as children in a Primary class. I discover acts of kindness, of forgiveness, or moral endurance beyond what I thought we could do. And when those invisible lives become visible to me for a moment, a fear runs through me and with it the thought: “Maybe what I thought was good enough, when I get to the other side, won’t be. Maybe some humble people—maybe lots of them—are living better than I thought I could.” That again, underlines for me again the risk in taking my standards from other people.
But in this struggle to use other people as our guide to what is good enough, I’ve found this clue: the best guides, the safest source of standards have always been the people called of God to lead me. As I’ve told you, one of the lodestars of my life came from a book by David O. McKay. I’ve noticed that the truest guides have been prophets and parents and bishops and teachers—-good people called of God to lead me. And while sometimes the Spirit has told me to use their lives as guides, more often it has been to set my course by their inspired words.
The reason for that, it seems to me, is that the only safe standard to guide our choice to be good is God. Those who can speak for Him, under authority, are holding up the true standard of goodness. God told us that in this way: “Old things are done away, and all things have become new. Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father in Heaven is perfect.’ (3 Nephi 12:47-48)
You might well object by saying that human examples are so much more accessible for observation. No, humans are more available, but, at least in my experience, their lives are not more accessible. Our Father in heaven and the Savior have revealed themselves in detail through the prophets, through heavenly visitations, and in person since man was created. There is a clearer description of the goodness of God than you will get of any mortal you can observe. ~ Henry B. Eyring, ‘To Draw Closer to God’ (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1997), 67-68
. . .continued ‘The True Standard of Goodness II…’
