President Harold B. Lee told me once of a conversation he had with Elder Charles A. Callis of the Quorum of the Twelve. Brother Callis had remarked that the gift of discernment was an awesome burden to carry. To see clearly what is ahead and yet find members slow to respond or resistant to counsel or even rejecting the witness of the apostles and prophets brings deep sorrow.
Some few within the Church openly, or perhaps far worse, in the darkness of anonymity, reproach their leaders in the wards and stakes and in the Church, seeking to make them “an offender for a word,” as Isaiah said. To them the Lord said:
“Cursed are all those that shall lift up the heel against mine anointed, saith the Lord, and cry they have sinned when they have not sinned … but have done that which was meet in mine eyes, and which I commanded them.
“But those who cry transgression do it because they are the servants of sin, and are the children of disobedience themselves. …
“… because they have offended my little ones they shall be severed from the ordinances of mine house.
“Their basket shall not be full, their houses and their barns shall perish, and they themselves shall be despised by those that flattered them.
“They shall not have right to the priesthood, nor their posterity after them from generation to generation.”
Recently President Hinckley reminded the Brethren that, while we are men called from the ordinary pursuits of life, there rests upon us a sacred ministry. And we take comfort in what the Lord said to the original Twelve: “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you.”
The most precious thing we have to give is our witness of the Lord, our testimony of Jesus Christ.
