Sharing Insights From My Life
"I am going to preach a hard doctrine to you now. The submission of one's will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God's altar. It is a hard doctrine, but it is true.
The many other things we give to God, however nice that may be of us, are actually things He has already given us, and He has loaned them to us.
But when we begin to submit ourselves by letting our wills be swallowed up in God's will, then we are really giving something to Him. And that hard doctrine lies at the center of discipleship.
There is a part of us that is ultimately sovereign, the mind and heart, where we really do decide which way to go and what to do. And when we submit to His will, then we've really given Him the one thing He asks of us. And the other things are not very, very important.
It is the only possession we have that we can give, and there is no resulting shortage in our agency as a result. Instead, what we see is a flowering of our talents and more and more surges of joy. Submission to Him is the only form of submission that is completely safe."
"C. S. Lewis put it well when he said, "We are bidden to 'put on Christ,' to become like God. That is, whether we like it or not, God intends to give us what we need, not what we now think we want" (The Problem of Pain, chapter 3, paragraph 18).
"Hence it is so vital for us to be submissive because we'll be puzzled when He gives us what we need in order to become more like Him and the Son, unless we are submissive in mind."
Neal A. Maxwell, BYU Dev. - January 12, 1999 - "Sharing Insights From My Life"