18/06/2021
.."I am the leader of the church.
This post is a confession and like most confessions, I am not proud of myself.
The title of this article will be explained later.
I feel compelled to share what I have recently learned about myself, and more importantly, about the Lord, as a result of a dream I had.
This is all about doing good for others, but for the right reasons.
My Confession
I am driven by the need to be useful.
Whether I am at work, at church, at home, in a relationship, I always have a great need to feel useful.
That is one of my greatest fears, the idea that something will happen to me that will make no one need me, and I will not be able to make a meaningful contribution.
I tremble at the thought of feeling completely useless.
As I get older, I see others around me struggling with the same problem.
They used to be the big man and woman, leaders of their own businesses, leaders in the community and in the church.
Now they are retired and may be happy if someone recognizes that they went to church on Sunday.
This can be a very difficult part of mortal life.
Frankly, any part of mortal life can be difficult; I am currently working on the last part.
About twelve years ago, in 2009, or thereabouts, Elder Ballard spoke at the general conference where I was watching TV at our house, and he told us that we needed to go online.
We needed to participate in the global conversation about the church and the gospel of Christ.
People were talking about it anyway, so why weren't members of the Church of Christ talking about it online?
The online community needed our testimonies, our input, and our experiences.
The truth needed to be present as a counterbalance to all that those who were dissatisfied with the Lord's Church were posting online.
People needed to see both sides so they could decide what they wanted to believe.
I pondered Elder Ballard's words for over three years.
Finally, I could no longer ignore them and one day I found my outlet for my frustration.
I was working at the Entrepreneurial Center and one of our visiting entrepreneurs specialized in online marketing.
We had a long conversation about what I was feeling and thinking, and he said he would be my mentor if I was willing to follow his instructions.
This got me started in the world of online publishing and posting.
Until then I knew absolutely nothing about Facebook, Twitter, blogging, websites, etc.
I did visit them, but I had no idea how to design and use a website.
Around July 1, 2013, I began posting my first articles on my new website, thinking I was going to explain the teachings of the church to people outside the church using simple examples and my own experiences.
Over time, I realized that there were others who were more suited to that task.
Apparently, my strength lay in explaining the gospel to members of the church.
I had already read and studied the gospel doctrine and the gospel principles, usually all at once.
What I learned was that everyone from the two groups had the same fundamental questions and difficulties in processing and understanding the gospel of Christ.
I realized that talking about the gospel of Christ is my greatest passion.
Three Years Later
I may not be the brightest star in the sky.
I may not be the sweetest banana of the bunch, but I am persistent.
For the past seven years, I have written my articles as they came to me, often in the middle of the night.
I got right out of bed with an article in my head.
I couldn't go back to sleep until I had written it down.
Some weeks I wrote as many as four or five articles on different topics.
I started commenting on Sunday School classes and Priesthood and Sisterhood Auxiliary classes.
And my comments still take up the lion's share of my time and energy.
My wife's most common comment to me is that she is surprised that I still have nothing to say.
I share that opinion.
Every time I feel like I have captured everything I have in my head and heart, something else happens, and lo and behold: a new article is born.
I'm almost at the five hundred article mark now.
I have been commenting on Sunday School classes and collecting the comments from each year.
I am now in my second year of continuing that process with Come, Follow Me, classes.
But despite all that, I felt unnoticed, unappreciated, unheard.
Only rarely do I hear someone say they appreciated my writing or that they learned something from what they read in my material.
For the most part, I have written in obscurity, with no recognition, no reward, and no acknowledgment that what I do makes a difference in anyone's life.
I keep writing because I have to write.
I don't know what I would do if I stopped writing.
This is how I try to remain useful in my imposed retirement.
The confession part of the confession
Now you know what I've been doing for the past three years.
You know that I feel the need to be useful and relevant in some way.
I loved giving my texts, but I felt like I needed to reach much more than just the one to two dozen people who visited my Facebook from my neighborhood.
I wanted to feel like I could share myself with thousands.
My daily visitors to the website, are about the size of a full ring of members.
