Proving Trustworthy

There's a thought from a recently-blogged-about General Conference talk that was also brought up in a conversation I had recently. That thought was about earning the trust of the Lord.

In his talk, Earning the Trust of the Lord and Your Family, Elder Richard J. Maynes said:

One thing is for certain: earning the Lord’s trust is a blessing that comes through great effort on our part. Trust is a blessing based on obedience to God’s laws. Earning the Lord’s trust comes as a result of being true to the covenants we have made in the waters of baptism and in the holy temple. When we keep our promises to the Lord, His trust in us grows.

Gaining the Lord's trust is one of the purposes of mortality. God wants to give us great blessings, including great power, but it would be irresponsible to give that power to someone who couldn't be trusted to use it properly. That's part of the reason God gave us lesser powers and abilities, to let us prove whether we would use them responsibly. If we do, God gradually trusts us with more blessings.

Unfortunately, the inverse is also true. If we prove untrustworthy by breaking covenants and promises or by misusing or abusing our power, God is not going to trust us with any more power, and He's not going to reward us with any more blessings.

If we want the blessings God has promised to the faithful, then we must be faithful. We need to prove that we can be trusted with great power by proving that we can be trusted with the power we already have. As Elder Maynes suggested, this takes great effort on our part. That is because the temptation to abuse power is far too prevalent among humans. We must learn how to fight this temptation and use our power responsibly if we ever want to be trusted to handle more.

The gift of Godhood carries a tremendous amount of power. If we want to receive it, we need to prove that we can be trusted with it. If we prove that we can be trusted by making and keeping promises and by using our power wisely, God will eventually  come to trust us with every blessing He can give us, including the kind of power He Himself has. It would be amazing to hold that much power, and it would be even more amazing to know that God knows that we can be trusted with it.