Paisley: Hey everybody, Paisley imperfect here again, and today
we're going to talk about a talk by President Uchtdorf back in
October of 2011 it's called, you matter to him. The title alone
pretty much gives the whole thing away. You matter to him,
but you know, I'm not going to just leave it there, so let's
keep going. Most of what I want to talk about is towards the end
of his talk. But there are some things that I want to point out
or that I I want to touch on, at least before we get to the end,
because they they help kind of set the stage for for when we
get there. If you were to just take his talk and read just the
headers of the different sections that are in his talk,
this is what you would get. The first one, we are less than we
suppose. We are greater than we suppose, the folly of pride. We
are not forgotten. The last shall be first, and you matter
to him. So he starts off by talking about Moses, actually,
and how Moses at after Moses had met with God on the top of the
mountain, he said, and I'm paraphrasing, but he said, Man
is nothing. Moses actually had something to compare that to, if
you think about it, right? Moses grew up in the Egyptian in an
Egyptian Pharaoh's home. He knew what greatness looked like, and
so when it came, when he when he said, Man is nothing, it really
meant something. And that's the we are less than we suppose.
Part of the talk, he talks about Moses a little bit, but then he
said this quote. And while we may look at the vast expanse of
the universe and say, What is man in comparison to the glory
of creation, God himself said we are the reason he created the
universe, his creation. The creation is part of the plan,
right? The plan of happiness, plan of salvation, plan of
redemption. Pick your favorite title. But creation is part of
that plan. He put it this way. This is a paradox of man
compared to God. Man is nothing, yet we are everything to God.
And I'm going to add in that makes us something. The universe
was created by God. He created it for us because we are
everything to him. We are greater than we suppose. Then he
points out, and this is where the pride part comes in. The
folly of pride. He points out that Satan knows this, and he
knows us, and He will use our own weaknesses to appeal to the
extremes of this paradox. We are less than we suppose. We are
greater than we suppose. And President Uchtdorf starts with
the we are greater than we suppose. He says to some, he
appeals to their their prideful tendencies, puffing them up and
encouraging them to believe in the fantasy of their own self
importance and invincibility, invincibility. He tells them
they have transcended the ordinary and that because of
ability, birthright or social status, they are set apart from
the common measure of all that surrounds them. He leads them to
conclude that they are therefore not subject to anyone else's
rules and not to be bothered by anyone else's problems. This
this end of the paradox, right? We are greater than we suppose,
and to the rest of us, he uses discouragement and to be to be
fair and to be clear. Sometimes we're on this end and sometimes
we're on this end discouragement, he said quote.
He attempts to focus our sight on our own insignificance, until
we begin to doubt that we have much worth. He tells us that we
are too small for anyone to take notice, that we are forgotten,
especially by God. And then he shares this personal experience
that I just thought I loved reading it. I thought it was
adorable, and I love it when apostles share stories like
this. Remember that he was born in czechos Czechoslovakia. He
grew up in East Germany, and at the time of the story, he was a
West German soldier. He was on an airplane on his way to West
Texas, a little place called Big Spring. And when he got there,
he looked for and found the small branch that was there.
They were meeting in some some rented rooms there on the air
base, and there were really only about a. Full of them. There was
a meeting house being built in the area, but that was also at
the time when the members did a lot of the construction and a
lot of the building and putting together. So it took a little
bit longer to build a meeting house back then than it does
now, for that and probably other reasons as well, when he wasn't
in pilot training, or when he wasn't studying, he was helping
build the meeting house or teaching Sunday school or
teaching an elders quorum. In fact, he said that he, quote,
spent so much time working on the meeting house that the
branch president, who also happened to be one of our flight
instructors, expressed concern that I perhaps should spend more
time studying. He was also using these callings to help to help
him better his English. He was using these, these teaching
callings to help him better his English. I would also dare say
that he was probably getting better at English by helping out
in construction. He said something about how he learned
that a two by four was a piece of wood, not a dance step. There
are some rather funny parts in the talk. As always, I encourage
you to go read the whole thing yourself. Anyway, he said quote
at the time, Big Spring, despite its name, was a small,
insignificant and unknown place, and I often felt exactly the
same way about myself, insignificant, unknown and quite
alone, even so, I never once wondered if the Lord had
forgotten me, or if he would ever be able to find me there. I
knew that it didn't matter to Heavenly Father where I was
where I ranked with others in my pilot training class, or what my
calling in the church was. What mattered to him was that I was
doing the best I could, that my heart was inclined toward him,
and that I was willing to help those around me. I knew if I did
the best I could, all would be well. So let me ask you this
question really quick. How does it make you feel to know that a
future then future apostle, a member of the First Presidency,
felt insignificant, unknown and quite alone, had a time in his
life where he felt insignificant, unknown and quite
alone, and did you see in that story, kind of what sets him
apart? This is my opinion, what sets him apart and what helped
him to become an apostle. It wasn't that he never felt those
feelings. Notice that he did. He said I felt insignificant,
unknown and quite alone. But then he said, Even so, I never
wondered if the Lord had forgotten me. He knew he wasn't
forgotten, but that didn't, that didn't make him feel suddenly
significant or remembered, right? Um, okay, so in the last
section of his talk, and I wanted to share all of that,
because it's a great build up, um, to this end part of his
talk, the last section of his talk is called you matter to
him. And he reminds us that. Quote, It may be true that man
is nothing in comparison to the greatness of the universe. At
times we may even feel insignificant, invisible, alone
or forgotten, but always remember you matter to him. And
then He gives four principles for to help us to remember this
number one. God loves the humble and meek, for they are the
greatest in the kingdom of heaven. We don't have to be
loud. We don't have to be obnoxious. And I mean that in a
positive way, if you can mean obnoxious in a positive way, we
don't have to be we don't have to be in your face to be
significant. God loves the humble and meek. Number two, the
Lord entrusts the fullness of His gospel to be proclaimed by
the weak and the simple unto the ends of the world. And that
always takes me back to Joseph Smith. Not that Joseph Smith was
weak. I do not think that Joseph Smith was weak at all. A
seemingly insignificant, 14 year old boy, did not come from a
wealthy family,
had very little education, but the Lord entrusts the fullness
of His gospel to be proclaimed by the weak and the simple unto
the ends of the world, the weak of the world, the weak in the
eyes of the world. That's, I think that's the term that I'm
looking for. Number three, no matter where you live, no matter
how humble your circumstances, how meager your employment, how
limited your abilities, how ordinary your appearance, or how
little your calling in the church may. Appear to you. You
are not invisible to your heavenly Father, He loves you.
He knows your humble heart and your acts of love and kindness.
People always use the nursery leader to talk about, quote,
unquote, insignificant callings. There was no other calling in
the church more significant to me when my kids were in nursery
than the nursery leader. There is no insignificant calling in
the church, unless you make it that way. Number four, please
understand that what you see and experience now is not what
forever will be you will not feel loneliness, sorrow, pain or
discouragement. Forever. We have the faithful promise of God that
He will never forget nor forsake those who incline their hearts
to Him. This too shall pass. We matter, and in case you needed
one last reminder, I'll leave you with this quote from the
talk. The most powerful being in the universe is the father of
your spirit. He knows you. He loves you with a perfect love.
God sees you not only as a mortal being on a small planet
who lives for a brief season. He sees you as His child. He sees
you as the being you are capable and designed to become. He wants
you to know that you matter to him. We matter. We matter. We
are not forgotten. We are not insignificant. We are sons and
daughters of God, the most powerful being in the universe.
Thank you, my friends for being here with me today. Keep
learning, keep growing. Just keep trying and be of good cheer
until next time you.