“Pondering Christ’s deep, deep devotion gives us crucial insights for our own discipleship. What are a few of the common mistakes we make in failing to apply the Atonement to our discipleship? Interestingly, God leaves us free to make these mistakes, and all of these mistakes reflect the need on our part for greater submissiveness to the Lord (Mosiah 3:19).
Perhaps our first mistake is to think that we own ourselves and also blocks of time. Of course, we have our agency and an inner sovereignty, but disciples are to sacrifice themselves to do Jesus’ bidding with enough faith in God’s timing to say, in effect, “Thy timing be done.”
One disadvantage of thinking we own ourselves and blocks of time is that we then have a tendency to feel put upon by undesired and unexpected events and circumstances, as if we designed life’s curriculum rather than responding to it.
A second mistake is failing life’s little quizzes, thinking somehow we can cram and pass the final exam. The little quizzes are absolutely essential for us to pass, and when we fail, we need to draw upon the Atonement. The tests will come at us whether we pass them or fail them. Happily, the infinite Atonement can cover our finite mistakes, too.
It is not enough to perform reasonably well in the crunch times, during the spikes of suffering and stress, if we are then overcome in the long stretches.
We also make the mistake of not realizing that faith and patience are to be in tandem. “Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith” (Mosiah 23:21). To be tried really means to be developed, which will happen if we are meek, the trials being part of the spiritual isometrics mentioned earlier.
We certainly need to focus on faith, of course, but likewise on patience, which is so vital to succeed while living in process of time. Impatience does not honor what is implied in the words in process of time, when we foolishly would have certain moments and seasons over and done with. By wishing to skip these, somehow we are ignoring their inherent possibilities for service and growth. We resemble airline passengers flying from coast to coast while quietly resenting the in-between spaces. But there are souls down there, not just sagebrush! So it is with life’s seemingly in-between and routine spaces.
We make a mistake, too, if we feel put upon by events and circumstances, when some of these actually constitute the customized curricula for our development. Yet, we would push them away. Of course, we should petition for relief, and when it comes, we should give “more praise for relief.” (Hymns, no. 131.) But we should not be surprised if the relief sometimes fails to come.
Another mistake is failing to realize that so much of discipleship consists of the need for us to downsize our egos and diminish our selfishness. Genuine meekness is vital, a meekness which is not conscious of itself.
A further and common mistake is focusing on how we are free to choose, a fact in God’s plan of salvation, while also assuming wrongly that we can choose to avoid the consequences of our choices. Jacques Bainville once said that we must want the consequences of what we want. There really are those among us who feel they can make certain choices and still not have to face the consequences of those choices.
Actually, no one honors our wills and desires more than God!
“A just God . . . granteth unto men according to their desire . . . ; yea, I know that he allotteth unto men, yea, decreeth unto them decrees which are unalterable, according to their wills, whether they be unto salvation or unto destruction” (Alma 29:4).
Many mortals also make the mistake of playing to the galleries. These may be peers, colleagues at work, being politically correct, or conforming to the praise and fashions of the world. Each of these galleries involves a mystic “they,” played to so intensely and so regularly. But those galleries will be emptied on that judgment day when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ and all will acknowledge that God is God (D&C 88:104). Part of playing to such galleries includes the efforts by some who futilely insist on using some of their allotted time to try to conform the eternal truths of the gospel and the Church to the ways and thinking of the world.
It just won’t work! Paul saw it clearly: “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).
All of these mistakes are unworthy of Him and all that He did in Gethsemane and Calvary. These and other errors are rooted in our failures to understand what the Atonement cost and what it requires of us.
If by accessing the Atonement we glorify the perfect Christ, it will be done amid our imperfect but improving discipleships. No one would be more pleased to have it so than He!”
The Promise of Discipleship by Neal A. Maxwell.
Principles Never Fail 