"A Child of God" By Henry B. Eyring

These past few weeks have been a period of great learning for me.  It has been a transition from my first semester, here at BYU, to my second.  As you know, with the end of the semester inevitably comes finals. Just to give you a quick background about myself, I am planning on majoring in Chemistry and pursuing a career somewhere in the medical field.  As you can probably guess, my story involves me and my Chemistry final.  Going into my final, I had a 97 percent in the class.  I was feeling very confident, which was probably turning into a sense of pride.  As a result of my high grade and -- I admit -- my pride, I began skipping class and stopped doing homework.  The night before my final I realized that the test was 35 percent of my grade and I had completely neglected to learn the new material.  As you can probably guess, I ended up getting a 76 percent.  It dropped my grade nearly 8 percent, all the way down to an 89.5 percent.  My pride had completely and utterly destroyed me.  Ironically this past week, I had the opportunity to read a talk given by an apostle of God about pride and its direct correlation to success in school.  In this talk, Elder Eyring portrayed exactly what happened to me.  Elder Eyring says,

"But I will tell you that not only can you pursue educational excellence and humility at the same time to avoid spiritual danger but that the way to humility is also the doorway to educational excellence." 

From my personal experience in this matter, I can say with confidence that this statement is true.  There were many lessons to be learned from Elder Eyring's talk, but the main point I gained is no matter how intelligent you are, or how wise you think you may be, there is always someone smarter than you.  Elder Eyring provided a great solution to this problem.  He directed us to remember the Savior and "what it means to be a spirit child."  In no way can we be compared to the Savior.  We are not worthy by any means, and in no way can we match up to his resume.  Christ is "the creator of all things, about which the wisest of us knows so little."  He atoned for all of our sins.  There are countless things he has done for us.  We are nothing without him.  Comparing yourself to him is a very humbling experience and will definitely change your outlook on life.  I know it did for me.  This will be the last time I will let pride fill my heart, the consequences are not worth it.