Opening our Hearts to Receiving Truth

The scriptures often speak of pride and its manifestation a bit differently than the way we do in our modern vernacular. Ezra Taft Benson defined pride as emnity between man and God.  We pit our will against His as if to say we know better.  In the scriptures, terms such as blindness, hard heartedness, and being stiff necked are associated with pride.

Nephi, in the Book of Mormon, taught that we should liken the scriptures unto us. Pride keeps us from doing so. We, in our pride, convinced we are already in God's graces, read them and see them as being addressed to others, not to ourselves. So we often miss messages that are meant for us because we in our pride apply it to someone else.

If we really want to receive the message in the scriptures, it becomes necessary to see ourselves in them.

Joseph Smith wrote the following:

There has been a great difficulty in getting anything into the heads of this generation. It has been like splitting hemlock knots with a corn-dodger [a piece of corn bread] for a wedge, and a pumpkin for a beetle [a wooden mallet]. Even the Saints are slow to understand.

“I have tried for a number of years to get the minds of the Saints prepared to receive the things of God; but we frequently see some of them, after suffering all they have for the work of God, will fly to pieces like glass as soon as anything comes that is contrary to their traditions: they cannot stand the fire at all.

What was it that caused the people to fly to pieces like glass? What was it that stopped the people so they could not receive more of what Joseph wished to give them? It was their traditions. If they met anything contrary to traditions they already held as inviolate, they would close their minds and stop receiving the things of God.

D&C 93

37 Light and truth forsake that evil one.

38 Every spirit of man was innocent in the beginning; and God having redeemed man from the fall, men became again, in their infant state, innocent before God.

39 And that wicked one cometh and taketh away light and truth, through disobedience, from the children of men, and because of the tradition of their fathers.

Here, we see two things that block us from receiving light and truth. The first is disobedience. If we fill our lives with darkness or that which does not edify, it makes it more difficult for us to perceive and receive light and truth. The second is the traditions of our fathers. Here again, we see that traditions block us from receiving more from God unless we are willing to reconsider that which we have inherited through our fathers. It is worth noting here that the language used is not “the traditions of men” but rather, the traditions of our fathers. This is referring to family. It is very personal. Again, this is something we can and should apply to ourselves, not to others as being the only ones we consider to have inherited incorrect traditions from their fathers.

It is only when we are open to reconsidering our beliefs that didn't come to us directly from God that we open the way for God to teach us something that we may have received from others that is in error. Even if we are completely sure that that which we have received did come to us from God, we should keep our hearts open to receive more. God gives us knowledge line upon line and precept on precept and what we may have understood as truth with certainty at one stage of our development may appear different at a later stage as we grow and increase in understanding. However, if we close our minds because something appears to contradict our currently held beliefs, we are potentially stopping our own progression. It is often through what appears to be a contradiction and the resolution of that contradiction that God is able to expand our awareness and understanding and move our progression forward.