The Pahoran Principle

You may think that this is a strange title for a blog post. I hope that you will bear with me as I go through this little essay.

You might remember that in the Book Mormon there was a general by the name of Moroni. Moroni did not get the reinforcements and supplies that he was looking for from the government. Pahoran was the governor of the land. We might compare him to the president of United States in our days. Because Moroni did not get the needed and expected reinforcements and supplies he wrote a letter to Pahoran chastising him for his negligence. He said he was going to take a few of his men and come and “clean Pahoran's clock”. Pahoran wrote a nice little letter back to Moroni. He did not excuse himself.  He did not retaliate.  He did not growl or complain, but simply stated what the facts were and that his land was being overrun by people who wanted a king. Moroni came and neutralized the opposition.

Pahoran did not take offense when he was being chastised. He gave a soft informative answer to the criticism and offered to be helpful.  We will all go through life with some people not understanding us and we can easily be offended. We need to practice the Pahoran principle in our life. You can find an account of this in Alma chapter 60.

Perhaps an anecdote from my own life will exemplify what I am talking about.   Early in my term as stake president we received training material from the general authorities.  In meetings of the general authorities one of the authorities was give the responsibility to present the training to all the rest of the authorities and then the training was sent out to all the stakes for training. 

Elder Boyd K. Packer gave one of the training sessions. The substance of the training was this: Elder Packer had been assigned to visit a stake conference.  When a general authority visited a stake conference in those days, the stake president usually gave the first talk and then was to assign other people to address the congregation during the first hour.  The second hour was to be given to the general authority.  Elder Packer asked the stake president who he thought would be a good speaker to invite to speak during the second hour.  The stake president thought for a moment and the name of an individual came to his mind, but when he said it, he immediately said that he did not think that would be a good choice.  Elder Packer asked him about the brother and was told that he was the inactive brother of a bishop and he would not recommend him to speak.  Elder Packer said, “You had the inspiration, call on him to speak.”   The stake president was upset and said, “Well, you are the general authority.”  The brother was called up out of the audience and came to the podium.  He began his talk by saying that he did not know why he was asked to speak.  He appeared very angry and hostile. He related his inactivity in the church and then he started sobbing and said, I have wanted to be active in the church, but I thought that no one would accept me and that the Lord did not even know who I was.  He pleaded for forgiveness and asked his brother and the stake to accept him back into the church.

The point of this training was; that sometimes the spirit needs to direct the work.  That we may miss the opportunity if we are so focused on outlining things that we do not give the spirit a chance to touch an individual’s life.

It was not long after this training that a general authority came to visit our stake.  We met with him Saturday afternoon to go over the assignments.  I presented the list of assigned speakers for the conference.  He asked me who was going to give the prayers in the priesthood leadership meeting and I responded that I would determine that by the spirit.  He was of the opinion that I was not well organized and it would have been well to make those assignments at least a week or two in advance. I was confused, because I thought he had heard the same training that Elder Packer gave.  

I did not tell him why I had decided to wait until that afternoon to make the assignments.  I did not like to be considered unorganized.  He was the presiding authority and I would do it his way. I felt somewhat angry.  I knew that my resentment was not in keeping with the spirit of the Lord.  While my counselors took him around, I went to the Relief Society Room and closed the door.  I prayed to have the feelings that I was feeling go away, so that I could feel the spirit of the Lord and have that spirit leave me with a calm and forgiving feeling.  I prayed for some time and eventually I was able to loose the spirit of contention.  I did not try to justify my actions or rationalize.  When I was finished, I went to the meeting and sat on the stand next to him and stated that I would make sure that the outline would be as he wished.

We will always be in a position where criticism or correction will be given to us, either deserved or undeserved. We will be sometimes criticized for doing the right thing or having the correct beliefs. It is a part of life.

Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, if not by his own voice by the voice of his servants, it is the same.

When this happens, remember the Pahoran Principle.