The process as it is supposed to occur
Earth life is designed to facilitate access to and acceptance of better ideas through interactions with people who have them. We are meant to be lights to other people, and other people are meant to be lights to us.1 As two people honestly share conflicting ideas, they will both draw nearer to the truth,2 and both draw nearer to God in doing so.3 This process is so critical that it serves a central role in how Zion is formed.
For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. (Isaiah 62:1)
6 I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence,
7 And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. (Isaiah 62)
We can’t know a priori who has the greater light in the situations we are in. We go forth as humble servants, not knowing if we are going to teach or be taught.4 Those willing to do so with the assumption that they will be taught will increasingly find that that they have something of worth to share,5 but you can’t know which is the case if you never open your ears to hear or your mouth to tell the truth.
To take part in this process and receive the benefits from it, you have to notice and confront those whose thoughts, feelings, and actions differ from what you would do in their place.
Footnotes
- 1. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. (Matthew 5:14) ↩
- 2. Wherefore, he that preacheth and he that receiveth, understand one another, and both are edified and rejoice together. (D&C 50:22) ↩
- 3. This is a much plainer rendering of what Jesus meant when he said: “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20) ↩
- 4. Some might push back against the idea that we should not presume to know more than others until we’ve had a chance to hear them out and sufficiently investigate their ideas against our own by citing D&C 43:15, which says: “Again I say, hearken ye elders of my church, whom I have appointed: Ye are not sent forth to be taught, but to teach the children of men the things which I have put into your hands by the power of my Spirit;” (D&C 43:15) If you have a strong enough relationship with the Lord that he tells you directly and specifically that you know better than those you interact with in, you probably have a pretty good reason to believe it. If he doesn’t, and all you can do is quote one time when he said this to someone else, you probably don’t have a pretty good reason to believe it. ↩
- 5. When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him; And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room. But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee. For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. (Luke 14:8-11) ↩