FAIR's Rising Generation

Welcome to FRG’s newest blog mini-series!  Over the next few weeks, I’m going to post several blog articles on a Gospel topic that receives maybe a little less than adequate attention in Sunday school.  But it’s a big deal in our quest to obtaining salvation, and surviving in the world in general.  The topic, as the title suggests, is confidence and getting it.  Here’s the series intro; a little about why I am writing this:

When I stepped on the Middle School scene, I remember someone talking about me; describing me as shy.  I found that absurd.  I wasn’t shy, I just never wanted to talk to anyone new.  To me, there was a difference.  Making new friends meant making commitments.  That meant work.  In other words, being outgoing was a chore.

As I got a little older I saw the non-member friends I had drift farther and farther away from me.  They were going down one road, and I another.  I heard rumors of parties, alcohol, and things worse.  Well that ended that.  I had no desire to be around that kind of environment and stood looking only inward on my already established group of friends.  Again, to me it was not a matter of being shy, but being wise.

As time wore on I met a girl, not a member of the Church, who asked me out on a date.  All that I knew about her was that she wasn’t the shining beacon of moral purity.  As gracefully as an awkward teenager could, I turned her down and she gave up.  When I got to high school, I met other girls attracted to my personality that I did not want to date — despite themselves making it painfully obvious that they were available.  Again, their good intentions were questionable, and I didn’t want to go on a date with someone I had to convince to keep moral (granted a couple dates could have been safe, but I wasn’t excited about confrontation).

What I know now about these events was I probably did the right thing for the wrong reason.  The right thing was not putting myself in a dangerous position with these girls.  I won’t go into the details in a small blog post, but looking back, I made the right choice.  I know that.  What I did wrong was that I made those decisions based on fear (it turns out, shy was a pretty good descriptor).  I was afraid of confrontation.  I was afraid that I may be too weak when it really mattered.   And I guess I found my standards a little embarrassing, because I was afraid of getting into an embarrassing situation.

Fear, however, is not one of the Gospel virtues.  If we are going to fulfill our commitment to be the “light of the world” (Matthew 5:16) we have to be confident in ourselves.  Confident that we’ll make good choices; confident that we know what are the right choices.   Timid lights, after all, don’t get seen.  Confidence takes courage, but it takes a lot of other qualities as well — humility, love, patience, wisdom (all of which will be covered in this series), etc.

When I think of the great people in the scriptures — Moroni, Deborah (she’s in the Old Testament), Ammon, and Teancum — I think of how confident they were knowing that they were doing the right thing and how that made them who they were.  I’m not them, but I’ve definitely learned a few things since my awkward teenage years with a cracking voice, acne, and yes, shy personality.  In this series, I’m going to share what I’ve learned with you.

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