From a previous post, writings of Neal A. Maxwell ‘As Obedient Children:’
We are helped immeasurably to know that God really is a loving, Father God, not a distant cosmic presence. We are helped immeasurably too—whether by experiences, scriptures, temples, or living prophets—by being taught plain and simple truths of the plan of salvation, including those about our true identity and real destiny. ~Elder Neal A. Maxwell, Not My Will, but Thine (Salt Lake City, 1988), 1-3 now continuing. . .
We are helped by receiving worthily the reminding and saving ordinances and covenants. We are helped by a church which is established “for the perfecting of the saints” (Ephesians 4:12) especially since we have been instructed to become like the Father and the Son (Matthew 5:48; Nephi 12:48; 27:27). When anciently the Lord used the phrase, “These I will make my rulers” (Abraham 3:23), those thus called were spirits who, even in their premortal state, were already becoming much like Him.
We are helped by having added scriptures such as the Book of Mormon to establish further the truths of the Holy Bible, and as another witness that God lives and that Jesus is the resurrected Lord and Savior of mankind. We are helped as well by sensing, even finitely the remarkable majesty and scope of God’s work throughout the universe.
Finally, while pursuing our individual submissiveness, we are helped immensely when we ponder the infinite Atonement. God did not spare His Beloved Son from the anguish of these perfecting experiences. Jesus has been, is, and will be our emphatic Advocate with the Father. Not only is He our Advocate, but He helps us through our individual ordeals. By His own suffering He was perfected, including in His capacity to help us with our individual suffering (Alma 7:11-12).
At any suggestion that we submit our will to another human being, caution is certainly appropriate—indeed, we are not to “trust in the arm of flesh” (Doctrine and covenants 1:19). But our relationship to God is in this respect unlike that of mortal to mortal. We submit to God because He is God. We may safely and rationally do so because He is perfect in the attributes of love, mercy, justice, knowledge, patience, and so on. Moreover, His disciples have “proved him in days that are past”; nor are they so provincial as to think that His work with mortals on this planet is God’s first experience at redeeming.
Even though He is God, is each of us really willing to yield to His perfect love and omniscience? In addition to Jesus’ perfect example, others have shown the way.
Obedient Adam sacrificed, saying, “I know not why, save the Lord commanded me” (Moses 5:6). Submissive Abraham departed for a place of inheritance, going “out not knowing wither he went ” (Hebrews 11:8). Trusting Nephi went back to Jerusalem for the vital brass plates saying, “I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know . . . he shall prepare the way” 1 Nephi 3:7).
But as the Prophet Joseph observed, there are a “great many. . . .too wise to be taught.” The knees of the mind bend so reluctantly.
Our discipleship is to be patterned after that of the master (2 Nephi 31:16-17), who “learned obedience by the things which he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). Can we expect it is otherwise with us? We who are entreated to take His yoke upon us (Matthew 11:29) cannot expect immunity from tutoring and suffering at the hands of a loving Father. ~Neal A. Maxwell, Not My Will, but Thine (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1988) 3-5 (continued. . . ‘As Obedient Children III’)
