Neal A. Maxwell wrote. . . .
Submission to God, among many things, requires us to strip ourselves of our pride in order to be obedient to Him. In that process we make ourselves so much more useful in the achievement of God’s purposes among His children.
We are much on our guard, however. Often we are frozen into those patterns of behavior and thinking which imprison us, albeit in a well-lit cell. Jesus speaks about setting free the captives, but some captives are so contented that they refuse to leave their cells.
Without faith in God, in His plan of salvation, and in Jesus’ infinite atonement, we cannot really submit to and trust in god’s perspectives. Nor can we adequately trust His loving purposes, which are too profound for us to understand fully. Truly we are “confused at the grace which so fully he proffers [us].” Nevertheless we can humbly and gratefully accept it. If sufficiently submissive, too, we can resolve to repent and to become more determined disciples.
Certain supernal spiritual blessings seem to come only after demonstrated obedience. One prophet declared, “I will go and do . . . “, and then demonstrated his discipleship, he received visions and blessings on the top of exceedingly high mountains.
Peter, James, and John would not have been on the Mount of Transfiguration if they had not been obedient and submissive disciples well before the transcendent occasion.
. . . . How powerful a role our true desires play in our lives! Desire both initiates our actions and sustains us—for good or evil. If we desire wealth or power, these will tend to be the moving causes of our actions. If instead we desire spiritual things and are obedient, the promised blessings will come to us. Just as it is not possible to save an individual against his will, so blessings do not come against our wills.
True discipleship is for volunteers only. Only volunteers will trust the Guide sufficiently to follow Him in the dangerous ascent which only He can lead.
Clearly, those who discount spiritual things and do not really desire and seek those things will not receive them. Many such are totally skeptical, their tone perhaps being represented in this declaration: “We find insufficient evidence for the belief in the existence of the supernatural; it is either meaningless or irrelevant to the question of survival and fulfillment of the human race. As non-theists, we begin with humans not God, nature not deity. . . . No deity will save us; we must save ourselves.”2
Since some prefer any but the real explanation for life’s purposes, they will manage to find something on which to focus their desires. For instance, the religion of selfishness is openly declarative and is expressed in myriad ways in today’s society.
. . . . At judgment day it will not be possible to lodge any legitimate complaint against the justice of a God who allowed us to have the desires of our hearts, especially after His seeking to educate those desires through the teaching of His gospel truths—truths which can free us from the dark desires of selfishness. ~ Neal A. Maxwell, Not My Will, but Thine (Salt Lake City, Deseret Book, 2008), 94-96
