It's a joy to be with all you young adults and your leaders
this evening as we are seated in the newly renovated and
beloved Tabernacle, along with those of you who have gathered
in the stake centers near and far, and who are viewing these
proceedings by means of satellite transmission.
I think I'm more comfortable than you are.
I remember when I used to sit in those seats.
And when the Tabernacle was remodeled, they weren't made
any softer, either.
We're delighted to see you all, you wonderful
young men and women.
And we're grateful for you and appreciate the fact that you
want to go forward and do what's right and accomplish
the things which the Lord would have you accomplish in
your lives.
And you young ladies seem to know what you're doing and
want to do.
And the young men are learning what they ought to do.
I'd just like to say one word to you young men: don't take
too much counsel from your fears.
Now think about that.
I'm grateful to have Sister Faust here with me.
When we decided to get married, I told her that I
needed her help and that I needed to get more schooling
and would appreciate her support.
And I can honestly say that she gave that support and
much, much more and made it possible for me to do some of
the things that I've done in my life.
I guess I should say to you that marriage involves having
a helpmeet.
And those years--and still--Sister Faust has been
very much my best helpmeet.
Tonight I'd like to talk about self-esteem--what we think of
ourselves, how we relate to others, what they think of us,
and the value of what we accomplish.
An unknown Englishman of early days offered this prayer: "O
God, help me hold a high opinion of myself."
"That," said President Harold B. Lee of the Englishman's
plea, "should be the prayer of every soul; not an abnormally
developed self-esteem that becomes haughtiness, conceit,
or arrogance, but a righteous self-respect that might be
defined as 'belief in one's own worth, worth to God, and
worth to man.'"
Indeed, the self-esteem that I speak of this evening is not
blind or arrogant or vain self-love, but rather a
self-esteem that is self-respecting, honest, and
without conceit and is born of inner peace and strength.
Self-esteem goes to the very heart of our personal growth
and accomplishment.
It's the glue that holds together our self-reliance,
our self-control, our self-approval or disapproval,
and keeps all self-defense mechanisms secure.
It is a protection against excessive self-deception,
self-distrust, self-reproach, and plain, old-fashioned
selfishness.
In my long life, I have observed that the greatest
respect is owed not necessarily to the rich nor
the famous but to the quiet, unsung, unknown heroes whose
true identity is like that of the unknown soldier, who is
known only to God.
The unsung often have little of status but much of worth.
When I was growing up in the Cottonwood area of Salt Lake
County, it was a rural part of the valley.
One of the men who had the greatest dignity and commanded
the greatest respect was an old Scandinavian brother who,
after walking a couple of miles, traveled by streetcar
to work at the Salt Lake City Cemetery and back every day.
His work was to water and mow the grass and tend the flowers
and dig the graves.
He said little because he did not speak English well.
But he was always where he should be, doing what he
should be doing, in a most dignified and exemplary way.
He had no problems with ego or with faith, for while he dug
graves for a living, he felt his work was to serve God.
He was a man of little status but of great, great worth.
When the Savior called His disciples, He was not looking
for men and women of status, property, or fame.
He was looking for those of worth and potential.
They were an interesting group, those early disciples:
the fishermen, the tax gatherer, and the others.
After they were called to be Apostles, they did not become
puffed up or think they were superior.
On one occasion, after some of them had been beaten, they
went on their way rejoicing that they were counted worthy
to suffer shame for His name.
Worth has little to do with age.
It has everything to do with service.
The Lord has made it clear that worthiness is built upon
service not just to family and friends, but all sorts of
strangers and even enemies.
From Milton's Paradise Lost comes this truth: "Oft-times
nothing profits more than self-esteem, grounded on just
and right well manag'd."
I would like to suggest six essential keys to keep a
healthy self-esteem.
The first key is to keep your free agency.
This means that you must not surrender self-control nor
yield to habits that bind, to addiction that enslaves, nor
to conduct that destroys.
To keep our free agency, we must avoid the deadly traps
and pitfalls from which there can be, sometimes, no escape.
Some have been ensnared and spent the best years of their
lives trying to escape and so exhausted themselves in the
process that, even in the end, even though they have
ultimately found themselves freed from the addiction, they
are spent, burned out, nerves shot, and their
brains dulled forever.
How much better off we would be, and how much more complete
our free agency, if we were able to say with the
Psalmist, "I ...
refrained my feet from every evil."
The second key to an adequate self esteem is humility.
