Stripping Ourselves of Jealousy, Fear, And Pride

"And again, verily I say unto you that it is your privilege, and a promise I give unto you that have been ordained unto this ministry, that inasmuch as you strip yourselves from jealousies and fears, and humble yourselves before me, for ye are not sufficiently humble, the veil shall be rent and you shall see me and know that I am—not with the carnal neither natural mind, but with the spiritual" (D&C 67:10). We have the privilege and the promise of seeing God if we do but three things: strip ourselves of jealousies, strip ourselves of fears, and humble ourselves. Jealousy is having too strong of a sense of ownership over something. It shows a lack of trust in others or the world in general. When we are jealous of our agency, then we don't want to offer it up to the Lord, because we are afraid or we suspect that He will rob us of it or spitefully misuse it. We don't want to give the Lord our whole soul because we believe that He either is not as benevolent as He claims, or that He is not as powerful as He claims, and that however lovely and inspiring His promises are, we still secretly believe that we know better than He does. You can see how jealousy and fear are intertwined. We jealously hoard our agency and our love and our trust because we are afraid that God lacks the capacity or the desire to carry out His promises, and we may even believe that God has all power and all wisdom but that we are especially unworthy of His infinite grace and thus cannot risk humbling ourselves before Him. That's what it means to be humble - to strip ourselves of our jealousy and our fear, our pride and our mistrust and our doubt. We may not be able to rend the veil that obscures God from our view in one dramatic gesture, but for every fear and jealousy and doubt that we discard, every time that we are humble enough to entrust the Lord with a little more of our love and acceptance, we punch a tiny hole in that veil, and a little bit more of God's light and His love shines through. And as we keep poking holes in the stony armor with which we've surrounded our heart, the more and more clearly we will be able to see the Lord and to trust Him, and to no longer be afraid or jealous of our agency and love.