Charity as a Revealed Sense of Others

Volume Two—Chapter Seven CHARITY AS A REVEALED SENSE OF OTHERS

One concept is foundational in helping us to better understand this particular aspect of the gift of charity. It is that vulnerable essence that exists at the center of each of us.

#Our Vulnerable Essence

Deep within each and every person, there exists a fragile center. We all have it. There are no exceptions. It is important to understand this quintessential aspect of each of us. On the blackboard, I would represent it as a circle. This circle is you with all worldly additions stripped away. It is you deep down. At your core, you are vulnerable and most susceptible to injury.

As you began mortality, your tender center had few defenses. It was as naked as your body when you came forth from the womb. It had nothing to hide behind. Nothing was in place to protect or defend it. It was exposed and defenseless. This center, remember, is you. It is the way you really are. Regardless of your age today, this essence of you is still there. It is still fragile and still inclined to injury.

You have often felt and are still aware of this vulnerability. You have likely been conscious of it all your life. You experience this awareness in the form of insecurities, uncertainties, disappointments, dependency, fears, loneliness, discouragement, and helplessness. You may sometimes see yourself as less important or less significant than others. You may have feelings, from time to time, that no one cares about you. You may regard yourself as unattractive and undesirable. This is the proclivity of every person deep down. Each of us is like a turtle without a shell, and the sky is full of predatory birds!

You may often catch glimpses of this tender center in yourself or in others. But, you actually don’t often get to fully experience it because it soon becomes surrounded, or defended, with things of the world—defensive fortifications that protect the tender center from injury.

There exists an almost endless array of defenses, and most of us have become familiar with many. These may be categorized on a spectrum from productive to pathological. Examples of productive defenses include developing habits of diligence and hard work; seeking out, developing, and utilizing talents; humor; deliberately turning one’s attentions to others and their needs (altruism); deliberate thought suppression; identification—modeling of one’s self upon an admirable person’s character and behavior; and sublimation—transformation of negative emotions into positive actions, behaviors, or emotions. Pathological defenses include social or psychological withdrawal, delusions, denial, assuming false identities, addictions, blaming others, exaggerations, hypochondriasis, rationalizations, and distortions.

As we continue here to refer to this tender center, I will use the impersonal it, even though it is very much a he or a she—a you or a me.

Two parts of your vulnerable center. Again, if I were illustrating this concept on a blackboard, I would change the one circle to two, side by side and connected by a broad path. One circle is your natural inner self—your natural-self tender center. The other is your spiritual inner self, your spiritual-self tender center. They are both essential parts of you, and they are closely interrelated. We have spoken previously of the natural self and the spiritual self. Both of these characteristics reside here in these two parts of your tender center.1

Each is unsure, fragile, and vulnerable. Yet, the fears and uncertainties of each are distinct from the other. Your spiritual self is inclined to feel guilty or unworthy in response to your every disobedient thought, word, or act. It is particularly inclined to be fearful that you may be judged unfavorably by God or that you may become unworthy to return to your celestial home. Your natural self, on the other hand, has a different set of worries. It is plagued by purely human feelings such as physical discomforts, loneliness, under appreciation, fears of rejection, self-perceptions of unattractiveness, and other similar fears and anxieties.

The characteristics of these two parts of your inner self produce a constant awareness of your own susceptibility to injury. They cause you to feel uncomfortable. You yearn for relief from these painful emotions. As a result, you are likely to constantly seek for relief from this discomfort. You want to feel comfortable and secure. Much of what you think, say, and do is directed at finding relief. The quest for relief and comfort becomes the very basis of your personality. These two tender centers are powerful primary motivators.

Self-esteem. We call the state of comfort for which we constantly seek self- esteem. Both parts of our tender essence demand self esteem. We all crave both natural-self self esteem and spiritual-self self esteem. We all yearn to feel satisfied and content with ourself—to think highly of ourself. Unfortunately, it is difficult to generate a positive esteem of self completely independent of other people. Each of us is dependent in some large measure on the perceived opinions of others for our selfesteem. When we perceive that others think highly of us, our self-esteem is lifted. When we sense disapproval from those whose opinions we value, our self-esteem suffers.

