Who Am I?

Two initial thoughts that inspired this post.

1. Joseph smith describes himself as an obscure boy of no consequence JSH 1:22

2. “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”

Those two things unleashed a flurry of thoughts.

We will not be asked to start a church from the ground up so we probably don’t need that vision of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. But most of us have probably had an inkling, heard a voice, had a strong feeling telling us what we need to be doing. We have been set on a path and people have been put in our way so that we can accomplish the great things that God has for each of us individually.

I have often thought that the things I want to be in my life might be incorrect. I want to write books. I want to be known for my work. I want to make a difference in the world, not just my house. Sometimes people have made me feel as if I was too prideful to want those things and that I should pull back. But what they don’t know is the thoughts and feelings and inspiration I have had. Sometimes it’s hard to keep those personal directions in my view as I move forward because there are people telling me that I should think smaller, dream smaller, be smaller. But I know that’s not who I’m meant to be. So I push forward, continue to write, continue to create and do all the things I need to do because who know who’s life I will affect because I kept doing the things I feel I am meant to.

Joseph Smith could have said no. He could have at any point decided it was too much for him. I’m sure the church would still exist. It just would have come about a little differently. What if my imaginary friend Sheri Dew had decided to be smaller or less? Deseret Book wouldn’t be the company it is, we wouldn’t have the inspiring collection of talks and books from her.

But let me clarify a thing. Being bold and letting our light shine doesn’t mean you need to be known by a lot of people but it does mean that you need to let go of your fear and hesitations. You need to allow yourself to speak the words that come into your mind that will invite others to have a closer relationship with God. You need to be willing to bare your testimony of the goodness of Jesus Christ and help others to see His hand in their lives. You need to shine your light in your sphere of influence.

You don’t know what the end looks like but God does. Playing small does not serve the world.

Now Joseph Smith taught, “The knowledge that one’s life is in accordance with God’s will is necessary for obtaining eternal life.” I in no way think that one career path is more Godly than another, you know except if there are commandments being broken in that pursuit. So when I think about this quote from Joseph I know it has to do with things like are we studying scripture and the words of living prophets and are we attending our meetings so that we can renew our covenants and continually remind ourselves of the direction God would have us travel.

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints we believe that we all have the divine potential to become like God. I know that in many other religions this is not the case but how can it not be so if we are truly His children. But that is not the purpose of this particular post. My point here is that we cannot become something or like someone we don’t know or understand.

Consider someone you saw in an interview who has achieved great things. You think to your self, wow, I would like to be like that. It’s not enough to just think it in your mind. Some action is required. So you begin doing all of the things that you think will get you to your goal point. The probability of achieving something without real knowledge of how to get there is very slim. You could, however, try to contact that person and see if they would be willing to talk to you about how they achieved their goals. That way you will know the steps to take that will help you get there. Often when you get to talk to a person who has acheived great things and begin to ask good questions you will find that there was a lot of sacrifice and hardship that came as they focused on reaching their goal.

Now Matthew 5:48 says ^aBe ye therefore ^bperfect, even as your ^cFather which is in heaven is ^dperfect. We know that it is impossible in this life to be perfect which is the whole reason for the Atonement of Jesus Christ. So why did Jesus say that? It’s goals. It’s the whole purpose of this life. It’s to become like our Father so we can work toward it little by little and eventually we can get there as long as we are focused on the long term goal of becoming like our Heavenly Father.

When we have children we often want them to grow up to be more or better than we are ourselves and so we teach them how to be good people and we guide them into great education and we advise them imperfectly on how to be great. They usually don;t believe what we say because we ourselves are not great. But the reason we can advise them is because we can see the mistakes we made and we often understand where we could have done better.

God wants the same thing for us. I mean, not to be better because that’s not possible but in His fatherly case His desire is for us to be just like He is. To become like Him. It is easy to become like our parents or our best friend because we know them very well. We have watched them closely for years. But how can we become like someone who we haven;t seen?

The answer is in the scriptures. And there is a difference between reading and studying the scriptures.

When a new movie comes out and I go see it in the theater the first time I watch it I’m watching the overarching story and just having a great time. I know it’s weird but if I love a movie I often will go back and see it several more times in the theater (I love the big screen). The second time I go it is often to get a closer look at the costumes since I am a dressmaker and I get a littel inspired by great clothes. The next time I go back I look for details I missed the first two times through like relationships between people, where the little scene is with the turning point and other things I may have missed.

Reading the scriptures for me is sort of like my movie experience. I have read them all through as a whole. From beginning to end I’ve read each book and got the gist of it. Now the last few years have been a study. Looking for details. Putting storylines together, figuring out how things fit. I have learned so much about Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father. Little details. and I have gained an even stronger testimony of how much they really do love us even though the things I wish for don;t always come to me. I do know that there is a plan and a reason. It seems impossible that God could know each one of us individually when there are so many of us but He is God and I believe what he says.

To become like God we need to get to know Him. To know and understand who we are we need to get to know him. To serve others well, we need to get to know Him. And this knowing is a lifetime pursuit.

And so let’s go back to the beginning quote:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”

We are children of God. We are meant to be and do great things. That doesn;t always mean fame and riches. Most often it means taking care of those around you and encouraging them to live as if they are also children of God – because they are.

Photo by Jose Castillo on Unsplash

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