Continuing from a previous post. . . and from their book “Faith is Not Blind”: Bruce C. and Marie K Hafen wrote:
Fourth Suggestion: Cultivate an attitude of meekness. When our idealism has been rattled by abrupt confrontations with realism, our attitude about what has happened is more important than what has happened. Elder Neal A. Maxwell said that doubting can either soften or harden the hearts, depending on [our] supply of meekness.”12 Meekness, a softness of heart and openness of mind, keeps the seed of faith alive. When we let adversity harden us, we choke the seed. But if we meekly retrain our desire to believe—the attitude that first activated our experiment with the word—our believing heart lets the seed thrive.
So when we are jolted by hard experiences, we have a choice. We can either close ourselves to bitterness or open ourselves to him in contrition. By choosing to have a contrite spirit, we bring our whole souls to God and give Him something to work with. Without the meek humility, the Lord will “not open unto” us, and that “happiness which is prepared for the saints” will be “hidden from [us] forever” (2 Nephi 9:42-43).
Here’s what that meekness looks like, illustrated in another missionary story from Germany. My companion and I were teaching a bright young American Couple named Paul and Wendy Knaupp. They had read and believed the Book of Mormon and were eagerly preparing for baptism. Then Paul’s family wrote him a letter warning him that Mormons were racist because they didn’t grant their lay priesthood to black African men. Their family was sensitive to that issue because Paul’s sister was married to a fine Christian man from Nigeria. Paul and Wendy felt hurt and betrayed. Why hadn’t someone told them about this? Didn’t we know that God treats all people equally? Yet they were bewildered because they had felt sure that Joseph Smith was a prophet.
After venting their frustrations; they looked at me, the senior companion. I was speechless. This was 1962. I had never heard a serious discussion about race and the priesthood, let alone an explanation. But, suddenly recalling a recent fragment from my recent personal scripture study, I blurted out, “Let’s read the story of Peter and Cornelius in Acts, chapter 10.” Here we read that after centuries of restricting the gospel exclusively to the house of Israel, the Lord revealed to Peter that it was time to share the Savior’s message with the Gentile world.
This event was a huge watershed in the history of Christianity. 26 Knowing of such a major change in ancient “Church policy” made it reasonable that he would someday open the door even more fully. That’s what He did in 1978, when He revealed to (Prophet) Spencer W. Kimball that it was time to extend the priesthood and temple blessings to all worthy men as part of establishing the Church across the entire globe, for the first time in history.
p. 24-26 ~~Bruce C. and Marie K Hafen (Salt Lake City, Deseret Book, 2018) p.24-26 . . . .continued
