When we face uncertainty, the Lord doesn’t expect us to pretend to know what we’re doing.
When my mom was called to be our ward choir director, she felt insecure because she had no experience. The previous choir director told her, “Fake it ’til you make it. Don’t show any weakness.”
Photo by Manuela Adler
When feelings of insecurity and weakness arise, we often want to hide those feelings from others and even from the Lord. In his talk “Truth Is the Issue,” Elder F. Enzio Busche refutes this instinct and teaches the importance of approaching our weaknesses with honesty and understanding. He stresses that “Christ cannot be with us unless we pay the price of the constant fight for self-honesty.” This honesty is the key to overcoming our deepest insecurities.
Elder Busche explains that when we aren’t honest about our inner struggles, we experience “a lack of self-confidence, lack of happiness and joy, [or] lack of faith and testimony.” However, if we are honest about our weaknesses instead of hiding them, the Lord will be with us.
My mom experienced that transformation when she decided to be honest with the choir and the Lord about her lack of experience and promised she would try her best. Later, at the choir’s first performance, she lifted her hand to signal the choir and heard the booming, harmonious sound of everyone’s voices. The Lord had taken her small, uncertain hand and had made it powerful and sure.
We can trust that as we are honest with ourselves, with others, and with the Lord, the Lord will be with us and will enable us to do all he needs us to do. We don’t have to fake it to make it.
To learn more about honesty, read Elder F. Enzio Busche’s full address “Truth Is the Issue.”
Source: General Conference
—Liana Sowa, Latter-day Saint Insights
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Find more insights
Read Elder Neil L. Anderson’s address “Honesty—The Heart of Spirituality” to learn more about improving your spirituality through honesty.
Watch “How Does Honesty with Ourselves Strengthen Us?” for suggestions on how to recognize strengths and flaws in ourselves.