Recently, in an effort to help us better understand charity, I wrote about the difference between love and charity. Another method I have found that will help us understand charity is considering its opposite.
Many times, in an effort to understand a difficult concept it helps to examine its opposite. Alma used the law of opposites to help us understand how great his joy was upon his repentance. “My soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain.” (Alma 36:20)
In a 2016 conference talk, Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf taught that the opposite of charity is pride. We know that pride is more than just thinking you are better than other people. President Ezra Taft Benson taught us that pride is “enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowman.” Elder Uchtdorf’s insightful juxtaposition of charity with pride helps us better understand both concepts.
The first 10 elements of charity contrast easily with the 10 characteristics of pride that Elder Uchtdorf listed. However, the last three characteristics of pride that he mentioned, “pessimistic, angry and impatient” could seem random. We can understand both charity and pride better if we look more closely at these three characteristics of pride.
A summary of Elder Uchtdorf’s comparison follows:
Charity Pride
Suffereth long short-tempered
Kind unkind
Envieth not envious
Vaunteth not itself exaggerates own strengths & ignores virtues of others
(Is not puffed up)
(Does not behave unseemingly)
Seeketh not her own selfish
Not easily provoked easily provoked
Thinketh no evil assumes evil intent
Rejoiceth not in iniquity hides weaknesses (sins)
Rejoiceth in the truth cynical (doesn’t believe truth)
At this point the comparison becomes less direct. The remaining components of charity that the apostle Paul listed are:
Beareth all things
Believeth all things
Hopeth all things
Endureth all things
The remaining components of pride that Elder Uchtdorf listed are “pessimism, anger and impatience.” Although the contrast between these three characteristics of pride and the last four characteristics of charity is less obvious, a careful examination reveals that they, too, juxtapose with charity.
Pessimism
By definition, pessimism means a “lack of hope.” A person who lacks hope also lacks belief. A pessimistic person can always find a reason to not believe. Because they don’t believe good things will happen, they are unwilling to do anything to make good things happen. A pessimistic person reinforces their beliefs that “nothing good will happen” because they don’t do anything to make good things happen. It is necessary to believe in possibility before we are willing to do anything to make those possibilities a reality.
As a teenager I hung the following quotation on my bedroom wall, “Happy are those who dream dreams and are willing to pay the price to make them come true.” A pessimist lacks hope because he lacks the belief. Hope is a belief in possibility. When Paul says “charity hopeth all things” AND “believeth all things” he is talking about an optimistic person who believes in possibility. The person who believes in possibility will act and make good things happen.
As mission leaders we found the missionaries who could see possibility were willing to do what was necessary to make their dreams come true. Rather than tell themselves a friend would “never come around” or “nobody wants to hear our message,” they considered possibility. They told themselves, “This contact could really change his life,” or “There is certainly somebody out there who is seeking the truth.” When they acknowledged that their contact really could change his life or there was somebody out there who was seeking, they were willing to work hard to help the contact change, or find the person who was seeking.
Why is pessimism a characteristic of pride? President Benson taught, “Pride is essentially competitive in nature. We pit our will against God’s. When we direct our pride toward God, it is in the spirit of “my will and not thine be done.”
It is the Lord’s will that believe all things. It is his will that we have hope. If we lose our hope we won’t do anything to gather Israel on either side of the veil. We pit our will against God’s. President Benson continues,
“[The proud] pit their perceptions of truth against God’s great knowledge, their abilities versus God’s priesthood power, their accomplishments against His mighty works.”
Those with charity, the opposite of pride, acknowledge God’s accomplishments and His mighty works and they believe that when they act their dreams will come true.
Anger
Henry Drummond the author of “The Greatest Thing in the World,” called anger the “vice of the virtuous.” This label implies that good people, who are trying to do what’s right, may lose control of their emotions and let anger rule.
In April conference in 2012 Elder Richard G. Scott said, “Yielding to emotions such as anger or hurt or defensiveness will drive away the Holy Ghost. Those emotions must be eliminated …”
Our precious granddaughter with Down Syndrome has taught us to “bear all things.” She has taken an ink pen to our leather couch, magic markers to the pavers on the patio, broken a glass vase, torn pages out of books, pooped in the pool, and when we take her out in public she takes off like a rocket and we have to sprint to catch up with her. Although anger might be the natural response in any of these circumstances, we don’t have it in us to get angry with her.
I believe we are able to “bear all things” when it come to our granddaughter, and completely avoid anger, is because we apply one of the other attributes of charity that Paul listed, “thinketh no evil.” We are absolutely certain our little granddaughter does not have evil intent. She is curious, she is learning, she is growing. Not only do we love her deeply, we have charity for her.
We can bear all things (charity) and avoid anger (pride) when we recognize that we are all learning and growing, and for the most part none of us has evil intent.
Impatience
The last attribute of pride that Elder Uchtdorf mentioned in his 2016 talk that seemed a bit “miscellaneous” is impatience. What does impatience have to do with Paul’s admonition to “endure all things”?
The word “enduring” generally has a negative connotation. It implies that suffering is an essential part of enduring. However, in Spanish the translation for “endureth all things” found in I Corinthians 13:7 is “todo lo soporta.” “Soporta” means to sustain or maintain. Of the seven synonyms for “soporta” that I found, none implied suffering.
The Doctrine of Christ also includes the phrase “enduring to the end,” which again implies suffering (2Ne 31:20). However, in Spanish we say “preseveráis hasta el fin.” “Preseveráis means to remain or linger.
Therefore, when Paul includes “enduring all things” as the last characteristic of charity he could have said “linger until the end.” We do not think of suffering when we think of lingering. When we linger we don’t want to leave. We enjoy the company we are in. Sometimes after church we stay for a “linger longer” where members can socialize and perhaps have a bite to eat.
I would suggest that “endureth all things” means that we “Wait Well.” We wait without impatience. We like the company we keep. We are in no hurry to leave. We are mindful, learning all we can from the present moment.
I used to think Paul was just being poetic when he finished his analysis of charity. I thought perhaps he concluded with the lines” beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all thigs and endureth all things” because of the nice parallelism. However, studying the opposite of charity has convinced me that Paul was very deliberate in what he was inviting us to do.
JeaNette Goates Smith is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Licensed Mental Health Counselor. She is the author of four books on relationships and recently returned from serving as a mission leader in the Dominican Republic with her husband. For more information go to www.smithfamilytherapy.org
