Elder Glenn L. Pace quoted President Kimball: "We have paused on some plateaus long enough." He then wrote a book about "spiritual plateaus." He indicated three. There is the basement, where we are entangled in grievous sin; there are the foothills of the Temple, the Mountain of the Lord, spiritual high country of miracles and manifestations; and there is that long dull stretch between the two, where we are neither entertaining angels face to face, nor breaking the Ten Commandments. Elder Maxwell calls it “reasonable righteousness;” good enough to attend the Temple, but still in desperate need of improvement.
This level of righteousness seems to stretch before us in an unbroken plain forever. One seminary teacher told us not to be worried if we do not start seeing angels after a few years. These long stretches of ordinary living may be what Nephi referred to when he prayed to “walk in the path of the low valley, that I may be strict in the plain road” (2Ne. 4:32). It is easy to be good when there are no trials; we involuntarily “feel after” the Lord when times are rough; what about when things get dull? The vast plain of plain living is actually a step, not an endless savannah or the whole of existence on earth. We can get off the runway, so to speak.
Sometimes coming to the Temple feels like entering the Lord’s living room; other times attending the Temple feels like punching a clock and doing work. Temple work, though glorious, is still work, as Elder Maxwell points out.
How do we get off the plateau, make a quantum jump? While the gospel is challenging to live, it is also mercifully uncomplicated. It is simple. The same principles that pulled us out of the mud of sin onto the plateau of reasonable righteousness will, if we excel at them, also lift us beyond mundane spirituality to greater manifestations.
It is a mistake to think that the commandment that “all men everywhere” repent no longer applies to us, or that humility is for other people, those who need to repent. Those Nephites righteous enough to survive the calamities and destruction were told to offer “a broken heart and a contrite spirit” to their Savior. Regardless of where we are in spiritual progression, we should always be repenting. Perhaps repentance for those who are “reasonably righteous” means giving away little sins (“...little evils do the most injury to the Church” (TPJS, p. 258). For the prophets and very righteous, perhaps it includes keeping one’s heart soft as clay, being prepared for commandments to do unexpected or difficult things. In any case, humility and repentance are universal commands, regardless of how good we are.
Part of getting off the plateau of everyday OKness is the Lord’s decision to lift us to the next level (whatever that may be). “Son, thou shalt be exalted.” Our diligence and faithfulness in this boring stretch of duty determines our qualifications to be advanced to the next level of testing and growth by the Lord. The Lord says, “I am able to make you holy” (D&C 60:7).
What can we do as individuals? I believe that elevating our Sabbath worship will elevate our spirituality. The world provides greater and greater opposition; it is only a law of physics that the righteousness available will increase accordingly. The banquet of teaching and learning by the Holy Spirit on Sundays can, should, and must be on the rise, if for no other reason than that evil is also on the rise in the world. All we hearers need to do is come to our meeting prepared, with our cups turned up in a position to receive what is poured out.
“How vain and trifling have been our spirits, our conferences, our councils, our meetings, our private as well as public conversations—too low, too mean, too vulgar, too condescending for the dignified characters of the called and chosen of God, according to the purposes of His will, from before the foundation of the world!” (TPJS, p. 137).
Meetings, lessons, talks, comments in class, hearing, all these things, are to be “conducted...after the manner of the workings of the Spirit, and by the power of the Holy Ghost...whether to preach, or to exhort, or to pray, or to supplicate, or to sing, even so it was done” (Moroni 6:9). What, then, are the symptoms of having the Spirit?
“...the Holy Ghost...has no other effect than pure intelligence. It is...powerful in expanding the mind, enlightening the understanding, and storing the intellect with present knowledge...it is calm and serene...the spirit of pure intelligence...” (TPJS, p. 149-150). This is more than just information we receive—it includes instruction. “A person may profit by noticing the first intimation of the spirit of revelation; for instance, when you feel pure intelligence flowing into you, it may give you sudden strokes of ideas, so that by noticing it, you may find it fulfilled the same day or soon; (i.e.) those things that were presented to your minds by the Spirit of God will come to pass; and thus by learning the Spirit of God and understanding it, you may grow into the principle of revelation, until you become perfect in Christ Jesus” (TPJS, p. 151). “No man can receive the Holy Ghost without receiving revelations. The Holy Ghost is a revelator” (TPJS, p. 328).
“What power shall stay the heavens? As well might man stretch forth his puny arm to stop the Missouri river in its decreed course, or to turn it upstream, as to hinder the Almighty from pouring down knowledge from heaven upon heads of Latter-day Saints” (D&C 121:33). When the windows of heaven open, what treasures are we expecting to rain down on us? Money? Property? Prestige? Feelings and broad affectations, like shedding tears? What are we supposed to be looking for in sacrament meeting, Sunday school, priesthood and Relief Society meeting?
This life is the time to prepare for eternity, and meetings on Sunday are a part of that. Sabbath worship helps us to keep ourselves “more unspotted from the world” (D&C 59:9-13). But knowledge we gain from the Spirit in Church is also important—it is power in the next life. “A man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge, for if he does not get knowledge, he will be brought into captivity by some evil power in the other world, as evil spirits will have more knowledge, and consequently more power than many men who are on the earth. Hence it needs revelation to assist us, and give us knowledge of the things of God” (TPJS, p. 217). “And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come” (D&C 130:19).
Nephi writes according to plainness about first principles and ordinances of the gospel, yet he laments that we do not ask for revelation to understand what he means: “...I am left to mourn because of the unbelief, and the wickedness, and the ignorance, and the stiffneckedness of men; for they will not search knowledge, nor understand great knowledge, when it is given unto them in plainness, even as plain as word can be” (2Ne. 32:7). Nephi then recommends the cure for our puzzlement about his words—prayer. The things we hear at church are repeated from week to week, month to month. They are “plain as word can be.” Some become weary and complain of the monotony. But we have the privilege of advancing in our comprehension, our understanding of these repeated ideas. Such increases only come by revelation. Just as our spirits give life to our bodies, so the Holy Spirit gives new life to old concepts, principles, and teachings. It teaches us the connections between concepts, forming a gospel lattice in our minds. It updates our understanding to meet our daily needs.
The sacrament uses real bread as an emblem; this updating, growth, and maturation of our understanding of basic gospel principles is our “daily bread,” the sustaining influence that carries us from one week to the next. Excelling at the same old simple principles allows us to learn new ones, and to see the old ones in new light, and grow until we rise off our current plateaus.
“After a person has faith in Christ, repents of his sins, and is baptized for the remission of his sins and receives the Holy Ghost (by the laying on of hands),...then let him continue to humble himself before God, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and living by every word of God, and the Lord will soon say unto him, Son, thou shalt be exalted” (TPJS, p. 150). A little forward movement is progress; great attempts at forward movement become lift under our wings, and consistent forward movement will become upward progress.
Thousands of meetings can come and go without such a lift. Sincerity, asking, seeking, and knocking, make the difference.
