He Will Empower Us to Change

Elder Kevin S. Hamilton began his recent general conference talk with this story told by President Monson about a prison warden named Clinton Duffy: “During the 1940s and 1950s, [Warden Duffy] was well known for his efforts to rehabilitate the men in his prison. Said one critic, ‘You should know that leopards don’t change their spots!’ Replied Warden Duffy, ‘You should know I don’t work with leopards. I work with men, and men change every day.’” Ultimately at the core of the gospel is the idea that not only we can change but we must change in order to return back to our Father in Heaven. But change is hard! One of the struggles we have faced with a few of our children when they were younger was breaking the habit of sucking their thumbs. I can still remember the pride on one of my children’s faces the day they got a guinea pig when they had kicked the habit at the age of 4 (or so we thought). Little did I know that it would not be the first time this child quit, and the habit dragged on for a few more years. We tried and failed with all sorts of methods with multiple children and I often wondered if they would ever be able to change. Habits can be so hard to break! But, I’m happy to say, eventually they did it and at least for our oldest kids they have gotten over the habit for good. Indeed, they were not leopards.

Change is possible! But in the most important matters, it usually doesn’t come without a fight or faith in Jesus Christ. Elder Hamilton suggested one of the keys that we need to truly repent and change: “In order to change, we need to put off the natural man and become humble and submissive. We must be humble enough to follow a living prophet. Humble enough to make and keep temple covenants. Humble enough to repent daily. We must be humble enough to want to change, to ‘yield our hearts unto God.’” As we truly seek His help, recognizing that we can’t truly repent without Him, He will give us the power to overcome all our challenges. That is what He promised to Moroni: “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).  

President Heber J. Grant was one known for his persistence in seeking to change himself. He taught, “Every individual can improve from day to day, from year to year, and have greater capacity to do things as the years come and the years go.” He was known for how he turned weaknesses in baseball, marbles, grammar, penmanship, and singing because of his unflappable tenacity. He told this about his attempts to sing once he started taking lessons: “At the end of two hours’ practice I still couldn’t sing one line from the song we had been practicing. After practicing that one song for more than five thousand times, I made a mess of it when I tried to sing it in public. I practiced it for another six months.” He summarized in a different setting to a group of youth: “When I was learning to sing, … I practiced [a certain] song one day twelve times at one sitting. There are three verses in it; so I sang thirty-six verses, and by actual count I made five mistakes to a verse, which made 180 mistakes in one practice, and I knew nothing about it. When I first began to learn to sing, it took me from three to four months to learn two simple hymns. I learned a hymn a few weeks ago in three hours—half an hour’s practice every evening for six days, and I had it all right.” He showed that we can change, we can overcome weaknesses, we can break habits and develop strengths where we have been incapable.

President Grant loved this quote: “That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do—not that the nature of the thing is changed, but that our power to do is increased.” I know that is just as true today, and to make these kinds of changes we must seek the Lord’s help with all our hearts and realize that it is through His grace that we can overcome weaknesses. Elder Hamilton added, “If we humble ourselves and have faith in Jesus Christ, then His grace will enable us to change. In other words, He will empower us to change. This is possible because, as He says, ‘my grace is sufficient for all men.’ His strengthening, enabling grace gives us power to overcome all obstacles, all challenges, and all weaknesses as we seek to change. Our greatest weaknesses can become our greatest strengths.”