“If you think you can’t, you won’t…If you think you can there’s a good chance you will.”

That was part of a poem we learned in 6th grade. Mr Emerson, our teacher, always corrected us when we would say that we couldn’t do something. He made sure we added the word “yet” onto the end of it. He said “I don’t want to hear you say that you can’t do something, if you are going to say that then you have to say that you just can’t do it yet.”

Well, I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I’ve begun to notice that when I think that I can’t do something, it’s not usually that I really don’t have the capability to do it, but it’s just that I’m not willing to try that hard. I had never realized that my feeling sorry for myself because I don’t talk loud enough, or because I can’t seem to say what I want to say, how and when I want to say it was really like a way of making things easier for myself and getting out of improving. Feeling sorry for myself took all the energy that I could have used to actually solve the problem. So when I’m saying “I can’t…” it’s like I’m really saying “I won’t…”

It reminds me of something that Elder Maxwell once said, “Life in the Church soon teaches us, too, that the Lord does not ask us about our ability, but only about our availability. And then, if we demonstrate our dependability, the Lord will increase our capability.”

This came to mind more yesterday as I listened to Elder Christofferson, the newest member of the 12. I just got the feeling from listening to him that he knows that he cannot possibly do what he has been called to do on his own. But that does not take away his willingness to put himself into the Lord’s hands and do what he is asked to do. It’s all about willingness, not ability!