I do not mean the breast-beating,
sackcloth-and-ashes kind of humility.
I mean the humility that comes with inner strength and peace.
It is the humility that allows us to accept and live with our
own warts without cosmetics to hide them.
It is important to learn to live with our uncorrectable
physical and mental defects without complaint or
explanation.
Some months ago I had a back operation.
I've never been the same since.
I may never be.
But the first time that I spoke over in the Conference
Center with a little pulpit like this, one of my
granddaughters said, "Oh, Grandpa, you looked so
comfortable up there.
I just wanted to come up and crawl on your lap."
Some years ago I became acquainted with a delightful
and wonderful new friend.
He is a successful businessman, charming,
outgoing, and well groomed.
His spirituality shines through his countenance.
A few months later I noticed a slight limp in his walk, which
had not been obvious before.
That led to a closer observation.
When I looked past the gracious smile, I noticed that
my friend was slightly hunchbacked, with a somewhat
misshapen spine.
These physical defects were so well hidden by the natural
goodness, warmth, and great charm, they were as nothing in
the total man.
My friend accepts his physical defects with humility and
strength and completely compensates for them with his
natural personality.
There is another dimension of humility that must be
mentioned: that of being teachable.
The prophet Samuel counsels, "Now therefore stand still,
that I may reason with you." Proverbs reminds us that
"whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge."
The third key to self-esteem is honesty.
Honesty begins with being true to one's own self.
Some years ago I sat as a spectator in a heartrending
courtroom drama concerning the custody of some children.
The contention was that the natural mother was not a good
housekeeper, which was intended to add fuel to the
claim that she was an unfit mother.
The caseworker attested that when she visited the family
home, it was in a shambles and that the kitchen was dirty.
The natural mother seeking to keep custody of her children
was called to the witness stand.
A middle-aged, heavy, physically unattractive lady
came forward, took the oath, and sat in the witness stand.
The attorney for the father, who had remarried and wanted
the custody of the children, followed up relentlessly on
the testimony already provided by the caseworker.
His questions to the beleaguered mother were
penetrating.
"Isn't it a fact," he asked, "that your house was as dirty
as a pigpen the day the caseworker came?"
What drama.
How could the mother answer in her own best interest and
protect the custody of her children?
What should she say?
There was electricity in the air.
She hesitated for a tense moment, and then she responded
calmly, with complete self-assurance,
"Yes, my house was certainly a mess that day." The honesty of
the answer surprised even the judge.
And he leaned over the bench and asked, "What do you mean,
'that day'?"
"Well, Your Honor," she replied, "earlier that
morning, when the caseworker came, I had
been bottling peaches.
I had peeled, cooked, and bottled
two bushels of peaches.
I had not finished cleaning up the mess when
the caseworker came.
My sink was still sticky from the syrup that I had spilled
over it, that I was trying to pour into the bottles before
they were sealed.
My house certainly was a mess that day.
I try to be a good housekeeper.
With three children, I can't possibly keep it straight all
of the time."
Her frankness and candor were absolutely disarming and
devastating to the opposition.
When she finished speaking, everyone in the courtroom knew
that the judge would rule in her favor.
As she arose to step down from the witness stand, she had the
bearing and self-assurance of a queen.
Being true to one's own self is the essence of honesty and
the keystone of self-esteem.
The fourth key of self-esteem is a love of work.
The most gifted athlete at our university
excelled in every sport.
He played football, ran the hurdles--in fact, he held the
conference records on the low hurdles.
Our coach, Ike Armstrong, required that the sprinters
run once a week with the quarter-milers for 300 yards
to increase the stamina of the sprinters and increase the
speed of the quarter-milers.
My friend, this great athlete, would lead all of the runners
for about 275 yards.
But as soon as the first quarter-miler passed him, he
would quit.
He wouldn't even finish.
His natural talent and ability was such that he never had to
extend himself to excel.
He was married, but the marriage failed.
He went into professional football and was something of
a star until he got into the drug scene and died from a
debilitating ...
of drugs and alcohol.
Others with much less talent have achieved far more.
In my experience, there are very few people who are of
true genius.
While there are those who are gifted, most of the world's
work and some of the greatest contributions come from the
ordinary people with a talent which they have developed.
An ordinary, garden-variety talent can be nurtured and
nourished into a great gift through hard work.
Some of the artisans of China spend years making just one
exquisite object of art of unbelievable grace and beauty.
