Let us Choose to Be Humble

This has been an interesting week.  On Monday, we celebrated my Dad's 72nd birthday.  It was his first birthday on the other side of the veil.  We all hope that it was a wonderful day for him and we miss him very much.  That day was a reminder that there will, of necessity, be some sobering times when his absence is more apparent than usual.  And yet we all know that he is nearby.  Speaking to a congregation in June 1856, President Brigham Young asked, "When you lay down this tabernacle, where are you going?" and then answered "Into the spirit world."  He then asked, "Where is the spirit world?" and answered, "It is right here." (Brigham Young, Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, 2:1131).  And so we know that my Dad is close by and we are grateful for those sacred moments when we are blessed to brush up against the veil and feel his presence nearby us.

The following day I learned that I hadn't gotten a job that I had applied for.  The news was delivered in a kind and compassionate manner and the person who received it is very well qualified, but it was still difficult to hear.  Of course whenever you apply for a job, there is the chance that you might not get it.  Despite this understanding, this experience can bring with it a measure of personal shame and embarrassment.  And it did for me.  I forced a smile for a couple of days, but it was hard.  But hard as this was, the Lord showed great care for me.  My beautiful fiancé assured me of her love and that she was proud of me and that things would work out.  My Mom and siblings each did the same.  And throughout the remainder of that week, I was blessed to have good friends and colleagues offer words of comfort and encouragement at work.  Through each of these words of encouragement, my feelings of failure dissipated and my hope in the future grew.

The challenging experiences of earlier this week were a wonderful reminder to me of God's love.  Sometimes we wonder how could show his love to us through hard experiences.  But the older I've gotten, the more I've realized that often these experiences are some of the most profound manifestations of God's love.  They are reminders of God's love because they help us to be humble and to remember just how much we need to turn to the Lord.  And then as we come to Him, we are able to experience the full majesty of His divine work in our lives.

In each of life's experiences, we have a choice as to how we will respond.  Writing about the end of a long period of Nephite wars, Mormon wrote, "But behold, because of the exceedingly great length of the war between the Nephites and the Laminates many had become hardened, because of the exceedingly great length of the war; and many were softened because of their afflictions, insomuch that they did humble themselves before God, even in the depth of humility" (Alma 62:41).  These people had experienced exactly the same experiences, but where some were led to humility, repentance, and divine healing, others hardened their hearts in pride and found their lives made more difficult.  If we are humble, life's setbacks can and will become the "training ground for better and happier days."

As President Ezra Taft Benson admonished, "Let us choose to be humble. . . . We can choose to humble ourselves by loving God, submitting our will to His, and putting Him first in our lives.  Let us choose to be humble.  We can do it.  I know we can" (Ezra Taft Benson, Beware of Pride)

No matter what challenges life holds for us, let us choose to be humble, and in our humility may we then find the great power of God's love for us.

Brett