In order to more clearly see the greatness of God, you will first have to see less of your own. There are many ways you can hold yourself in greater esteem than God does. You might not have the positive qualities you think you do, you might not exercise them as consistently as you think you do, or when it matters the most, or they might not be worth as much to God as you think they are. You might possess more negative qualities than you think you do, you might lack qualities that you do not yet understand to be positive, you might possess qualities that are much worse in God’s eyes than they are in yours, or you might exercise them more often than you think you do, or when it matters most.
You offend God when you present yourself as better than you actually are.1 Jesus taught that you should assume that you have low standing with God until and unless he tells you otherwise.2 To the extent that you think of yourself more highly than God sees you, you will be “abased,” or be given experiences that will reveal to you that you are less than you thought.3
Believe that God knows much more about being a good person than you do.4 As you increase in your recognition of and appreciation for the attributes of God, you will decrease in what you perceive as good in yourself.5 Job, who was held up by God as an exemplary righteous person, thought highly of himself until he saw God, at which point he said he abhorred himself.6 Daniel, another man declared righteous by God, was physically overcome as everything he found good about himself was shown to be dross compared to the glory of the mighty angel that appeared to him.7 As you come to see yourself as worse than you did before, you make room to see God as better than you did before.8
To increase in knowledge about Jesus requires you to receive criticism from him. This criticism is not some side-effect of the love of God, but the love of God itself. Obtaining more of God’s goodness requires that you become better than you are. God knows that how you are determines the joy you experience, and that only through becoming more like him can you experience more of the joy he does.9 As a necessary part of this, you must come to see more of your present limitations.
It is impossible to align more closely with God without coming to see new or greater faults in yourself as a result. The differences between you and God will become more apparent as you more accurately see your faults and more accurately see his virtues. As you come to God, he will show you your weakness:
And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them. (Ether 12:27)
No matter how exceptional you already are, the more you learn about God, the more of the gilding he will strip away from your self image.10
Greater light shows new or greater differences, creating greater contrast than previously existed. Just as the blind and the sighted are indistinguishable in a dark room, you can’t see who you are or who you could be any better than you already do until and unless you are shown greater light. When the light shines, it will cause you to see unfavorable parts of yourself in greater breadth and depth than you did previously. Jesus will find fault with you until you are living up to your full idea of how he is, and even then, he will only stop when you are ready to receive more. You should expect to continue to receive criticism from God until and unless you become exactly like him. The only time you don’t have a shadow is when you are directly under the sun. If you find yourself without criticism from God, it means that you are not ready to receive what he wishes he could tell you. Good people will push harder and harder towards him, even if doing so hurts.11
Most people ignore what they lack, whether in character qualities, in wisdom or knowledge, in problems they face, in situations that overcome them, or in emotions they cannot control. All of these things are indications of a need for something better, and all of them make space for greater revelation from God. To get closer to God,12 you must become more humble than you are.13 As God points out your weaknesses, you should adopt the humility of the many people who sought Jesus out to heal them during his mortal ministry. It did no good to pretend that they weren’t sick and afflicted; the solution was to look to him14 to know how to be healed.15 Until we see just how filthy we really are, we will never come to truly see God’s goodness, nor fully receive his healing hand, nor come up to anything approaching our divine potential in the full light of God’s love. All people must see themselves as they really are, and all must come to Jesus to be healed in his light: to have their willful darkness cleansed through forgiveness, and to walk in his light by continuing without sin, slaying even the thought of or desire for sin.
When God shows you your weaknesses, realize that he is also expressing his confidence that you can overcome them. God shows you your weakness to instruct you on how to be better, and he never gives you a commandment that you lack the power to obey.16
As you recognize your flaws before God, you are not reducing your worth, but rather identifying how you can be better than you are. The difference between you and God reveals exactly how you need to improve to become more like him. Any time you acknowledge a fault you have compared to God, you are also identifying how to change in order to remove it. As you acknowledge your flaws before God, you are making a way for him to bring you up to a place where you no longer have them.
Footnotes
- 1. The boastful shall not stand in Your sight; You hate all workers of iniquity. (Psalm 5:5, NKJV) Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. (Matthew 23:27-30) ↩
- 2. And he put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them, 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. (Luke 14:7-10) ↩
- 3. For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. (Luke 14:11) ↩
- 4. O then, my beloved brethren, come unto the Lord, the Holy One. Remember that his paths are righteous And whoso knocketh, to him will he open; and the wise, and the learned, and they that are rich, who are puffed up because of their learning, and their wisdom, and their riches—yea, they are they whom he despiseth; and save they shall cast these things away, and consider themselves fools before God, and come down in the depths of humility, he will not open unto them. But the things of the wise and the prudent shall be hid from them forever—yea, that happiness which is prepared for the saints. (2 Nephi 9:41-43) ↩
- 5. ...if ye have known of [God’s] goodness and have tasted of his love..., even so I would that ye should remember, and always retain in remembrance, the greatness of God, and your own nothingness, and his goodness and long-suffering towards you, unworthy creatures, and humble yourselves even in the depths of humility.... (Mosiah 4:11) ↩
- 6. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. (Job 42:5-6) ↩
- 7. Therefore I was left alone, and saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength. (Daniel 10:8) ↩
- 8. And they had viewed themselves in their own carnal state, even less than the dust of the earth. And they all cried aloud with one voice, saying: O have mercy, and apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins, and our hearts may be purified; for we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who created heaven and earth, and all things; who shall come down among the children of men. (Mosiah 4:2) ↩
- 9. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. (1 Corinthians 11:32) ↩
- 10. “...the knowledge of the goodness of God...awaken[s] you to a sense of your nothingness, and your worthless and fallen state.” (Mosiah 4:5) ↩
- 11. The patriarch Jacob demonstrated this principle in a literal way when he wrestled with God, as shown to the author in vision described in his book The Glory of God is Intelligence, p. 251. ↩
- 12. Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly: but the proud he knoweth afar off. (Psalm 138:6) ↩
- 13. Put not forth thyself in the presence of the king, and stand not in the place of great men: For better it is that it be said unto thee, Come up hither; than that thou shouldest be put lower in the presence of the prince whom thine eyes have seen. (Proverbs 25:6-7) ↩
- 14. ...as many as should look upon the Son of God with faith, having a contrite spirit, might live, even unto that life which is eternal. (Helaman 8:15) ↩
- 15. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. (Matthew 16:24) ↩
- 16. And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them. (1 Nephi 3:7) ↩