One Step Enough For Me

All You Need to Read if All You’re Interested in is What’s Happening in My Life:

Let’s cover the basics right from the start: 1) No, I am currently not dating anyone. I have dated a few girls in the last couple years but still haven’t found the one for me. But don’t worry; my parents are very good at not letting me forget that I am single and that marriage is an essential step in my eternal progression. 2) I am studying English with a Business Strategy minor. What am I planning on doing with that, you ask? (or even if you don’t). I plan to get a PhD in education and then build businesses designed to initiate and manage the major changes I believe will occur in that field in the near future. 3) I am currently working full-time in a training/management position at the Missionary Training Center where I train and manage between 35-60 teachers and anywhere between 100-300 missionaries at a time. This requires that I only go to school part-time, meaning I will graduate, depressingly, at the end of 2016.

What do I really want in life, and how will I get it?

It was five minutes to 9:30 when I walked into room 230 for the first day of Strategy class. The room was set up in a stadium-like fashion where no matter where you sat, you could pretty much see everyone else. I sat down next to a friendly-looking fellow and introduced myself as confidently as I could. Intellectually, I was trembling. Everyone I consciously looked at seemed to breath smart, talk smart, walk smart, and know that they were smart. Although in the moment I recognized this mindset to be fallacious, I couldn’t help feeling like it was somehow true-- everyone was smart, and furthermore, smarter than me. I mean, there was a guy two rows in front of me that seemed to have already read all the material for the semester and written 3 page papers on each article. Across the room, sat another guy that looked like he had already started two successful businesses and was just taking this class as a refresher. Then there was the guy that everyone seemed to know and like. He walked into the room and said hello to six or seven different people by name and seemed to struggle knowing which of his friends he should sit by. Even if he wasn’t smart (he did look smart), he was going to have plenty of friends to help him understand and succeed.

Despite my feelings of desperation and inadequacy on the first day of class, as the semester progressed, I learned to feel confident around a lot of other people that were confident. Most of the people I met in the class were, in fact, very smart and inspiringly ambitious, but also down-to-earth and kind. As time went on, I realized that I actually enjoy being in an environment where you are expected to think critically and accurately, an environment where you are expected to contribute. Something I came to feel as I was immersed in that culture from 9:30 to 10:45 am every Monday and Wednesday was that I could literally be and do whatever I wanted. Those words were no longer a mere platitude my mom used to tell me while I was growing up; it became a real possibility. The problem was deciding what I really wanted to devote my life to and, consequently, what I wanted to become with my time on earth.

When it comes to this decision, I’ve learned that there are plenty of people that feel like they know the path to success and are eager to share it with you. They know how to build your resume, connect you to the right people, and even teach you how to think. These things, they seem to think, will land you a job with a top firm, making millions of dollars, and bringing glory to your family, alma mater, and your name. On deeper reflection, even if people don’t tell you those things directly, the business school climate seems to infuse them into your brain. I could sometimes feel the disapproval of some when they found out I was devoting so much time to my job at the MTC rather than doing internships with more “reputable” firms. Although I tried to resist, I couldn’t help but feel that they were somehow right. I struggled with knowing whether staying at the MTC, something I felt like God was directing me to do, was really the best thing for me.

I also started to struggle with my desires to be wealthy. Growing up, money was never really a big determining factor in my career choices. I was taught that if you spend less than you make, eventually, you would become wealthy. But the more I formulated what I wanted to accomplish in my life, the more I felt, not just a desire, but a need to be wealthy.

Now, I recognize that these desires are not necessarily bad per se. The desires themselves were not troubling me. It was that the desires to make lots of money, work at a prestigious firm, and be successful in the world seemed to actually be competing with my desire to do whatever God wanted me to do. What if God didn’t have riches in store for me? What if working at a prestigious firm isn’t really what He wanted for my life? I realized that if what I wanted for myself wasn’t really what God wanted for me, that I would have a really difficult time accepting that, and that really bothered me. At first, I thought I might just pretend that my more secular desires weren’t really competing with my spiritual ones, but then I remembered Tennyson:

There lives more faith in honest doubt

Believe me, than in half the creeds.

