When the Master Calls and You’re Still Wrestling

I was in a sacrament meeting and the speaker said something that I’ll never forget. Her voice was calm, but the truth landed deep:

“The Master calls, and those who flawlessly obey, the Master exalts.”

It was one of those moments where the Spirit settled over the chapel like a warm, heavy blanket. And yet… I also felt a little breathless. That phrase—it stirred something.

Because I’ve wrestled with obedience. Not the checklist kind, but the quiet, aching kind. The kind where you’re trying your best but also asking God a hundred questions in the dark.

Obedience hasn’t always come easy for me. I’ve tried to be the kind of person who says, “Yes, Lord,” the moment He speaks—but the truth is, I’ve hesitated. I’ve doubted. I’ve circled around the same spiritual mountain more times than I’d like to admit.

There was a season when I thought obedience meant being perfect. That if I could just get it right enough, God would be pleased. I was striving and stretching and still somehow falling short.

And then came a moment—one I’ve written about in the margins of my journal, where I sat alone in the parking lot after a Relief Society lesson that had hit a little too close. I remember whispering, “I don’t know how to be flawlessly obedient.”

And right there, in the stillness, came a thought I believe was from the Spirit:

“You don’t have to be flawless. You just have to be willing.”

That changed everything for me.

Sometimes I think we forget that even the spiritual giants we admire—Nephi, Esther, Peter—were human first. They didn’t start out with unwavering faith. They had questions. They made mistakes.

But what set them apart wasn’t perfection. It was trust. It was the decision to follow, again and again, even when the path felt uncertain.

The scriptures teach that “the natural man is an enemy to God,” and I used to hear that and feel shame. But now, I hear it with hope. Because the natural man is where we start—not where we’re meant to stay.

The journey from natural to spiritual isn’t about arriving at some flawless destination. It’s about surrendering to the process of becoming.

Sometimes that looks like sitting on your bed with puffy eyes and a prayer that feels like a whisper:

“I want to want what You want.”

Sometimes it looks like repenting at night and choosing Him again in the morning.

Sometimes it’s just being still long enough to hear the call—and saying “yes” even with trembling hands.

That speaker's words? They keep coming back to me. They are the kind of truth that belongs engraved on the cornerstone of Zion:

“The Master calls, and those who flawlessly obey, the Master exalts.”

But I’ve come to believe there’s a second part that lives in the heart of grace:

“And those who are willing to follow Him, He will shape into the kind of people who can.”

Because God is not just calling us to obedience—He’s walking with us toward it.

And that, to me, is the gospel.