“Meeting the Challenges of Today” — Elder Neal A. Maxwell
Intro
Driving to the Syracuse Temple, I queued up Elder Neal A. Maxwell’s 1978 devotional “Meeting the Challenges of Today.” One line kept burning: God’s foreknowledge and foreordination “underline how very long and how perfectly God has loved us and known us with our individual needs and capacities.” That changes how I face pushback—not with heat, but with holy steadiness.
Listening loop: I’ve listened/read this message 30+ times since Thursday—car to Jordan River, then to Syracuse. Each pass peeled back another layer.
Selected lines (to read slowly)
- “In the months and years ahead, events will require of each member that he or she decide whether…to follow the First Presidency.”
- “A new irreligion seeks to make itself the state religion…using preserved freedoms to shrink freedom.”
- “Be principled but pleasant…perceptive without being pompous.”
- “We were measured before and found equal to our tasks…God will not overprogram us.”
Doctrine Note: Foreordination ≠ Predestination
Foreordination is a conditional stewardship, not a guarantee. God can foresee outcomes without forcing them; agency remains intact.
- David: God foresaw David’s fall but did not cause it. David chose Bathsheba; agency—and accountability—were David’s.
- Martin Harris (116 pages): God foresaw the loss and prepared a remedy centuries earlier (see D&C 10; Words of Mormon).
- Conclusion: God is never surprised; we are never compelled. Foreordination calls us to faithfulness, not fatalism.
When minor defeats loom
“There will also be times, happily, when a minor defeat seems probable, that others will step forward, having been rallied to righteousness by what we do.” — Elder Neal A. Maxwell
How I’ve seen this: when I was knocked down at work, unexpected help appeared—quiet encouragements, timely messages, and small mercies that kept me moving. God’s compensating provisions are often people.
Practice today: Who can I quietly rally by how I show up? Act first; announce later.
My working understanding now
- God doesn’t live inside my clock. He sees past–present–future at once.
- Agency is real. He allowed me to choose Utah and walk hard roads; He wasn’t the cause of every sorrow, nor surprised by any of it.
- Compensating provisions exist. He prepares remedies far ahead of my missteps.
- **We are not foreordained to fail, but called to succeed—**and to become.
Becoming, Not Just Describing
Maxwell doesn’t invite us to argue; he invites us to become. Utah’s quiet—sometimes lonely—became the classroom where I finally studied harder, worshiped more steadily, and let the doctrine soak until it changed my reflexes.
How I’ll practice becoming (small and daily):
- Act > announce: do the next right thing before I say the next right thing.
- Covenant rhythm: weekly temple worship, even when feelings lag.
- Charity first: measure responses by love, not by likes or score-keeping.
- Ask once, then release: honor others’ agency as God honors mine.
Working creed: God foresees; I choose. If I stay on the covenant path, I’m not “stuck”—I’m becoming what my blessing already pointed to.
Foreordination (Maxwell’s core teaching — extended excerpt)
“Foreordination is like any other blessing—it is a conditional bestowal subject to our faithfulness… Prophecies foreshadow events without determining the outcomes… God foresaw the fall of David, but was not the cause of it… God foresaw, but did not cause, Martin Harris’s loss… and made plans to cope with that failure over fifteen hundred years before it was to occur.”
Premortal memory (often called the “council in heaven”) — Joseph F. Smith:
“In coming here, we forget all, that our agency might be free indeed… by the power of the Spirit… we often catch a spark from the awakened memories of the immortal soul, which lights up our whole being as with the glory of our former home.” (Gospel Doctrine, pp. 13–14)
Why this belongs here: Foreordination honors agency; mortal forgetting protects it. The Spirit’s “spark” is what turns doctrine into direction—reminding me who I’m to become, not scripting how I’m forced to get there.
When minor defeats loom (for this week’s online heat)
“There will also be times, happily, when a minor defeat seems probable, that others will step forward, having been rallied to righteousness by what we do.”
Application: in the FB pile-on, unexpected help appeared. God’s compensating provisions are often people. Charity begets courage in others.
Tone to keep (even online):
“Be principled but pleasant… perceptive without being pompous… have integrity and not write checks with our tongues which our conduct cannot cash.”
We cannot judge who will come (God’s sight ≠ our verdicts)
“The Lord… said, ‘Cast the net on the right side’… If he knew beforehand the whereabouts of fishes in the Sea of Tiberias, should it offend us that he knows beforehand which mortals will come into the gospel net?”
Application: He knows who will soften, when, and how. My job is faith and kindness—not forecasting souls.
A living (not retired) God
“One dimension of worshipping a living God is to know that he is alive and seeing and acting. He is not a retired God… He is, at once, in all the dimensions of time—past, present, and future—while we labor within time’s limits.”
Takeaway: He foresees without forcing, prepares without pampering, and lives to help—now.
Final Reflection
If God truly knew us and trusted us with these exact days, then opposition isn’t proof He abandoned us; it’s evidence He appointed us. Foreordination isn’t status—it’s stewardship; not a guarantee—but a charge to be faithful.
What I hear now
- Choose loyalty early; live it quietly.
- Be firm without sharpness—principled but pleasant.
- Treat foreordination as fuel for service, not status.
- When weary, remember: we were measured before, and God won’t press more than we can bear.
- Let pushback refine your discipleship, not redefine it.
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