[Kenny]

Some years ago I accepted a calling into the young men’s presidency as 1st councillor, the new president while a good man and hard working had not been president before. His first task was to have a meeting with the young men but excluded his councillors. My response to that was not to support him in his calling and just did not turn up for meetings, the 2nd councillor did the same. Eventually a meeting was called with the member of the bishopric responsible for young men’s. In this meeting we were able to express our grievances. The result of that meeting was the release of the presidency and reassignments for all of us. The 2nd councillor left the church and never came back. It was later said that the reasons he left was because of this young men’s presidency experience but not with the president but me.
I searched long and hard to why he would site me as the reason but when I look back it was simple.
While the president should have included his councillors especially involving the young men my action said more about me than him.
You see this is not my program it’s the Lord’s he put together the presidency and knows all the strengths and weaknesses of those involved. I needed to learn humility and the president needed to learn how to trust and delegate had we worked together then perhaps both of us would have grown from the experience and even become good friends, although he never once showed any resentment towards me the 2nd councillor did and is still inactive.
God leads this church not individuals if He was the president of the young men’s at this time it would have been a perfect presidency nevertheless He trusts and delegates important responsibilities to us lesser mortals but does not leave us to our own understandings we can asks Him for guidance, we can plead for understanding and we can petition the Lord to help us be more humble to see those that grieve us as the children of God they are.
Do know the church is true? From your words I think you do. With reference to leaders in the early days of the church we have leaders today who have lived in better light than those in the past, but remember those times was taking men and women from a period just preceding the dark ages. It’s remarkable the depth of change they must have had to go through just like converts to the church have to go through today.
The Lord loves all his children but also knows we fall well short of the perfection he encourages us to become but while we are trying our best or just trying to get to our best there is hope in Christ that he will do the rest.
I have to live with the thought that something I have done has led to one of the Lord’s anointed going astray but all I can really do is to repent, forgive and improve.