Spiritual Caffeine: But for a Small Moment

Kendall Linn

Sisters, while you await Pinterest Part II, which is coming, I promise!  Any day now. . .

For our Spiritual Caffeine, I would like to share a talk that has come to mean a lot to me.  It is But for a Small Moment by Neal A. Maxwell.  I hope you will go to the link below and listen to it or read it.  I recommend listening, because he has such a kind gentleness to his voice that gives meaning to the words that I am afraid could be lost in the written text.  But just in case you are in a hurry, and can't go listen/read right now, I would like to share a couple of my favorite quotes from it.

Elder Maxwell said, "Let me begin by reminding you that we so blithely say in the Church that life is a school, a testing ground. It is true, even though it is trite.  What we don't accept are the implications of that true teaching—at least as fully as we should. One of the implications is that the tests that we face are real. They are not going to be things we can do with one hand tied behind our backs. They are real enough that if we meet them we shall know that we have felt them, because we will feel them deeply and keenly and pervasively."

When I heard this the first time, my whole spirit just melted in relief.  He "gets it".  He really "gets it."  For me, so many talks on adversity seem to down play its difficulty and tell us to get over it or "let it go", but Elder Maxwell really understands.

Then he continues. . .

"Christ on the cross gave out the cry "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" That cry on the cross is an indication that the very best of our Father's children found the trials so real, the tests so exquisite and so severe, that he cried out—not in doubt of his Father's reality, but wondering "why" at that moment of agony—for Jesus felt so alone. James Talmage advises us that in ways you and I cannot understand, God somehow withdrew his immediate presence from the Son so that Jesus Christ's triumph might be truly complete."

Sisters, have you ever felt this way?  I have.  For me those moments feeling so alone, are compounded by wondering, "is lack of faith my problem?"  These loving words from Elder Maxwell assure me that feeling abandoned is not a lack of faith, and that the Savior can help me because He has felt it too.

Later in the talk he says: "If we at times wonder if our own agendum for life deliver to us challenges that seem unique, it would be worth our remembering that, when we feel rejected, we are members of the church of him who was most rejected by his very own with no cause for rejection. If at times we feel manipulated, we are disciples of him whom the establishment of his day sought to manipulate. If we at times feel unappreciated, we are worshipers of him who gave to us the Atonement—that marvelous, selfless act, the central act of all human history—unappreciated, at least fully, even among those who gathered about his feet while the very process of the Atonement was underway. If we sometimes feel misunderstood by those about us, even those we minister to, so did he, much more deeply and pervasively than we. And if we love and there is no reciprocity for our love, we worship him who taught us and showed us love that is unconditional, for we must love even when there is no reciprocity."

This reminds me that whatever I am feeling, He understands. Then Elder Maxwell talks about some traps we can fall into.  This one is particularly interesting to me:

"A sixth trap into which we can fall quite easily, brothers and sisters, is the trap in which we sense that something special is happening in our lives but are not able to sort it out with sufficient precision and clarity that we can articulate it to someone else. That is so often true of the gospel. Its truths are too powerful for us to manage on occasion. Let me give you this simple illustration of how we can know something and yet not be able to communicate it fully without the help of the Spirit. If I were to bring one of you into this hall and if, instead of all of you, it were filled with fifteen thousand mothers and if I were to say to you, "Somewhere in that audience is your mother; find her," you could do it, and I suspect it wouldn't take you very many minutes. But if I said to you, "Wait outside. There are fifteen thousand mothers in there and one of them is your mother. Now, you describe her to me with sufficient precision and clarity so that I can go find her," you couldn't do it. You would still know what she looked like, but tongue could not transmit what you knew."

I have pondered this a lot, having a feeling, but not knowing how to express it...how is that a trap?  I think the danger is though, at least for me, that being unable to express it to others may make us doubt ourselves.  I think Elder Maxwell is saying here, the Spirit is whispering to you that something special is happening in your life, and even though that doesn't make sense to you right now, and you can't explain it to anyone else....trust it.  Trust Him.

Then he gives a Sunday School answer: prayer, new life: "There is nothing more powerful than prayer, nothing more masculine or more feminine (at the same time) than prayer. There was more power processed and expended on that single night in Gethsemane, in that small garden, than all the armies and navies have ever expended in all the battles on the land and sea and in the air in all of human history. The catalyst of prayer helped Jesus to cope with suffering, and by his suffering he emancipated all men from death and made possible eternal life. This cardinal fact about the central act of human history, the Atonement, ought to give us pause, therefore, as we face our challenges individually."

In closing:  "Whatever the form the test takes, we must be willing to pass it. We must reach breaking points without breaking. We must be willing, if necessary, to give up our lives—not because we have a disdain for life as some do, but even though we love life—because we are the servants of him who did that in such an infinite way for all of us. . . We are all the servants of him who suffered most that we might have with him a fullness of joy."

I hope these quotes have given you a desire the read/listen to the entire talk, as I have barely skimmed the surface of it.  You can find it here: Elder Maxwell: But for a Small Moment     

Photo Attribution: Kendall Linn