Continuing from Neal A. Maxwell’s “Things as They Really Are:”
The living Church can, to a great extent, provide us with growth experiences we would not otherwise have through added friendships. It is true, for instance, that the Latter-day Saint has immediate friends, or “instant community,” in every country or city to which he would go where there are already brothers and sisters in the gospel. He has the chance to become a native rather than a mere tourist.
Likewise, institutional life in the Church gives us a chance not only to come to grips with our own deficiencies, but also, as appropriate, to help others with theirs. We seem to take turns being hammer and anvil when we are not the actual object being shaped. The living Church gives us experience not only in personal repentance, but also in seeing and assisting in the progress and repentance of others. The common commitment to the living God and the living prophet and the living Church—along with the common commitment to living scriptures—creates in us a will to work things out, facilitating cooperation on a much larger and deeper scale than would otherwise be the case.
In the living Church we can even learn to do good without growing weary. Perhaps one of the reasons we sometimes weary of well doing is the expected expressions of appreciation are not always forthcoming. What our own ingratitude does not teach us about that particular sin, we are apt to learn from the occasional ingratitude of others toward us. The resilience and generosity of Joseph in Egypt is a constant marvel. He helped to reinstate the Pharaoh’s deposed chief butler by interpreting the butler’s dream asking only of the butler that he would “think on me when it shall be well with thee. . . . Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgat him.” (Genesis 40:14, 23.) We do not read of Joseph’s being bitter then or ever, though he had so many chances to do so.
We are, said the Savior, to lend and to “do good . . . hoping for nothing” in return; then we can become “children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful.” (Luke 6:35) Where, Jesus asked, were the other nine lepers he had healed, since only one was grateful enough to come back” (Luke 17:17.) Jesus noted, but did not rail at the lack of appreciation in the ninety percent.
So it must be with us. We like gratitude to be expressed so it can be heard of men. We do not like waiting for deferred payments, for the “now” that is in us dies so slowly. We like others to know in full what trouble we have gone to for them, with all the clinical details. But if they were to relive and to feel fully what our giving has cost us, it would cost them, too; it would no longer be our gift to them. The living Church can help us meet such challenges.
The disciple is expected to give appreciation always and to be thankful, but he is forewarned against requiring reciprocity as a condition of friendship. He is further told to pay little heed to ingratitude towards him. We can’t dwell on another’s ingratitude without using our time and talents unprofitably. ~Neal A. Maxwell, Things as They Really Are, (Salt Lake City, Deseret Book, 1978)
