Ether 12

(December 24, 2014)

                It is funny how we can read the same scripture (even memorize the scripture), and when our lives change and our perspectives change we approach it with fresh eyes and see things in a completely new light.  I don’t know how many times I have read verse 27, and long ago I committed it to memory.  It was, for a long time, my favorite scripture before Mosiah 26:30 finally supplanted it.  But my understanding of that scripture completed changed as I read this time.

                I realized two things.  First, having been confronted with my own weaknesses lately and seen others who have been willing to recreate their perception of reality in order to deny their personal weaknesses, I can see what an absolute blessing it is to be aware of our weakness.  Being shown our weakness is a gift – and humility is the result of that gift.  When we begin to hide our weaknesses, we become proud, then angry, then dishonest.  We have to work hard to maintain our illusion of the absence of weakness, and that leads to a cascade of problems.  Sadly, those lessons were lessons that I learned in my own life, and lessons that I am seeing taught again in the behavior of others.

                The other thing that I noticed was the language of the Lord in this verse.  It is, in fact, a promise from Him – if we come unto Him He will show unto us our weaknesses.  By very definition, this means that if we are not (painfully) aware of our weaknesses, we are not in the process of coming unto Him.  If we don’t see our weaknesses more clearly today than yesterday, we are drifting further from Him.

                This was hard for me to accept and understand for a time, because as things fell apart for me I longed for them to get put back together and to reach the point where I again felt confident in my level of righteousness in the way I did once upon a time.  But I don’t think that is ever coming back, and I think it is for the best that it does not.  My confidence in my righteousness (as opposed to confidence in the Lord or even confidence in His presence) was nothing more than blindness to my own faults.  I now hope that I am never so blind as I was then, and I hope that some who are struggling now find the strength to honestly examine themselves and see their own weaknesses and by so doing come unto the Lord.