Everyone Is My Teacher

Often my posts here are inspired from an insight during scripture study, and as this is no different, I begin by quoting the scripture of note:

And now it came to pass that after I, Nephi, had made an end of speaking to my brethren, behold they said unto me: Thou hast declared unto us hard things, more than we are able to bear.

And it came to pass that I said unto them that I knew that I had spoken hard things against the wicked, according to the truth; and the righteous have I justified, and testified that they should be lifted up at the last day; wherefore, the guilty taketh the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center.

And now my brethren, if ye were righteous and were willing to hearken to the truth, and give heed unto it, that ye might walk uprightly before God, then ye would not murmur because of the truth, and say: Thou speakest hard things against us.

(1 Nephi 16:1-3, emphasis added)

 This intrigues me.

Has anyone ever criticized you? How did it go? Let me dig in a little more specific.

Has anyone ever criticized you for something so ridiculous, you sincerely laughed it off without a care because you knew they had no concept of what they were saying -- you knew the criticism was completely baseless?

Has anyone ever criticized you for something utterly ridiculous, yet it still stung?

I believe the following two thoughts are principles of happiness, i.e. if we live by these principles, we must be happier, and if we do not, we must be less happy:

1. Accept in your mind that you live in a world where others get to make their own choices
2. Make everyone your teacher

I'll skip the first one for now, but would like to take a moment with the second.

When we hear something that we "take to be hard," a common reaction is to shoot the messenger. That is, we begin saying things like: "Who are they to talk?", "They ought to look at the beam in their own eye first!", or "I can't believe she said that, did you hear that? That was the rudest..." and on and on.

However, what we often will not do, is look inward and ask, is it true of me?


Because we take it to be hard, we want to murmur against it rather than consider it. Yet President Dieter F. Uchtdorf shared this fantastic insight: "seeing ourselves clearly is the beginning of wisdom." (General Coference, October 2014)

What I see in these verses is this concept: if someone says something that triggers us to temper, even if not an outright accusation, this indicates a flaw inside of us that we are likely trying to hide from the world... and even more likely, from ourselves.

If we will make everyone our teacher, however, then we can recognize that initial flare as guidance leading us to introspection, seeking what weakness is hidden within us. This will lead us to greater wisdom as we take that weakness before the Lord and seek His enabling grace.

We are none of us perfect, and these verses offer us an insight into finding our blind spots -- finding our wickedness -- that through Christ, we may root it out.