I Am a Lover of the Cause of Christ
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How did Joseph Smith view his own calling as a prophet?
Speaking of his prophetic calling and the premortal Council in Heaven, Joseph said, "I was ordained to this very office in that Grand Council" (History of the Church, 6:364). "I will become a smooth and polished shaft in the quiver of the Almighty," Joseph said on another occasion (History of the Church, 5:401). "I intend to lay a foundation that will revolutionize the whole world" (History of the Church, 6:365). Joseph was neither boasting nor arrogant. "I was informed [by an angel]," he matter-of-factly explained, "that I was chosen to be an instrument in the hands of God to bring about some of His purposes in this glorious dispensation" (History of the Church, 4:537).
How can I be a friend of God as Joseph Smith was?
Most are not called upon to die for the cause of Jesus Christ, but we are all called to give our lives by living His gospel. By so doing, we earn the trust upon which friendship is based. Brigham Young offered this powerful insight into becoming a friend of God: "We may have confidence in God until doom's day, until we carry out in our lives all that we now know about God, and it will profit us little, unless we take a course that he may have confidence in us" (Deseret News, Mar. 25, 1857, 21).
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