Pride and Discouragement

My daughter wrote this talk and delivered it in her church.

We were asked to base our remarks on Elder Uchtdorf's, October (2011) General Conference talk titled: You Matter to Him. Elder Uchtdorf states in his talk that :"The great deceiver knows that one of his most effective tools in leading the children of God astray is to appeal to the extremes of the paradox of man.” The extremes he’s speaking of are pride and discouragement.
Pride [Beware of Pride - President Ezra Taft Benson] - "...The central feature of pride is enmity—... or a state of opposition... The proud do not receive counsel or correction easily. Defensiveness is used by them to justify and rationalize their frailties and failures…. The proud depend upon the world to tell them whether they have value or not. ...Pride is a damning sin in the true sense of that word. It limits or stops progression. The proud are not easily taught. They won’t change their minds to accept truths, because to do so implies they have been wrong.”

Discouragement[Elder Uchtfdorf] - "Another way Satan deceives is through discouragement. 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." SymptomsSometimes when we hear the same concepts over and over it’s difficult to personalize them or know how to integrate them into our lives, so I would like to propose a few considerations in an attempt to personalize the topic.

When you are struggling with pride or suffering from discouragement, it is not easy to immediately change, in fact it may feel impossible. Personally, I believe these two behaviors are symptomatic of deeper issues, and it’s easier to change our behavior when we trace it to its origin. It’s kind of like having an infection and one of the symptoms is a cough. While you still need to address the cough, you also need to treat the underlying infection to truly heal.
Pride is a symptom. It comes from a fear of being wrong or of being less than someone else. We use pride to establish a false sense of worth. We cling to this false self worth because in our core we actually feel less than those around us.

Discouragement is also a symptom. It comes from the pain and fear of not knowing if we have done enough, or, more aptly, not knowing that we are enough.
So, to simplify, the two behaviors are really coping behaviors for when we feel inadequate. We all have participated in both - though we usually gravitate toward one or the other extreme. But why? Why is everyone struggling with deep feelings of inadequacy? What is the underlying cause of infection, so to speak?

I believe the answer is at least three-fold:
Initially, because we came to earth with a veil across our minds, we wrongly believed the things we experienced here accurately reflected who we were. So, if the world told us that we were not enough, or we weren’t doing it right, we believed it.

Additionally, because we believed these messages, we adapted by developing coping behaviors, such as pride or discouragement. What else were we going to do?

Lastly, and the most importantly, we felt separated from God. I don’t think our minds can comprehend the immense pain it must have caused us to leave the safe, loving and light-filled existence in the presence of our Heavenly Parents. Further, our understanding was limited (because of the veil over our minds), and over the years of separation, we have been buffeted by the whisperings of the adversary who tells us that God doesn’t really love us. To some degree, we believed this.

From here we fully employ our extremes of nature, or our coping behaviors, and begin to increase our separateness from God through our false beliefs and sin.

So, what to do? In order to heal these two vices of character, we need to first repent, and second come unto Him to be healed. Repentance requires honesty with ourselves and with God.
RepentanceIn order to more effectively repent we need to acknowledge that our behavior is based on a deeper motive and a deeper pain. Seek to understand the reason you are in pride or discouragement – such as anger, doubt, or fear - and offer that reason as a sacrifice to God, as well as your symptomatic behavior. If you don’t know, pray and seek to understand.
Ether 12:27 - And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

In a 1991 General Conference talk by Neal A. Maxwell, he describes the nature of repentance thusly:
"Repentance requires both turning away from evil and turning to God. … In this rigorous process, so much clearly depends upon meekness. Pride keeps repentance from even starting or continuing… Or we may be too filled with self-pity, that sludge in which sin sprouts so easily, or too invested in self-reinforcing behavior to turn away from it. … There can be no repentance without recognition of wrong. … The first rays of recognition help us begin to see “things as they really are” including distinguishing between the motes and beams… Recognition is a sacred moment… “

Attempting to honestly analyze our own motives can be a difficult process at first. But with honesty, humility and active repentance, God will help us become better at it. The reward for such an undertaking is that we will come to know the God who is refining us. We could learn from the father of King Lamoni:
Alma 22:18 - … if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee, … that I may be raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day. If you struggle with self honesty, honesty with God, or even the desire to turn away from sin and coping behaviors, pray for increased faith in His love and His plan.