While we each yearn to esteem self, each of us is naturally disinclined to do so. We are each inclined, instead, to maintain some uncertainty about the esteem God and significant others have for us. That is the nature of our two vulnerable centers. We all tend to constantly seek, and even struggle in some sense, to improve our self-esteem— to reassure ourselves of its well-being. We seek to replace uncertainties with certainty, insecurities with security, and fears with confidence. We hope to cause others, including God, to see us in a more favorable light. Our quest for self-esteem is often all consuming. Much of what we think, feel, say, and do is determined by trying to achieve this inner peace, this self-esteem.

Two ways to earn self-esteem. Our natural and spiritual selves have quite different ideas on how to earn self-esteem. Our behaviors are actually determined by a combination of the demands of our natural self and our spiritual self. Each rarely acts entirely independently. Let us take a careful look at the distinguishing characteristics of each.

Spiritual inner self. What is our spiritual self’s approach to earning selfesteem? Acting purely on its own, it intuitively senses that obedience to the Lord’s commands results in a positive self-esteem. It senses the necessity of obeying the Lord’s commandments, including forgetting oneself and ministering lovingly to one’s fellow beings. Ironically, our spiritual self gains self-esteem when we overcome our obsession with self and turn our attentions outward. When we do obey a commandment of the Lord, the result is a boost to our spiritual self-esteem. The anxieties of our spiritual self are allayed. We feel more comfortable.

There is both good news and bad news regarding this type of self-esteem. The good news is that once it is acquired, there occurs true soul-satisfaction and enduring joy. The individual who achieves solid spiritual self-esteem truly loves himself. Here is a significant irony. You can only love yourself when you forget about self and put others first.

The bad news is that the benefits, comfort, and self-esteem we feel from obeying the Lord’s commands may not be immediate. After you have acted obediently, you may continue to suffer a low spiritual self-esteem for a time. The feeling of well-being may be delayed in coming. There is even more bad news. When you act in ways that are effective in building your spiritual self-esteem, your natural self may not be satisfied. In fact, efforts to build your spiritual self-esteem through obedience may actually aggravate, for a time, the discomfort of your natural self. An example is a teenager’s showing kindness to a classmate who is rejected by his social group. By selflessly ministering to this individual, the teenager risks rejection by his own peer group. Another example is utilizing your resources to help a family member in need. This depletion of resources may prevent you from obtaining that worldly object you have longed for.

When our spiritual self has its way with us, and we deliberately obey the Lord’s commandments pertinent to our interactions with others, we manifest a form of deliberate charity. Thoughts, speech, and actions compatible with deliberate charity are often difficult. Deliberate obedience— deliberate charity—is often resisted by our natural self. Yet, we must persist in deliberate charity by deliberately and attentively serving others.

We know from previous discussions that deliberate charity leads to revealed charity or the gift of charity.2 But what exact form does this type of revealed charity— this aspect of the gift of charity—take? What particular ability is revealed to you once you’re able to establish and maintain a strong spiritual self esteem? Let us leave this question for a moment and return to it later.

Appropriate motivation. Let us consider more closely one aspect of obedience to the Lord’s commandments. As one obeys the commandments by ministering to and serving others, it is possible to do so while being focused primarily on oneself. It is possible to minister, even effectively, in hopes of obtaining personal benefits for oneself. This self-centered motivation is hardly obeying the Lord’s command to be charitable. If one ministers to others for the purpose of self aggrandizement, he will not be judged worthy by the Holy Ghost to begin to receive the gift of charity. Does a scripture come to mind? How about Matthew 10:39? “He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”

Equally as important as obedience is your motivation behind that obedience. You must do the right things for the right reasons. You must “lose your life” while serving others. The Lord’s blessings will not flow if you are “in it for yourself.” Consider Matthew 6:1-4:

Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.

Natural inner self. Your natural self has a different idea about earning selfesteem. It has “had enough” of anxiety, insecurity, fear, and other types of suffering. It wants relief of this suffering, and it doesn’t want to wait for that relief. It has no interest in delayed gratification. It will have relief at all costs, and it will have it now! It has had it “up to here” with discomfort. It will avoid all situations that cause discomfort.

