The Net Gathers of Every Kind
Neal A. Maxwell
October 1980

Let us listen lovingly and encouragingly as all newcomers utter their first halting public prayers and give their first tender talks, feeling unready and unworthy—but so glad to belong. We can tell them, by the way, that the sense of inadequacy never seems to go away.

However, what we now are as a people is clearly not enough, for “Zion must increase in beauty, and in holiness” (D&C 82:14). As in the time of Alma, the bad conduct of a few members slows the work (see Alma 39:11). Indeed, Zion will not be fully redeemed until after we have been first chastened (see D&C 100:13). Let us, therefore, not be too long-suffering with our own shortcomings. And when we are given thorns in the flesh, let us not demand to see the rose garden (see 2 Cor. 12:7)!

Let us participate in the rigorous calisthenics of daily improvement, and not just in the classroom rhetoric of eternal progression!



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