Neal A. Maxwell further counsels:
"True repentance also includes confession. …One with a broken heart will not hold back. As confession lets the sickening sin empty out, then the Spirit which withdrew returns to renew. …Support from others is especially crucial now. Hence, we are directed to be part of a caring community in which we all “lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees.” (D&C 81:5.) Did not the citizens of the unequaled City of Enoch so improve together “in process of time?” (Moses 7:21; Moses 7:68–69.)… All sins are to be confessed to the Lord, some to a Church official, some to others, and some to all of these."

Why is it so important to confess our sins? I believe it is because Satan works best in the darkness of secrecy. He desires to keep your struggles hidden from the light of day. He has more power over you this way – to influence and deceive you. Confession also keeps us humble.
I want to advocate for sincere confession for just a moment. While serious sins should be resolved with the Bishop, other lesser sins (such as pride) could be abdicated if we were brave enough to confess them to someone we trust. This helps to release Satan’s hold on your secret struggling(s). It is the deceptively small things that build bigger blocks for us to stumble over. It is the small things we consistently do - contrary to Christ's teachings - that become patterns and prove problematic to remove on our own.

We seem to have a stigma associated with confession. For the prideful, confession is difficult because we are afraid to be seen as weak, wrong, or less than. We fear that acknowledgment will somehow take away from our already precarious self-worth, or that verbalizing the problem will somehow make it more real. Conversely, the discouraged may use confession as a form of emotional manipulation – seeking to elicit an emotional reaction from the person being told. Doing this denies responsibility and ownership of the problem. It is based on the desire to have others solve our problems, or at least share in them. We do this because it feels too large or overwhelming to carry on our own.

There is however a healthier and largely unexplored middle ground for confession. We can be honest with our struggles and be self-contained in the sharing of them. (Note: Self-contained is not the same thing as un-emotional. Emotions are a gift from God.) Can you imagine the freedom of being honest about your struggles without fear of judgment?

A word of caution though – seek confidants carefully. You neither want to confess to people who in their misguided love for you, or in their love for discord, seek to justify and enable your behavior (i.e. “you’re right in acting thus, and they are all wrong…”); nor do you want to confess to people who struggle with self-righteousness. These two approaches will only compound your problem and keep you stuck exactly where you were. Seek people who genuinely love you, can maintain a sacred trust for your vulnerability, and who can support your desire to improve; people who let you speak and trust in your ability to provide most of your own solutions. If you don’t feel you have anyone, a well run support group is an excellent resource for this.

In the same talk referenced above, Neal A. Maxwell states: "Genuine support and love from others—not isolation—are needed to sustain this painful forsaking and turning!"

Come unto Him and be HealedThe final step in the repentance process is to forgive ourselves. If we’ve been honest about our motives this will be a bit easier. However, it often proves to be the hardest step. If it’s a struggle for you to forgive and love yourself, you usually cannot ‘will’ yourself to be different. Whether your paradox is in pride or discouragement the challenge is in believing the fullness of God’s love for you. Fortunately, there is no need to attempt this alone. Let the Master teach you how to love and forgive as he knows how to do both perfectly. Come unto Him, holding nothing back.

We must not give up, but, instead, reach out to God’s awaiting arms of mercy, which are outstretched “all the day long.” Please remember that it is us who separates ourselves from God. When some disciples left him, Jesus asked the Twelve, “Will ye also go away?” Peter answered: “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.” (John 6:67–68.)
Don’t allow your weaknesses or fears to alienate you from the Being who loves you the very most. James 4:10 reads: “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up.” Remember that you are not humbling yourself before an enemy, but instead a being of infinite love, and you matter to Him!

In closing I’d like to end with a quote from a S. Michael Wilcox talk on the Beatitudes:
“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.” (Rev. 21:4.) Jesus said, “I am … the beginning and the ending.” (Rev. 1:8.) He is the end of sorrow and the end of guilt. He is the end of pain, death, suffering, sin, and tears. He is the beginning of joy, life, and peace. He is the beginning of healing, truth, and fulfillment. He is the end of mourning, the beginning of comfort."
The only source of true happiness in this life or the next comes from laying down our fears about God and seeking to understand Him better. You will only know your own value through direct revelation from heaven. I testify that if you “incline your hearts” to Him, as Elder Uchtdorf invites, He will comfort and teach you the worth of your soul.