Continuing from Elder Neal A. Maxwell: ““Not Withstanding My Witness II”. . . .
7.We can put out hand to the plow, neither back or around, comparatively. Our gifts and opportunities differ; some are more visible and impactful. We have at least one gift and an open invitation to seek “earnestly the best gifts.”
8. We can make quiet but more honest inventories of our strengths, since, in this connection, most of us are dishonest book-keepers and need confirming “outside auditors.” He who was thrust down in the first estate delights to have us put ourselves down. Self-contempt is of Satan; there is none of it in heaven. We should, of course , learn from our mistakes, but without forever studying the instant replays as if these were the game of life itself.
9. We can add to each other’s storehouse of self-esteem by giving deserved, specific commendation more often, remembering, too, that those who are breathless from going the second mile need deserved praise just as the fallen need to be lifted up.
10. We can also keep moving. Only the Lord can compare crosses, but all crosses are easier to carry when we keep moving. Men finally climbed Mount Everest, not by standing at its base in consuming awe but by shouldering their packs and by placing one foot in front of another. Feet were made to move forward, not backward!
11. We know that when we have truly given what we have, it is like paying a full tithe; it is, in that respect, all that was asked. The widow who cast in her two mites was neither self-conscious nor searching for mortal approval.
12. We can allow for the reality that God is more concerned with growth than with geography. Thus, those who marched in Zion’s Camp were not exploring the Missouri countryside but their won possibilities.
13. We can learn that at the center of our agency is our freedom to form a healthy attitude toward whatever circumstances we are placed in! Those, for instance, who stretch themselves in service—though laced with limiting diseases—are often healthiest among us! The Spirit can drive the flesh beyond where the body first agrees to go!
14. Finally, we can accept this stunning, irrevocable truth: Our Lord can lift us from deep despair and cradle us midst any care. We cannot tell him anything about aloneness or nearness!
Yes, this is a gospel of grand expectations, but God’s grace is sufficient for any of us. Discouragement is not the absence of adequacy but the absence of courage, and our personal progress should be yet another way we witness to the wonder of it all!
True, there are no instant Christians, but there are constant Christians!
If we so live, we too can say in personal prospectus, “And I soon go to the place of my rest, which is with my Redeemer; for. . . . then shall I see his face with pleasure” (Enos 1:27; italics added), for then will our confidence wax strong in the presence of God” (Doctrine & Covenants 121:45; italics added), and He who cannot lie will attest to our adequacy with warm words “Well done.”
Elder Maxwell was called as a General Authority in 1976, and was ordained an Apostle in 1981. For the first post of this series click ‘Not Withstanding My Weakness’.
