From Elder Henry B. Eyring, Second Councillor it the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. . . at first reflecting upon receiving his Patriarchal Blessing as a boy from his great uncle Gaskell Romney:
“. . . . He began to tell me about the home in which I would someday be the father. That’s when I opened my eyes. I know the stones in the fireplace were there because I began to stare at them. I wondered, “How can this man know what is only in my heart?” He described in concrete detail what had been only a yearning; but I could recognize it. It was the desire of my heart, that future home and family that I thought was a secret. But it was not secret, because God knew.
Now your impressions will not have been quite like mine, but you have felt a tug, maybe many tugs, to be someone better. And what sets those yearnings apart from all your daydreams is that they were not about being richer, or smarter, or more attractive, but about being better. I am sure you have had such a moment, not just from my experience, but because of what President David O. McKay once said: “Man is a spiritual being, a soul, and at some period of his life everyone is possessed with an irresistible desire to know his relationship to the Infinite. . . .There is something within him which urges him to rise above himself, to control his environment, to master the body and all things physical and live in a higher and more beautiful world.” (David O. McKay, True to the Faith, comp. Llewelyn R. MacKay [Salt Lake City: Bookcdraft, 1966], p.244.)
That pull upward is far beyond what you would call a desire for self-improvement. When I felt it, I knew I was being urged to live so far above myself that I could never do it on my own. President McKay had it right. You feel an urging to rise above your natural self. What you have felt is an urging from your Heavenly Father to accept this invitation: “Yea, come unto Christ and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then his grace is sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ; ye can in nowise deny the power of God. And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins that ye become holy, without spot.” (Moroni 10:32-33.)
That urge to rise above yourself is a recognition of your need for the Atonement to work in your life, and your need to be sure that it is working. After all you can do, after your effort, you need confidence that the Atonement is working for you and on you. (continued. . .)
Elder Henry B. Eyring, ([now] Second Counselor in the First Presidency) To Draw Closer to God (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1997) 45-46.