As your natural self seeks self-esteem through relief of its fears, insecurities, and anxieties, it wants to be seen immediately as popular, well respected, well accepted, physically attractive, influential, and amply endowed materially. If it can achieve these things, it will feel positive self-esteem. It will be able to relax and feel more comfortable. In order to achieve these things quickly, the natural self must focus on self. Often these things are achieved to the detriment of others and their interests. Your natural inner self holds fast to the “scarcity mentality.” It suspects that there is just so much notoriety, popularity, and wealth to go around. The pie is of finite size. If someone else obtains a piece of it, you might well miss out.

Let us consider an example. Suppose you are being interviewed for a job. You want the job badly. You feel you’re perfectly suited for it. All the time you were studying in the university, you dreamed of a job just like this one. You are nervous as you prepare to keep the interview appointment. As you enter to be interviewed, you discover in the waiting room one of your classmates who also has an appointment to be interviewed for the same job. “Oh no,” you think to yourself, “not him! He scored better than I did in school. He ranks ahead of me in our class. In fact, he is near the top of the class. He certainly doesn’t need this job as much as I do. I think a lot of different companies will be offering him a job. I think he’ll end up working for a more prestigious company than this one.” As an aside, you are reminded how handsome and charming he is. It seems the girls are always vying for his attention. You have noticed he hardly pays any attention to them. He seems careless and thoughtless with their affections and attentions. He seems insensitive, callous, and unkind. As you arrive and greet him, he is invited into the interview office. You sit down to wait. “I hope he doesn’t come across very well,” you think to yourself. “I hope they are able to see through those slick good looks and see the real individual underneath. Even if they offer him a job, he is not likely to accept it. He will have other better offers. It seems unfair for him to even be here. Do they really want such a person working for them? He is not even kind. He seems so aloof, impersonal, and arrogant. He is such a social butterfly. Who does he think he is? He’s so high and mighty. If the interviewer gives me the opportunity, I’ll have to be brutally honest and tell him what this guy is really like. I would feel a lot better if this company knew all about him before they make him an offer. I’ll tell them I don’t think he’s seriously interested in this job. He’s probably applying just in case something better doesn’t turn up.”

Now, here is something to remember. All these proposed activities your natural self uses to build this quick self-esteem fit under common labels. One label is sin. Another is pride. Remember, your spiritual self is inclined to strive for self-esteem through obedience to the commandments. Your natural self sometimes commits sin as it strives for self-esteem. In this particular case, it’s easy to pick out and identify the sins. We see evidence of envy, lying, and cruelty, to name a few.

Now what of this natural self-esteem? Is it good? Is it truly satisfying? Is it enduring? I must not leave the impression that striving for natural self-esteem is always an evil undertaking. One does not always have to commit sin to strengthen one’s natural self-esteem. There are entirely wholesome and necessary reasons to seek to assuage the vulnerability of one’s natural inner self. It is good, for example to seek to secure oneself and one’s family materially and emotionally. It is good to carry out one’s responsibilities diligently and become known as being reliable. It is good to concentrate on oneself sufficient to acquire an education and better oneself in other ways. It is good to seek for social acceptance and for the respect of others. But the self love that results from satisfying one’s natural self-esteem is never as permanent as that resulting from building one’s spiritual self-esteem. And the self-esteem achieved through sinning is always illusory. It is but smoke and mirrors. It is fleeting and will not last. Satan loves this latter type of self-esteem. It is perfectly characteristic of the father of lies. He teaches it is okay to commit sin to achieve the “comfort” of this self-esteem.

Let’s continue to draw on the job-interview example. How would your spiritual inner self handle the interview situation? The only way to gain enduring self-esteem is not to seek for self-esteem at all. The spiritual self knows this. It has learned the necessity of forgetting self and building others. Even when it is most difficult, this is the way to feel good about yourself. At the interview, your spiritual self might admit, “There is a good possibility I won’t land this job. That other guy is certainly capable. He presents himself a little better than I do. I’m going to tell the interviewer I want this job badly. If they ask me about him, I’ll have to be honest and say that for all I know he is qualified for the job, perhaps more so than I. I’ll be disappointed if I don’t get the job. If he happens to get it, then I wish him well.” If you follow the counsel of your spiritual self, you may not land the job. You may be rejected in favor of the other fellow. Your natural self will suffer because of the loss. The result will not be immediate comfort. You will suffer for a while. Eventually, though, you will come to feel better about yourself. Make careful note that you didn’t seek to build your own self-esteem. In fact, in being obedient to the Lord’s commands, you put yourself aside and gave no thought to yourself. You actually gave sincere consideration to the welfare of your classmate. You genuinely put his interests before your own. Enduring self-esteem never occurs because of sin. Rather, it occurs only because of obedience to wholesome principles of truth. You will eventually experience true joy and abiding satisfaction. Another scripture comes to mind: “Wickedness never was happiness” (Alma 41:10).

