We Are Not Our Own.....

Neal A. Maxwell

All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience

There is little doubt, for instance, but that a goodly portion of our pride proceeds from some assuptions we make about ourselves and our lives - assumptions that are at first soothing but very wrong. We think, for instance, that we "own" ourselves. It is perfectly true that our individual identity is guaranteed, that we are agents for ourselves, and so forth - but this truth, when it is torn away from otherrealities, gives us a very lopsided view of things. Without the ransoming atonement of the Savior, we would be stranded soulds, doomed to die with no hope of the resurrection or of individual immortality. We were literally purchased by Jesus. (Acts 20:28)

Quite true, we do not yet have to acknowledge that reality, though someday we will. Nor are we now even forced to follow the conditions that the Purchaser laid down. So, in a sense, we are quite free to do as we please, just as if we were our "own"......

This illusion underwrites the false assumptions that we make about our time, our talents, and our possessions that each of us sees as "mine." We may even feel noble when we give of our time and means, and  we are apt to be somewhat grumpy if anyone, especially a prophet, reminds us that all that we have belongs to God anyway......

these are hard sayings that bruise our pride. Unless, unless, through humility and obedience, we can transform feeling owned into a grand sense of belonging, and being purchased into gratitude for being rescued, and dependency into appreciation for being tutored by an omniscient God, which He does in order that we might become more dependable and have more independence and scope for service in the future.