By Alicia Montgomery
Michael Thompson challenged students to speak the truth with love and courage in his address at the July 9 Devotional.
“A cold shoulder and the resentment of another are often the reward for speaking the truth in love and courage,” said Thompson, chair of the Department of Organizational Leadership and Strategy in the Marriott School of Management. “But that speaking out and reaching out are what great and inspired people do.”
Thompson said he chose the topic of reproof because it is an important step toward refinement.
“This theme is not among the sentimental favorites of LDS audiences … but I feel a need to say that this theme of giving and bearing reproof has been at the very heart of my own labors to become a disciple of the Master lover and reprover of the human family,” he said.
Thompson shared an experience of reproof from his own life.
As a student at BYU, he was assigned to home teach a young woman.
After reporting to his brother an attempted visit to the woman without his companion, Thompson was reproved.
“He had given me some very direct counsel, and I had chosen, in an instant, as we so often choose on those occasions, to take offense,” Thompson said.
But after following his brother”s “uninvited counsel,” Thompson admitted he was a better home teacher.
Thompson not only spoke of the refining powers of reproof, but also the harm it can prevent.
He quoted Elder Neal A. Maxwell, who said, “To withhold deserved reproof … may be to withhold a warning that is urgently needed. Reproof is often a last railing before an erring individual goes over the edge of the cliff.”
Thompson gave the example of Judas as one who was unwilling to accept reproof and therefore failed to benefit from counsel.
Thompson also offered advice when receiving counsel from leaders of the church.
“(Reproof is) given out of inspiration, not ego or impatience. And when (corrections) come, we are bound to respond in meekness and submissiveness,” he said.
He asked listeners to examine their conversations and be instruments in the hands of the Lord.
“Most human action takes the form of talking and listening. These conversations, even casual ones, are not to be taken too casually,” Thompson said.
This advice to embrace reproof is for every member of the church, he said.
“We have, within our own sphere of influence, just as sacred a duty to seek and speak the truth in love and courage, and to submit in meekness to inspired counsel,” he said.
