Continuing from a previous post, writings of Neal A. Maxwell, “As Obedient Children V”:
There are those who are exceedingly anxious to proclaim, “I Did it my way!” Such selfish assertions are seen by some as a validation of individuality, while obedience to God is seen as lessening of self. Yet obedience to God is really what makes flowering of full self possible. Otherwise—if every individual does only that which is right in his own eyes, unconnected with a sure standard of measure—the outcome will be sadness (Judges 21:5; Doctrine and Covenants 1:16). In the forlorn conclusion of one drama, a final lamentation is expressed: “Are all men’s lives . . . broken . . . why can’t people have what they want? The things were all there to content everybody, yet everybody got the wrong thing. I don’t know. It’s beyond me. It’s all darkness.”5
Some say there are absolutely no absolutes, further encouraging each individual to “do his own thing” regardless; they do not realize that there is an emerging pattern after all. Those who wrongly and heedlessly do their own thing are really doing Lucifer’s thing in an unconscious pattern of sobering servility. Men are that they might have joy, but Satan desires that all be miserable like unto himself (2 Nephi 2:25, 27). God desires true human happiness; it is the object and design of our existence, said Joseph Smith.6 All blessings, however, come by obedience to the laws upon which happiness is predicated (Doctrine and covenants 130:20-21).
For all that though, as we have already noted, life is not intended to be lived in an idyllic Eden. Spiritual submissiveness includes our acceptance of the ups and downs of life. We experience a mix of these universal challenges individually. Routine and general though they be, coping with routine afflictions requires real faith, for faith is needed daily and not only for extremity.
It takes faith, too, and obedience, to conquer selfishness, that unsubmissive characteristic which, if unchecked, produces profound personal melancholy and solitariness. Selfishness is a form of self-worship, and we have been told, “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me” (Exodus 20:3; emphasis added).
Many pursue this life as did those in Korihor’s culture, wherein people believed that they fared in this life according to a pattern in which everyone “prospered according to his genius” and “conquered according to his strength.” Furthermore, whatsoever was done in that Darwinistic process “was no crime” (Alma 30:17).
Clearly, the worldly living epitomized by such philosophy celebrates openly the selfish doing of one’s own thing. Its conformity masquerades as individuality—a circumstance somewhat like goldfish in a bowl congratulating themselves on their self-sufficiency while unacknowledging of the one who puts in the food pellets and changes the water.
Those of us favored with an understanding of essential gospel truths are, therefore, so greatly blessed. We are further blessed when Father imparts to us “the mysteries of God,” including temple blessings. He is a very careful Father however, for He “doth grant unto the children of men, according to the heed and diligence which they have given unto him (Alma 12:9).
This process of merited, metered, divine disclosure has been under way from the very beginning. . . . Elder Neal A. Maxwell, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (deceased) (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1988)5. PBS production of Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier.
For the first post of this series, click . . . . As Obedient Children.
