Welcome.

Among my many friends is one who loves me uniquely well. By that, I mean she is completely honest with me. She asks me hard questions and on occasion when I need it, she tells me hard things. I know she loves me and cares most of all for the welfare of my soul. Therefore, I appreciate her boldness and find strength and growth in the questions and insights she throws my way.

Not too long ago, I was sharing a bit of a personal struggle with her. After hearing me out, she stopped the total trajectory of my thoughts with her two-part question:

“Is that serving you well? Is that serving God well?”

She had me. I was at a total loss for words.

Finally regaining some composure, I falteringly stammered: “Ugh, no, actually no, it’s not.”

Her “well then?” stance was a perfect segway into my seeking to repent, u-turn, and improve. And I love her for it.

Those two sentences have been near unremittingly cruising down the neurological pathways of my brain for days now. They are powerful questions!

That grudge I can’t let go of – is it serving me well? Is it serving God well?

The way I was wronged and keep reliving it – is it serving me well? Is it serving God well?

That hill of blame I’m standing on and defending with every breath – is it serving me well? Is it serving God well?

The years of resentment that are shrinking my soul – is it serving me well? Is it serving God well?

The forgiveness I mean to give – someday – is it serving me well? Is it serving God well?

That injustice that happened in my family three generations ago, the one that keeps getting birthed every new generation – is it serving me and my family well? Is it serving God well?

And on and on the questions and scenarios go.

Why do we insist on holding onto and engaging in activities that do not serve us well and in the same breath, do not serve God well? What can we do to let go, to stop serving masters that want to enslave and trick us? How can we beat the beast, conquer the natural man, rise above things that do nothing to serve us or our God and everything to hurt us?

Our pride encourages us, and Satan for sure influences us.

But if we will hear, we have help. It comes in the form of those who speak (and have spoken) for God, those who have (and have had) authority to speak in His name and declare His admonitions, warnings, and promises. One story and one scripture from such anointed ones are inspirations to me and have helped me progress towards disengagement in things that do not serve me or God well.

First, this especially powerful story from President Boyd Packer:

“If you suffer from worry, from grief or shame or jealousy or disappointment or envy, from self-recrimination or self-justification, consider this lesson taught to me many years ago by a patriarch. He was as saintly a man as I have ever known. …

He grew up in a little community with a desire to make something of himself. He struggled to get an education.

He married his sweetheart, and presently everything was just right. He was well employed, with a bright future. They were deeply in love, and she was expecting their first child.

The night the baby was to be born, there were complications. The only doctor was somewhere in the countryside tending to the sick. …

Finally the doctor was located. In the emergency, he acted quickly and soon had things in order. The baby was born and the crisis, it appeared, was over.

Some days later, the young mother died from the very infection that the doctor had been treating at another home that night.

John’s world was shattered. Everything was not right now; everything was all wrong. He had lost his wife. He had no way to tend both the baby and his work.

As the weeks wore on, his grief festered. ‘That doctor should not be allowed to practice,’ he would say. ‘He brought that infection to my wife. If he had been careful, she would be alive today.’

He thought of little else, and in his bitterness, he became threatening. …

One night a knock came at his door. A little girl said simply, ‘Daddy wants you to come over. He wants to talk to you.’

“Daddy” was the stake president. …

This spiritual shepherd had been watching his flock and had something to say to him.

The counsel from that wise servant was simply, ‘John, leave it alone. Nothing you do about it will bring her back. Anything you do will make it worse. John, leave it alone.’ …

He struggled in agony to get hold of himself. And finally, he determined that whatever else the issues were, he should be obedient.

Obedience is powerful spiritual medicine. It comes close to being a cure-all.

He determined to follow the counsel of that wise spiritual leader. He would leave it alone.

Then he told me, ‘… It was not until I was an old man that I could finally see a poor country doctor—overworked, underpaid, run ragged from patient to patient, with little medicine, no hospital, few instruments, struggling to save lives, and succeeding for the most part. He had come in a moment of crisis, when two lives hung in the balance, and had acted without delay.’

‘I was an old man,’ he repeated, ‘before I finally understood! I would have ruined my life,’ he said, ‘and the lives of others.’

Many times he had thanked the Lord on his knees for a wise spiritual leader who counseled simply, ‘John, leave it alone.’ “ (Packer, B., “Balm of Gilead: Leave it Alone,” Ensign, Nov. 1987, 17-18).

I love this advice! Leave it alone. Let it go. Help it die. It does not, after all, serve me well, nor does it serve my God well.

And this scripture:

“Put on therefore, as the elect of God,

holy and beloved,

bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind,

meekness, longsuffering;

Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another,

If any man have a quarrel against any:

even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.

And above all these things

put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness…”

(Colossians 3:12-14)

Unto all the world: “Is that serving you well?” Is that serving God well?” No? Perhaps a prayer for a true friend could help you change. Deepest thanks to one of my most true, dear friends.