Spiritual Confidence
This is a General Conference Odyssey post for the October 2009 Saturday morning session of General Conference.
President Nelson’s most recent invitation to us, after already giving us more invitations
than any prophet since Joseph Smith, is to “take intentional steps to grow in your confidence before the Lord.”
We might automatically assume that means to stop belittling ourselves. To do our best to overcome our inadequacies. And even attempt to feel good about our own standing with the Lord. But I believe Elder Richard G. Scott teaches us how to have confidence in his talk, “To Acquire Spiritual Guidance.”
Interesting to me, as I was listening to the talk and reading along, I saw that he skipped three entire paragraphs. I found these paragraphs gave me a most profound understanding of having confidence before the Lord.
The first one was a quote from Joseph Smith, advising John Taylor:
“Follow the influence of that Spirit. It will become in you a principle of revelation. …Never arise in the morning without bowing before the Lord, and dedicating myself to him during that day.”
Humbly starting the day on our knees, dedicating ourselves to God each and every day, doesn’t make us perfect. It makes us His true disciples.
The second one was a list of adjectives describing how Satan works. And then the answer:
“Sin is spiritually corrosive. Unrestrained, it becomes all-consuming. It is overcome by repentance and righteousness.”
His answer is simple. If we live our imperfect lives as repentant beings, striving to please God, we will not be so easily swayed by every wind of doctrine. Satan will not be able to shame us.
The last paragraph he left out says:
“An individual with foundation standards and an enduring commitment to obey them is not easily led astray. Someone who is increasingly repulsed by grievous sin and who exercises self-restraint outside human influence has character. Repentance will be more efficacious for such an individual. A feeling of remorse after a mistake is a fertile soil wherein repentance can flower.”
We’ll never know why these three paragraphs were left out of the talk, over the pulpit, but thank you for making them available to us in the written talk. From these three paragraphs we learn to be humble, to be repentant, and to build a character of obedience. Instead of beating ourselves up for not measuring up, our confidence will grow as we listen to the Spirit teach us how to please God.
For me, this is practicing and gaining confidence to stand before the Lord. We experience “essential personal growth” when we struggle to learn how to be led by the Spirit. Elder Scott states that the Spirit yields two fruits. 1) Inspiration to know what to do. 2) The capacity to do it. We gain power, and therefore, confidence to do what the Lord wants. What better preparation is there to stand before Him.
I was in the temple reflecting on what my confidence might look like to the Lord. I had some time to search examples in the scriptures that lifted me:
- 1 Nephi 11:6 The Spirit bears witness of Jesus Christ, the most high God.
- Mosiah 5:2 After King Benjamin’s speech, the people shout in praise of the Spirit of the Lord that has wrought a mighty change in them.
- Alma 19:29, 36 King Lamoni’s wife praises Jesus and the Spirit begins to work among the Lamanites from that point on.
- Alma 27:24 Alma exclaims that he has repented, is redeemed, and is born of the Spirit.
- Alma 29:1, 9-10 Alma wishes he were an angel to preach repentance.
Our prophet and apostles are doing their best to prepare us for the Second Coming. No doubt it is coming very soon. Our number one place of learning is in the temple. This is where we can feel the Spirit the strongest. This is where our covenants mean the most. This is where we receive spiritual power. This is where we practice standing before the Lord and our Heavenly Father in humble praise of what they have done for us.