My Grace is Sufficient

Yesterday my niece returned home from her mission to Ecuador. Her final email included this summary of her experiences there: “Jesus Christ held and carried me throughout my entire mission. I could not have done this without Him. Period. Without my Savior with me, I think I would have gone home in a week. His grace lifted me when I felt I couldn't walk much longer. His grace filled my mouth as I spoke a language that was so foreign to me. His grace carried me as I struggled to communicate with companions. His grace lightened my heart as I was filled with love for this tiny part of Ecuador. His grace healed me when I dislocated my shoulder and couldn't use my arm for many weeks. His grace helped my friends as they sacrificed to change their lives for Him. His grace completed me.” She experienced many very difficult trials in a foreign and dangerous place, but she persisted through them all and was sustained by the grace of the Savior. Her words in this last email remind me of the Savior’s words to Moroni when he was struggling, “And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them” (Ether 12:27). This suggests that our weaknesses, and surely all our trials and challenges that we experience, are meant to bring us to the grace of Christ. My niece was a successful missionary, not because she brought a certain number of people to baptism but because she found the Savior and His grace throughout all her struggles.

            It is fitting that Moroni, to whom these words from Ether were spoken by the Savior, would also—like my niece—finish his writing with a discussion of the grace of Christ. Towards the end of his final chapter, Moroni invited us in these words: “Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.” He used the same phrase that the Savior had spoken to Him—about His grace being sufficient—and invited us to be made “perfect in Christ.” He invited us to come unto the Savior and to find His grace to be made whole, complete, cleansed, just as my niece testified she had become: “His grace completed me.” Moroni continued, “And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot” (Moroni 10:32-33). Five times in these verses he referred to the grace of Christ, highlighting I believe that he had truly received and been changed by the message that Christ gave him in Ether 12:27. He had become complete and whole and perfected through Christ despite his own weaknesses that had nearly overcome him. His words, which he thought were weak, have become some of the most often quoted verses of scripture as thousands of missionaries cite his promise every day to invite others to the Savior and gain a witness of the Book of Mormon. No matter what strengths or advantages or abilities we might have, all who are striving to follow Him eventually realize, like Moroni, that they are not enough to face our challenges and overcome our weaknesses. We constantly need the grace of Christ to carry us through all our struggles, and this invitation from Moroni ever beckons us to seek that grace: “And now, I would commend you to seek this Jesus of whom the prophets and apostles have written, that the grace of God the Father, and also the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, which beareth record of them, may be and abide in you forever” (Ether 12:41). Every setback, every sin, every sorrow, and every struggle we face can be opportunities for us to seek Him and to “come boldly to the throne of grace” that we might “obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).