We do not all have a talent for the arts, such as
painting, sculpture, and music.
There are many gifts that are not showcased.
Some may have a natural gift to make others feel important
and happy and special.
Such a gift should be developed and strengthened.
Spiritual gifts, likewise, can be refined and enlarged by
attentive application to righteous living, to prayer,
to study of the scriptures, and obedience.
George Lucas has said: "It doesn't matter what people say
about me or what I say.
What matters is what I accomplish." What we
accomplish helps our self-esteem.
Sometimes we may think, "The work I do is unimportant," or
"I'm only this or that." Every job that has
to be done is important.
No matter how minimal it seems, someone has to do it.
The fifth key to building self-esteem is
the ability to love.
The commandment given by the Savior was to
love others and yourself.
I am secure enough in my love of myself to laugh at myself.
Am I secure enough to admit my mistakes and graciously accept
a compliment?
Am I secure in my love of others to smile and say hello
to a perfect stranger?
Years ago in seminary, our class was taught, "I have to
live with myself, and so I want to be fit
for myself to know.
I want to go out with my head erect.
I want to demand all men's respect.
I can never hide myself from me.
I see what others may never see.
I can never fool myself.
And so whatever happens, I want to be self-respecting and
conscience free."
The sixth and most essential key to self-esteem
is the love of God.
Mosiah reminds us, "How knoweth a man the master whom
he has not served?" In Paul's epistle to Titus, he reminds
us that there are many that "profess ...
they know God; but in works they deny him."
The Apostle John gives us a valuable key: "And hereby we
know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given
us." And then John makes an important point about
obedience when he states: "And hereby we do know that we know
him, if we keep his commandments.
He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments,
is a liar, and the truth is not in him."
There are many whose self-esteem has been so
devastated by the loss of loved ones, by divorce, or
other personal misfortunes.
Some carry an extra burden of guilt from grievous sins.
Transgression is so devastating to self-esteem.
After transgression so often comes
rationalization and even lying.
This is what makes justice so violent to the offender.
Fortunately, we have a great principle of repentance
whereby sins that are as scarlet can
become white as snow.
I'm grateful for this principle and pray none will
hesitate to find peace that comes from repentance.
It is important to remember and never forget that all of
us, male and female, were created in the image of God
and created by God.
Mankind is the noblest of all creations.
"What is man," asked the Psalmist, "that thou art
mindful of him?
and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels,
and hast crowned him with glory and ...
thou [hast made] him to have dominion over the works of thy
hands; [and]
thou hast put all things under his feet."
Frequently in my ministry, as I've set apart a stake
president or a mission president, the distinct
impression has come to me that the person upon whose head I
have laid my hands was foreordained to that calling.
The prophet Jeremiah had this assurance come to him from the
Lord: "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and
before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee,
and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations."
All of us are not called to leadership in the kingdom, yet
is there greater work than that of being a teacher,
father, mother?
So nobody is "nobody." The seeds of
divinity are in us all.
The day will come when we'll have to account to God for
what we have done with that portion of divinity
which is within us.
Now, it's a lovely evening, and it would be very nice for
you young people to have some time to spend with each other.
And so I'm going to conclude.
And then I want to teach you something else that I taught
to General Authorities in conference: meetings do not
have to be endless to be eternal.
Now I testify that God loves each of us, warts and all.
I testify that He knows each of our names.
And I testify that each of us has a potential, in this life
and beyond the grave, that exceeds our fondest dreams.
I testify, through the gifts of the Holy Spirit, that we
are engaged in His holy work.
And I wish to invoke an apostolic blessing of heaven
upon all, and that we may come to know who we truly are: the
sons and daughters of God.
And I should like to invoke a blessing upon you.
And it is a blessing that the Lord gave to Nephi, but I'm
going to substitute each of your names--Bill and Henry and
Catherine and Helen, all of you, each one of you.
"Blessed art thou, [Bill and Henry and all of you], for
those things which thou hast done; for I have beheld how
thou hast with [such]
unwearyingness declared the word, which I have given unto
thee, unto this people.
And thou hast not feared them, and hast not sought thine own
life, but hast sought my will, and to keep my commandments."
Now here comes the blessing: "And because thou hast done
this with such unwearyingness, behold, I will bless thee
forever; and I will make thee mighty in word ...
in deed, in faith and in works." In the name of Jesus
Christ, amen.
Amen.