Why I Love Bednar

I really love Bednar. He’s a member of the Q15 that seeks to expand on scripture and communicate new ideas. I remember reading a blog post five years ago (I can no longer find it) that talked about Bednar’s spirit of discernment. It is clear that he takes the scriptures seriously and discerns the differences between words like meek and humble.

I come away from his talks saying “yeah, I got NONE of that; it was super dense.” However, when I go back to it, I end up agreeing with 90% of it. (This time around, I thought he was a bit hard on Captain Moroni). Somehow I understand where he’s coming from and what he’s trying to say. I don’t have that ability with the other prophets.

I’ll probably expand on these ideas at one point (similar to my forthcoming post about the differences between receiving a prophet and following them).

I appreciated his distinction here between humility and weakness and I agree with his interpretation of the two. When I am humble, I see my smallness and understand that I am intimately and inextricably connected with others, God, and creation.

Meekness is different. Meekness is a willingness to learn and listen to others. I expand a bit on that at the end of this post.

Sometimes I get a bit frustrated with people’s marveling at Jesus because it doesn’t make sense to me. Why WOULDN’T someone reach out and heal the ear of their captor. To not do so makes no sense. This response is revolutionary only in its normalcy. It would be normal for Jesus to do this. It’s not revolutionary to Jesus. He was just being Jesus. Why would it require discipline or restraint to be Himself? It makes no sense.

This reminds me of one of my favorite passages of scripture, Phillippians 2. This chapter discusses Christ’s humility and meekness. When I feel my equality with God/Jesus and see my divine nature, humility and meekness is an automatic response. It is not something I need to cultivate or work to achieve. It is a response, like an apple seed growing into a tree and bearing apples. It’s just what an apple seed does.

When you understand and see your power, you humble yourself and ask God what do to with it and how you can serve. There is no other response to seeing that kind of power within yourself. How am I to know what to do? I can only ask to serve.

I was in a discussion with someone on Reddit about this talk. They stated that the attributes listed in the Beatitudes aren’t qualities that you want. Their point was that Savior is giving comfort to these people and telling them that they will eventually have power, since meek means powerless. The Redditor was saying we should not seek to develop these attributes.

I tend to disagree with the Redditor and agree with Bednar. I think meekness (powerlessness) is something we should seek to develop. When you look at addiction recovery, recognizing your powerlessness in the face of your addiction is a positive thing. It is an essential step to recovery.

How I seek to be meek is by recognizing, or “checking” my privilege. If I am meek, I will give worldly kinds of power away. I can be quiet and let marginalized voices speak. I can learn from them.

But the only way I can start to be meek is by recognizing my power and seeing the power differentials at play in relationships, communities, and the world at large. This is what Bednar is speaking of when he states:

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