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Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers
your hands off the work, and do not hold it fast in your grasp. You
are not the only man whom God will use. Give the Lord room to
use the talents He has entrusted to men, in order that the cause may
grow. Give the Lord a chance to use men’s minds. We are losing
much by our narrow ideas and plans. Do not stand in the way of the
advancement of the work, but let the Lord work by whom He will.
Educate, encourage young men to think and act, to devise and plan,
in order that we may have a multitude of counselors.
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How my heart aches to see presidents of conferences taking the
burden of selecting those whom they think they can mold to work
with them in the field. They take those who will not differ with them,
but will act like mere machines. No president has any right to do
this. Leave others to plan; and if they fail in some things, do not
take it as an evidence that they are unfitted to be thinkers. Our most
responsible men had to learn by a long discipline how to use their
judgment. In many things they have shown that their work ought
to have been better. The fact that men make mistakes is no reason
why we should think them unfit to be caretakers. Those who think
that their ways are perfect, even now make many grave blunders,
but others are none the wiser for it. They present their success,
but their mistakes do not appear. Then be kind and considerate to
every man who conscientiously enters the field as a worker for the
Master. Our most responsible men have made some unwise plans,
and have carried them out because they thought their plans were
perfect. They have needed the mingling of other elements of mind
and character. They should have associated with other men who
could view matters from an entirely different point of view. Thus
they would have helped them in their plans.... What folly it is to trust
a great mission in the hands of one man, so that he shall mold and
fashion it in accordance with his mind, and after his own diseased
imagination! Men who have been narrow, who have served tables,
who are not farseeing, are disqualified for putting their mold upon
the work. Those who desire to control the work think that none can
do it perfectly but themselves, and the cause bears the marks of their
defects.
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