Developing On Our Own (9/22/2009)

“There must be works with faith. How foolish it would be to ask the Lord to give us knowledge, but how wise to ask the Lord’s help to acquire knowledge, to study constructively, to think clearly, and to retain things that we have learned.” - President Spencer W. Kimball

My fifth grader has been assigned a report on a famous person to be completed next month. The teacher has outlined the steps he is to take to complete the report, from compiling data on the person to writing the rough and final drafts of the report. It represents a fairly substantial effort, and with the progress he has made based on the effort he has put into the report so far, I confess that I am a bit concerned about his ability to finish it.

Now I am certain that if I wanted to, I could write this report for him, complete with citations, good spelling, and passable grammar. It would not take nearly as much effort as it is taking him, and the results would probably be better. The only problem with a plan like that is that it would not give him the chance to learn what is involved in writing a report, so when he gets to junior high, high school, or college, he will still not know what is involved in that process. Further, the chances are good that if he is ever able to develop this skill, it will be more difficult to learn it later than if he were to learn it now.

Our Father in Heaven wants to give us the same opportunity to learn. He could give us the knowledge and resources we need to overcome every challenge, but were He to do that, we would be deprived of the chance to learn from our own experiences. It is good to ask for our Father's help while we are here on Earth, but as President Kimball says, we still need to do all that we can on our own to learn and grow.