Doug Tales 126: Humility

It’s been said that in America everyone talks, but no one listens. So many “self-help” authors, and not so many readers. Not many people in enough pain yet in order to even start looking for answers. How does one really become teachable and humble? Doug Mendenhall chose to be humble to God in response to many of his life’s experiences. He discusses such learning in Conquering Spiritual Evil, Volume Two (2020), pp. 80-82:

Another problem is people who are obviously possessed or have attachments of evil. What do you think puts these things into their hearts? Isn’t that what the Adversary goes after, the heart?

So what is in our core, our heart? Is it light or dark? If we have determined it to be dark and want to change, having a clearing is a great place to start. But not until we begin to set ourselves right before God and repent. We need to understand that just getting a clearing will NOT solve our problems, or change what is in our heart’s core, if darkness dwells therein. That is why we harp and harp and harp on changing our habits, our inner core, and controlling our thoughts and emotions. And actually change isn’t a good word. It is about transformation.

Transformation and change are two different things. We can force change through power and coercion. But will it last being done that way? Isn’t that what man’s laws are designed to do? Force change. If my hammer is big enough I can get you to do many things. I have seen that many times in my life. My own church uses a temple recommend or membership as a hammer to coerce much from its members. But it seldom is very long lasting. Once the threat or fear of the hammer is gone, we will usually return to our vomit, scripturally speaking of course.

Transformation comes from within and is long enduring. But it is made by your choice. It comes about by coming unto our Lord Jesus Christ and Him only. No man, men, women, government, or church can do it for you.

It requires a woman or man to bend their knees in humility and pray. It requires the woman or man to look to Him only, their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Not some man-made god Satan has created for us to fool ourselves with, like the god Source. We are to ask our true God, the Lord Jesus Christ for guidance how to live, think, act, and what to do. And no, I’m not talking about getting His permission to go to the bathroom or to wash the stench off our hands. Some things are just common sense.

It requires us getting unto the scriptures, thereby raising our spirituality and frequency, something we are talking about in this book. The means supping on the words of Christ. Years ago I was invited to attend a Friday night class taught by Denver Snuffer in his home. It was sponsored by his Stake and he taught it for years. I thought I knew how to study. But after attending one time I knew that I had no idea how to study, I mean really study. If we went through more than one verse in the hour we were flying! We tore each verse apart and really learned things. It was more than eye opening, it fed the soul. Want to experience it? Read some of his books, especially the ones that study the Book of Mormon. Studying the scriptures like this is essential for our spirituality.

It requires us to have humility and an honest desire to know, really know Him. We must realize we can’t do it without Him, our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s about giving up and going to Him. Many of us do these things according to our supposed wisdom and not the Lord Jesus Christ’s. That is what gets us into trouble. We think we can do it ourselves or we have been taught by some self-improvement course and we know we can do all things ourselves, we don’t need Him.