Hank Smith: 00:05 Hello, everyone. Welcome to FollowHIM Favorites. My name is Hank Smith. I’m the host of a podcast called Follow Him. I’m here with my awesome, incredible, wonderful co-host John Bytheway, one of my close friends. And every week we do a little clip called FollowHIM Favorites where we just take one question that’s relevant to the lesson this week and just seek to answer that one question. And John, here’s the question for this week. We were looking at the beginning of Exodus, and when you picture Moses in your head, you picture this confident, “I’m going to go do what the Lord is asked” type person, but yet the Moses we get in these chapters, isn’t so confident. He says, “I am not eloquent.” This is Exodus 4:10. “I’m not eloquent. I am slow of speech. I am slow tongue.” If I were to ask you John, based on what we’re learning here from Moses and other experiences that you’ve had, how do I get self-confidence? Because Moses ends up getting quite a bit of self-confidence later on in the story. So how does he go from point A to point B? What happens? How do you get someone to a point of confidence like that?

John Bytheway: 01:18 It’s such a good question because we’re talking about Moses walking among the pyramids, and then all of a sudden he’s here. And to hear him ask that question, I think it gives a lot of us a lot of hope to think even Moses, he saw God and said in the Pearl of Great Price, “Now I know that man is nothing.” I mean, this really brought him down to size to a perspective. But then the Lord keeps telling him, “Thou art my son.”

John Bytheway: 01:41 So, when I look at this whole story together, I see Moses, “Who am I that I can do this? I’m not eloquent.” But I love the answer that the Lord gives him, actually, in Exodus 3:12, “Certainly I will be with thee.” He doesn’t say you’re great. You’re awesome. You’re special. You’re wonderful. You are saved for this day. He just says, “I’ll be with you. I’m right here. I will be with thee.” And I think this is pretty lofty, but the idea of at the sacrament table, we are given this promise, you can always have my spirit to be with you. And so maybe it’s not self-confidence as much as confidence in God and what he can do with me, and his promise is that he’ll be with me. And, like I said, that would’ve been hard for me to understand as a 12-year-old, a little easier for me to understand now, but maybe this is a starting point. I’ll be with you and I’m going to help you with all of this.

Hank Smith: 02:37 I really like that, John. Moses does what I think a lot of us do is we list all the things I’m not. Right?

John Bytheway: 02:45 That are wrong. Yeah.

Hank Smith: 02:46 Yeah. All the things that are wrong with me, I’m not eloquent. I am slow of speech. I am slow tongue. And the Lord, he doesn’t want him to focus on that. He says, “But look at me. Who made man’s mouth,” right? “Who made all of this. Go, I will be with you.” So, I like what you said there. It’s not so much self-confidence as it is confidence in God.

John Bytheway: 03:07 We love the story of Nephi. In 2 Nephi 4 his father dies, probably one of his best friends in the whole world. And then he says, “Wretched man that I am.” But then he says, “I know in whom I have trusted.” And it’s not himself, it’s, I’ve trusted God, and God has done this for me, and he’s done this for me, and he’s done. And here’s Nephi saying, “God has been with me, and that’s where I’m going to have my confidence.”

Hank Smith: 03:31 When my children come to me with, they’re discouraged, and they found out they’re not good at something. Right? And I said, “Listen, this happens to me all the time. Where I find out, I’m not as good…”

John Bytheway: 03:41 Story of my life.

Hank Smith: 03:42 Yeah. Where I’d hoped I’d be. We don’t get our confidence from ourselves, our gifts, our skills, even though those are wonderful things, and you should always be pursuing improvement. God wants us to improve and grow and progress. But our confidence comes from our relationship with God, not what other people think or what we see when we look in the mirror or even listing the things we’re not. I have a quote in my scriptures here from L. Tom Perry. I hope our listeners remember him. He says, “If the Lord sees greatness in you,” you can see that with Moses, the Lord sees something. He said, “How then should we see ourselves?” Maybe we ask the Lord, “Show me what you see in me.” A patriarchal blessing can help that, John. The Lord can say, “Look, here’s what I see.”

