Article November 9, 2015 Issue

The good worth holding on to

Mark Swinney

One time in a high school class, my teacher handed a student a coin. He told the student to squeeze the coin in his palm very tightly. The teacher then took a five dollar bill out of his pocket and tried to push it into this student’s firmly clenched fist. The teacher tried and tried—but it couldn’t happen. For the whole class, he made a salient point—teaching us in a memorable way that we can’t grasp new concepts while we’re holding tightly onto something else.

In prayer, as in fields of learning and knowledge, an openness and willingness to exchange ignorance for truth always brings big benefits. Christ Jesus surely understood this and encouraged people, not just to be halfway receptive to progress, but to be as totally willing, receptive—and innocent—as little children are. “Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein” (Luke 18:17). That’s a very clear-cut way to put it!

Through communion with God we can experience the kind of transformation that is far beyond just a slight shift of direction. It can result in a radical conversion, a 180-degree change of thought, where all of existence is perceived from a different viewpoint—an entirely spiritual perspective. This can happen to us when we commune with God with childlike humility and learn even a little of the perfection of Spirit expressed in man. Jesus said of himself, “The Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel” (John 5:20). As followers of Jesus, we learn of God’s love for us and emulate the works of Jesus as we grow into the spiritual understanding that he was urging on all of us.

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