When the Lord instructed Ananias in a vision to visit Saul and bless him, Ananias had reason to be worried. “Lord, I have heard by many of this man,” he replied. “He hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on thy name” (Acts 9:13-14). But God knew better. Saul was not the same man he had been just a few days earlier. His heart had changed, and he was ready to “receive [his] sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost” (Acts 9:17).
To his credit, Ananias adapted quickly. I am impressed that he addressed his former persecuter as “Brother Saul.” (See Acts 9:17.)
Alma and the sons of Mosiah experienced a similarly sudden change. Mormon tells us that as they began to preach, they were “greatly persecuted by those who were unbelievers” (Mosiah 27:32). Was it also hard for believers to accept that they were not the same people they had been before?
When Elder Jeffrey R. Holland was president of Brigham Young University, he shared a tragic story about a young man from his hometown:
I grew up in the same town with a boy who had no father and precious few of the other blessings of life. The young men in our community found it easy to tease and taunt and bully him. And in the process of it all he made some mistakes, though I cannot believe his mistakes were more serious than those of his Latter-day Saint friends who made life so miserable for him. He began to drink and smoke, and the gospel principles which had never meant much to him now meant even less. He had been cast in a role by LDS friends who should have known better and he began to play the part perfectly. Soon he drank even more, went to school even less, and went to Church not at all. Then one day he was gone. Some said that they thought he had joined the army.
That was about 1959 or so. Fifteen or sixteen years later he came home. At least he tried to come home. He had found the significance of the gospel in his life. He had married a wonderful girl, and they had a beautiful family. But he discovered something upon his return. He had changed, but some of his old friends hadn’t—and they were unwilling to let him escape his past.
This was hard for him and hard for his family. They bought a little home and started a small business, but they struggled both personally and professionally and finally moved away. For reasons that don’t need to be detailed here, the story goes on to a very unhappy ending. He died a year ago at age 44. That’s too young to die these days, and it’s certainly too young to die away from home.
Here is the lesson President Holland drew from this experience:
When a battered, weary swimmer tries valiantly to get back to shore, after having fought strong winds and rough waves which he should never have challenged in the first place, those of us who might have had better judgment, or perhaps just better luck, ought not to row out to his side, beat him with our oars, and shove his head back underwater. That’s not what boats were made for.
“A Robe, a Ring, and a Fatted Calf,” Brigham Young University Devotional Address, 31 January 1984
Most changes are not as dramatic as these, but the same principle applies. People change all the time. We must be careful not to hold them back by letting our prior experiences interfere with our perception of who they really are.
Today, I will let people change. I will strive to transcend my expectations and to see people as they really are now.