Maxwell Moments--August 22, 2004

In continuing tribute to the late Elder Neal A. Maxwell:

There are no shortcuts to celestialness. But once the basic strategic commitments are made, the tactical problems are solvable. Dozens of different scriptural writers apparently have seen little point in trying to deal with technique or with interim detail, as intriguing as it might be to us now.

In a way, to ask for definitive information of a tactical character is to miss the strategic point. It was a how mistake that Nicodemus made after Jesus had described the importance of every individual's being born again. Nicodemus asked, logically, how a man could enter his mother's womb again. He had missed the what and why points, which we all so often have a way of doing when we are in the presence of a powerful truth. Rather than being meek and accepting, rather than pondering, we immediately want to try to fit that truth into our frail, finite framework of logic or to connect it up with our limited experience. Understandably, we desire to possess the proffered truth by shaping it to fit into the contours of our existing knowledge when what really needs to happen is that we must be overwhelmed by the truth, surrender to it, be possessed by it, rather than to be the possessors of it. We cannot make room in our little puddle of knowledge for the sea itself!

(Neal A. Maxwell, That My Family Should Partake [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1974], pg. 4)

[T]he stirring words of various prophets make even more sense as they urge us to choose, to decide, and not to halt. We find, for instance, Elijah saying unto all the children of Israel, "How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him." (1 Kings 18:21.)

It is too easy for us, if we're not careful, to rationalize this pleading as coming from an impatient prophet whose own ego, in a sense, was on the line, when, in fact, Elijah's message has tremendous relevancy today, for all must finally choose between the gods of this world and the God of eternity. It is an act of kindness for prophets to press mankind for a decision, because the absence of a decision to commit is a decision. Of course, indecision does not push us immediately into gross sin, but it renders us ineffective and uninfluential in a world that so much needs committed individuals; as a minimum, we have lost time in terms of the impact we might have had. Therefore, too much time in "no-man's land," in a sense, really puts us in the enemy's camp. One can understand, too, the prophet Joel saying, "Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision." (Joel 3:14.)

(Ibid. pg. 22)