Unprofitable

King Benjamin worked hard to minimize the distance between himself and the people he served. “I am like as yourselves,” he said (Mosiah 2:11). “I, whom ye call your king, am no better than ye yourselves are,” he added later in the sermon (Mosiah 2:26). And he reminded them that he had intentionally worked with his hands to keep their tax burden low (Mosiah 2:14).

So it’s not surprising that he encouraged his people not to expect grand rewards for their own service:

If ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.

Mosiah 2:21

Benjamin is using gratitude here as a gateway to humility. If you think you’ve done something praiseworthy, something deserving of recognition, stop for a moment and think about everything God has done and is doing for you. That will help you put your contributions into perspective and avoid the fallacy of thinking you deserve more.

Jesus taught this principle with a rather stark parable. Imagine you have a servant who works for you all day and then somehow believes that the hard work entitles him to eat before you. Would you appreciate that attitude? “I think not,” the Savior says. In the same way, He counsels us as His disciples, “When ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do” (Luke 17:10).

One reason we’re “unprofitable” is because God has already given us more than we could ever possibly repay. We’re like employees who received an enormous signing bonus, worth more than our entire expected career earnings, before our first day of work. We can never serve Him enough to repay Him for creating us and giving us life.

But another reason is because we just keep falling further behind. As Benjamin dramatically describes it, “[God] doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you; and therefore he hath paid you. And ye are still indebted unto him, and are, and will be, forever and ever” (Mosiah 2:24).

Discouraging as that may sound, it is actually incredibly liberating and ennobling. As soon as we let go of the illusion that we are in control and instead allow ourselves to operate within a world in which we are surrounded and sustained by God’s grace, we can begin to appreciate our progress on its own terms, without any need for external validation. We can recognize our “nothingness before God” (Mosiah 4:5, 11, Mosiah 2:25), while simultaneously marveling at His infinite love for us. We can relax a little and follow Him with confidence that, as Elder Neal A. Maxwell observed, every “ounce of…obedience” yields “a bushel of blessings” (“Notwithstanding My Weakness,” General Conference, October 1976), not as payment, but as evidence of the guiding influence of a devoted Mentor.

Today, I will be grateful for the immensity of God’s blessings. I will love and serve Him, while acknowledging the inherent inequality of our relationship and appreciating His goodness toward me.