He fought his doubts and gathered strength

He would not make his judgment blind

He faced the spectres of his mind

And laid them: thus he came at length

To find a greater faith his own

            I resolved to live by these words and deal with my feelings head-on. I started studying consecration and sacrifice in the scriptures. I started praying for the ability to truly “yield [my] heart unto God” (Helaman 3:35). Weeks went by where I didn’t feel like I was getting much direction. Then one day, while I was studying and seeking for guidance, I felt inspired to write a poem. I opened a Word doc and just started writing. What I produced, though admittedly unimpressive poetically, captured my struggle and revealed God’s guidance for me at that time.

                       

You pull upon my heart for love I wish to give 

But cannot yet.  

I wrestle with green paper. fancy plates. big desks 

which multiply heavier 

with each passing Monday and Wednesday 

From 9:30 to 10:45.   

I wonder what you'll ask and tremble at alters I've never met

and checkbooks of zeros. My brain soothes me, 

but I do not trust my brain so easily tricked.  

So I reach with my heart, offering gifts you do not want. You want the  

inner valves and veins of my inwards but I will not let them go.  

I fear your paths and burdens and I want the bigger desk. 

I look at your face, framed and hanging beside me and want you to be the most my heart could have.

I reach, claw, fight, and plead for you to take what only I can give.  

I sneer at the ugly wall someone built between us and then  

I feel the wooden handled hammer in my hand. You ask for it, and

I give it to you. 

But I still want it. I want to build that big, polished, pure-oak desk. 

But then you give one to me. Six chairs surrounding 

With jammy fingers making sticky prints. Mac'n'cheese in little mouths fed with little hands. I look across and see her eyes staring trustingly. I hold her heart in my own; she--mine.  

Smiling, I finally grasp your hand and whisper,  

"Thank you for my desk."

            When I finished writing, something was different. It wasn’t a huge change, but it was a distinct one. It felt like I had just found my misplaced wallet after 30 minutes of angry searching. It was simply the feeling that I wanted what I had always wanted—to be a husband and father who gives his life to God and his family. I still felt a desire to follow my ambitions in having a successful career and changing the world, but the more I thought about the words I had just written, the more I felt that those things would never mean anything to me or to God if I failed to fulfill the dream I have had ever since I was a little boy—making a genuinely happy family with the love of my life.

            This experience became the impetus to methodically recapturing my future from the control of resumes, GPA’s, famous businessmen, and well-meaning advisors and placing it securely in the hands of God. Doing so has taught me an important lesson: Everything I accomplish in my life—everything—will be because God has provided the opportunity, talent, or experience needed to do it. God will get me where I need to be. It won’t be my impressive resume. It won’t be because I got into the strategy program. It won’t be because of me at all.

On first thought, you might think this would diminish my self-confidence, but the reality is that this realization has brought more confidence, direction, and faith. More than ever before, I feel like I can “trust in the Lord with all [my] heart and lean not unto [my] own understanding” with the knowledge that “he shall direct [my] paths” (Proverbs 3:5).

But I’ve learned that trusting in God so completely requires a particular type of attitude, a specific way of looking at the world. I think it might be what the Book of Mormon prophets call an “eye of faith” (Alma 32). It is the ability to reside in uncertainty without becoming anxious. It is the determination to not jump ship when it starts taking on water; it is the courage to not retreat when the opponent gets a few good shots on you. It is seen in the man digging in deeper when the enemy appears innumerable. It is seen in the woman standing a little taller when the pressures and weights of the world seem too heavy to bear. It is the realization that closeness to God is often found in our own personal gardens of Gethsemane. It is not merely enduring the trial—indeed, adversity is the gardener of faith whether we like it or not—rather, it is enduring the trial well.

Please notice that I’m not saying that we should enjoy trials, uncertainty, or affliction. They would not qualify as such if they were enjoyable to us. Instead, I am trying to say that complete trust in God is always accompanied by the implicit confidence that everything is going to be okay, that God is at the helm and that “all things wherewith you have been afflicted shall work together for your good” (Doctrine and Covenants 98:3).

This confidence has transformed the uncertain journey of my life from a fretful dragging of the feet to an exciting, soul-stretching quest. I still don’t know exactly what lies ahead, but I no longer fear ambiguity. I know God is my Father, that he loves me with a perfect love, and that He will never forsake me. He will “guide my future as He has my past” (“Be Still My Soul”). I know I am His son and because of that, I have infinite potential to do whatever He would have me do. That knowledge acts as an anchor to my soul and makes me to pray with saints of every dispensation, “Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see the distant scene—one step enough for me” (“Lead Kindly Light”).