From Neal A. Maxwell:
IN HIGHER EDUCATION WE SPEAK often of students credit hours. Analogously, the plan of salvation produces what might be called “discipline credit hours.” Furthermore, we are not merely auditing life’s courses, but, instead, taking life’s “classes” for credit, thereby accumulating character—the lasting coin of the Regal Realm.
These ongoing spiritual “courses” include the equivalents of general education—the trials, temptations, and afflictions which are, said Paul, “common to man” (1 Corinthians 10:13)—along with upper division work, and then very customized curricula for the meek and the righteous: postdoctoral work. In sum, these experiences constitute daily discipleship. Furthermore, our enrollment in these individualized “classes” may not be visible to others, and even our own awareness of this ongoing, precious process is often minimal. Hence such courses are embedded in every life situation to some degree. What we are and what we are becoming are, therefore, what matters even if some do not acknowledge that they are thus enrolled.
President Brigham Young said with painful clarity of life’s daily micro-moments: “It is the aggregate of acts that I perform through life that makes up the conduct that will be exhibited in the day of judgment, and when the books are opened, there will be the life which I have lived for me to look upon, and there will also be the acts of your lives for you to look upon. Do you know that the building up of the kingdom of God . . . is to be done by little acts? You breathe one breath at a time; each moment is set apart to its act, and each act to its moment. It is the moments and the little acts that make the sum of the life of man. Let every second, minute, hour and day be spent in doing that which we know is right” (Journal of Discourses, 3: 342-343). In all these “little acts,” as President Young called them, do we worship Jesus enough to strive to be like Him? (see 3 Nephi 27:27). This is the comprehensive exam! Many things that are hard to measure now ultimately matter most.
Postdoctoral credit is a highly individualized thing. Remarkable Moses had been wearied because the children of Israel were restless. They were thirsty, unremembering and ungrateful. In a place called Meribah, Moses—one of the greatest souls ever—was stressed, wearied, burned out, or what ever they called “people fatigue” in those days. The scriptures say that momentarily frustrated, Moses “spake unadvisedly, “Must we fetch you water?” (Psalm 106:33; Numbers 20:10; italics added). He had a little pronoun problem, and yet the Lord mentored him and tutored him and brought him along, so that Moses would not be confused about who had brought forth the water from the rock. It is a high complement for the Lord to mentor and tutor us, and Moses handled that mentoring well.
A wintry verse of scripture reads, “He trieth their patience and their faith” (Mosiah 23:21). If we do not understand this fact, we will misread life. But why does God try our faith and patience in particular? Why not try our ability to make money or amass political power? The Lord is not concerned with these skills. Patience, however, is an eternal quality. It is portable. So is faith. These qualities are out of developmental reach of those who are caught up in the cares of the world.
The strait and narrow path are well posted with warnings of such common failures such as misusing authority, covering our sins and gratifying our vain ambitions. These negative traits can be seen as a bookkeeper as well as a dishonest CEO. Such falsifying can be displayed by a prominent political leader or by a plumber.
Because we are all imperfect, much generosity is called for. Sir Thomas More had just been condemned by an ungenerous jury, and then More, in one of those acts of public magnanimity, said, “I verily trust and shall therefore right heartily pray, though your lordships have here now in earth been judges to my condemnation, we may yet hereafter in heaven all meet together, to our everlasting salvation” (cited in Kenny, Thomas More, 88).
Sir Thomas More, along with many others, gives us a benchmark of courage to consider, though he was not generous with heroic Tyndale! David Daniel observed of More: “It remains curious, to put it mildly that the gravitational pull of Sir Thomas More has been allowed to distort Tyndale’s orbit, especially as More’s dealings with Tyndale were colored by near rabid hatred. More had fine qualities, but they did not show when he attacked reformers” (William Tyndale, 4).
Magnanimity, however, doesn’t have to occur in front of an assemblage of lords—it can occur privately, as in marriage when someone displays graciousness and **magnanimity.
Where are the classrooms in this process of spiritual education? They are in friendships in school or university, in family life, in civic clubs, in politics for the taming of ourselves and our egos. And the teacher is often the Holy Ghost.
~Neal A. Maxwell, Moving in His Majesty & Power (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2004), p.55-60
**Magnanimity— noun—-the fact or condition of being magnanimous; generosity, .