But my readership is global because I have readers in countries all over the world.
But most who read, only read and move on.
I never know if what they have read has made a difference in their lives.
My vanity has long maintained that if I were really making a difference, I would have caught the attention of church leaders, or at least those who are advancing the kingdom.
I'm sure someone has noticed that I have something important to say.
Something of value.
Somewhere along the way, I got it into my head that if someone at the center of the church wasn't promoting my writing, then what I was doing had no purpose, because what good could a writer of the coast do in someone's life if there was no recognition, nor acknowledgment of what had been done?
This is what my vanity and my pride worked in me for years.
Somehow my worth depended on the recognition of those I considered important in the Lord's kingdom.
I am ashamed to admit it, but that is the truth.
I kept writing, but I had lost hope that I could make any difference in the world.
The dream
A few days ago, less than a week before I wrote this piece, I woke up from a dream in which I felt thoroughly, and thoroughly punished, and totally changed.
In my dream, I was complaining out loud that no one knew who I was.
That my voice didn't matter, that I had no known influence on the lives of those I now live and breathe to influence in the most positive way.
I was whining, actually.
I was feeling sorry for myself and freely expressing my displeasure to the universe.
At that moment, I heard the voice.
I make no claims as to who the speaker was.
I am sure it was one of those epiphanies you have when you realize you have been an idiot because now you see things as they really are.
But this voice came into my dream when I was complaining that I was not known by the leaders of the church, and he said:
"I am the leader of the church.
And I know what you are doing.
The leaders in Salt Lake City don't need to know what you are doing.
They are busy with other important things.
But I know what you're doing, and I know where your words are going, and that's enough."
Some things I learned very quickly.
It is possible to go from spoiled to humiliated in an instant.
It is possible to change your whole outlook on life in an instant.
It is certainly possible to go from ungrateful to grateful in an instant.
What this experience has taught me is that the Lord is truly able to do His own work.
If He is willing to work with no one like me, then that means He is also working with many thousands, if not millions of others around the world to accomplish His purposes.
The brethren in Salt Lake City have very specific responsibilities for which they are accountable to the Lord, but they cannot be omniscient and omnipresent like the Lord.
The Lord accomplishes most of His work by working with all of us, ordinary people.
All it takes is for each of us to listen to the Spirit and do what we can to further God's work in the way that is open to us at this time.
The Lord has time for us to change.
He has time for us to do what needs to be done.
And if we don't do what needs to be done soon enough for the timing of the plan of salvation, there are others of His children who will do what needs to be done.
He is patient, loving, and aware.
Oh, so aware of us.
This is my confession.
I was a fool, a vain and foolish fool to think that anyone but the Lord should know what I was doing.
Yes, the world tells us that if we don't have millions of followers or views on our posts, we are failures.
But the Lord only needs our good works to be available, and He will lead those who need them to find them, either personally or through someone else who knows of the good we have done.
We cannot see the ripples of good that our efforts make in the pond of humanity, but the Lord can detect and follow every ripple, squeeze every drop of goodness out of our efforts in His efforts to bless the lives of His children everywhere.
Here's what I've learned.
How about you?
Have you ever been caught up in your own sense of self-importance?
Have you ever thought about where the good you do for others ends?
What about the Lord's ability to use what we do, even the small acts of kindness, to change the perspective and feelings of another?
Can we really say that what I do today ends here?
How many mothers have felt that their years of sacrifice and work for their family members went unnoticed, only to see that same example of service play out in the lives of each of her children?
How has the Lord know you?
I also have my dreams that my wife and I are working out.
There are many obstacles that I almost give an ultimatum.
If it still doesn't work out until..... I would give up.
But the ultimate goal of my dream is to serve other people.
I have asked my Heavenly Father for help many times.
But still, there are delays.
I am just grateful that even though I feel so desperate and frustrated, giving up is not in my vocabulary.
It is the BELIEF that keeps me afloat.
I pray that one day everything will become a reality.
We are working on it, together with sincere prayers.
In the name of Jesus Christ amen.
Brother Preem.