There is a tendency in all of us for the natural self to dominate the spiritual self. We are all inclined to not worry about our spiritual self-esteem when our natural selfesteem is suffering. To enable our spiritual self, we should seek to satisfy the natural self in wholesome ways and then deliberately obey the promptings of the spiritual self, even when we must deny much of our natural self to do so.

We are considering an important gift of the Spirit that is a part of the gift of charity. I have called it “charity as a revealed sense of others.” We have not yet identified clearly the exact nature of this important gift. Thus far, we have discussed an important concept that sets a foundation for understanding this aspect of charity. It is the two vulnerable essences that exist at the center of each of us. Now, let us consider a pertinent well-known scripture that has proved enigmatic for careful students of the scriptures.

#The Two Great Commandments

A lawyer approached the Savior: “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?” The Savior responded, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:36- 40).

What does it mean to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind”? It means to be firmly committed to obeying his commandments: “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him” (John 14:21).

What does it mean to “love thy neighbour as thyself”? Specifically, what does “as thyself” mean? Recall the practical definition of charity given in the previous chapter. One has true charity when one yearns for the temporal and spiritual welfare of another, his neighbor, as much as he yearns for his own. Then he truly loves his neighbor “as thyself.”

When the Lord gave these “two great commandments,” he was not setting distant idealistic goals for his listeners. Rather, he was giving practical commandments he wanted the people to obey immediately—that very day.

Now you can clearly see the significance of the Lord’s commandments to love God and your fellow man. You can see why they are the “great commandments.” They are the very heart of our spiritual growth. To manifest our love for God, we must obey him. And we must obey his commands to do what? To forget ourselves and love and serve our fellow man.

One aspect of this important passage of scripture is often overlooked. It implies that it is vital for us to love ourselves before we can love others. Perhaps loving ourselves is a necessary precursor for loving others.

In order to truly love oneself, one must build spiritual self-esteem. And in order to do that, one must forget self and center one’s attentions on others. We, thus, see the obligatory relationship between self-love and manifesting charity. The process of becoming charitable involves doing those things, deliberately at first, that build spiritual self esteem. Hence, we see the divine wisdom in the Savior’s counsel to “love thy neighbour as thyself.” These two objects of our love are inextricably linked.

#What Exactly Is “Charity As a Revealed Sense of Others”?

Now, let us return to the question of the precise definition of “charity as a revealed sense of others.” What exactly is this aspect of revealed charity? Deliberate charity requires your deliberately acknowledging and ministering to your spiritual self. In the process you will acquire a genuine love for yourself, a high spiritual self esteem. Since you have diligently formed an intimate association with your own vulnerable spiritual center, it is logical the Lord will reward you by granting you a vital tool or gift that better enables you to exercise charity and minister to others. He grants you the gift of allowing you to truly perceive the vulnerable center of others by personal revelation. He allows you to see, by divine inspiration, underneath the worldly trappings and defenses that surround the true self of each individual and understand his true essence. The Savior reveals the nature of the true vulnerable center of others to the recipients of this grand gift, so that the recipients may be naturally drawn to minister to them.

As you attempt to exercise your deliberate charity in the real world, perhaps a word to the wise is appropriate. King Benjamin taught that you should not question the needs of the beggar who puts up his petition to you (Mosiah 4:16-19). Yet, you have likely noticed that there are those people, vulnerable center and all, who will take advantage of your charitable heart if you allow them. There are people who will soak up all you have to give as a way of aggrandizing themselves. They have no genuine gratitude and are without any regard for fairness or justice for your rights and feelings. Elder James E. Talmage, in his book Jesus the Christ, said, “Satan sought to aggrandize himself without regard for the rights and agency of others” (7). Certainly this characterizes some of the people you will encounter in this life.

