Have You Been “Sufficiently Humble?”
Alma 5:27
27 Have ye walked, keeping yourselves blameless before God? Could ye say, if ye were called to die at this time, within yourselves, that ye have been sufficiently humble? That your garments have been cleansed and made white through the blood of Christ, who will come to redeem his people from their sins?
President Spencer W. Kimball said:
“When one becomes conscious of his great humility, he has already lost it. When one begins boasting of his humility, it has already become pride—the antithesis of humility. . . . Somebody asked me this morning, ‘How do you keep humble? Sometimes I am humble and sometimes I am unhumble.’ . . . I think there is a formula that will never fail. First, you evaluate yourself. . . . I would be nothing without the Lord. My breath, my brains, my hearing, my sight, my locomotion, my everything depends upon the Lord. That is the first step and then we pray, and pray often, and we will not get up from our knees until we have communicated. The line may be down; we may have let it fall to pieces, but I will not get up from my knees until I have established communication—if it is twenty minutes, if it is all night like Enos. . . . If it takes all day long, you stay on your knees until your unhumbleness has dissipated, until you feel the humble spirit and realize, ‘I could die this minute if it were not for the Lord’s good grace. I am dependent upon Him—totally dependent upon Him,’ and then you read the scriptures.”
(The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, ed. Edward L. Kimball [1982], 233–34.)