I would like to share with you several aphorisms with some illustrations squeezed out of experience, containing, hopefully, some inspiration. You will appreciate, from your own experience, those lines from the Book of Mormon about how we sometimes “cannot say the smallest part which [we] feel” (Alma 26:16). I am going to try anyway!
In times of darkness, remember there is a difference between passing local cloud cover and general darkness. At the suggestion of my wife, may I illustrate?
When I was in action in the spring of 1945, as a not too effective and very frightened young infantryman in Okinawa, I sometimes sent home what were called “V-mails”—tiny little sheets of paper. They were really not much more than a postcard, but they were the best we could manage in foxholes. My father kindly saved all my letters from the service and all my letters from the mission field.
On one of those V-mails I noted recently that I had “blessed my own sacrament in a foxhole. … I certainly felt better. … I try to look at the big picture of life and everything seems OK.”
In another V-mail, “Please don’t worry, I’ll be OK. I am in Good Hands.”
In another little V-mail, “Today is Sunday. I have tried to make it a point to know so I can bless my sacrament, otherwise it is just another day.” In another, “I had a C-ration biscuit and rainwater for my sacrament. That proves it is not the ingredients, but the Spirit. It was wonderful. The mud is terrible here. … Many things have so strengthened my faith, but I can hardly wait to go on a mission.”
I was still 18. I have searched the letters carefully but in vain for anything profound or greatly wise in them. Nevertheless, I express my gratitude to the Lord and to my parents for training that caused me to want to partake of the sacrament and to begin to think firmly of a mission in my future.
Signs, if they are not supported by the righteous life and the continued influence of the Holy Ghost, have a short shelf life. Indeed, one of the repetitive ironies of religious history is that those who are the first to demand signs are usually the first to discount or to forget them! Such was the case with some ancient Nephites who demanded signs at the time of the birth of Jesus. The signs had to be on precise schedule, as you recall. The wonders and the signs finally came, and all the disbelievers fell to the earth (see 3 Ne. 1:17–18). Yet within two or no more than three years “the people began to forget those signs … and began to disbelieve all which they had heard and seen” (3 Ne. 2:1). Please cultivate the gift of the Holy Ghost and have it be constant with you.
Pure charity is most elegant when it is expressed personally and quietly and when it is not a ritual expression of an assignment.
Never mistake a fashionable tide for the sea itself. Though real and dangerous, the “gulf of misery” is not the entire ocean (see 2 Ne. 1:13). He who created the vast oceans will help us navigate all the tricky tides and gulfs. Besides, we must remember that the fashions of the world—whatever they may be, intellectually and otherwise—will pass away, as Paul has reassured us (see 1 Cor. 7:31). So many “trendies” who live in our time oscillate over the obsolescent without quite realizing it!
Firmly determine the direction in which you will face—toward the Lord—and then let the secular spinmeisters do their thing. Your hearts and your heads will not be turned by their ceaseless and clever spinning, however they may try. And try they will! You must determine the direction in which you face.
We cannot expect to live in a time when men’s hearts will fail them except the faithful experience a few fibrillations themselves. We won’t be entirely immune from feelings that go with these fibrillations.
Though our view of eternity is reasonably clear, it is often our view of the next mile which may be obscured! Hence the need for the constancy of the gift of the Holy Ghost. I think you will see this a number of times in your lives. You have cast your minds forward and are fixed on the things of eternity, and all of that is proper and good, but there is sometimes fog in the next hundred yards. You can make it through, but don’t be surprised when it is the short-term obscurity through which you must pass as a result of your faith in the long-term things.
How can we expect to overcome the world if we are too insulated from its trials and challenges? You will experience at times what might be called some redemptive turbulence. Think, for instance, of the Master and the roiling Sea of Galilee, tossed by the “wind boisterous” and “contrary,” and the anguished cry of His followers as in the lyrics we sing, “Master, the tempest is raging” (see Matt. 14:22–33; Hymns, no. 105). Yet that tempest actually occurred on a tiny little sea only 12 miles by 7 miles! Nevertheless, for that moment, Galilee constituted the real world for those anxious disciples!
So it is with the little sectors of our lives. The sea may be roiling at times with waves of emotion, such as when one is offended, or by billows of anger, or, more commonly, by self-pity that threatens to swallow us up. Then, for us too, the calming of the Master becomes crucial. Remember how it was: after Christ and Peter came back “into the ship, the wind ceased” (Matt. 14:32). He can do that for us if we will let Him. It doesn’t matter how small our Galilee may seem; the boisterousness and the tempest will at times rage, but the remedy is still the same.
9. Elder Mark E. Petersen (1900–1984) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles once cautioned the General Authorities, “Adulation can be our ruination” (quoted in Neal A. Maxwell, “Popularity and Principle,” Ensign, Mar. 1995, 15). As one looks at Jesus again, the perfect example, there is no incident wherein He ever played to the gallery or curried favor or praise. Neither did He ever take an indulgent dip in the pool of self-pity. Nor did He ever know the intoxication that comes from recognition. Such tippling is not entirely unknown among us. Unlike Jesus, most of us are familiar with the fruit of that vine. This addicting nectar of recognition is not prohibited specifically in section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants, but it is elsewhere! We are most likely to imbibe that nectar, by the way, when we feel underwhelmed or unappreciated. It is then that we may frequent the saloon of self-pity. One of the great things that we can do for each other is to stay away from that place. Hence my stress on providing deserved commendation and the love that is so precious.
How wonderful it is (and we have all had these experiences) when we can gather in circles of friendship large or small with shared gospel values. Sharing is like gathering around conversational bonfires that grow warm and bright against the horizon. You will find the memories of these bonfires will achieve a lastingness—not of what you wore or of what the menu was, but rather because of the shared expressions of love and testimony. Especially helpful are the memories of those individuals and friends who are exemplars for you and me by the manner in which they strive so steadily and unapologetically to wear the whole armor of God.
These special moments—one-on-one, in small groups, in corridors, hallways, or wherever—do something so subtle that we are scarcely aware that it is happening. Yet these help to further define our relationships with the Lord and with each other. It is often the one-liners that come from these special moments which have such a long shelf life and which help us long after the dispersal of those friends has occurred.
Meanwhile, we remain responsible to develop and to use our capacity to love. I turn to President Brigham Young again. He said, “The principle of love within us is an attribute of the Deity, and it is placed within us to be dispensed independently according to our own will” (in Deseret News, 4 Apr. 1860, 34). We decide how we express love. The Latter-day Saints “have got to learn that the interest of their brethren is their own interest, or they never can be saved in the Celestial Kingdom of God” (in Deseret News, 18 June 1856, 116). So profound, so powerful.
In the relationships of which I speak—the mentoring, the tutoring, the commending, and occasionally the correcting—every one of us has ample clinical opportunities to develop our capacity to love. Many of these opportunities, however, are like people. If we are not careful, they can pass us by unnoticed (see Morm. 8:39).
Fortunately, in addition to these bonfires there are blessed individual reveries that come to us in life. These are heartfelt moments when we are reflective, and they touch us deeply. But they are so fleeting. The day will come, brothers and sisters, when these reveries will not only be touching and heartfelt but everlasting in their splendor! For now they are exceedingly brief, and we are left to press forward. We need reflective leisure to ponder, but if there were too much of it, or if these moments were too prolonged, they would soon dissolve and lose their spiritual symmetry. So the reveries come, but they are brief, and then it is back to class in the curriculum the Lord has for each of us.
Here is the full article from which this post was copied directly from: “Jesus the Perfect Mentor” by Neal A. Maxwell (Ensign February 2001)
-Sherri Jorgensen
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