We will all struggle at times in trying to be charitable, particularly when we sense we are being taken advantage of. Perhaps there is an appropriate modicum of justice in the question of charity. Alma counseled his son Corianton, “Therefore, my son, see that you are merciful unto your brethren; deal justly, judge righteously, and do good continually; and if ye do all these things then shall ye receive your reward; yea, ye shall have mercy restored unto you again; ye shall have justice restored unto you again; ye shall have a righteous judgment restored unto you again; and ye shall have good rewarded unto you again” (Alma 41:14; italics added).

Perceiving others as they really are. What would it be like if you were constantly able to see people as they really are underneath all of the defensive worldly trappings? What if this revelation were to come to you continually for all people in your association, even though the individuals showed no outward clue as to their true identity—even if their tender centers were deeply buried underneath a literal pile of defenses in the form of worldly justifications and false identities? What if you were truly able to perceive the very essence of all individuals even though they may have difficult and disagreeable outward personalities? What if you constantly sensed the vulnerability and true identity of all people? If you did have this ability, what feelings for and actions toward others would you likely harbor?

You would have a compelling desire to minister to the welfare of all people. You would be naturally drawn to others. You would feel protective of them. You would become consumed with succoring them and seeking after their welfare. You would lose interest in activities that further your own welfare. You would choose instead to serve others. You would become the charitable man, the man with the gift of charity.

The extra benefits or fruits of this profound concern for others include a host of additional attributes. These come incrementally to the individual who begins to possess this gift of charity. These include a loss of fear in dealing with other people (Moroni 8:16), joy (1 Nephi 8:10), an overwhelming concern for and a need to minister to others (1 Nephi 8:13-17; Enos 1:9, 11; Mosiah 28:3; Alma 36:24), a high self-esteem of your inner spiritual self, and a growing gift of hope. Those who possess this gift of charity “always abound in good works” (Alma 7:24). They help bear the burdens of the kingdom of God in mortality, and they sustain and support other laborers in Zion (2 Nephi 26:30). Charitable people are also patient (“suffer long”). They don’t pass sufferers by and “notice them not” (Mormon 8:39). Rather, they stop and see and feel in a profound way what the sufferer is feeling. Charitable people are kind, do not envy others, are not puffed up or self absorbed (they have an abundance mentality), seek not their own desires, are not easily provoked to anger or frustration, think no evil, rejoice not in iniquity but rejoice in truth, bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things (Moroni 7:45). Joseph Smith taught: “Love is one of the chief characteristics of Deity, and ought to be manifested by those who aspire to be the sons of God. A man filled with the love of God, is not content with blessing his family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race” (CHC, 4:227).

These virtues are foreign to the natural man. They are attainable for those who have put off the natural man and have become saints through the atonement and gospel of Jesus Christ (Mosiah 3:19). Ultimately, charity enables one to be like Christ and become purified as he is (Moroni 7:48). Charity changes forever those who manifest it and those who are the recipients of it.

Charity, then, is in part the gift to see and understand the vulnerable essence of another person. It is to see this essence in all people no matter how many worldly layers they have heaped upon themselves.

It is easy to see how the gift of being able to perceive the tender essence of

another works in concert with the gift of empathy. These two gifts lead to not only a powerful inclination, but an actual ability to minister to the needs of that person. The inclination to minister to others follows automatically your ability to see and understand their vulnerable center and to have empathy for their plight. Your ability to minister was learned as you suffered the adversities necessary for acquiring empathy. And your inclination and ability are augmented each time you minister.

Does Jesus Christ have this gift of a revealed sense of another? Does he have any trouble seeing beneath your worldly personality? Does he know intimately and feel personally all your sufferings? Does he know your heart perfectly? What does he feel about you? Does he love you only under certain circumstances? The answers to these questions are obvious!

See volume 1, chapter 5, The Natural Self and the Spiritual Self.

2 See chapter 6, Charity as Empathy.

See “Two Components of Each Gift of the Spirit,” in volume 1, chapter 10, Deliberate Faith and Revealed Faith.