endure being underwhelmed, unused and unsung

Though we can endure being abused, can we endure being underwhelmed, unused and unsung? Can we endure almost uninterrupted unresponsiveness?

The prophet Ether endured a time in which he preached the gospel from "the morning, even to the going down of the sun" but went unheeded (Ether 12:3).

As commanded, Mormon even endured the unusual circumstance of being an "idle witness" in order to manifest certain things to the world (Mormon 3:16).

Whether the test is illness, pain, deprivation, or being passed over, being ignored, being underwhelmed, or working one's way through doubts, what are to be sustained are trust and faith in God and in His plan-including in His timing.

Sustained discipleship includes resisting, and chopping back again and again, the encroaching crabgrass cares of the world. These cares, along with temptation, persecution, and tribulation, are what usually cause us to slacken and give up.
Thus with increasing understanding we see that, while enduring is more than simply waiting, it includes waiting. But even waiting can be used to facilitate our becoming more like Jesus. Therefore, we should be "anxiously engaged," even when it seems to us we are doing no more than waiting. Thus we can be about our Father's business even when it seems for the moment that we are overcome by ordinariness and routine. Our enduring is easier if we see it as a part of God's unfolding.

Besides, we were never promised precision in this life. Nor should the gospel be expected to lend itself to glib mortal explanations in all circumstances-it is too divinely comprehensive for that. We endure even when we cannot explain, and it is silence that bespeaks certitude.


Neal A. Maxwell, Not My Will, But Thine, p.123 Ether 12:3