Trusting my Brothers

A while back, my brother, Joe, handed me some mail that had come for me. I don't usually get mail, though I do occasionally get solicitations from a group of Eagle Scouts, asking me to join their prestigious, exclusive group. When Joe told me that that was all this was, I tore it up without even looking at it. When he asked me why I tore up a piece of mail without reading it first, probably mentioning that it could have been something important, I told Joe that I trusted him. If he told me it was just a piece of junk mail, I believed that enough to take the risk that it wasn't.

A short time afterward, I casually mentioned to Ben that the water from a certain drinking fountain tasted terrible, and he recommended another drinking fountain whose water he claimed was better. When I came to the drinking fountain, I filled my water bottle with it without tasting the water first. Again, the reason was trust. I knew Ben wouldn't lie to me, so I felt sure that the water was good, even before I had tried it.

Of course, I tasted the water later by taking a drink from my water bottle, and after Joe's comment, I decided to put the torn pieces of junk mail back together so I could read it after all, just for fun, but in both cases, I found that my trust in my brothers was well-placed.

We all have some brothers who are equally trustworthy. We usually call them The Brethren, the General Authorities, or Elder or President So-And-So. They frequently tell us things that, like all things, may or may not be true. They teach us doctrine, which, like all doctrine, is either true or false. And they give us advice and counsel, which, like all advice, is either good or bad. Some people wonder how we can tell whether what they tell us is true or false. There are ways to check. We can check their words against what's found in the scriptures. If they match up, it's probably good. We can test their advice and see how it works out for us before we whole-heartedly commit to it. Or, once we've come to understand that everything they've told us that we've tested has proven to be good and true, we could simply start taking their word for it.

For me, the Brethren have developed a reputation for trustworthiness, just as my brothers have. I don't need to read the junk mail, taste the water, or double-check General Conference talks against the scriptures. As far as I'm concerned, the General Conference talks are just as good as scripture. I'd trust it to the end of the Earth.

Or would I? When you trust that information is true, you usually act on it. When I tore up my mail, I was acting on the belief that, as Joe had told me, it actually was just some junk mail. When I filled my water bottle from the untested drinking fountain, I was acting on Ben's testimony that the drinking fountain's water was good. When the Brethren tell us that it's important to, say, study the scriptures diligently every day, do I give such study the priority that befits the importance that the Brethren say it has, or do I just skim through the books and read a few verses casually, because I know I'm supposed to, but not like it's actually all that important after all?

If I truly trust the General Authorities, and they say that this or that is of vital importance to the welfare of my soul, shouldn't I then act like that thing is of vital importance to the welfare of my soul? Shouldn't I put full faith in not only the truthfulness of their words, but also in the soundness of their counsel? The Brethren give us a lot of good advice, and I don't actually follow hardly any of it. But I should. I do trust the Brethren. I should commit to trust them and their counsel, even to the end of the Earth. It takes a lot of commitment to do that, and a lot of faith, just as it took some faith to tear up the junk mail and refill my water bottle, but I trust my brothers, and I know I can trust my Brethren too.