Neal A. Maxwell

Now, we often make some common mistakes when applying the Atonement in our lives. I will mention several. God leaves us free to make these very mistakes. Yet each of these mistakes reflects a greater need for our personal submissiveness.

First, we make a mistake when we think we own ourselves and that we own blocks of time. It's a natural thing to do. But our faith in God includes faith in God's timing, enough to be able to say, in effect, "Thy timing be done" (see D&C 64:32).

We make another mistake when we fail to realize how much serious discipleship consists of downsizing our egos and diminishing our selfishness! The bloated natural man will resist any downsizing. But meekness is what has to happen.

Another mistake we can make is that we maybe don't take life's little quizzes seriously enough. We think we will cram and pass the final exam! The infinite Atonement is there for our finite mistakes, including the daily mistakes we tend to make. It is understandable, of course, that we focus on the crunch times in our lives. We are mindful of these spikes of suffering and stress, and we sometimes, ironically, let ourselves become overcome by relentless routineness-with what might be called the daily dampening of things spiritual.

We make another mistake. We fail to focus on and to develop patience as well as faith (see Mosiah 23:21). These two attributes are in tandem; they go together. By the way, if we are meek, being tried means being developed. We don't look at impatience in terms of its downside. When we are impatient, in effect, we do not honor what is implied in the words "in process of time." We foolishly wish to have some of life's moments over and done with, seasons to be over with, ignoring the possibilities for service that are inherent in them. We are somewhat like airline passengers in America who fly coast to coast and resent the space in between; but there are souls down there, not just sagebrush! Yet we want to fly over some experiences. It is so likely we will miss the chance to be of service. So it is with life's seeming in-between and routine spaces! Impatience puts us at risk.

We may feel put upon by events and circumstances-another mistake we can make when not approaching the Atonement properly. Yet many of these things that we feel put upon by actually constitute the customized curricula needed for our personal development. Still, our tendency is to push away the necessary and prescribed courses of spiritual calisthenics. We can't withdraw from all of life's courses and still really stay enrolled in school!

Another mistake we make is that we foolishly think we are free to choose, without wanting the consequences of those choices! (see Alma 29:4). Bainville, the French philosopher, said, "One must want the consequences of what one wants."

Another mistake commonly made is that we play to the mortal galleries! We listen too much to the wrong peers. There is what I call the mystic "they," who for some become ascendant. In terms of the choices they make, they want to please the mystic "they." We see this politically, in the corporate world, in academic life, and so on.

Some people are so anxious to be politically correct and to conform to the fashions of the world! What is worse, however, is when we see members of the Church try to conform eternal truths to the ways and thinking of the world. But it won't work! As Paul warned, "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:14). It is a terrible mistake for us to try to please the world by twisting and conforming things that won't fit in the secular matrix.

Now, these mistakes are but a few we make; they keep us from fully applying the Atonement to our lives. They are not worthy of Jesus and what He accomplished in Gethsemane and on Calvary! ("The Holy Ghost: Glorifying Christ," Ensign, July 2002, pp.56-57)