Work Qualifications and Efficiency
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to work now with a firm determination to rise. The present need of the
cause is not so much for more men as for greater skill and consecration
in the laborers.—
Testimonies for the Church 5:554
.
Men With Self-respect, Humility, and Efficiency—My brother,
in doing the work of God you will be placed in a variety of circum-
stances which will require self-possession and self-control, but which
will qualify you to adapt yourself to circumstances and the peculiari-
ties of the situation. Then you can act yourself unembarrassed. You
should not place too low an estimate upon your ability to act your
part in the various callings of practical life. Where you are aware of
deficiencies, go to work at once to remedy those defects. Do not trust
to others to supply your deficiencies, while you go on indifferently, as
though it were a matter of course that your peculiar organization must
ever remain so. Apply yourself earnestly to cure these defects, that
you may be perfect in Christ Jesus, wanting in nothing.
If you form too high an opinion of yourself you will think that
your labors are of more real consequence than they are and you will
plead individual independence which borders on arrogance. If you
go to the other extreme and form too low an opinion of yourself you
will feel inferior and will leave an impression of inferiority which will
greatly limit the influence that you might have for good. You should
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avoid either extreme. Feeling should not control you; circumstances
should not affect you. You may form a correct estimate of yourself,
one which will prove a safeguard from both extremes.—
Testimonies
for the Church 3:505, 506
.
Power to Master Circumstances—It is obstacles that make men
strong. It is not helps, but difficulties, conflicts, rebuffs, that make men
of moral sinew. Too much ease and avoiding responsibility have made
weaklings and dwarfs of those who ought to be responsible men of
moral power and strong spiritual muscle.... Some men appear to be
utterly unable to hew out a path for themselves. Must they ever rely
upon others to do their planning and their studying, and to be mind
and judgment for them? God is ashamed of such soldiers. He is not
honored by their having any part to act in His work while they are
mere machines.
Independent men of earnest endeavor are needed, not men as im-
pressible as putty. Those who want their work made ready to their
hand, who desire a fixed amount to do and a fixed salary, and who wish