John Bytheway: 04:32 I don’t have the words for how awesome it is to have a patriarchal blessing, to have the Lord tell you, “Here’s your gifts, your capacities, your talents. And now you’re going to need to go develop these. You’re going to need to go and do, but here’s what I see in you.” And who gets that? That is the coolest thing we have. So, I like to say to my class, “Okay, why are you here?” “To get a body, to be tested.” And I like to say, “No, no, no, no. That’s why everybody’s here. Why are you here?” That’s a patriarchal blessing. And it can give us that kind of the Lord saying, “Hey, I’m with you. Not only that, I have seen what you can become. I know your gifts, your talents, your capacities. Here’s some direction.” So maybe Moses said… this was like a patriarchal blessing for him when the Lord says, “I’ll be with thee, and I’m going to help you.”

Hank Smith: 05:19 There’s a connection here between talking to God. Well, let’s say prayer. There’s a connection between Moses talking to God, praying to God and his confidence. I would say the more you sincerely pray on your own, the more confidence you’re going to have. I’ve heard it said before, those who kneel before God can stand before anyone. I really think that God says, “Listen, come talk to me often, it will build your confidence.” So, anyone out there who’s saying, “Oh, I just don’t have a lot of confidence. I don’t have a lot of self-esteem,” really focus in on those personal prayers and see if it doesn’t help you stand. Morning and evening, even anytime during the day, go say a personal prayer and see if you don’t stand up just a touch more confident every time. I’ve seen that happen in my life.

John Bytheway: 06:07 I love that, and I would add to it, and just remember last Sunday, you made a covenant, you renewed a covenant, and the Lord said, “You can always have my spirit to be with you.” And boy, that can make you stand a little taller right there. That, yeah, you’re not alone. I’m with you. So go forward, but I’m right here.

Hank Smith: 06:23 I will be with thee. I like that you pointed that out. I will be. He even says in verse 12 of Exodus 4, “I will be with thy mouth,” right? You’re not going to be on your own. You’re never going to be alone. You never need be or feel alone. I will be with you.

John Bytheway: 06:39 And that’s the promise of the sacrament prayer. You always have the spirit to be with you. There’s never a time when we’re alone. We have so many single adults in our church and Elder Bruce C. Hafen just pointed that out. The promise of the sacrament, I will be with thee. And so, you won’t be alone, I’ll be with you. If God’s with you, that’s pretty good company.

Hank Smith: 06:58 If God be for us, who can be against us?

John Bytheway: 06:59 Who can be against us?

Hank Smith: 07:02 I’m grateful for your insights. I think that’s going to help me. All human beings have times where they question, “Am I good enough? Am I supposed to be doing anything like this? Who am I to be standing up and talking? Well, who am I to think I can do this? But over the years, we’ve built our confidence, not in ourselves, but in our relationship with the Lord.

John Bytheway: 07:21 My confidence in the things I teach is because the things I teach are so good. It’s like, sometimes my delivery might be good, that’s me. But we talked about wonderful things today in the scriptures and my confidence is in them. And maybe that’s a way that we work through that, because yeah, we’re nobody. But maybe with God, we can be somebody.

Hank Smith: 07:41 The message and who we’re with.

John Bytheway: 07:43 That’s what I say. People, “Oh, that was a great talk.” “Well, you can’t lose when you have good material.”

Hank Smith: 07:48 That’s so great.

John Bytheway: 07:48 When you have the Book of Mormon. When you have the Old Testament, and you have the Bible.

Hank Smith: 07:52 Not even I could have messed this up. Right? It’s so great. Well, thank you all for joining us on our FollowHIM Favorites. We hope you’ll come over, come listen to the full podcast called FollowHIM. You can get it wherever you get your podcast. But if not, come join us next week for another FollowHIM Favorites.