our great potential

"these gifts of which I have spoken, which are spiritual, never will be done away, even as long as the world shall stand, only according to the unbelief of the children of men" (Moroni 10:19)

How do you picture those who don't believe? Because most likely it's the same way I have... and I didn't fall into that group. Like so many scriptures it's taken me until now to see how I actually do, in scary ways, fit negative definitions. We are supposed to put ourselves into the scriptures, and it's a much easier thing to do in the positive ones, but it the ones where I become a sinner and an unbeliever...well, of course those scriptures aren't about ME...those are about THEM...right?

It's the "All is Well in Zion attitude" and it needs to change. Think of unbelief the way Sheri Dew does: "the most sobering kind of unbelief is actually that of faithful members of the Church sitting in sacrament meeting every week -- members who don't really believe the Lord will reveal His mind and will and workings to them, and have thus hardened their hearts to their spiritual possibilities, potential, ad privileges." (If Life Were Easy, It Wouldn't Be Hard) And now, we can start seeing ourselves in it.

President George Q. Cannon makes it even clearer:

"Yet we find, even among those who have embraced the Gospel, hearts of unbelief. How many of you, my brethren and sisters, are seeking for these gifts that God has promised to bestow? How many of you, when you bow before your Heavenly Father in your family circle or in your secret places, contend for these gifts to be bestowed upon you? How many of you ask the Father, in the name of Jesus, to manifest Himself to you through these powers and these gifts? Or do you go along day by day like a door turning on its hinges, without having any feeling upon the subject, without exercising any faith whatever; content to be baptized and be members of the Church, and to rest there, thinking that your salvation is secure because you have done this? I say to you, in the name of the Lord, as one of His servants, that you have need to repent of this. You have need to repent of your hardness of heart, of your indifference, and of your carelessness. There is not that diligence, there is not that faith, there is not that seeking for the power of God that there should be among a people who have received the precious promises we have. Instead of the sick being healed, why, it is as much as you can do to get faith to believe that the administration of an elder will be attended with effect. There is not that seeking for the gift of healing and for the gift to be healed that there ought to be among the Saints. And so with other gifts and graces that God has placed in His Church for His people. I say to you that it is our duty to avail ourselves of the privileges which God has placed within our reach."