Like Wayne and Garth, I'm Not Worthy.

07/10/2009. Journal entry. My last post about a road trip, especially the part about how I felt spiritually directed to those two gas stations, got me thinking on this.

Why am I mentioning how I was directed (or how I believe I was directed) to find people who were enthusiastic about receiving a Book of Mormon in their native language?

Three reasons:

One, is to give credit where credit is due, to the Lord. I firmly believe that those encounters were His idea, not mine. He knew they were there, I didn't. I'm just a delivery boy.

Two, as described in the mast-head (at the top of this blog), "to make known the wonderful deeds of the Lord" as it says in Psalms 105:1. What I hope is implied, and I guess I should state it more often: "Ain't the Lord great?"

Three, to encourage others to try this. After all, since the Lord is no respecter of persons, whatever He's willing to do with me, or for me, He should be willing to do with and for others. If He can bless and use an unworthy guy like me, imagine the marvelous things He could do with a faithful Latter-day saint who makes himself or herself available.

I certainly don't have any lock or claim of exclusivity to this. I'm not the first to offer people foreign language copies of the Book of Mormon, Bill Cortelyou, a taxi driver in Boston, did this long ago.

What I don't want to do is brag or claim any worthiness for these things. This whole thing was not my idea. 20-some years ago my mission president gave a companion and I some Chinese copies of the Book of Mormon to take to restaurants, and I just tried it out again back in 2004. At the time, I had also purchased three copies of all the translations of the Book of Mormon, but that was more for a personal collection, and to give out two "sets" to university libraries or language departments to use as a "Rosetta Stone."

But once I realized that I could talk to strangers and offer a free book, the Lord started putting people in my path the very next day. And within a few months, I was getting promptings about where to go, literally getting driving directions; not all the time, but occasionally.

So why is the Lord using an unworthy person like me? I've prayed about it, and I think I've received three answers:

1. First answer has been: "So get yourself worthy!" Ahem, yeah, repentance. Always need to work on that.

2. Second answer: "You're the one with the books in your car."

3. Third answer: "I can't get enough other people to open their mouths and talk to strangers. The need is there, and you're available."

I think the bottom line is that the Lord uses whoever is available, or makes themselves available, and He doesn't wait for us to achieve perfection, or even get close to it.

Anyway, here's a clip showing Wayne and Garth (the characters from Saturday Night Live) doing their genuflecting "we're not worthy" routine in the Wayne's World movie. Um, yeah, that's sort of how I feel, like unworthy scum.