Here we are, marching through April 1972, and we come to Elder James A. Cullimore's talk, "The Importance of a Personal Testimony", speaking to what feels like something that may be unique to our church.
The Quote
"In an editorial in the Impact magazine,
Brother William E. Barrett expressed well the great influence of the Holy Spirit
in guiding and uniting the Church today:
“The great miracle of our day
is that Spirit which unites the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
with those multitudinous authorities appointed to lead them.
For those appointed thus to lead speak a diversity of tongues,
belong to a variety of races and cultures,
and live in many different lands.
Yet there is a unity which manifests itself in the obedience to Church calls,
in the acceptance of basic doctrines,
and in the belief that we are led by a living prophet of God.
“This unity is baffling to the world generally
and is not understood by many whose names grace the Church rolls.
The unifying influence is none other than the Holy Ghost,
bestowed upon men by the authority of God,
through his holy priesthood.
Through the work of the Holy Ghost, men may come to know the truth,
as it springs forth from the printed pages of scripture
or from the lips of our living prophets.
In the words of Brigham Young,
‘the eloquence of angels never can convince any person that God lives,
and makes truth the habitation of his throne,
independent of that eloquence being clothed with the power of the Holy Ghost;
in the absence of this, it would be a combination of useless sounds.
What is it that convinces man?
It is the influence of the Almighty, enlightening his mind,
giving instruction to the understanding.’”
(Impact, Spring 1970, p. 2.)
I've never heard of a magazine named Impact in our church. When I searched for it, the magazines I did find would never publish anything like this. So the original opinion article this came from is largely lost.
But the idea expressed in the quote is certainly true from my experience.
We are a strange bunch of cats in our church - we don't always join or attend our church for the same reasons other may attend theirs.
Social camaraderie can be a reason to come, but more often than not, it's something we don't feel the need of, or something we don't always get, depending on how unique we are.
My family and I have the blessing of being unusually unique, which makes socializing and making friends a little difficult sometimes.
Our connection is mostly to the Lord, and then the socialization aspect comes into play. Not because we want or need friends - being an introvert, my need for friends is more limited. But because the Lord wishes us to reach out to others.
We work hard to inoculate ourselves against each other. People are flawed, but the Church organization as the Lord has set it up is perfect. Everyone in our faith gets offended by someone, sometime. For me, it's happened numerous times. We don't go on missions to convert others - if a mission is done right, we each seek our own conversion, and then share the Lord's light with others.
Then we work to maintain our own conversion the rest of our lives - to keep that connection wth the Lord through the Holy Ghost as strong and as clear as we can. Because it's worth it. Just a moment in the Lord's presence sets me up for the whole day.
His love and peace, and being able to feel that love and peace, is its own reward. It unites us as a people, and when we follow it, there is enormous unity and power in that.
The Lord is very good at herding his cats.
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