In Patience Possess Ye Your Souls

Luke recorded this statement from the Savior to His apostles as He taught them of their trials ahead: “In your patience possess ye your souls” (Luke 21:19).  In our dispensation the Savior used the same language as He encouraged us to seek Him: “And seek the face of the Lord always, that in patience ye may possess your souls, and ye shall have eternal life” (D&C 101:38).  So what does it mean to possess our souls?  One interpretation is that it is another phrase for saying that we find salvation.  In other words, to possess our souls is to have eternal life, just as the “destruction of the soul” is to be cast “into that hell” and suffer for our sins (1 Nephi 14:3).  If in this life we only seek after the things of the world then we will eventually “lose [our] own soul” (Mark 8:36).  This isn’t to say that our soul wouldn’t exist, but rather it wouldn’t exist in the presence of God, and without that it wouldn’t be true life.  In the same way, if we fully possess our souls then then perhaps that means we have eternal life with our Father in Heaven.  Just as one might suggest that we don’t really own our home until the mortgage is fully paid, so too we might say that we don’t possess our souls until we have been perfected by the Savior and returned to God’s presence.

            Another way of interpreting the phrase “possess your souls” might be to see it as injunction from the Savior to gain full self-mastery.  In other words, when we truly have control over our appetites and passions, our thoughts and our words, when we have rid ourselves completely of complaining and anger and hatred and any kind of animosity towards others so that we are simply full of the love of Christ, perhaps then we truly possess our souls.  This fits with the word patience used in the verse inviting us to possess our souls—we need to be truly patient so that we have complete control of our desires and feelings and cannot be upset or frustrated or angered by the difficult experiences we encounter.  When we are as unflappable as Phileas Fogg such that no matter what the setbacks are that come we keep our trust in the Lord, then we truly have possession of our souls.  Nephi showed this kind of faith and self-mastery when he described his reaction to being tied up on the ship by his brothers for four days while their boat was on the brink of destruction: “Nevertheless, I did look unto my God, and I did praise him all the day long; and I did not murmur against the Lord because of mine afflictions” (1 Nephi 18:16).  He knew the Lord was the Potter and he was the clay, and no matter what tirals he passed through he always trusted in Him.  Perhaps the clearest path to truly possessing our souls is to give ourselves fully to the Lord as Elder Maxwell so famously invited us: “Brethren, as you submit your wills to God, you are giving Him the only thing you can actually give Him that is really yours to give. Don’t wait too long to find the altar or to begin to place the gift of your wills upon it!”  In this gospel paradox, we truly find ourselves as we give of ourselves, and we can with patience possess our souls as we fully give our will to the Lord.